*shrug* yeah, these are weird temperatures for a desktop.
I have a laptop with an i7-11800H, which I keep clocked at max 2.3 GHz (so without boost) and a mobile RTX 3070. It depends on the ambient temperature but that way I rarely get both temps above 80˚C.

Man, this looks so cool. Looking forward to this.

Agree with Beamer. Sometimes it's neat to get out old games. I still play games like OpenTTD - and if someone says that doesn't count because it's not Transport Tycoon. I also like to fire up OMF2097. Someone tried to make openomf, a remake in the same vein as openttd by reverse engineering the code but it is really slow going so firing up OMF2097 in dosbox is the way to go.
Playing the old Death Rally is also fun, now and then. You've been able to download it off the 3D Realms (I think?) site for ages - but it looks like it was removed after they put it on steam - ugh.
Also - FreeSpace 2 or Fallout 2 anyone? These are pre 2000 games and still as awesome today as they were back then.

I don't get the hate for old games. If a games good it's good. In my honest opinion the only real problem that can be present is outdated controls.

Yeah, I haven't played that much of that game, yet, but I haven't encountered any crashes, bugs or glitches.

I was a bit surprised about how quickly I got tired of Wildlands. I was on the fence about this game for a long time but finally buckled during one of those sales where it was 80% off.
Looking at steam I have played for about 16 hours and while I still kinda want to know how that cheap Tom Clancyeque story continues I groan at the thought of doing all these side missions to get skill points and upgrades. The story missions are actually okay but some of them are just tedious, especially those where you have to protect someone or something.
It wouldn't be so bad if the game actually had some sort of tactical system. What's there is even lighter than in Star Wars Republic Commando since you only have a few commands and cannot even order your team mates to accomplish specific tasks like "guard this", "go there", "shoot at this".
No, you can only issue "Move To", "Hold", "Regroup" and "Fire". To all of your teammates at once. And the worst of it is that your team mates are dumb as bricks and the AI is just broken. There was a mission in an underground bunker and I could order my team mates to move to a distant location because I hoped they could help me clean out the enemies.
No. They just ran past them. Neither did my team mates shoot at the enemy nor did the enemy shoot at my team mates. They just went straight for me.
Playing this I couldn't stop thinking how someone at Ubi Soft said "LOL let's make Far Cry but like tactical and stuff" and then we got this abomination. Doesn't have anything to do with the original Ghost Recon (well, the last good Rainbow Six game was Rainbow Six 3 so that kinda figures) which wouldn't be such a big problem if they would've actually done it right. Unfortunately they didn't.

It's satisfying to shoot down helicopters with a light machine gun though, I'll give them that.

jdreyer wrote on Sep 7, 2022, 03:06:

Dan =0) wrote on Sep 6, 2022, 19:13:
@jdreyer - from a few days ago:

You said you coded, but aren't really a coder.

It's more of a hobby, true, though I enjoy mucking around on occasion. What would you consider to be a coder or programmer?

What about a remote software QA position? You can test stuff and mostly interact with a ticket queue, not really people. Except for perhaps a daily standup (most people don't bother to turn on their cameras) and a weekly planning meeting or two. Otherwise, you're left alone as long as you do your work. Open bug tickets, write test cases and test plans, execute them, do exploratory testing, maybe code some automation (really baby coding, not hard). Most interaction is typing at devs through a ticket.

That's a possibility. Sorry for the late response - been busy putting stuff into storage and landing a place in the interim and whatnot.

Hey Dan, I could have sworn I typed a reply to this. Maybe I forgot to submit.

To get a paying job as a developer/coder/programmer, you to have some decent skills (and experience) in at least one the following:
- Good front end skills in things like React, Javascript, HTML, Angular, CSS, and stuff like that, and be able to apply them to implement the site designer and product owner's vision.
- Good back end skills in things like C#, Java, SQL, Python, .Net. You have to use those skills to implement the software "business layer:" the logic that determines how the application or website operates.
- A combination of front and back end skills, i.e. a "full stack developer."
- High end skills in a particular ability, i.e. "SQL Developer."

