The blaze has officially ignited!

The May 2025 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.

Quicklink: Backlog Bingo

Etiquette:

• It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

• It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

• If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

Gameplay guidelines:

• Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

• Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

• You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.

Backlog Burner FAQ

Backlog Bingo FAQ

Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.

I've been on reddit (yes, Im embarrassed that I haven't quit the cocaine) for about 15 years now. The changes in the last year or so have been noticeable.

For one thing, the worst of the ranting trolls are gone. I used to occasionally get some replies from people who obviously were just out to get a reaction, usually by swearing and name calling with the kind of grammar skills you'd expect from an angry 9 yr old who just discovered how to log on. Those have largely disappeared. But I have a hard time believing that trolls are gone off the net, so is it just better moderation? Or has reddit just implemented more auto rules that squelch the noisy juvenile behavior?

Secondly, Ive noticed the discussions becoming much more detailed. It was typical, especially in political subs, to see the only comments that got strongly upvoted, were short quips, the more smart ass the better, and then for those to be followed by a long succession of similar quips. That still happens, but Ive noticed a lot more lengthy discussion with redditors actually disovering they can create paragraphs and debate more maturely. Is that a change in human behavior? Or are those not likely humans?

And some behavior really has me suspicious. In particular I have gotten the same reply several times to a comment. It will say, "Thank you for sharing your comment, I appreciate it. Could you tell me more about your _______?". This COULD be a human, but the fact that it always starts the same and then asks me for further engagement really has me wondering, if for no other reason than I dont recall the average redditor being that polite.

Ive also noted some strange comment patterns. Yesterday I interacted with a poster and then checked their post history. Over 10,000 comments and they were ALL in the last few months during the run up to the Canadian election and ALL were against one party. Only 4 posts but 10,000 comments?. If there are NO posts in any other sub that seems very suspicious. Either a bot or someone hired to do as much damage as possible?

Reddit has changed. Its now publicly owned. And like all other social media it lives on engagement so I have no doubt that it will do whatever it takes with AI bots to keep people online and engaged. But how good are they? I just hate being 'taken for a ride' by a bot and a company. But how do you ever know if its a human or a bot you're talking to?

I used to make soap and body products, and I really enjoyed it. I loved making nice-smelling things that people really liked. We were really on the verge of online sales, so we went to markets and sold that way. Didn't end up taking off just because we really didn't get the sales base. Online would have helped.

I was talking recently to my wife about making her some gatorade-type hydration beverage with electrolytes. Because we're trying to save money where we can.

I was looking up what goes into most electrolyte products, and pricing them out. What's annoying is that it would be around $75 to get what I needed. But that would give me around 1000 ½L servings, give or take.

And with that, I went down the rabbit hole of "Why not see if I can package some up and sell?"

At the most basic level, it would probably cost around $1.50 to create a 100-serving jar, which I could probably label and sell for something like $10 - which sounds like huge profit, but I think is probably around a reasonable level. Which would mean around 10¢ per serving to my customers.

As I've been expanding on the idea, I feel I could offer mutiple versions:

• The basic one that has no flavor or sweetner, just the electrolytes
• Flavored cersions with sugar for energy, artificial sweetener for folks like me who don't want the sugar but might want the electrolyes
• Custom blends on demand, i.e. since I have to limit my salt and potassium but could benefit from the magnesium and calcium, I might have a flavored artificial-sweetner one with just two electrolytes. I could have main flavors with color (as it makes them taste better, yay silly brains) but offer no-color blends for those that preferred

Paired with an online shop, I think it might be enough to be interesting to people - being able to offer more flavors than the norm. And things I'm not sure some have though of - being able to add this to a protein shake, so flavors relevant to that might be interesting (i.e. getting to play with some "dessert" flavours that would be weird in a drink).

I've got a ton of research to do - and to see how I could start hopefully under cottage food laws with less registrations and fees.

But I'm curious to know if this sounds interesting, what ideas you have, and most importantly, if you've run your own small hobby style business in any relevant sort of way, what advice and ideas you might have to help me as I look at this possibility.

