Bullmaestro's recent activity
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Comment on RIP Cybertruck. You were unloved, unwanted, and utterly absurd. in ~transport
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Bullmaestro LinkSince MapleStory: Classic World is now basically unplayable, I've clocked in about 12.2 hours of Soul's Remnant and just hit Level 30. I've been told the game is very much like Classic MS. That I...Since MapleStory: Classic World is now basically unplayable, I've clocked in about 12.2 hours of Soul's Remnant and just hit Level 30. I've been told the game is very much like Classic MS. That I don't believe. I think it's like a mix between old-school and post-Big Bang.
I'm not sure if I necessarily want to sing the praises of a potentially dead/dying MMORPG that is pulling about 200 24-hour peak concurrents according to SteamDB. And the consensus as to why this game has less than 3% of its peak launch playerbase is a mixed bag. The two developers think it's just "launch hype" dying down, but some other reasons I've seen (plus my own observations about gameplay mixed in) include:
- CAPTCHAs annoying a large portion of the player base into outright quitting. Quite frequently, a dark gem will appear somewhere on the map that inflicts you with a huge EXP debuff. You have to rush to it and complete a (sometimes lengthy) CAPTCHA using the arrow keys to clear it and get a compensatory buff. MapleStory has a very similar but far less egregious system. Good luck doing this when some platforms are mob clusterfucks that can easily kill you with devastating EXP penalties for dying.
- The game allegedly storing a lot of data client-side (rookie mistake when developing a MMO), opening the floodgates to cheats, dupes and bots.
- Moderation has been allegedly heavy-handed with banning suspected cheaters. Whether the banned players were genuinely cheating or false-positives that had been flagged and lost progress without any means of appeal is kinda a moot point when this is one of the main reasons the game is being review bombed on Steam.
- Balance is very bad. Faith is the way to go. The other three attack damage types (Range, Melee and Magic) and their respective sides of the skill tree suck by comparison.
- The game world is rather bland, consists of just a handful of similar NPCs who appear in different zones, and is far more streamlined than even post-Big Bang MapleStory. You generally follow a very linear path when levelling that takes you on a spiral throughout the game world.
- Lack of late game content.
- Some aimed/channelled skills (particularly all the hybrid type basic attacks) feel both suboptimal and unsatisfying to use.
- Dash and Blink are extremely clunky to use. You will often teleport beyond your intended destination and to a further platform because of bad collision.
- Gearing and itemization is VERY bad. Gear upgrades seem to be every 6 levels with few exceptions, and the stats are incredibly underwhelming to the point where the game encourages you to use consumables to upgrade them. Think stat scrolls from MapleStory but the entire game is built around it...
- There is very little information online about the best skill and stat builds for the game...
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (November 2026) in ~health.mental
Bullmaestro Link ParentRegulars as in fellow karaoke singers. I follow a few KJs who regularly do gigs around my city. I feel like a few have been more critical about my choices of songs and it's starting to piss me off.Regulars as in fellow karaoke singers.
I follow a few KJs who regularly do gigs around my city. I feel like a few have been more critical about my choices of songs and it's starting to piss me off.
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (November 2026) in ~health.mental
Bullmaestro Link ParentNot sure if that would help. I guess I should elaborate. I feel like she's been leading me on big time. As much as I really want to confront her about it and call her out, I think doing so risks...Not sure if that would help.
I guess I should elaborate. I feel like she's been leading me on big time. As much as I really want to confront her about it and call her out, I think doing so risks nuking our friendship from orbit (or worse, deteriorating her condition.)
We met through a dating app over three years ago but never actually met in person for the first time until last year. She lives about 25 miles away from me in a small town.
She has been receptive towards my attempts to flirt and our conversations have quite a few times turned suggestive (not quite to the point of full-on sexting.) It isn't something she's been even remotely uncomfortable about, at least until the last time we spoke where she straight-up told me that she was afraid of leading me on and didn't want to go too far (a bit late for that...)
It also feels like despite her ME, she keeps making time for everybody else and pushing away any plans I make to meet up with her. We were meant to meet up last month but she asked to postpone because her dad invited her on a last-minute holiday to Wales, and we were meant to meet last weekend but she asked to meet in the evening instead because her sister had plans, and then outright cancelled on me due to a last minute flat inspection which she had to clean up for.