You said you had "mucked around." I assume that means you have basic coding skills: using variables, properties, looping, classes, methods, stuff like that. In such a case, it might be difficult to get a job as a developer as your understanding of coding might be too shallow and you'd lack experience, but a QA automator job might be a much easier get. Our QA folks do a combination of manual testing and automation. They work remotely, and rarely have to talk to people, which is your stated preference currently. The automation coding is not that hard, basically you're identifying the page objects and coding tests for them.

I prefer MS products for this work: Visual Studio and C# are easy and fun to work with and take a lot of the frustration out of coding. MS gets a lot of crap for its OS, but their dev tools are top notch. No more hunting through 100s of lines of code for that missing semicolon. You can try it all for free yourself to see if something like this appeals to you. Visual Studio, MS Test, NUnit, XUnit, C#, Selenium - it's all free. There are lots of sites and free courses you can take to get up to speed.

Except if Visual Studio's intellisense just ends in an endless loop.
Or Visual Studio keeps crashing whenever you open a specific project.

God I hope my next job involves a Linux toolchain. When I first started at my current company and worked with Visual Studio for the first time I thought "Woah, a DECENT Microsoft product?" but after a few years... no, it's the same rubbish. :/

Yeah that's great but what about Tribes?

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 21, 2022, 17:56:

ZandarKoad wrote on Aug 21, 2022, 17:09:
Many VPN explicitly forbid peer to peer traffic.

Most VPN providers prefer that you use their specifically notated servers for P2P traffic. Proton, for example, has just such a selection of servers. VPN providers aren't stupid. They know a good portion of their userbase is going to use their service for P2P usage like, say, downloading totally legal Linux torrents. Mulvad also has the same distinction in place, for another example. A third example is that NordVPN also has specific P2P oriented servers.
[...]

Are you sure about Mullvad? I have used them on and off for years, mostly when I'm using public/hotel wifi etc. and I don't think I've ever seen mention of dedicated p2p nodes. I also didn't think that they're as big as you make them out to be.

I played and liked Days Gone, played it for about 20 hours. Then I had a lot of work and had to stop. Haven't returned to the game since.
Like I said, I actually like it. Somehow I don't feel like coming back to it, though. Not sure why. Maybe in the future.

WannaLogAlready wrote on Aug 19, 2022, 06:49:

yuastnav wrote on Aug 19, 2022, 04:41:
Can someone explain the appeal of this game to me, please?
...

Love of exploring, love of the creative weirdness, love of the world artistry, love of the type of combat you can't enjoy, love of the obscure mythos, etc.

And here comes the incredibly difficult one for some to understand : Different tastes.

Example, the combat in any game is mostly unimportant to me, cheat engine that away turning all to long range if at all posible.

Also 2 years ago I found and played almost all FromSoftware games, including PS1 1996 King's Field 3, 1998 Shadow Tower, PS2 Tower Abyss, and many more.
All exquisitely eerie.

Well that I can understand. In that case these games have a very broad appeal but are just not for me.

Can someone explain the appeal of this game to me, please?

To me it looks like Dark Souls or something like that. I played a bit of Dark Souls 1 and I found the combat pretty boring. I also watched some playthroughs of Dark Souls 1 and 2 (because I liked the youtuber, not because of the game, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered) and I honestly fail to see the appeal. Am I alone in this?
I'm not being facetious, I really just want to hear what people like about this game, what I fail to see.
The only game with similar combat that I liked was Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. It was a nice game but I couldn't stop thinking about how I wish the combat was more like in Star Wars Jedi Outcast/Academy. Man, the Quake engine was great for lightsaber combat.

To contrast this with what I liike: I think Hellish Quart has the best sword combat in any game. The second best, although by a large margin compared to Hellish Quart, is Kingdom Come: Deliverance. In Dark Souls it's like "block roll roll roll roll block roll" whereas in the two games I mentioned parrying is quite important, much as in real life. Most of the time it will cost you a lot less stamina than to dodge.
What I hated the most about Dark Souls was the bosses because it really becomes a chore of just memorising the moves, patterns and the phases of the enemies, like in the games from the 80s and 90s. Compared to that something like Jedi Outcast is a lot more dynamic.

WannaLogAlready wrote on Aug 8, 2022, 17:26:
Won't say no, into the toybox you go !

Long time curiosity, do any of you ever buy the soundtracks DLCs, any worthy examples ?

Personally I don't because I seldom find video game music enjoyable enough that I'd listen to it on its own. Don't get me wrong a lot of tracks are really awesome when you listen to them while playing the game but on its own they are just boring.