Basically, I'm trying to keep afloat here, and I'm not picking up business clients as quickly as I need, and I think doing this would not only be fun, but perhaps profitable as well.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

After talking about it a few months ago my copy of the game finally arrived. @MimicSquid and I met up in San Francisco today and finally got to play Hide&Seek. It was a good time and it was neat to have a better sense of how the game plays instead of just watching it on Nebula. We're planning on playing again in the not too distant future, so if anyone would like to join in on the next one, please let one of us know (we both thought that it would play better with at least three players).

Message for Deimos or anyone else on Tildes development

I'm putting this here after writing the rest of my post, but could we please get an "expand edit window" option, unless there is one and I'm blind? The preview window's great but the edit window's locked to 6 lines and I would appreciate some more since it would make editing a long post like this much easier. Thanks.

The actual post

There has been a lot of gaming buzz regarding extraction shooters as of late, with the closed alpha of Bungie's Marathon currently underway, the second tech test of Embark Studio's ARC Raiders starting just now, and the recent news of the cancellation of a Titanfall extraction shooter from EA/Respawn. As someone who's played and enjoyed extraction shooters before I've been following these and observing the discourse surrounding them (except the Titanfall one, I didn't even know that was a thing til the news of its cancellation) and I've been somewhat dismayed to see a lot of confusion, mixed messaging, and general disdain for the genre. So I've decided to put my own thoughts and definitions of it down here, and clear up the most common misconceptions or falsehoods I've seen repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.

A brief introduction to extraction shooters

First off, what IS an extraction shooter, what makes it different from other shooters, notably battle royales, and which games qualify as extraction shooters? An extraction shooter, as its core gameplay loop, is a shooter where you enter a map with loot and AI enemies scattered about, and the goal is to gather loot and extract from the map with it. However, you need to get out alive - should you die, you will lose everything (with some exceptions) in your inventory, including the gear you went in with. On top of that, the most popular and successful extraction shooters are PvEvP - you will be competing with other real players for loot, and taking loot off their bodies can be just as profitable if not more so than taking it from PvE enemies. It is optional though, and it is entirely viable to play as a "rat", sneaking around and gathering loot without drawing attention and extracting without anyone noticing.

Not a battle royale

Extraction shooters are also frequently confused with battle royales as both games have players inserted into a PvP map where they scavenge gear. However, the similarities more or less end there. With battle royales, you do not risk losing your items on death as all players are dropped in with nothing and don't have a stash to draw from or store items in, so any "loot" found is merely a means of securing victory for the current round. PvP is also mandatory, as the goal is not to get loot but to be the last team/person standing. To facilitate this in a timely manner, battle royales have a shrinking map mechanic that forces the remaining players into a smaller playable area as time goes on to force them into a confrontation. Extraction shooters do not force PvP or have shrinking maps but do have their own ways of drawing players towards each other, through loot-rich points of interest and extraction zones. Some parts of the map will have greater quality and/or quantity of loot, which will naturally draw players in, and there are a few designated areas where you can actually leave with your loot which will also increase your odds of encountering other players either trying to take your loot before you can leave, or trying to leave themselves. Because it is not forced though, PvP encounters are a much more unpredictable and organic experience in extraction shooters.

What extraction shooters are out there?

So which games count as extraction shooters? The current leaders in the genre, which also happen to be some of the longest-lasting ones, are Escape From Tarkov (EFT) and Hunt: Showdown. EFT is a rather hardcore modern military FPS with a heavy focus on realism - guns are extremely customizable, ammo types and armor can make a huge difference, bullets are extremely lethal even from AI enemies, and a good headshot will drop even the most geared and armored player so there's always risk. It has a cult following but its hardcore emphasis makes it unapproachable for most. It also has periodic progression wipes where players have to start over from scratch to keep things fresh and more fair for newcomers, but is a major turnoff for players that don't like to lose what they've earned. Hunt is an FPS set at the end of the 19th century with a bit of dark magic/voodoo theme. Guns are reflective of the times and rather limited in terms of rate of fire and reload speed, which results in more drawn-out firefights where every bullet counts. For each round, the focus isn't to get loot around the map but rather to track and hunt down a bounty boss monster, then extract with that bounty. These two games are what will come to mind first when extraction shooters are mentioned, EFT more so.

