Dark_Arc

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I think that’s a very interesting question! I don’t have a good answer. In real life, this onus is on coaches, organizers, etc… so it’s always seemed like something that moderators should just need to actually do.

What bothers me about this with video games is that I know as a programmer, programmers are capable of just shutting people down when they do obviously disrespectful things like t-bagging, and in games that have explicit taunts… they’re perfectly capable of just giving players an option to disable taunts… but they don’t.

It’s kind of like chat filters, we don’t have to sanitize it for everybody, but there should be an option.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

That’s… depressing but I could easily see it…

Still, I find it hard to believe that’s the majority. I remember days when it wasn’t as bad as it’s gotten. Like is it so many people that it would truly hurt profits that much vs what it could bring (there was a point where my friends and I almost entirely stopped playing online games because these people were just making it an annoying experience instead of a fun one; I can’t imagine I’m in the only group of friends that experienced that/had folks that had to take a break).

I’d really love it if someone who works for one of these bigger studios (even anonymously) said why seemingly no time is spent on really trying to just expel toxic players like would be done in real life (in the various examples you gave).

Edit: My true pipedream would be that there’s some next level person (senior dev, staff software engineer, product owner) at one of these studios lurking that goes “you know what you have a point” and actually does something about this 😅

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I mean, I think you can definitely be competitive without being a dick.

I never played sports in school (but I’ve gone to sporting events and watched my little brother play games as he grew up). They didn’t allow the crap video games allow to go on. Adults had rules, you have to high five after the game, you’ll get benched or penalized if you’re being unsportsmanlike, etc…

Those common sense rules aren’t mirrored in games at all, even when they could be automated (or the “taunt” features could simply be – optionally – disabled).

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I’ve generally been pretty happy with the Hunt Showdown community (part of what I think helps there is stopping to t-bag someone can easily result in you getting shot and losing a match, part of it is the dead person can’t see you t-bag, part of it is it’s an older crowd).

I also mostly stick to PvE destiny (i.e. avoid the PvP portion)… I’m largely fine, it’s just when I forget and go into one of these areas I tried to forget about I’m like “why is this still a problem? 🙃”

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

Well if nothing else… I appreciate your comradery. 🫡

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

Yeah, this is basically what I’ve done. Hunt I’ve been pretty happy with. Destiny is the one that triggered this post, and the one that keeps catching me off guard.

I mostly play PvE stuff with friends and feel at peace with the game and how Bungie presents themselves … then I get total culture shock when I engage outside of my friends group.

Appreciate you looking out for my mental health though 😅

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

This is why it has become customary for online gamers to have fucked your mother last night.

I got a laugh out of this one, thank you 😂

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

No I’m just somebody that doesn’t like dealing with assholes while trying to play a game I paid for. Fuck off.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I’ve only heard this take from cringe twitch streamers… and suffice to say I don’t think it’s a good one.

I don’t want someone to lose because they’re too mad to aim… it’s a game. We should all just be playing to have fun, not treating it like some psyop.

Edit: Also plenty of what I’m talking about here is outside of an actual match as well/forum behavior.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

That’s crazy! I can’t understand why someone would spend all that time on a game they’ve barely played.

Like, I can get regularly giving constructive criticism/trying to bring light to an issue … but to just comment stuff like that is so annoying.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

It’s not about what someone can “handle” it’s a game. It should be about what someone “enjoys” or “likes.”

A victory based on throwing your opponent off their game by being a jerk is no victory in my book. It just makes the person doing those things a jerk.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

… and to be clear, I think that’s okay.

But, I don’t think those that want a multiplayer shooter (or game in general) to be a mind game should be able to force that on everyone else. I just want my games to be games.

Like, even if it changed how match making worked, I’d personally prefer to just avoid that stuff entirely. I can “deal” with it, it’s just not fun/annoying to me.

Ultimately, I think just being able to visually “disable t-bagging” and “disable emotes” while dead as options in major shooters would be fairly easy to implement options.

For the people who don’t want “that experience” they can just … turn it off.

