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Mistic

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Mistic ,

I wonder how much different it is now, compared to when the game was in closed beta.

It was a literal floating camera back then, lol.

Never played the game afterward due to subscription-based access.

Mistic ,

It used to be subscription only back in the days.

Linus Tech Tips (LTT) release investigation results on former accusations (x.com)

There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest...

Mistic , (edited )

My guy, that’s a common business practice. If the third party skewed the results to favor their client, they risk massive reputation and monetary losses.

That’s how any auditing works.

Look up Arthur Andersen and what happened to them.

Mistic , (edited )

Genshin Impact’s first anniversary was the most horrendous one I’ve seen.

They couldn’t even bother to send out an in-game message to congratulate the players.

What they did instead is paying thousands of dollars for Twitter emojis and dishing out a few give-away events where you had to practically advertise for the game to enter. Were you guaranteed to get any reward? No.

Essentially, instead of even acknowledging the anniversary, they made players advertise their game.

They were also supposed to introduce a paid bundle with some cosmetic items alongside a free concert stream (the concert was pretty good). But that was after the anniversary. Keep the bundle in mind, however.

What did it lead to?

  • Thousands of outraged players flooded social media.
  • Their discord was spammed with “qiqi fallen” emote (one of the characters laying on her back with a blank stare).
  • Review bombing got to the point where even Google Classrooms became one of the casualties

I’m probably missing some other details, but this lasted for weeks.

After a long while of non-communication, the devs gave in and finally decided to give players something. This “something” turned out to be the bundle that was supposed to be paid content alongside some (read “very little”) in-game resources. There was also another another giveaway event with, this time, guaranteed rewards. The rewards were, practically, you either get a scooter or one cent. Needless to say, it left a sour taste afterward.

Honestly, it felt like a slap in the face, but it was enough for the things to start calming down.

So far, even though they’re still very stingy with any sort of rewards, they at least make sure to congratulate the players somehow and give something.

Mistic , (edited )

In Soviet Union, the rock genre was for a very long time existing underground due to the inability of artists to be properly published.

Only starting with the 1980s could the artists finally publish their songs officially. And even then Soviet government put a lot of measures to prohibit rock music in the country.

This resulted in the appearance of many beloved bands and artists, like

  • Kino (tl. Cinema),

  • DDT,

  • Aria,

  • Chaif,

  • Grazhdanskaya Oborona (tl. Civil Defense),

  • Mashina Vremeni (tl. Time machine),

  • Sektor Gaza (tl. Gas Sector)

  • Korol i Shut (tl. King and Jester)

  • And many others

The history of Russian rock is actually quite fascinating. It was inspired by bard songs and often touched darker subjects as well as being satirical and judgmental of Soviet government.

Due to that, some artists, like Yegor Letov from Grazhdanskaya Oborona and Yuri Shevchuk from DDT, had troubles with KGB (Soviet FBI).

Nowadays, rock artists are still being persecuted for their views. For example, DDT is de facto prohibited from performing in Russia.

Mistic ,

Since we’re sharing links now

Although for Grazhdanskaya Oborona, I prefer that song in Louna’s version. It’s so good, man.

Mistic ,

Xiaomi has been doing that as well, except it’s whenever.

Now, the TV is forbidden to access my Wi-Fi because screw that.

Any info on how to make it dumber would be appreciated.

Mistic , (edited )

I was interested in VR for a very long time. Recently, I got to actually try it out.

I primarily view Apple Vision Pro as a proof of concept type of device. Sales being limited both in quantity and territorially indicate that. It has brought 3 major improvements to the table, compared to other headsets:

  1. Quality of passthrough
  2. User interface
  3. Display quality

When you think about it, however, it’s not that much to make it an obvious choice over other devices.

Passthough is needed for navigating through space. It does not help with productivity as your vision would be focused on the interface and not the environment. Remember warping on Quest 3? Much less noticeable than on videos for the exact same reason.

There is no buts with the user interface and display. They are simply great, best that there is.

Now, for the part that makes Vision Pro from a great productivity device on paper into a “dev kit available to masses” (I like that description, it does feel that way a lot, ty Ghostalmedia)

Eye strain is a major issue. It is very difficult to use the device for more than a couple of hours without getting tired. This goes for all of the VR headsets out there. I guess you can get used to it over time, though.

