kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on Luxtorpeda: a Steam Play compatibility tool to run games using native Linux engines in ~games
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Luxtorpeda: a Steam Play compatibility tool to run games using native Linux engines
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Comment on Monday breaks the record for the hottest day ever on Earth in ~enviro
kfwyre LinkDriven by oceans that won’t cool down, an unseasonably warm Antarctica and worsening climate change, Earth’s record hot streak dialed up this week, making Sunday, then Monday, the hottest days humans have measured, according to the European climate service.
There’s a good chance that when the data comes in for Tuesday, it will be three straight days of global record breaking heat, said Carlo Buontempo, the director of the European climate service Copernicus. “These peaks are not normally isolated,” he said.
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Monday breaks the record for the hottest day ever on Earth
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Rachel Chinouriri - So My Darling (live from KOKO) (2024)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentThat's fascinating! I assumed that the original would have been shut down by now. Maybe the new and old one use the same servers -- or they exist concurrently? Pretty cool that it still works....That's fascinating! I assumed that the original would have been shut down by now. Maybe the new and old one use the same servers -- or they exist concurrently? Pretty cool that it still works. Hope you enjoy it!
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
kfwyre Link ParentI appreciate your courtesy as well. And I completely agree that the context surrounding violence and violent rhetoric is something that should be considered rather than ignored and flattened....I appreciate your courtesy as well. And I completely agree that the context surrounding violence and violent rhetoric is something that should be considered rather than ignored and flattened. There is a material difference between self-defense and aggression.
I think when we have fraught conversations like this it can make us feel like we're in opposition, when really we've identified a small misalignment in an otherwise much larger overlap. You and I are more similar than different, and our values are vastly more concurrent than they are in conflict. I still see you as someone I stand beside rather than against!
I appreciate you for always speaking from your convictions and taking the time to walk people through your thought process. I've said before that I think you have a sharp, unwavering focus on justice, and that comes through here as it has so many times before. Thanks for doing what you do, Gaywallet. 💜
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Comment on European Speedrunner Assembly’s Summer 2024 event, a weeklong charity marathon featuring speedruns, is live (runs July 20 - 27) in ~games
kfwyre LinkI’m late to the announcement, sorry! This started earlier today. ESA is very similar to GDQ but has a more chill, low-key vibe. It feels a lot like “old GDQ” if you were around for that. All...I’m late to the announcement, sorry! This started earlier today.
ESA is very similar to GDQ but has a more chill, low-key vibe. It feels a lot like “old GDQ” if you were around for that.
All donations go to Alzheimerfonden.
Quick links:
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European Speedrunner Assembly’s Summer 2024 event, a weeklong charity marathon featuring speedruns, is live (runs July 20 - 27)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentInteresting! I'm surprised the original still even works. Are you actually connected to servers or is it just sort of running in an offline mode? And yeah, I agree with you on the MMO thing. It's...Interesting! I'm surprised the original still even works. Are you actually connected to servers or is it just sort of running in an offline mode?
And yeah, I agree with you on the MMO thing. It's such a big time-ask, and I feel like it doesn't deliver as much as I'd like it to with that time. It is genuinely substantive in places and has some really cool ideas, but there's also so much padding.
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentMy mom accused me of living in a liberal bubble a few years ago, so as a good faith effort to her, I made it a point to incorporate more explicitly conservative sites into my news diet for a bit....- Exemplary
My mom accused me of living in a liberal bubble a few years ago, so as a good faith effort to her, I made it a point to incorporate more explicitly conservative sites into my news diet for a bit.
While on those sites, I would regularly see comments advocating for the indiscriminate death or harm of Democrats. I found those comments disgusting and alarming.
When I see a comment here advocating for the same for Republicans, I still think it's wrong.
This is not because I think the two sides are equivalent, or because I'm looking past the harms that they're doing, or because I'm secretly taking their side. I'm promise I'm not attempting to say this as some sort of purity test or pearl clutching.
I also fully understand that @vord was essentially blowing off steam more than advocating for any sort of action or policy, and I get that, but I also think there are far better ways to do it and that doing so in that way specifically is harmful.