I won't go over cancelled (Titanfall), discontinued (The Cycle: Frontier), or side game-mode (The Division's dark zone/survival) extraction shooters here, which is basically almost all of them sadly, so I'll talk about the two biggest up-and-coming ones instead, Marathon and ARC Raiders.

Marathon and the surrounding controversy

Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that uses the lore of Bungie's Marathon trilogy from the 90's as its setting. You play as a "runner" in a robotic shell scavenging the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti IV for scrap to fulfill contracts for the megacorporations involved in the colony's development who now seek to find out what went wrong. It checks the usual boxes for an extraction shooter - you go in with your own loadout, scavenge at points of interest to fill your limited inventory, defeat PvE enemies and other runners for loot opportunities, and try to extract alive before time's up. There are a couple things of note that have resulted in mixed opinions:

• The art direction for runners, gear, and architecture is a sort of mass-produced, neon-colored, smoothed plastic, blocky style, which is a "love it or hate it" kind of thing.
• The gunplay is very similar to that of Destiny, Bungie's last game, which in my opinion is very solid. However, they did make the decision to have mouse magnetism enabled for PC (your cursor will magnetize to targets) to give it more parity with console players, and that has been very unpopular.
• The only queueing option is teams of 3 and the devs have stood their ground on not having a solo or duo player queue, which is a turn-off for players that prefer solo, or don't want to play with randoms and don't have 2 friends to play with.
• Players do not have full customization of their runners but must choose from 6 runner archetypes that have a set of abilities and a specific look, which can be partially changed with a skin. This is also largely unpopular, as Bungie's past titles have featured high levels of cosmetic customization and this feels largely restrictive and monetization-focused instead.
• There is no option for proximity voice chat, which the devs have said was excluded to protect players from toxicity. This has also proved to be very unpopular.
• It will have seasonal progression wipes which will reset faction reputation and clean out player vaults, which is unpopular among players that like to hoard their loot, especially many Destiny players.
• Supposedly there will be more "raid-like" PvE experiences on an as-of-yet unreleased map that takes place aboard the Marathon colony ship, but how mechanically complex those are or whether or not that will be enough to attract PvE-oriented players is pure speculation at this point.
• It will not be free-to-play, but rather released at a "premium" but not full game price point, which most people are assuming to be $40 USD.

The game is set to release in September this year, but based on the feedback Bungie is getting from players in this very first alpha, they will need to take this feedback very seriously and make a number of changes in the few months they have left, or risk a very rocky release and potentially financial failure. Many players seem to want Marathon and Bungie to fail, notably vitriolic Destiny veterans that feel like they were snubbed out of Destiny 3 for this, but as someone with over 2000 hours in Destiny 2 myself I want it to succeed, whether I play it or not. I'd rather there be more fun and successful games than major failures, and wishing for something to fail just because it isn't what you want is incredibly petty.

ARC Raiders, the underdog

ARC Raiders is a third person shooter set in a post-apocalypse where robots called ARC have devastated the surface of Earth and humanity has retreated underground, sending "raiders" to the surface to scavenge for tech and goods. It's developed by Embark Studios, which is made up of ex-DICE (Battlefield) developers, and their other title is the well-received but niche PvP shooter The Finals. Mechanics-wise, there isn't anything particularly unique about this extraction shooter - limited mobility, limited inventory space, PvE enemies, points of interest, extraction points, etc. However, it seems to check all the boxes of what players want and it does it well while making the experience more casual and accessible:

