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Dark Arc
Dark Arc @ Dark_Arc @social.packetloss.gg
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78
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2,258
Joined
2 yr. ago

Steam: Now that we're past the summer solstice, it's time for us to announce the Steam Summer Sale! Starting this Thursday at 10am

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  • Mixed feelings on that since games that get delisted often get delisted because some critical servers they depend on are going offline.

    I'm not sure if that applies to Forza ... but personally the last thing I want is something that's about to be delisted.

    • Ubuntu 24.10 Now Defaults To Wayland On NVIDIA

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    • Proton VPN now available without creating an account (Android)

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  • flatpak for something as low level as a VPN is just not a great use case. I say that as a huge proponent of flatpak.

    • How did we switched from "Dinosaur are giant lizards" to "Dinosaur are giant birds"

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  • It's really weird to think I put out feed to attract the colorful cousins of alligators to my back yard.

    • As the Elden Ring DLC beats the snot out of players, Hidetaka Miyazaki says toning difficulty down would "break the game itself"

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  • They couldn't even be bothered to report the correct keys if you use anything but an xbox controller or allow custom key binds in Dark Souls 3. I will never understand the praise the Dark Souls 3 PC port got.

    • JFK Airport. I'm not taking their advice.

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  • I don't know if I would call that a Muppet but fair enough lol

    • As the Elden Ring DLC beats the snot out of players, Hidetaka Miyazaki says toning difficulty down would "break the game itself"

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  • People are allowed to not like games you like ...

    I also find souls likes to feel janky. Elden Ring is playable for me, Dark Souls 3 I just rage quit rather than dealing with its UI.

    • JFK Airport. I'm not taking their advice.

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  • The muppet on the wall?

    • OneNote alternative to make a knowledge base

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    • Why Americans aren’t buying more EVs

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  • Seems they're discontinued?

    • The Steam Deck is one of the best ways to play Elden Ring, and now Shadow of the Erdtree too

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  • lol

    • Used VPN for cheaper YouTube Premium? Congrats, your subscription has been canceled

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  • I feel like the amount of ads and/or length is a little excess these days, though.

    I do agree but their costs have also skyrocketed because the resolution and frame rate of videos has skyrocketed.

    Linus Tech Tips did a video about this ... which agree with his conclusions or not, he paints a clear picture about how YouTube is more expensive to run than it used to be https://youtu.be/MDsJJRNXjYI

    Google also isn't in the business of "running things at a loss in hopes of future profit" anymore ... so they need YouTube to be profitable. Maybe it's "too profitable", maybe they could cut down on the amount of advertising they use ... but you're absolutely right that they do test this stuff and find the threshold between "annoying but profitable" and "annoying but we're losing users."

    More competition is always good ... but Google isn't stopping competition from showing up, just like Valve isn't stopping competition from showing up, they're just providing a better service that creators keep coming back to (because it's ultimately good for those same creators to get their content out there and monetize it).

    • Used VPN for cheaper YouTube Premium? Congrats, your subscription has been canceled

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  • Literally read about regional pricing and how important it is. It's incredibly ignorant to be against regional pricing.

    The alternative to regional pricing is people just don't have access at all.

    • Used VPN for cheaper YouTube Premium? Congrats, your subscription has been canceled

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  • More like regional pricing is an attempt to maximise value extraction from consumers

    And right there I'm done with your comment. Regional pricing is incredibly important, without it everyone pays the US or EU price and there is no service provided period.

    However, you can be assured that they are charging the people they’ve identified as less wealthy (e.g. in a low average income region) more than their marginal cost. Since YouTube is primarily going to be driven by marginal rather than fixed costs (it is very bandwidth and server heavy), and there is no reason to expect users in high-income locations cost YouTube more, it is a safe assumption that the gap between the regional prices is all extra profit.

    Even if true, that's not what this hoopla is about. It's about someone from say ... the US using a VPN to get Kenyan pricing. As another person said "The internet’s most beloved company, Steam, also bans people for abusing the store using VPNs."