My problem is that she's kept changing her tune about wanting to date a lot and I feel like she hasn't been honest with me. She is (apparently) attracted to me but for a while has told me she's too exhausted and struggling with her ME to commit to a relationship.
Then ~2 years ago she started seeing a guy (they broke up a few weeks later.) I damn near cut contact with her back then, but I stopped short of outright calling her out.
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (November 2026) in ~health.mental
Bullmaestro (edited )LinkNot great. I had something of a falling out with a (female) friend who has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Someone who I have quite a crush on but I've been respectful towards her boundaries so far....Not great.
I had something of a falling out with a (female) friend who has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Someone who I have quite a crush on but I've been respectful towards her boundaries so far. She got quite flirty with me as usual then just suddenly (verbally, this was via text) shoved me away because we have different lifestyles and she can only ever see us as friends.
Shes dated 1 - 2 other guys since we first met and I just feel like she will never take me seriously. I literally put our WhatsApp chat in the archive section after her recent shift and I'm not sure if I'll respond to her if she does. Sometimes I think she sees me as a joke.
Other than that... karaoke hasn't been great.
I made a comment about my recent Halloween weekend outings, but I'll give more detail.
- Friday, I either got absolutely sloshed or I was so sleep-deprived that I fell asleep on the toilet. I think it's more likely the latter. I stayed out way too late because the pub landlord wanted to have another beer with me. I was also out all day before celebrating a friend's birthday and was sleep deprived.
- Saturday hardly drank. The karaoke night was boring.
- Sunday, got crap for singing a Steel Panther song that I got stitched up to do. Some of the regulars I follow hate some of my song choices.
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Comment on Halloween night! in ~talk
Bullmaestro (edited )Link ParentI sing a lot of different stuff, so I'll just give songs that some KJs I follow like. The stuff I sing is actually quite divisive: Sir Mixalot - Baby Got Back ABC - Poison Arrow Barry Manilow -...I sing a lot of different stuff, so I'll just give songs that some KJs I follow like. The stuff I sing is actually quite divisive:
- Sir Mixalot - Baby Got Back
- ABC - Poison Arrow
- Barry Manilow - Copacabana
- Steel Panther - Gloryhole (I only sing this at very specific gigs because this is possibly their filthiest song.)
- O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei (no, I dont speak Romanian but I can do this rather well.)
- Dr Dre feat. Eminem - Forgot About Dre (unlike some white guys who have done this song before, I do everything I can to avoid the n-word with this one...)
- Steel Panther - Eyes of a Panther (probably their only relatively "clean" song.)
- Cats - Jellicle Songs For Jellicle Cats (my most divisive song, in the respect that I'd probably get lynched if I sung this again around some venues because there are a lot of people who weirdly hate this musical..)
- Glenn Medeiros - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You
- Lit - My Own Worst Enemy
- Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue
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Comment on Halloween night! in ~talk
Bullmaestro LinkLast year I dressed up as The Mask and learned the hard way that I need to source the right face paint. I made the mistake of buying cream based paints and not using setting powder to make sure it...Last year I dressed up as The Mask and learned the hard way that I need to source the right face paint. I made the mistake of buying cream based paints and not using setting powder to make sure it doesn't smudge.
This year I went to three karaoke nights (Thursday, Friday and tonight) dressed as Danhausen.
Wouldn't recommend. Very few people I know follow wrestling and recognised my costume. Water-activated face paints are also pretty annoying when drinking pints. Washing the face paint off afterwards is also a moderate pain.
I think the novelty of halloween and karaoke has worn off for me.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Bullmaestro LinkGave Banjo-Kazooie a second chance. First time around, I gave up quickly on it because I was playing the Rare Replay version via Xbox Cloud Gaming and had to deal with some horrendous input lag....Gave Banjo-Kazooie a second chance. First time around, I gave up quickly on it because I was playing the Rare Replay version via Xbox Cloud Gaming and had to deal with some horrendous input lag. Second time around was on NSO.
I dunno why it got rave reviews and is considered up there with Super Mario 64 as one of the best 3D platformers of the 90's. The game controls like crap on both versions in almost every aspect, from the camera down to some of the worst swimming controls I've experienced. When you save and quit, the game also forces you to watch a lengthy Game Over cutscene. Rare also littered the start with craploads of tutorials that just bog the experience down.