For the people that do, they never need to know whether it’s on or off… just like they don’t know if I have a profanity filter on… or if I’ve got voice coms muted… etc

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I think it’s a bit more disrespectful than “you’re going down, bro!” But typically when I’m thinking of this, I’m thinking of situations where the person has like a 10-0 KDR vs the person and is either clearly just way better or cheating and t-bags after every kill. It’s completely classless at that point.

Like, if it’s a fairly even match and occasional … sure it’s not worse, but when it’s mixed with outright domination (or as you said talking massive shit) it’s more than that.

In either case… it’s just so unnecessary.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

It’s pretty typical that my team is all friends on discord or similar 🙂

Definitely see the issue with monetization… but also depending on the game the emotes have value outside of this particular situation.

Freeze frame (or just a black screen) is a good idea

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I love outplaying people … I typically don’t find AI enemies challenging/creative enough … I just don’t care for the childish “mind game” (which seriously whoever started claiming they’re “mind games” is … well I’ll let you finish this sentence with your own choice of creative words 🙂)

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

Yeah that’s very fair; I definitely miss when I could run my own servers for big games and just axe anyone who didn’t behave

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

I’m not sure I even regard this as a developer studios responsibility.

I mean, they’re the ones running the servers and ultimately providing admittance. There always going to be “bad people” unless owners of establishments actually exclude them (or as I’ve suggested – since this is an imaginary world – just take away their ability to be a jerk in said world).

Change what is in your control: Play in a good state of mind where this stuff does not get to you (not when you’re tired after work). Turn off voice comms. Don’t let it get to you. Worst thing you can do to a troll is ignore them.

Definitely good advice. Part of it is genuinely just friends too though. Like this isn’t “my friend”, this is my friend (though that’s not to say I enjoy this crap either)… and sometimes it’s hard to gage their mental state, or even though they’re in a bad mood, I’d really like to do something more challenging … and of course they get t-bagged or abused on comms … and then everybody is having a bad time.

I wish I had access to these game’s source code… then the whole thing would be in my control ☺️

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

Most of us are adults and I’d like to feel like one when I log on.

I’d like to feel like it too. Adults shouldn’t act like children.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

You’re welcome to be toxic with others who want that, but I hate that this behavior, defines the competitive gaming experience. There should be other options.

I’m not talking about “safe spaces”, I’m talking about giving people options to say “fuck that” without having to just avoid the game (something that’s totally possible).

You don’t need banned for doing stuff like this, but you also don’t need to be shoving it down people’s throats that just want to play the game on skill and strategy alone without this cringe “mind game” idea and blatant disrespect for other players.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

“If someone pushes your buttons repeatedly to try and tick you off, and it does or you just generally don’t like it, you’re the problem … it’s just a video game”

I don’t buy this argument… and characteristically that’s the exact argument you’re making. If it didn’t work other people wouldn’t be in here defending it as a “mind game.”

This has been sorted out in other competitive spaces, there’s no reason gaming has to be this way.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Those “turn X off” buttons are fine; they’re great actually, that’s exactly what I’m advocating for (at least in the in game portion of things). There should be more of that, and they should be standard options.

e.g. it took Quake Champions years before they finally decided to add a mute chat button … and when I suggested it almost a year before they implemented it, the discord chat lit into me “get tougher skin”, “lolololol”, etc kind of comments.

Every time it’s brought up people take it personally like it’s their right to be a dick in the game you both paid for… just because developers didn’t implement an option to allow people to shut them up. Even here there are some pretty obnoxious takes (I’m not talking about yours) insisting I just need to get over it because “it’s just a game.”

I’m not saying anybody should be prevented from having a competitive rage baiting game where they trash talk left and right … but some people do not enjoy trash talk regardless of whether or not they can “handle it” and I am one of those people.

Edit: For forums, I think non-constructive criticism/disrespectful comments/personal attacks should be “punished” by disabling forum/comment access though. There’s no benefit to “mind games” or “trash talk” there… if you don’t have anything constructive to say… I don’t think you should be on, e.g., a suggestion forum. It’s not helping the poster or the developers, it’s just outright spam.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

You can mute everyone from every game made in the last 20 years.

I literally just listed one where you couldn’t that was released within the last 10.

If tea-bagging pushes your buttons so much the only solution you find is to ask the dev to remove crouching

Didn’t ask for that.