I made my comment not to carry water for awful people; I made it because I think that indiscriminate vengeance-based violence is wrong. If someone came on here and said "I'm going to shoot up my town" we'd be horrified, but if they added "don't worry, they're all Republicans" I don't think that suddenly makes it okay. I also think that does nothing productive except to embolden the sort of people who might do exactly that. Instead of that type of proposed action being seen for the horror that it is, it gets reduced to just another expression of anger -- the dime-a-dozen of internet sentiments.
The Republican party is absolutely doing some heinous shit right now (and has been for a while). I know that you in particular suffer underneath that, and I wish I could do more to make things better for you. Believe me when I say that I know what it feels like. I grew up in the American south. My parents tried to make me go to conversion therapy and then disowned me. I've been threatened multiple times (in person, with weapons). I've literally been spit at and on. I've been vengefully outed. Someone made false allegations against me to try to get me fired. And even with all of this, I was lucky compared to what some of my peers went through. The embers for hatred still have heat within me, and it takes a lot sometimes to not let them grow into a blaze.
Even amidst all of that though, there were plenty of people who were kind and understanding and showed that humanity is far more complex than the red or blue boxes that America has sorted itself into. I literally owe my life to them, because they saved me after my suicide attempt. "They all deserve to die" was commonplace rhetoric about queer people at the time. AIDS had devastated our community and the longstanding sentiment about it was that we were getting the sweet righteous comeuppance of death for being so evil and so wicked.
Yet many of those people I know were able to look past that and see the humanity of people like us instead. Saying "well, they're Republicans so they deserve to die" is the same exact type of prejudicial overfitting that was applied against people like us, and I don't think it's right. I don't think it's more wrong than what their party is currently doing, but I also don't think we should live our lives by justifying our actions only relative to the worst wrongs out there. I simply don't want this place to be a place where we wish death on people.
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
kfwyre Link ParentI'm sorry that you're hurting. Genuinely. I feel a lot of this too. I think for me, it's hard to square what's actually true and what's the product of the catastrophizing flowing out of my overly...I'm sorry that you're hurting. Genuinely. I feel a lot of this too. I think for me, it's hard to square what's actually true and what's the product of the catastrophizing flowing out of my overly anxious brain.
I also try to draw a line between lacking sympathy for others versus actively wishing them harm or death. The former is something I have in place for a lot of the people you describe, but the latter is an urge I try to fight off. It makes me feel like I'm turning into them. The lack of humanity I see from many right-wing sources turns my stomach, but the idea that I would follow suit turns it even more.
In thinking about your words here, I think we're responding to the same stressor in different ways. You're taking an aggressive, protective stance against outside threats, while I'm folding inward and trying to hold on to the humanity in myself -- the outside be damned.
I don't want to take away your feelings from you, but I will say that when we adopt their worst elements, even with the best of intentions, I think we normalize them a way that's ultimately harmful. When we make party-affiliated celebrations of violence sound like regular discourse, we're taking their horrors and laundering them into something conventional. I think that ends up helping their cause and hurting us.
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Comment on A summer Covid-19 wave in ~health
kfwyre Link Parentvord, I like your presence here on Tildes and appreciate your contributions, but, respectfully, I don’t love your fantasizing about killing people based on their party affiliation. It’s exactly...- Exemplary
vord, I like your presence here on Tildes and appreciate your contributions, but, respectfully, I don’t love your fantasizing about killing people based on their party affiliation.
It’s exactly that rhetoric that makes many far-right commenters both awful and terrifying, and I don’t think we should emulate that in ourselves.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentGREAT clarification. Thank you for this, Protected! I'll just focus on the Enclaves then (which is honestly what I've been doing anyway -- there are SO many puzzles in the mainland areas that I...GREAT clarification. Thank you for this, Protected! I'll just focus on the Enclaves then (which is honestly what I've been doing anyway -- there are SO many puzzles in the mainland areas that I get a bit overwhelmed).
When I found out it reset progress I was ready to drop the game entirely, but I'm glad I can comfortably keep playing now. It really is something special.