The Deus Ex Title Theme is an exception. I think it's a spectacular piece of music, even on its own. Especially the orchestral theme. I wish there was a high quality version available somewhere.

I think Ari Pulkkinen is also very talented. Here is the title theme to the first Trine game.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 5, 2022, 16:14:
[...]
Primal is my favorite for everything that it isn't. It's a neolithic era game about survival, migration, and, and the fight for existence. Far Cry 5 is my second favorite because I can absolutely see some christofacist lunatic trying to pull a Joseph Seed minus the atomic bomb. It tickled me to whack religious nutjobs for the liberty of others. I did not, however, like the repeated loss of player agency with the Bliss and mind-control stuff.
[...]

Yeah, exactly that. Like I said, the ending and the loss of player agency sucked. Everything else? Yeah, I can definitely see it happen.

Beamer wrote on Aug 6, 2022, 09:06:
[...]
FC5 didn't. They felt so hollow. There was nothing really driving them. And it was just generic white people. Generic white religious nut. Generic white hippie. Generic white frat bro. No reason any of them would ever spend time with each other.
[...]

Personally I couldn't stop thinking about David Koresh and the whole Waco disaster the whole time I was playing Far Cry 5. It was really eerie. There I probably a lot that was covered up in that incident but I cannot stop thinking that if someone was was more fanatic and more clever than David Koresh did something like that he could do some real damage.

RogueSix wrote on Aug 5, 2022, 04:25:

yuastnav wrote on Aug 5, 2022, 02:03:
Far Cry 5 was the first Far Cry game after the first Far Cry that I really played (I played Far Cry 2 and Far Cry Blood Dragon for an hour or so but didn't like it) and I really enjoyed it.

[...]

The consensus I am getting here is that Far Cry 6 is not a good time. That's a shame. :\

Fuck the consensus .

I'm in a similar boat as you as I only played the original FC back in the day which I thought sucked once the stupid monkies showed up. Then I played a bit of FC2 many years later (with a gfx mod) but got bored quickly of the respawning checkpoints.
So the next FC I played was also FC5 which I enjoyed a lot. That was one of the reasons why I bought FC6 shortly after it was released.

Sue me but I really liked FC6 as well, though it took a couple hours to really get into it. I played a female Rojas because that seemed like a nice change of pace. The Hispanic gangsta/guerrilla setting is mighty cliched so might as well mix it up a little and female Rojas is a pretty cool gal. The story of FC6 starts cliche but it really picks up towards the second half or last third of the game. I had a really good time with it overall. The only thing I sort of missed was Hurk .

I wouldn't be put off so easily by the negative nancies. Yeah, it's the UbiSoft Far Cry formula just like there is a UbiSoft AssCreed formula. A lot of people bitch and moan that it is always the same but they play the games anyway and they obviously at least secretly enjoy them or why else would they play and even finish them? If you generally enjoy Far Cry then you will enjoy Far Cry 6 all the same. It's a decent game.

P.S.: I also played and finished FC3 in the meantime which was pretty cool. Could not really get into Blood Dragon either. The humor was good but the gameplay and style meh. The only FCs I have yet to play now are FC4 and Primal but I will give it some "cooldown" time before getting into one of those later this year probably. We will see... I have a huge backlog and only played FC3 now because of the announcement that FC3 online features and DLC will be shut down September 1st.

Oh yeah, I totally know what you mean. I thought Far Cry was great. The setting, the shooting, the AI. And then the mutants showed up. Oh my god. I almost immediately stopped playing and started messing around with mods and the physics instead (which, for the time, was great). Same thing with Crysis. It was great until the aliens showed up. Then it was just annoying. Just like Far Cry. *sigh*
I'm also with you on Blood Dragon. I liked the humour but somehow the gameplay was just... weird. The shooting felt off. I don't know, I really like shooters and I enjoyed Far Cry 5 and New Dawn a lot but I just couldn't get into Far Cry 2.
I think I also bought Far Cry 3 at some point so I'll probably give that a go, too.

Well, it's good to hear that Far Cry 6 might still be a good game. I'm not going to write it off just yet and see what happens. And yeah, I agree with you about the whole Ubi Soft thing. The games are really samey but at the end of the day it's a shooter and if the shooting feels good and the gameplay is fun then it can still be a good game.