Dark_Arc, 9 months ago

Yeah, it’s gotten worse over the years, even on servers that are modded … I started using pre-generation for my server + a chunk border to mitigate the performance impact.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

WebChain of trust, the site only trusts certain attesters (yes this would be really bad for Linux).

EDIT: Used the wrong “of trust”

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Gah, I actually meant chain of trust… Oops…

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

And…?

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Well, it is true of Ohio.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

This is what angered me the most about this issue. I’m happy my fellow Ohioans were able to see this for the power grab that it was.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Thank you all for your votes (also a part of this one) :)

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

That’s not what this means at all. Security by obscurity is referencing software that itself has secret pieces that are (to the software authors) “security features” which are only secure so long as their implementation details remain secret.

Software using a key is not security by obscurity, knowing that a key is used by the software does not result in the application being compromised.

Software that uses one secret key for all users embedded in the binary is security by obscurity.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

I heard Oregon (?) was having similar issues there where they made similar changes

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Honestly this can be taboo regardless of your gender

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Because it’s extremely unhealthy?

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Yes, but also it was once a status symbol to drink lead (because it was sweet). We know better now, and haven’t returned to that.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

They’re not going to go shoot up their own town, and the FBI and local law enforcement aren’t going to go hunt down everybody with a stockpile of ammo that voted for Trump.

Realistically, they’d go for wherever Trump is being held, and the respective SWAT teams (including FBI SWAT) or active duty national guard would deal with it.

I hope it wouldn’t get to it, but that would also be valid grounds for the deployment of the insurrection act (unlike Trump when his team wanted to use it to steal the election). Those old veterans with their subpar domestic equipment would be up against fully armed active duty national guard, army, marines, seals, etc

I am losing no sleep overnight about MAGA wackjobs “rescuing” Trump.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Inkjet printers need to be used regularly, or go through several cleaning prints (which are features of HP printers). That’s not HP scamming you, that’s just how inkjet printers are…

That said, IMO, most people are infrequent printers and would be better served by a laser printer. Toner doesn’t dry out. I have had a brother laser printer for 3-4 years now and haven’t had to change the toner once. Every time I need to print something, it fires right up, and prints it without a fuss.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

The thing is since inkjet printers dry out you spend way more on cartridges over time. Sure toner is more expensive, but you but it way less frequently.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

True, but they require a lot of test prints until you get back to an acceptable print quality in my experience

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

The cheapest brother is $120 (USD) www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL2300D

If you want color, sure that’s more ($250). Still not a long shot from what you paid for your HP, plus that ink (and I’d wager you’d still be going without a single follow up purchase of toner).

For context (per their own product claims):

• Brother Genuine TN227 High-yield replacement toner delivers rich, vivid professional laser print quality you can rely on for up to 3,000 pages (black) and up to 2,300 pages (color) (2)
• Additional replacement toner option available for this model: TN223 Standard-yield (1,400 pages black/1,300 pages color) (2)

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

I wonder how this will work with (or if it will be compatible) with the efforts of Element and the Matrix standard?

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

It absolutely is, and actually it used to be even closer to the house of lords. Up until this last century the US Senate was not directly elected, the state government would appoint the state’s senators. IIRC the Senate was inspired by the house of lords, the major difference being term limits instead of lifetime appointments.

(I imagine the Senate was more meaningful back when the state government couldn’t talk to people in Washington in seconds)

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Google sold their domains (and customers in the process to, I think it was square space)… Definitely just go with namecheap, they support the EFF, have a good website, and reasonable prices

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

It really didn’t… Firefox has been neck and neck performance wise the entire time with a massive arsenal of extensions (and to be fair some of those extensions did negatively impact performance enough to scare people off) and I can’t think of a major feature Firefox didn’t have first or get soon after.

Chrome largely just became a “speed meme” though among enthusiasts and had the backing from Google to win over IT teams.

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Video posts are something I kind of miss, particularly for gaming communities to share clips of gameplay

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

Is it actually better? There are things like open collective and GitHub sponsors too… Choices are great, but the choices aren’t clear

Dark_Arc, 10 months ago

I mean, does it pay creators better/does it actually do the job of funding someone better? i.e. what’s the advantage? Is it just kind of a meaningless difference or will creators benefit?