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Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of July 14 in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentArcade Paradise is a severely flawed but still kinda great little game. The premise is that you run a laundromat that has an arcade in the back. By doing laundromat chores, you can start to...Arcade Paradise is a severely flawed but still kinda great little game.
The premise is that you run a laundromat that has an arcade in the back. By doing laundromat chores, you can start to accumulate money and expand the arcade. Eventually you'll swap over to earning enough from the arcade that you can forget about the laundry.
This makes the beginning of the game a trudge.
In addition to the "simulation" (i.e. chore)-based gameplay, you can also play the arcade cabinets that you buy. Each one is its own little standalone minigame, many of which are legally distinct versions of familiar arcade favorites.
Each day you get random bonus objectives for your arcade machines that can get you extra money (e.g. getting a certain score on one of the machines). Each machine also has its own long-standing individual objectives. You can do a lot of checklisting in the game.
As you gain money, you can buy more cabinets and also get upgrades to make your chores easier. Eventually, you'll have few chores to do (or none since you can ignore them without penalty) and can spend all of your time playing your arcade cabinets.
I enjoyed the game and put 30+ hours into it going for the 100%, but I also listened to audiobooks while playing it. I don't think it has 30+ hour staying power on its own.
I also think it could use some polish in a lot of places. Some of the games are buggy or are simply un-fun. Some of the objectives are ridiculous. Amidst all this though, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had from the stuff that works well. My favorite was a game called "Stack Overflow" that was a sort of time-pressure box-sorting solitaire game.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentOh wow, that's an incredible amount of time! I'm with you on the fractal ones. I actually haven't solved one yet, despite my attempted solutions looking (what I believe to be) nearly identical to...Oh wow, that's an incredible amount of time! I'm with you on the fractal ones. I actually haven't solved one yet, despite my attempted solutions looking (what I believe to be) nearly identical to the reference. I'm thinking there might be something I'm missing?
I looked into the offline mode but stayed away from it due to this. Might be nothing, but I figure it's best to wait it out and see whether it's a false alarm or whether they patch it.
Also, in looking up that, I came across this topic which mentions the puzzles resetting. There were a few that I thought that I'd done already, but with so many puzzles in the game it's hard to tell. Did this impact your playthrough?
The idea of the puzzles resetting takes a lot of wind out of my sails, since a lot of the fun in the game is hunting the puzzles and completing different areas. If all my progress gets wiped it makes me not want to keep going in the first place.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentGlad it's not just me! 😂 I'm really liking the grid ones. I thought they were going to get boring, but the swapping out of different rulesets, as well as the addition of new mechanics have kept...Nobody knows!
Glad it's not just me! 😂
I'm really liking the grid ones. I thought they were going to get boring, but the swapping out of different rulesets, as well as the addition of new mechanics have kept them interesting.
The only ones that have really bothered me so far are the crystal mazes. I like the idea of being able to see the rest of the maze so you're not locked in to tunnel vision in your current spot, but I find it VERY hard to tell when there's a wall or not (might be my graphics settings -- I have to run it on pretty low to not have it cook my computer).
Overall though I'm seriously impressed with the game. Put in another two hours since my last post and will definitely do a lot more. How far along are you?
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
kfwyre LinkCategory is: Games that have no business being MMOs Secret World Legends This is a free-to-play reboot of an MMO called The Secret World, released by Funcom (of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall...Category is: Games that have no business being MMOs
This is a free-to-play reboot of an MMO called The Secret World, released by Funcom (of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall fame).
I had completely forgotten it existed until I stumbled across it during the most recent Steam sale. I was honestly surprised to see that it was even still running. The original TSW launched in 2012, while this reboot launched in 2017. I figured I might as well try it out before it is gone for good.
The good news is that the game's free offering is extremely generous: it's the whole game! There are no expansions you need to buy or subscriptions you have to start in order to access the game's content. You could, in theory, do pretty much everything on offer without paying for it. That's pretty incredible to me.