    Regional pricing is the only reason people in these countries even stand a chance at access to the service (because ultimately their costs might be a bit lower in these countries but not by much ... I would not be surprised if regional pricing is pretty much just above the break even mark). People in other countries abusing those slashed prices threatens the whole system.

    This is people in "first world" countries trying to rig the system: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/15hz5ys/found_country_that_works_to_get_youtube_premium/

    Someone in Uzbekistan for instance would feel as the average US consumer would if a year of YouTube premium was $829.

    • Used VPN for cheaper YouTube Premium? Congrats, your subscription has been canceled

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  • This really is not a service issue. This is not a privacy issue.

    YouTube as a service is ... actually a great service, it pays creators well, it's fast, it has decades of content, and it has tons of features.

    It's monetized with ads, you either watch those ads or you pay them. Using a VPN to get a lower price on the subscription is not a service issue, that's abuse of regional pricing, and no company would accept that.

    • What is an underrated/forgotten video game that you think deserved a second chance?

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  • Valve's Artifact Classic card game. I actually found the basic formula to be really fun.

    I think this game died for two reasons:

    A) The game was review bombed for its monetization (IMO a lot of this was the non-target audience trying it and leaving a bad review)

    B) Valve said following the review bombing that they were going to make major changes. This resulted in a lot of Artifact fans (IMO) leaving the game because ... why invested and learn a game that's going to undergo major changes.

    So Valve worked on Artifact Foundry (and never finished it) ... before eventually everyone at Valve gave up and released both Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry for free. The original Artifact Classic is still a great time with a friend and all cards are now totally free so you can build whatever decks you want.

    It's basically a AAA studio card game, with cross platform support, released in complete, for free ... because of some poor decision making. Some things may be unbalanced but if you're playing with friends anyways ... just have a friendly agreement to not use the cards that cause problems in your decks. It also could bounce back into active development if it starts to acquire a player base again (because Valve).

    • Fork it! It's time for a Mastodon hard fork

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  • s/you/one/ I don't think it's really about YOU in particular, just "you" the author or "one that is saying things like this."

    Another example, "Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime" isn't about "you" it's about the concept of "an individual (that might be the reader)." This phrasing seems to be more agreeable with some people and possibly there's different tolerances geographically.

    I've tried to use "one" in place of "you" to remove this ambiguity but it's at times uncomfortable to type lol

    • Bond Price Changes (June 2024)

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  • Yeah, Brighter Shores definitely isn't what I was expecting Andrew to release after all these years. I was thinking RuneScape without tiles and maybe WASD control.

    I was surprised by him doubling down on tiles and point and click ... but there is a certain charm to it. Especially with the "table top" design he chose. I also think the "rooms" system in retrospect might be kind of genius in terms of allowing things to always have ideal population density.

    • Mozilla Acquires Anonym, Pioneering Privacy in Digital Ads

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  • You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain -- DC Comics

    (I hope they do find a way to make this "for the best" -- maybe reviving Scroll like technology + private advertising + actually checking to make sure advertisers are legitimate so you can pay to turn ads off on lots of websites and the ads aren't leading to malware -- but it's very concerning in general)

    • Bond Price Changes (June 2024)

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  • It’s not really a big deal, but it definitely hurts those who use bonds to maintain membership, since generally they’re lower levels, and getting 150m every two weeks sucks lol.

    Yeah, I would not be able to maintain anywhere close to that lol

    I've always been terrible at the money making side of the game.

    On brighter shores, I 100% plan on playing that, and really hoping it sucks me in like RuneScape did 20 years ago!

    I think a lot of people feel that way ... I hope lightning strikes twice for the Gowers, they seem like good people, and the game looks like a fresh take on OSRS that's a bit more ... "I'm an adult and have things to do other than grind" friendly lol.

    I miss the magic of RuneScape back in like the 2005-2012 era; I hope Brighter Shores can revive some of that.