zoroa's recent activity

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

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    I'm jealous. Trails the Third is next on my list of trails games to play, but I keep fruitlessly waiting for Nihon Falcom to decide it's okay to discount their nearly 20 year old game more than 25%.

    I finished Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero last week. Took over 100hrs, but still took me less than a year, which is very good for me and JRPGs.

    I'm jealous. Trails the Third is next on my list of trails games to play, but I keep fruitlessly waiting for Nihon Falcom to decide it's okay to discount their nearly 20 year old game more than 25%.

    1 vote

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

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    A wave of nostalgia hit me when I saw this uses Gen 2 art. I forgot how much I missed that.

    In particular I’ve been playing Pokemon Emerald Seaglass, a ROM hack for Emerald which visually overhauls the game - it looks great! - and adds various QoL improvements, notably a party-wide EXP share available early and running shoes available immediately with an auto-run toggle.

    A wave of nostalgia hit me when I saw this uses Gen 2 art. I forgot how much I missed that.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Calvin Jones' retirement announcement in ~transport

  5. Comment on Good News Everyone! - your semi regular good news thread in ~talk

    zoroa
    Link
    If "made me laugh" counts as "brings us joy" Girl Scouts highly unimpressed after New Jersey troop teams up with local cannabis dispensary to sell cookies This sounded like a smart partnership,...

    If "made me laugh" counts as "brings us joy"

    Girl Scouts highly unimpressed after New Jersey troop teams up with local cannabis dispensary to sell cookies

    Senior leaders at the Girl Scouts are reportedly displeased that a New Jersey troop teamed up with a local weed dispensary to sell their beloved cookies.

    Set up near Daylite Dispensary in Mount Laurel last month, the troop’s booth offered the full line-up of treats. Dispensary owner Steve Cassidy said the partnership was a massive success and drew people both to the booth and the cannabis shop.

    However, Cassidy said he had spoken to representatives from the organization about the incident, which had been intended as a positive venture, but may have landed the troop in hot water.

    This sounded like a smart partnership, hopefully the troop doesn't get into too much trouble over it.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Arc Raiders - Discord SDK data exposure in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    A security researcher identified multiple security issues in Arc Raiders relating to its Discord integration Private DM Conversation Content Logged to Disk Discord Bearer Token Stored in Plaintext...

    A security researcher identified multiple security issues in Arc Raiders relating to its Discord integration

    Per this article: https://www.eurogamer.net/arc-raiders-discord-messages-security-problem-fix-incoming

    • Embark Studios had no bounty program to report this to.
    • A fix has not been released, but is in progress

    I find it especially crazy that it's possible for games to intercept private messages. It's another hit that's chiseling away my confidence in the platform.

    8 votes

  8. Comment on LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy in ~tech

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Appreciate the link! Not sure why, but the paper made infinitely more sense to me than the article. This kinda feels like a "Quantum computing will break encryption" moment for internet culture....

    Appreciate the link! Not sure why, but the paper made infinitely more sense to me than the article.

    This kinda feels like a "Quantum computing will break encryption" moment for internet culture. Like the abstract notes, no one thought de-anonymization was impossible just time consuming. And now that suddenly isn't true.

    The comparison to breaking encryption holds when you start thinking about the fallout:

    • There's a large corpus of data that can be processed retroactively now (the entire internet)
    • Fixing this would be a herculean effort (comprehensive privacy laws?!)
    12 votes

  9. Comment on What are you no longer a fan of? in ~talk

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    It blew my mind when the new Pokemon trailer came out, and I realized that the last time I'd been excited for a game in the series was back in 2011. I echo that. I have a hard time imagining...

    It blew my mind when the new Pokemon trailer came out, and I realized that the last time I'd been excited for a game in the series was back in 2011.

    I also am not a fan of Nintendo anymore for a variety of reasons

    I echo that. I have a hard time imagining myself buying back into Nintendo's ecosystem.

    2 votes

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

    zoroa
    (edited )
    Link
    context: I wrote a draft of this back in November 2024, and recently found it again after finishing Metaphor Refantazio. Re-reading this draft was helpful when I was reflecting on my Metaphor...

    context: I wrote a draft of this back in November 2024, and recently found it again after finishing Metaphor Refantazio. Re-reading this draft was helpful when I was reflecting on my Metaphor playthrough, so I figured I'd finish it.