Of course, there is a monthly subscription you can buy to unlock "Patron" status which comes with additional XP and currency earnings. The big way the game tightens the screws on free players though is by making fast-travel cost an amount of in-game currency that ratchets up over time. Patrons, however, fast travel for free. I ended up signing up for a month in part because I'd played enough that it felt like they earned it from me, but mostly because the game is already a big time-waster, and not having fast-travel makes it that much worse.
Also, the game is very solo-player friendly, which is good, because I'm playing it by myself and don't really want to interact with anyone. It's also good because the game is pretty dead, so you might have a hard time finding people to play with even if you wanted to. I'd been regularly playing it at off-peak hours and saw very few people in-game and was thoroughly enjoying my isolation, but then I played on a Friday night and saw that the game wasn't as dead as I initially thought.
What's most interesting about the game is that it has a pretty rich world and lore to it. Most non-trivial missions have fully animated and voiced cutscene introductions. These are given by distinct and interesting characters, and they often go on for a full minute or two. They're not throwaways. The game also has a wide variety of monsters, many of which have their own ecological reasons for occupying the spaces that they do in the game, which you learn from doing the missions and talking to the NPCs. The writing itself is what I would call "above average for a video game." In terms of vibes and presentation, the game actually reminds me a lot of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
Additionally, the game also has investigation missions that aren't just "go here, kill this" or "go here, get X of this." The game has an in-game web browser that you can use because it expects you to look up outside information in order to complete these missions. These were widely lauded at the time of release, and if you peep the Steam reviews a lot of people still speak highly of them.
My first one was completely underwhelming. The mission clue explicitly told me that the coordinates to a treasure chest were based on the song lengths of two different songs. It felt hammy and direct -- not well-written or intriguing. Thankfully, I played another one shortly after that which was much better. I had to search an area to find an ID card. That ID card had a website I had to go to, which was a real website for a fake company (set up by the game, kind of like an ARG). I then had to search their employee database for more information. That kind of thing is cool.
I mentioned up top that this game is in the category of "game that had no business being an MMO" because it feels like the game's strengths are completely at odds with its structure. The game is full of neat ideas and decent writing, but it's also got bad combat and copious amounts of padding. For every halfway decent investigation mission, there are dozens of "go here, kill this" ones. Furthermore, for some strange reason, they decided to make your character a silent protagonist. This means that every cutscene is just another character monologuing at you while you give them a dead-eyed stare. Letting the player character talk wouldn't break immersion -- it would give the game's already decent writing and cutscenes some much needed legs.
Ultimately, I feel like this would have been much better as a single-player, story-driven game instead of an MMO. I can't shake the feeling that I'm just playing an elegantly made skinner box that gives me just enough drip-feed of interesting content to keep me trudging through the rest of the unnecessarily drawn out parts of the game.
Now, despite me being a big negative on the game, if you like MMOs, this one might be worth trying before it's gone. It really does have some cool ideas.
I played for six hours for free and not once during that time did I feel pressured to pay for the subscription. Free play past that point is also very possible if you're willing to hoof it on foot instead of fast-travel places.
This was offered up for free shortly before the most recent Steam sale.
It's a big open-world first-person puzzle collectathon MMO. You travel through the world seeking out and completing puzzles of different types, of which there are over 10,000 in the game.
I've only just started it and put 2 hours in. I'm very impressed so far. The puzzle types are varied -- there are pattern puzzles, mazes, perspective tricks, positioning puzzles -- and plenty more that I haven't unlocked yet. The puzzles are quick, and some aren't really puzzles so much as they are collectibles, which gives the game a much more rapid pace than puzzle games traditionally have.
The game is genuinely impressive in its scope and execution. I think the devs gave it away for free as a way of trying to create some buzz around it and get it some attention -- up to that point it hadn't sold very well, and I get the sense that it wasn't exactly cheap to make. This is well above the caliber of game that normally gets given out for free on Steam.
The question I have, though, is why is it an MMO? I have no idea, honestly. You can see other people running around in your game, but shared-puzzle solving doesn't seem like it would go great. This game seems legitimately more fun to play solo, and I imagine implementing networking was a non-negligible feat for the dev team. I don't really understand why they went for it. That said, maybe there's more waiting for me down the line that'll make it make more sense.
