Watley's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    Yeah, that sounds about how it was as I left. During the golden era before that though there were tons of corps (Hard Knocks, Adhoc, NoHo, Ragnarock, Surely) with activity in all timezones....

    Yeah, that sounds about how it was as I left. During the golden era before that though there were tons of corps (Hard Knocks, Adhoc, NoHo, Ragnarock, Surely) with activity in all timezones. Everyone was red, but we kept diplomatic channels open and would work together on evictions (especially when any goons tried to move into j-space). Turtling up and refusing to fight in a C3 or higher was pretty much grounds for immediate eviction.

  2. Comment on Spotify is raising the price of its single-account premium plan for the first time since 2011 and hiking other services as well in ~tech

    Watley
    Link Parent
    The argument against Spotify that most musicians have is less about the total amount of the split, but how the payment structure benefits record companies and large artists over smaller or...

    The argument against Spotify that most musicians have is less about the total amount of the split, but how the payment structure benefits record companies and large artists over smaller or independent ones. The way per stream payments are calculated and the way that contracts set those rates creates a system where millions of streams (not hyperbole, that's the actual scale needed) are required to make similar amounts of money to what artists used to be able to make from a small dedicated fanbase. This is at the same time as Spotify replaces the methods artists already depended on and small fanbases are not aware that their favorite artists receive almost none of their monthly subscription.

    A more equitable method would be that the redistribution portion of each subscription is only given to the artists the subscriber listened to that month. Unfortunately this means that large artists would get a smaller share making any such platform less attractive to them, and large artists are the ones that bring the most people to a platform.

    I personally prefer to spend my music budget on Bandcamp because I know the reality is that no one could make a living making the music I like with current streaming models. This obviously comes with some pretty big convenience costs though so I understand why its not a popular decision.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJr_TVbJYcU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXudOLStaXA

    24 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    How is J-space these days? I left the game around the time Blood Union started kicking everyone out and turning everything into rental systems. It was unfortunate seeing the WH culture dying out.

    How is J-space these days? I left the game around the time Blood Union started kicking everyone out and turning everything into rental systems. It was unfortunate seeing the WH culture dying out.

  4. Comment on What game is your current addiction? in ~games

    Watley
    Link
    As a result of my recent PvP survival shooter thread I am now addicted to Hunt: Showdown. I haven't yet made it out with a bounty token, but learning tons and getting into fun PvP situations.

    As a result of my recent PvP survival shooter thread I am now addicted to Hunt: Showdown. I haven't yet made it out with a bounty token, but learning tons and getting into fun PvP situations.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    Oof, usually I assume that most cheating accusations are just people being salty, but that is heaps of damning evidence. I had already decided to pass on the game because some of the stuff the...

    Oof, usually I assume that most cheating accusations are just people being salty, but that is heaps of damning evidence. I had already decided to pass on the game because some of the stuff the devs have done is pretty off-putting to me, but that definitely calls into question the gameplay itself.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    Definitely a good point to the split in this genre of games. The ephemeral nature of DayZ was one of my favorite parts. The only thing that carried over life to life was whatever bit about the...

    Definitely a good point to the split in this genre of games. The ephemeral nature of DayZ was one of my favorite parts. The only thing that carried over life to life was whatever bit about the game you learned during that time. One life you'd team up with a guy only to get shot by a sniper out of nowhere, then you'd be in a firefight with your former friend to get your stuff back, then the next you'd find an ambulance and go around healing players for free.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    Tarkov has been on my radar for a bit, but I've been waiting for Linux/Proton support (always seems right around the corner). Sounds like its worth booting up Windows to check out though.

    Tarkov has been on my radar for a bit, but I've been waiting for Linux/Proton support (always seems right around the corner). Sounds like its worth booting up Windows to check out though.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    That was a fantastic video. Aside from perfectly laying out the state of the genre it did an amazing job showing how simple systems driving player interaction made some of these games great.

    That was a fantastic video. Aside from perfectly laying out the state of the genre it did an amazing job showing how simple systems driving player interaction made some of these games great.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    Considering how much money some of those games you mentioned make its definitely not surprising that its ended up that way.

    Considering how much money some of those games you mentioned make its definitely not surprising that its ended up that way.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Definitely good to hear. I already own SA from years ago so installing it again to check it out. From a small amount of research it looks like DayOne servers attempt to capture the original gameplay.

    Definitely good to hear. I already own SA from years ago so installing it again to check it out. From a small amount of research it looks like DayOne servers attempt to capture the original gameplay.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What's the current state of PvP survival shooters? in ~games

    Watley
    Link Parent
    I must have seen Hunt: Showdown mentioned hundreds of times the past few years, but never really connected the gameplay to the intensity of DayZ. Will definitely check it out.

    I must have seen Hunt: Showdown mentioned hundreds of times the past few years, but never really connected the gameplay to the intensity of DayZ. Will definitely check it out.

  12. What's the current state of PvP survival shooters?

    ~games Ask
    I used to absolutely love DayZ when it was still a mod. Even over a decade later I've yet to find a game with the sheer level of adrenaline that it could induce. I fell off the genre when it...

    I used to absolutely love DayZ when it was still a mod. Even over a decade later I've yet to find a game with the sheer level of adrenaline that it could induce. I fell off the genre when it started moving towards crafting and base building since the systems just ended up feeling like busywork and detracted from the intensity of the core gameplay.

    Is there anything newer that captures that experience from early DayZ, or is the Rust/Ark style gameplay loop completely ubiquitous now? I'd love something with good gunplay, a focused set of systems, and a punishing difficulty curve.

    15 votes

  13. Comment on Any pilots here? in ~hobbies

    Watley
    Link
    PPL with ~180 hours. Been rough getting in the air lately between usual being busy and inopportune poor weather. Such an addictive moneypit though.

    PPL with ~180 hours. Been rough getting in the air lately between usual being busy and inopportune poor weather. Such an addictive moneypit though.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on Place to learn Japanese in ~humanities.languages

    Watley
    Link Parent
    I can wholeheartedly recommend the jpdb's SRS system. I actually switched to it from Anki and it works much better for me. On the technical side its algorithm is a lot less punishing for missing...

    I can wholeheartedly recommend the jpdb's SRS system. I actually switched to it from Anki and it works much better for me. On the technical side its algorithm is a lot less punishing for missing days, sometimes Anki made me want to start all over again if I missed too many. Additionally I find it much easier to hit target learning rates.

    Its really killer feature though are the built in decks from real literature. Research has shown that creating a need for knowledge speeds up its acquisition so studying a deck alongside reading the text its derived from is immensely helpful. Additionally it makes it super easy to copy-paste text in and automatically build a deck (with frequency sorting) which I like to use with NHK Easy. Just copy-paste in an article and you immediately have a custom deck tailored to a specific topic covering only words you haven't learned yet. It even breaks out kanji you haven't yet studied and presents them before the vocabulary using them.

    1 vote