What ultimately made me give up was several failed attempts of trying to pick up the Blue Jinjo on Treasure Trove Cove, and me retrospectively feeling like an idiot as I write this because it turns out you can kill Snacker the Shark.
Also recently played the Melvor Idle 2 demo. From what I played, it's just a slight graphical upgrade over the first game with a different interface and nowhere near as much additional depth as advertised. Being unable to actually move the window in Windowed Mode also completely and utterly blows. Malcs needs to cook for a lot longer before releasing this one, because otherwise it'll end up as underwhelming as Cities Skylines 2.
I also reached level 22 on MapleStory: Classic World and kinda burned out already. I hit a serious quest drought with the only ones still outstanding being ones I can't farm because every map is still heavily overcrowded with players. This is the state MSCW is in right now, and the only people playing are those who were willing to pay $60 for a Founder's package to get 2 weeks early access. Grand Launch is on Wednesday and the game will be unplayable.
I think Nexon should have launched the game with multiple worlds and more content to ease overcrowding (at the very least, the original versions of Orbis, El Nath, Ludibrium, Zipangu and New Leaf City should have been in launch.)
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Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk
Bullmaestro LinkNot had the greatest weekend. As some of you may know, I am a regular when it comes to pub karaoke. I am part of a group chat created by one of the KJs I follow (I'll just call him Gary.) He...Not had the greatest weekend.
As some of you may know, I am a regular when it comes to pub karaoke. I am part of a group chat created by one of the KJs I follow (I'll just call him Gary.) He stepped away from hosting Fridays at a particular pub over a month ago and Lucy (yup, same Lucy who came on to me over a year ago) ended up taking over as the host.
Last night, I went to her karaoke night and rapped Forgot About Dre as my second song (No, I did not say the n-word. That is a massive no-no for me.) The crowd like it, but not the landlord, who was livid and pretty much told her off for allowing me to do a song with swearing. It hadn't come up before when when she was hosting, even though some of the regulars did songs with swear words before, like Creep and Living Next Door To Alice.
Gary told me they only hated people using the c-word. I think he lied to me because he wanted to make Lucy look bad and I feel annoyed with him.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Bullmaestro LinkMy time has been largely taken up by MapleStory: Classic World. I've clocked over 15 hours played so far and hit level 20 on a Magician. Compared to the modern day post-Big Bang version of...My time has been largely taken up by MapleStory: Classic World. I've clocked over 15 hours played so far and hit level 20 on a Magician.
Compared to the modern day post-Big Bang version of MapleStory which has three different flavours of adventurer classes, dozens of ridiculously overloaded hero classes and some of the most streamlined progression I've ever seen, Classic World has honestly been a breath of fresh air. It finally feels like I'm playing a MMORPG and not a shitty hack & slash game where I can deal 76 quadrillion points of damage and delete an entire room of mobs in a single button press, whilst following some incredibly contrived and poorly written story about a dark mage who once threatened Maple World. OG MapleStory was never like this, and the superior quality of the restored classic game by comparison really shows.
Things haven't been entirely smooth sailing. Nexon, for some incredibly stupid reason, decided to kick off the two week Founder's Access period by launching the game with only 1 world and 18 channels. Nearly every zone is massively overcrowded with players and competition for enemy mob spawns is rife.
And as everyone who bought in got the Founder's Pack, nearly every safe zone is full of player-run shops and obnoxious flashy effects, which would all otherwise come from limited-time rental cash shop items.
Only places I've seen that hasn't been overloaded with players are the two maps between Henesys and the Victoria Island Dungeon, and the only reason is because Iron Hogs are level 26 mobs that have incredibly high evasion stats, and are practically impossible to damage with physical attacks even if you could hit them.
If this is the state of the game for people who paid Nexon $60 for two weeks' early access, I dread to think what the servers will be like on 21st October when the game truly launches F2P.
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Comment on Solo developer rebuilds Adobe Creative Suite in Rust using Claude, releases it free to all in ~tech
Bullmaestro Link ParentI think AI is killing my drive to continue pursuing accountancy because of how much it's automated my industr too. I am debating whether to go into music production, singing or hosting karaoke.I think AI is killing my drive to continue pursuing accountancy because of how much it's automated my industr too. I am debating whether to go into music production, singing or hosting karaoke.
