After ditching D2 last year well past the 10k hour mark, I’ve been bouncing around a bunch of different games, mostly working through the backlog but also looking for a long-term grind to scratch that same itch. Out of everything I’ve tried, PoE2 and Warframe feel like the only ones doing live service “right”, especially the latter. Between both games, the only MTX gripe I have is PoE2’s stash tabs.

Last Epoch had a ton of potential but the team were in way over their heads and forced to start cashing in, and the Krafton buyout was the nail in the coffin. It feels like they just flat out didn’t have the budget to keep it going.

As soon as Krafton bought them out it wasn’t just downhill from there, it was a steep drop off a cliff. The game had so much promise but got royally fucked.

Everything is cosmetic last I checked aside from stash tabs, which granted should be earnable in-game, but it’s nothing like an entirely MTX-only class. I do wish the game had a transmog system though at least, even Diablo 4 does, and we all know how Blizzard is.

Could be better, could be worse.

Really depends on the instance. Most lemmy.world subs are cesspools. Hexbear and the like tend to be much better overall.

A lot of these people are so lost that they genuinely believe anyone can become a billionaire if they put in the work. Propaganda machine go brrrr

When I first set up my server this year it was a VERY easy decision between this and jellyfin. Why would I ever go with the corporate, closed source option?

I set this up a while back (and recently moved to Forgejo, see the update note at the beginning of the article):

https://nickcunningh.am/blog/how-to-automate-version-updates-for-your-self-hosted-docker-containers-with-gitea-renovate-and-komodo

Probably a tad overkill honestly but it works amazingly well, and turns every potential upgrade into an approval process so nothing will update when you don’t want it to.

Their usage is basically just the same old machine learning that’s existed for ages, long before the genAI bubble started. They really should avoid the buzzword for accuracy’s sake but it’s far removed from all the LLM generative dogshit.

Same, the email alias feature is huge.

For a bit it was Destiny Rising, I quit D2 over a year ago but DR does genuinely do a lot of things much better than the base game and directly addresses a lot of my core complaints that made me quit after 10k hours in the first place. Stupid mobile gacha game with predatory monetization out the ass, and I was shrugging aside the handful of AI NPC voicelines.

Needless to say I came to my senses and dropped it entirely on a whim. Can’t support the AI bullshit, I found I’d spent much more than I thought on the game already, and the endgame is entirely just p2w or get a handful of mats you need every 2 weeks. The core of the game and a lot of the systems are legitimately really good, but the gacha core really brings it way down.

That entire franchise is just a warehouse full of monkey paws.

I recently picked up Warframe which I’ve shrugged off for a long time because TPS almost never clicks for me, but it pulled me in hard, and it’s wild going from FOMO-ridden powercrept anti-player D2 and gacha hell DR to a game that actually treats the players with respect.

I started using the same one after this weirdo started trying (and failing) to doxx me for like 3 months. A bit pricy but they definitely work. Tried looking myself up a couple months in and I couldn’t find shit.

It definitely feels a bit uncomfortable giving them all the information they need to do the job though I’ll admit. It makes sense, but I can definitely see why people would question if they’re legit. I think I researched for hours before going with it just to make sure it was real.

Though spam calls have definitely been a nuisance again this past month or so.

Unfortunately not, just something I hear a lot from folks.

Adobe software, autoCAD, and anticheat are the top 3 reasons I usually hear. While there are alternatives for the first two, people who need these specific tools professionally don’t really have the choice.

Anticheat for gaming is a big one too. Personally I didn’t even consider switching until I finally quit Destiny 2 for good. If the main game someone plays just doesn’t work, they’re not gonna switch.

You know at first I didn’t really think it would be considered one, but looking back you’re absolutely right. I really need to replay those games.

Retconning basically every character death retcon they’ve made in Yakuza over the years, and making Pirates completely non-canon because what the fuck

I love how so many of these old games has custom servers up and running. Metroid Prime Hunters apparently has a thriving community too (though I left the biggest discord as soon as I joined because it looks the lead admin is literally a DHS nazi 💀)

The bigger hurdle really is the DS’s wifi compatibility since WEP is so outdated and insecure. I haven’t actually messed with it in ages, but seems like hotspots are the way to go and are super easy to set up on linux, so maybe I’ll dust mine off and give that a try.

Probably

I’ve been eyeballing this, doesn’t seem too difficult for most compatible models either. Might be a little after Christmas project

Considering how much Bungie has fucked over their one game and its playerbase for years and seem to keep finding ways to double down on it, I never had any faith in Marathon from the beginning.

What’s wild is this is far from the first time that studio’s been caught for art theft too.

It was on the Lemmy.world selfhosted sub but I’d rather not link it as it’s likely still open because the OP wasn’t listening to anyone and there’s probably some awful shit on there now.