Posts made by Arkandel

@auspice ***=NSFW content***

I think this might be under control now. I'll continue to monitor it, but the symptom seems to have been a rogue nodebb process was fired up which led to EADDRINUSE errors as the service kept dying then firing itself up again.

I still need to look into what caused this mess. Meh, redis.

@krmbm Something is wonky. I am looking into it.

@faceless You should sue George R.R. Martin, you guys invented the original Red Wedding.

@ganymede The thing is... I feel bad for him. It's not his fault his dad is a loudmouthed idiot, and the kid himself hasn't said anything offensive (well, more than anyone at that age might). In fact everyone who meets him apparently walks away with that observation too, because we all expect him to be his father's son.

Then again he's getting paid $$$ to play ball, so... I don't feel that bad for him.

Nothing I see so far suggests the finals will be anything than Warriors - Cavs again though, with the Warriors winning fairly easily. The Cavs if healthy have a lot of firepower and a great bench but their defense is suspect at best; IT, DRose and the 35-year old version of DWade can't keep up with the Dubs. KLove is what he is, and LeBron can't guard everything.

In the West the Spurs are old as dirt, OKC is a new team essentially and they'll need time to gel. Houston might if they just get in the zone for a full series since they have so many shooters but that's hardly something to count on, and both CP3 and Harden have had an iffy playoff history so far.

@ganymede I mean it could be a good thing in the long run by forcing him to sink or swim, as long as he learns how to swim really well? And also Patrick Beverley is a recent All-Defensive team guy, not every PG he meets will be on that level or able to expend this much energy to shut Lonzo down.

Also did you watch the OCK game? Man, Carmelo looked happy. Forget his performance, but just on that level, smiling even after misses... I missed happyMelo.

@ganymede Yeah, agreed. And also his dad did him no favors by painting a gigantic target on his kid's back and turning him into a project for every NBA veteran who wants to show the rookie what's what.

The fact his team is also young and terribly inexperienced does him no favors. They have nearly no shooters other than Brook Lopez, really. Why they think LeBron is going to go over there next summer is beyond me because that team is nowhere near contending.

@alzie said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):

@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):

@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):

Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.

GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.

Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.

I think the worst thing you can buy on WoW right now is an instant leveler but that doesn't really allow you to win the game since you still have 0 knowledge of how to effectively play your class.

You misspelled best thing! I hate levelling.

But to also be honest, levelling doesn't teach you anything about playing your class in any environment worth a damn at max level - there's no reason to maximize your DPS rotations, your intended spec is possibly different than what you're using to level up (you can level as a healer for example but it's hardly the best way), there are no raids, little PvP if any, and in 5-mans everything dies too fast.

You're just killing 10 bears, rinse, repeat for 110 levels.

@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):

Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.

GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.

Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.

@rook Armchair criticism is what you've missed. SometimesOften we reject any new-sounding notion out of hand here, thinking only of the worst case scenarios and not waiting to see how it plays out, or taking into account staff will keep an eye on it and can step in if things go south to fix problems.

Jumping the gun to condemn novelty or innovation without giving it a chance is one of MSB's less awesome traits.

I think at a certain point reusing a very heavily modified existing system might actually make things worse - that is, harder and more confusing - than using a completely custom one. It's more complicated in a way to think "okay, this is Mage but this doesn't exist, this is different, that is called the other thing, and..." than to cope with something brand new from scratch.

Perhaps take all the spells themselves - the effects, descriptions, etc but without any of their mechanics - from Mage and/or other similar products to form your initial library of spells then wrap a system around those.

It can still give you a nice early boost without tying your hands or shoehorning your square-shaped intentions into a round-shaped result.

"New information on Hayward surgery. As good as doctors could hope. Clean break, no ligament damage."

"[Wojnarowski] After surgery tonight, Boston's Gordon Hayward is unlikely to return this season, agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN."

And as we know, Jeremy Lin's season is over due to a blown ACL.

@derp They're called Mysteries in Mage. No one suggesting adopting anything from its theme, just the mechanics.

There's nothing 'mysterious' about the mechanics. They're just dice rolls.

@sunnyj Topic moved to a nicer neighbourhood!

@ghost We can move this if @SunnyJ asks.

@ganymede What's your priority when you're rewriting the material? For instance are you concerned about balancing the Covenants against each other?

Personally I have a decades-old policy; if I am ever on a game I come to feel I need to permanently log everything, I leave that game.

Fuck that noise.

@tempest An idea I had when I was mulling a game was to log every conversation in the game, encrypt it on the go with all the participants' passwords (*) and store it in a database.

If there is a complaint filed then any of the participants can concede to unlock the records (**). Then the full conversations can be shown in a tamper-free way, digitally signed and everything.

I don't know if this is creepy or not, but it takes away the he-said she-said as long as it happened in-game.

(*) Yes, a malignant coder can still get around the limitation in multiple ways but that's a given even now - all this ensures is they can't do it after the fact.

(**) Yes, malignant staff can still just ignore all the evidence if themselves or their friends are involved, but that's a given even now.

@auspice I've been overseas with an Amazon Basics laptop backpack, through airports and ships, into hotel rooms and around animals, which my wife also uses on a regular basis for that same machine now. It's excellent, well constructed and with a crapton of pockets around to store all your stuff.

I highly recommend that whole line, and if memory serves it was very cheap. Like $50ish? But when I looked around at Staples they wanted stupid amounts of money for some really ugly things.