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Comment on Software developers are not okay in ~tech
Bullmaestro LinkHave they though? Fifteen years ago, the industry was desperate to hire coders. Landing a software engineering gig in a Big Tech firm was the dream. Their salaries were huge, their offices seemed...The fewer people you have working for you, the fewer stock options you have to pay out, the less resistance there will be to watering down the product, collaborating with the military-industrial complex, or helping authoritarian governments control and murder their citizens. Over the past two decades, one of the more effective forces for keeping tech companies in line have been the tech workers themselves who have tried resist corrupt and unethical behaviour. It hasn’t always worked. There wasn’t enough of it. But what little there was it added meaningful friction at several important moments in tech history.
Have they though?
Fifteen years ago, the industry was desperate to hire coders. Landing a software engineering gig in a Big Tech firm was the dream. Their salaries were huge, their offices seemed luxurious and they were based in some of the most prestigious places in the world. And out of all of them, only Amazon really had a bad reputation for how they treated their workers pre-COVID (and it was really in their warehouse and logistics divisions.)
Since then it's been a race to shittify the entire industry.
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Comment on Solo developer rebuilds Adobe Creative Suite in Rust using Claude, releases it free to all in ~tech
Bullmaestro LinkThe latest Claude and GPT models have done some fucking crazy things, like reverse engineering and splicing two games together. AI is actually one of the main contributors on projects like KytyPS5...The latest Claude and GPT models have done some fucking crazy things, like reverse engineering and splicing two games together. AI is actually one of the main contributors on projects like KytyPS5 (a PlayStation 5 emulator that has made a tonne of progress lately) and AnyPS5 (a tool for porting PS5 games to Windows and Linux), and is a core reason why a lot of recent video game decompilations have taken weeks instead of years to produce.
Am I right to be genuinely concerned by this?
I mean even if you have a raging hate-boner for greedy monopolistic companies like Autodesk and Adobe, it should be alarming that AI is currently in the state where it can be used to create working vibe-slop clones of proprietary software.
I once envisioned a "watershed moment" for AI where someone straight-up recreates Adobe Creative Suite and releases a free working clone of it a few days ago. I was not expecting this moment to have already passed.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if Anthropic and OpenAI get hit with massive lawsuits in the coming months. Heck, I can even see this getting laws rewritten and legal precedent on fair-use and reverse engineering to be overturned.
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Comment on What single episode of a show would you recommend as a standalone? in ~tv
Bullmaestro LinkI wouldn't say single episode (more like six), but there is a mini-arc of Sword Art Online that I would thoroughly recommend watching over the main series. Specifically, S2E19-24 (or the Mother's...I wouldn't say single episode (more like six), but there is a mini-arc of Sword Art Online that I would thoroughly recommend watching over the main series. Specifically, S2E19-24 (or the Mother's Rosario arc, which technically starts at Episode 18 but that's a filler episode that can be skipped.)
I hate Sword Art Online for a lot of reasons, but this is easily the best arc in the series by a mile, and it's a side-story.
To sum up Mother's Rosario
Asuna meets a skilled player called Yuuki in Alfheim Online and challenges her to a duel, only to then be recruited by her into the Sleeping Knights, a guild that is trying to land a world first Aincrad floor clear and immortalize their names. Despite being actively pushed away from their goal by a rival guild, they accomplish it (with some help from Kazuto) only for Yuuki to fear she's grown too close and disappear off the face of the map.
After Kazuto tips her off, Asuna visits a hospital where she learns that the Sleeping Knights are a guild of terminally ill patients and that Yuuki is immunocompromised, because when she was born, a botched c-section and blood transfusion resulted in her (and her mother) contracting AIDS. She was the first patient to use a Medicuboid, a full-dive virtual reality device. They reunite once again and spend more time together, until Yuuki dies, but not before passing on her 9-hit sword skill as a scroll.
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Comment on Danish government confirms its Central Person Register was hacked – data breach affects eight million citizens and includes names, addresses, and social security numbers in ~tech
Bullmaestro LinkOne of the reasons I seriously oppose our push for more digitalisation, mass-surveillance and data harvesting. Many organisations are notoriously fucking bad with data security, especially...One of the reasons I seriously oppose our push for more digitalisation, mass-surveillance and data harvesting.