    Octopath Traveler II

    I've been playing Octopath Traveler II since it got added to GamePass back in June (2024), and finished it about a month ago (2024-10-28). It's essentially a carbon copy of the first game, with better execution: gorgeous graphics, a fun battle system, and NPCs that are fun to mess with, packaged in a game that was surprisingly amenable to being played at my own pace.

    What sticks with me most about this game was how well it fits into the life of an adult. I usually carve out large chunks of time to binge games, but Octopath Traveler II was the first singleplayer game that I had to play in shorter sessions. I'd sit down once a week and play 1-3 hours. Eventually, I stopped playing entirely for 2-3 months, and then finally finished the game in a couple longer sessions. Never once did I end a gaming session feeling dissatisfied with the time I spent in the game. And I was pleasantly surprised that even after an extended break, I didn't feel like I'd lost the plot. Both were a product of the structure of Octopath Traveler II's story: you follow up to eight characters each on their journeys across the continent. Each one of those stories is broken up in chapters that take about an hour each, that all play the same way: you arrive in a new location, interact with a couple NPCs, enter whatever dungeon they point you to, beat a boss, rinse-and-repeat. These aren't stories that would've won "Best Narrative" at The Game Awards; each is straightforward enough that you have a pretty good idea how it'll end right from the start. If that sounds formulaic, it's because it is! In fact, every single dungeon in the game is basically a straight path to the boss with a couple short branches for chests. In isolation, these can sound like big negatives. But together, they made for an experience I enjoyed. I knew exactly what to expect, having played the original Octopath Traveler, which let me just focus on the game's strengths. I was in a headspace for stories that were just fine, since it let me engage with them fully regardless of how much or how little attention I had for their cutscenes in the moment. The uniformity of the dungeons didn't get old, because they're all gorgeous and vehicles to get you into the fun combat. The game's consistency across its narrative and environment design meant I could put the game down for weeks and months and always be able to pick it back up.

    The most notable difference between the first Octopath Traveller and the sequel is party interactions. In the original Octopath Traveller, party members never interact outside short, throwaway moments. The series only requires you to recruit one character, so you can finish the game only having seen one storyline. This structure deeply limits how character's relationships can develop, since those relationships wouldn't make sense for all party combinations. Octopath Traveler II tries to address this with special paired character chapters and by more deliberately tying the 8 stories together towards the ending. While I really did enjoy these additions, especially the end of the game where the full party interacts, I was left wanting an Octopath Traveller game that just commits to telling one cohesive story instead of eight independent ones..

    Outside of some weaknesses with the storytelling, the game is consistently solid. I have a soft spot for pixel art, and adore the series' "HD-2D" graphics. The "discover weaknesses -> break opponent -> deal massive damage" loop in combat hasn't gotten old after my 200+ hours with the series. It was fun constantly experimenting with different builds, and then going online later to see that I wasn't even scratching the surface of what was possible. Interacting with NPCs was an unexpected highlight for me in the original, and remains so in Octopath Traveller II. Each party member has a special action that let you learn about NPCs, receive items, recruit them, or start fights. These interactions are never anything spectacular, but were an opportunity for the game to accentuate small joys with a sense of discovery: stumbling on a surprising backstory, finding an incredible item, or laughing at the absurdity of some of the fights you can start.

    With a year and a half's hindsight, I'm surprised how positive I still feel about this game. The game doesn't really try to do anything novel, but is consistent enough across the board that it elevated the entnire experience. I'm really interested to try Octopath Traveler 0, which does away with the "eight stories" gimmick.

    edit: highsight -> hindsight,

    6 votes

  11. Comment on Nobody is talking about Dance Dance Revolution's comeback across America in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    I've enjoyed the mini-docs that the host has been putting out over the past couple years (like this one of him checking in on the band ANAMANAGUCHI). Thought this was worth sharing because it was...

    Frank [Howley] explores the rise of Dance Dance Revolution across America and the various subcultures that exist across the modern DDR world.

    I've enjoyed the mini-docs that the host has been putting out over the past couple years (like this one of him checking in on the band ANAMANAGUCHI). Thought this was worth sharing because it was a cool sampling of a game and community that I haven't thought of in a really long time, and the host makes a decent pitch for why now might be a good time to get into DDR.

    Bonus: Discovered DDR Freestyling a couple weeks before this video came out, and it's so sick. Smidget freestyling to "Don't Bother Me" back in 2005 (or if you'd like more pixels, this version that synchronizes multiple of his performances through the years)

    8 votes

  13. Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    They've since published a retraction: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name/ And a discussion on their retraction:...