• There are "safe pockets" where players can store a few loot items they won't lose on death (Tarkov does also have this, Marathon and Hunt do not).
• There is proximity voice, and also a quick emote menu for giving vocal commands, directions, and responses.
• The art direction is realistic post-apocalypse with high graphical fidelity and semi-futuristic robots, which is "safe", but still good looking.
• The audio design is phenomenal. Distant gunfire, supersonic cracks of rounds, bullets ricocheting off surfaces, large bots stomping around from blocks away, player footsteps on different surfaces and within enclosed spaces, quadcopter drones buzzing, larger bots with unsettling and deep "roars", and more.
• There isn't a solo or duo-only queue, but there is solo-matching priority at least, so you're more likely to be placed with other solo players.
• There is a clear progression path in the form of a workshop you can upgrade with scavenged materials, and a deep skill tree with multiple branches.
• Raiders are not class or hero-based and are freely customizable by the players in terms of loadout and appearance.
• Chaff PvE enemies are relatively easy to defeat but still dangerous. Aside from eliminating them as threats, they can drop materials or items to recharge your shields so they're not just a waste of ammo. Non-chaff PvE enemies can be significantly more dangerous and harder to defeat but will have valuable loot.
• There is already an example of a PvE "boss" robot guarding a point of interest which requires some mechanics to collect the loot within it. The boss itself is very challenging to defeat, even with multiple teams fighting it, but should reward top-tier loot.
• While the game was initially announced as free-to-play, the devs have since switched to selling it at at $40 USD.
• There are "battle passes" in the game in the form of shops players can unlock using a currency that is earnable in-game, or purchased with real money (like warbonds from Helldivers 2 for any helldivers reading this).

Overall, the game is shaping up to be a more accessible extraction shooter for the wider gaming audience and very serious competition for Marathon. No official release date has been announced but they are planning on releasing some time this year.

The stigma around extraction shooters

I've mentioned various things about extraction shooters that may be contributing to their unpopularity amongst the wider gaming audience throughout the post, but for the sake of cohesiveness and for all the folks that just want a TL;DR, I will collate and expand on those ideas here:

• Confusion with battle royales - I've seen some people confuse extraction shooters with battle royales and say "the market is oversaturated with extraction shooters, dead trend chasing game" or something along those lines. It's hard to call a market oversaturated when there's only 2 successful and very niche games in it, but if you incorrectly lump all the battle royales in that makes more sense.

• Escape From Tarkov is a bad poster child - When people do think of extraction shooters (and not mistakenly battle royales), they will default to EFT, which is notoriously hardcore and "sweaty". It would be the same as never having played an RPG, and being introduced to it with Dark Souls, which would understandably turn away anyone that isn't looking for that kind of experience.

• PvP and losing progress - The game always having a PvP element is already discouraging to PvE-focused players, and this is only made worse by the chance to lose your gear if you die. Many players are strongly opposed to losing progress, and losing multiple times in a row due to other players defeating them when they just want to do PvE and get some loot is an awful experience that they don't have to have in a different type of game.

• Progression wipes are anathema to hoarders - On top of potentially losing progress on a round-to-round basis, seasonal progression wipes also threaten to reset progress entirely between seasons, While they are effective at keeping things fresh, players that like to have 400+ items stored away in their vault that they will never use and just admire from time to time revile this concept. Less hoard-minded players may be concerned about their potential inability to max out their progression, the fear of missing out induced by temporary progression, or the pointlessness of even progressing if it gets wiped anyway.

I didn't read any of that, are extraction shooters for me or not?

Well, that depends. If you:

• Don't mind or enjoy a mixed PvEvP experience
• Are ok with the idea of loot and progression being temporary
• Like the higher stakes of potentially losing your inventory and gear, or taking someone else's
• Are ok with inventory management, even in the middle of a round
• Are not terrible at shooters

Then yes, extraction shooters may be fun for you! They certainly aren't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with not enjoying one or the genre in general, but if you do, they offer a very unique gaming experience. If you are interested, keep an eye on ARC Raiders and Marathon - they aim to be more accessible than previous extraction shooters and it's a lot easier to get in on a new game than join one with a veteran playerbase.

I watch Amazon Prime Video with Librewolf, but today I got the error message below. I already have DRM enabled. Any ideas how to fix this?

Prime Video is incompatible with your current operating system or web browser. You must update to watch Prime Video titles. Review the Prime Video system requirements. If the problem continues, please contact Amazon Customer Service and refer to error 7132.

Edit:

I fixed the problem by removing Librewolf and reinstalling it.