Far Cry 5 was the first Far Cry game after the first Far Cry that I really played (I played Far Cry 2 and Far Cry Blood Dragon for an hour or so but didn't like it) and I really enjoyed it. I liked the setting, the story (except the ending) and the gameplay (except for the part where you are captured and cannot do anything about it - seriously, that's just dumb, you can take away player agency to advance the story but not every couple of hours).

The consensus I am getting here is that Far Cry 6 is not a good time. That's a shame. :\

Fion wrote on Jul 20, 2022, 16:11:
Let's remember this is a reboot of saint's row, and there's been next to no gameplay (a 15m pre-recorded series of clips barely counts). The developers actively said they were trying to 'get away from the goofiness and comedy' of the original series. Not that this will be as serious as the GTA series takes itself, but if like me you were a fan of said goofiness, this might be a skip.

So wait for reviews, cause this one could be a real stinker.

They wanted to get away from the goofiness and the comedy? Oh dear.
Somehow Saints Row managed to be more goofy and more serious than GTA, at the same time. It was more fun and at the same time I could take it more seriously. I still remember two cutscenes very well from Saints Row 2. The one where you mercy-kill Carlos after he has been dragged by the brotherhood through the streets. And the other one, where you're with Gat at Aisha's funeral and end up burying Shogo alive.

Rilcon wrote on Jul 19, 2022, 04:08:
What's kind of funny is that before this change, all sims were bi and totally up for shagging anyone at any time and there was nothing you could do about it :p

Anyway, given how heavily "interpersonal relationships" are the focus of the game it's weird it didn't ship like this to start with, and bizarre that anyone that's actually interested in a game like it would ever have an issue with it. The announcement post is very baity, though; this is still a corp, after all, and they definitely angled for what kind of PR would get them the most social media kudos and game journo attention.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I also found it strange that the Sims followed the same formula that a lot of (Bioware) RPGs follow where the NPCs you can get with are very often playersexual. Making them bi, gay or straight would just be more natural.

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 10:59:

To view this user's posts click on the username.

BoP and I communicate by email. [...]

Lucky you. I don't mean it in an ironic or a sarcastic way.
Just like Beamer I also liked his posts and miss them.

I also liked his insights on Linux a lot. I've been using Linux for almost two decades now and there was still a lot that I could learn from his posts.

As Beamer said though, hopefully he comes back.

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 07:10:

yuastnav wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 02:28:

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:28:

The Half Elf wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:23:
*looks around for Red and BoP* Tsk Tsk.... Snagged™

BoP has left the building.
Me on the other hand knows that a paid item, Prime, is not free and snagging rules do not apply.

Wait, for real? I thought he just needed some time to cool off.
I thought he was more reasonable than that.

Definitely more principled.

I am not going to deny anyone their principles. If that's where he draws the line, being able to call someone a nazi or terrorist but not a libertarian retard then so be it.
Not a hill I'd be willing to die on, personally.

Anyway, free speech is an illusion. This is a private board. Blue can do anything he wants. It was always like this and always will be.

Quinn wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 04:02:

The Half Elf wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 03:21:

yuastnav wrote on Jul 13, 2022, 02:28:

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:28:

The Half Elf wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:23:
*looks around for Red and BoP* Tsk Tsk.... Snagged™

BoP has left the building.
Me on the other hand knows that a paid item, Prime, is not free and snagging rules do not apply.

Wait, for real? I thought he just needed some time to cool off.
I thought he was more reasonable than that.

What happened?

His last comment was in a thread where his comment was removed for intolerance. He didn't agree with some of the forum rules and had a civilized back-and-forth with Blue. In short, he didn't believe it fair that people aren't allowed to call someone "retard/libtard/Qtard" but are allowed to call someone "nazi/terrorist". It didn't read as if BoP was "leaving the building" though. 🤷

That is true but he hasn't come back since, after being quite active lately.

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:28:

The Half Elf wrote on Jul 12, 2022, 14:23:
*looks around for Red and BoP* Tsk Tsk.... Snagged™

BoP has left the building.
Me on the other hand knows that a paid item, Prime, is not free and snagging rules do not apply.

Wait, for real? I thought he just needed some time to cool off.
I thought he was more reasonable than that.