    They've since published a retraction: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name/

    And a discussion on their retraction: https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retraction-of-article-containing-fabricated-quotations/

    1 vote

  14. Comment on The internet wasn't built for live sports in ~tech

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Thanks, fixed.

    FYI, you've got a typo in the supplementary reading section, it's "Media" over QUIC, not "Messaging".

    Thanks, fixed.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on The internet wasn't built for live sports in ~tech

    zoroa
    (edited )
    Link
    YouTube recommended this to me, and I enjoyed this video. I found it a pretty compelling introduction for why the current architecture of the internet makes it a poor medium for broadcasting live...

    If you're streaming the Super Bowl this Sunday, you're probably watching it 45 to 90 seconds after it actually happens.

    This isn't a bug. It's how the internet works — and a $220 billion industry is now pressuring the entire infrastructure to change.

    In this video, I break down the actual technical reasons behind live streaming latency.

    YouTube recommended this to me, and I enjoyed this video. I found it a pretty compelling introduction for why the current architecture of the internet makes it a poor medium for broadcasting live events, what options are available to make this better, and crucially what financial pressures exist to encourage improvements as soon as possible.

    Supplementary Reading.

    edit: Messaging -> Media

    7 votes

  17. Comment on Why I’m launching a feminist video games website in 2026 in ~games

  18. Comment on I recently finished the Cradle series by Will Wight and have post series depression. What shall I read next? in ~books

    zoroa
    Link
    I read up to Reaper last year during a 2-month stint where I was addicted to reading progressive fantasy. Really enjoyed the series. But Mark of the Fool was probably my favorite series I read...

    I read up to Reaper last year during a 2-month stint where I was addicted to reading progressive fantasy. Really enjoyed the series.

    But Mark of the Fool was probably my favorite series I read through, with Cradle being a close second. I read a lot of media where you're lucky to get a character or two who aren't completely flat. So I cherish series like Mark of the Fool that are able to develop a cast of well rounded characters. The author manages that with surprisingly large cast, who you learn to care and cheer for in their moments in the spotlight. Khalik is a great friend, Vernia made me tear up, and Baelin is literally the goat. Most of all, I found it very satisfying how the author shows characters perservering through the challenges he puts in front of them: balancing civic duty vs. personal fulfillment, crisis of faith, overcoming childhood trauma, geopolitics, overcoming grief, etc...

    The progression system is fun. The main character's ability to fight, use spells or divinity is heavily suppressed, which makes for interesting scenarios early on where he can't just overpower everything.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    zoroa
    Link
    I guess this is more of a "I plan to read", but I had no idea that there's a Jujutsu Kaisen sequel that's been serialized for 4 months now:...

    I guess this is more of a "I plan to read", but I had no idea that there's a Jujutsu Kaisen sequel that's been serialized for 4 months now: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/jujutsu-kaisen-modulo

    I'm praying it's a better sequel to JJK than Boruto was to Naruto.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Calvin Jones' retirement announcement in ~transport

    zoroa
    Link
    This is probably super niche, but if you've ever needed to learn how to work on your bicycle you've probably heard him go "Calvin Jones here, Park Tool Company". He's a giant of the industry; most...

    With gratitude and a little sadness, Park Tool announces the retirement of Director of Education Calvin Jones.

    Full press release: https://www.parktool.com/en-us/blog/news/calvin-jones-retiring-after-28-years-as-director-of-education-at-park-tool

    This is probably super niche, but if you've ever needed to learn how to work on your bicycle you've probably heard him go "Calvin Jones here, Park Tool Company".

    He's a giant of the industry; most people probably know him as the face of 15+ years of instructional videos about bike maintenance. That video series is probably the best body of instructional content I've ever seen: from how they package each video, the breath of content they've covered, down to well they're able to illustrate the topics at hand with parts that are often custom made. While Park Tools has a handful of hosts for the series that are great, Calvin gave off a Bob Ross/Mr. Rogers vibe that I really came to appreciate. His retirement announcement was how I learned that, as Director of Education, he also played a big role in the ideation behind the video series and companion articles.

    So much knowledge about bikes, especially older ones, seems to be transfered through oral tradition that sometimes gets recorded and posted somewhere. There's probably a small handful of people who have carried that tradition as far forward as Calvin.

    6 votes