Many organisations are notoriously fucking bad with data security, especially government-owned ones founded by lawmakers who have hardly any grasp on how technology works themselves.
At this point I think it's going to take a cataclysmic and highly destructive data breach until we finally begin to slam the brakes.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Bullmaestro (edited )LinkAntivirus Survivors 2003 Professional is a bullet heaven game heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors where you play as a cursor on a Windows XP inspired desktop fighting off hordes of viruses. It...Antivirus Survivors 2003 Professional is a bullet heaven game heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors where you play as a cursor on a Windows XP inspired desktop fighting off hordes of viruses. It absolutely nails the Y2K computer aesthetic in every way, but there are some nitpicks I have with this game.
Firstly, movement feels clunky. While I understand that implementing mouse movement would be very difficult in a Survivors-like where you want to limit movespeed, instead we got a system where we can only move the cursor in 8 cardinal directions and need to use the left mouse button or Shift key to click. And when you have to double-click, it just feels unsatisfying.
Secondly, the levelling and progression systems, whilst good homages to the early 2000's, just drag the game's pacing down a lot, whether it's:
- Level-ups, which are very frequent.
- Installers for a new upgrade that consume keys (which are collected from, you guessed it, Keygens)
- Zip files which take about 30 seconds to open and may fail (spamming your screen with popups)
- Download More RAM applications, which have a very high chance to fail (more popup spam, I don't even know what they actually do because the success rate is so low.)
- The Limewire parody you need to stand within for a certain time to open.
- A uTorrent parody that opens a torrent client with random upgrades that have a significant chance to stall and ultimately fail to download.
- A Steam parody which wipes your screen of everything, including useful unopened files, which makes it more often than not counter-intuitive to use.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
Bullmaestro LinkJomm feat. readyaimfire27 - Melatonin. I discovered this song through a Facebook ad of all places. Was really surprised by how good it was and how they pretty much nailed Japanese city pop. It's...Jomm feat. readyaimfire27 - Melatonin.
I discovered this song through a Facebook ad of all places. Was really surprised by how good it was and how they pretty much nailed Japanese city pop. It's not my favourite song by them though, that title would go to Astronaut Song.
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Comment on 'Chainsmoker Cat' anime discussion, what do you think? in ~anime
Bullmaestro Link ParentFormer Diablo/Warcraft content creator. Nicknamed the cockroach king because he lives in squalor and doesn't clean up after himself. Became a right wing political streamer. More recently came back...Former Diablo/Warcraft content creator. Nicknamed the cockroach king because he lives in squalor and doesn't clean up after himself. Became a right wing political streamer.
More recently came back for the WoW Forever beta. His followers came in the thousands, made characters with offensive names, got banhammered, then proceeded to dox, harass and expose the historic post history of WoW Forever's lead dev James Gunn style, all because he told people with homophobic and racist names to be better people...
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Comment on Premier League statement: Manchester City FC in ~sports.football
Bullmaestro LinkI fully expect little to come of this. The last time the book was thrown at seriously corrupt football officials on any level was due to FBI intervention in FIFA (what got several seniors arrested...I fully expect little to come of this. The last time the book was thrown at seriously corrupt football officials on any level was due to FBI intervention in FIFA (what got several seniors arrested and Sepp Blatter to resign)...
They'll probably give Man City a points reduction, maybe at most a relegation where they'll shit all over the Championship harder than a German adult film star in a scheiße flick, then be in healthy contention for the next title in 2028-29.
Plus i'm sure the UAE will pressure the English FA and British government into submission, because "how fucking dare you mess with one of our main international assets"...
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Comment on Interview: Firefox’s chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome in ~tech
Bullmaestro LinkChrome memory leaking and crashing on my PC was initially why i switched to Firefox. Chromium getting fucked with nuked Manifest v2 support was why I stuck. Is there genuinely a good ad blocking...Chrome memory leaking and crashing on my PC was initially why i switched to Firefox. Chromium getting fucked with nuked Manifest v2 support was why I stuck.
Is there genuinely a good ad blocking browser in 2026?
Probably not Elon's biggest blunder when compared to his Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration, or his buyout of Twitter for $44 billion.