The game is 50% off on Steam right now, and I can recommend it if the idea of an open world puzzle solve-a-thon sounds good to you. Think The Witness, only without the elegance and pretension, and with more puzzle variety.
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Comment on Final update: Price reductions available now on the digital Xbox 360 Store – closing July 29, 2024 in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentDefinitely worth its own post! This is more than just a regular sale like the ones we put in Save Points — an entire gaming storefront is closing.Definitely worth its own post! This is more than just a regular sale like the ones we put in Save Points — an entire gaming storefront is closing.
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Comment on LGBT and marginalized voices are not welcome on Threads in ~lgbt
kfwyre Link ParentI appreciate your response. I know it can be super intimidating to engage with a wall of text like mine, especially on frought and difficult topics, and especially at a time like this, so thank...- Exemplary
I appreciate your response. I know it can be super intimidating to engage with a wall of text like mine, especially on frought and difficult topics, and especially at a time like this, so thank you for taking the time to talk to me about this.
Believe me when I say that I understand where you're coming from. I hate Trump too, though "hated" is probably more reflective of where I'm at currently. Do I have contempt for the man? Yes. Do I have contempt for what he stands for? Yes. Am I worried that we're slow-walking into another administration under him in which he has carte-blanche to do awful things? I'm terrified.
In my comment about hate above, I'm trying to talk about the mechanism of hate itself. I saw your other comment below where you talk about the imbalance of hating someone based on falsehoods versus hating someone for legitimate reasons, and I agree. I promise you my comment is not meant to be a "both sides" thing or a false equivalency. I fully think that the hate that I see and have seen my entire life from right wing sources far outpaces anything I see from the left. I say this as a gay guy who grew up in the shadow of AIDS in the American south and left specifically because of the hate that I faced and witnessed there.
What I'm trying to get at is the idea that hate is an insulating process that attempts to seal itself into people over time. As it does this, it increasingly justifies its own existence until it no longer needs to do any sort of justification because the person is already so accustomed to its distortions that their own values are lost.
I have some (well, many, unfortunately) family members who are very Trumpy. We were at a get-together when the news of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke. One person there reflexively cheered, then, in the lag between her response and some consequent self-reflection, she clapped her hand to her mouth and apologized. She, a pro-life person, was openly cheering someone's death. That's not a normal response to death, especially not for someone who explicitly believes life is sacred. Her completely inverted response was a distortion from hatred.
You shared a lot about your situation, and it sounds like you're someone who feels hate but hasn't given yourself over to it. That's normal and human. I feel it too.
What the entire modern internet tries to do, however, is convince us that we don't have the capability to modulate it, address it, manage it, reflect on it, and even move past it. Hate doesn't have to take up residence in us, even if we feel it sometimes. Hate doesn't have to linger, even though it tries to. Hate doesn't have to become the root of who we are and what we do, but it absolutely will if we let it.
I wrote what I did not from some high horse but because I've spent my entire life interfacing with hate and having to hold back the tide from letting it consume my person. I've also witnessed many people who didn't, and I've watched it consume them. I don't want that for anyone.
Luxtorpeda is a tool that will play certain Steam games through native Linux source ports instead of their original releases (e.g. Arx Fatalis will run through the Arx Libertatis engine).
The full list of supported games is here.
The really nice thing about Luxtorpeda is the lack of manual setup you have to do. I was able to get Re-Volt running through RVGL and the original Tomb Raider running through OpenLara on my Steam Deck with pretty much zero effort.
All you have to do is use ProtonUp-Qt to install Luxtorpeda, then install the game you want to play via Steam. Once installed, change the compatibility tool for the game to Luxtorpeda, and launch. It will automatically identify the game you’re playing, download and unpack and set up the engine, and then boot you into it.
It isn’t fully meant for the Steam Deck and works on regular computers, but it really shines on the Deck because it saves a lot of fiddling around in desktop mode if you were to try and get these up and running manually.