Limited usability. Quest 2/3, Pico 4, Valve Index, they all do things you wish Vision Pro could. Primarily usage of physical controllers. Imagine sculpturing without controllers because I can’t. Hand tracking is just not up to par.

Battery solution is another issue. Not being able to swap what is otherwise a Power Bank without disabling the device and being unable to use any other battery than Apple’s own is at the very least annoying. Not exactly an issue if you’re too tired by the time it runs out.

Finally, the VR space itself is unfortunately not mature enough. There’s a lot of work still to be done. Even when talking games, despite some amazing titles like Half-life Alyx, the vast majority where controls wouldn’t make you dizzy are all pretty much like arcade mini-games, where you either teleport from point to point or not move at all. Developers simply have yet to figure out an organic way of user navigating through virtual space. (Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun, though)

Overall, I believe Vision Pro isn’t really a mass consumer product, but it did do a lot by bringing more attention to VR as a whole, as well as pointing out additional user-cases for the technology. Because of Vision Pro, Meta started paying more attention to details, which ultimately will benefit the consumer (in fact, it already has yeilded results).

Mistic ,

Storyteller

A short but memorable puzzle-type game where you have to put together scenes and characters to create a story. Actions in previous scenes affect how characters behave or appear in later ones.

Really liked that one, it’s fun.

Mistic ,

That’s not always true.

There are a few reasons as to why one would keep low/no profit or even completely unprofitable projects going.

It’s all tied to their value proposition. For example, if you can sustain a no profit project, it will bring you new customers despite creating no revenue. A glaring example of high-value yet unprofitable product would be Twitch, all because it brings in data.

Mistic , (edited )

In my experience, the longer you type, the faster you get at typing.

That’s like getting into the rhythm. If you do it a little and then stop, then you never become proficient as you never got into that flow.

Try learning a guitar by pulling a few strings a day. Try learning to read in a different language by reading a few letters each time. Try running by taking a few steps.

Doesn’t it sound ridiculous?

Have you ever tried learning a different language? You don’t become proficient by reading one sentence, then stopping and then another one. You do it by struggling through many, and the more you do it, the faster you learn.

Note, I’m not writing this because “boohoo, bad parenting.” It’s the first essay, who cares. (although her being 13 does make me raise a brow. I’d expect it with a 7 y.o., but 13? w/e, you do you). I just think you have a misunderstanding in how learning core-level skills work. Continuous repetition is the key.

Another glaring example is how toddlers learn languages. In a span of a couple of years, they are capable of learning a language to native level with absolutely no prior knowledge, just by listening and trying to repeat the sounds day in and day out. Just think about it.

Mistic , (edited )

They may not matter in a sense that you can’t elect anybody but Putin.

But they do matter in a sense of showing the incumbent they aren’t stable.

After successful re-election of incumbent, they fall into a sense of euphoria. This leads to creation of some absolutely horrific and unjust laws.

However, when the re-election is deemed unsuccessful (say 55% voted for “the right candidate”, but the second place got scary high 30-35%), they become timid.

That’s how informational autocracies work. And that’s why elections there absolutely do matter, as they directly affect quality of life. It’s the safest and loudest way of showing the government your middle finger.

Mistic ,

An economics student from Russia here, here’s my perspective.

First, is that a country’s economy is a lot less volatile than we expected. There is also another factor that played into it. During covid, Russian companies amassed a sizable amount of inventory that was already inflated compared to European companies due to how volatile our economy is. This has given them enough time to reroute supply chains once sanctions hit.

Basically, the so-called “grey import” plays a major role in assuring the stability of our economy. Companies either route their import/export through neighboring countries or through affiliated companies.

Second is the competency of our central bank. After most of the major banks were cut off from SWIFT (used for international transactions), they raised the key rate, limited the amount of money you can cash out at one time, and did some other stuff. Higher key rate = higher deposit interest rate, but at the same time, credit became more expensive. All of this was needed for preventing banks from defaulting. Once panic died down, the changes were reverted. Now, they’re dealing with inflation.

Lastly, the majority of our budget comes from oil and gas. Since Europe didn’t want to buy it, Russia started selling it to Asia at discounted prices. Quantity of oil/gas sold drastically increased, which mitigated reduced prices and led to a surplus budget. Not to mention that they started pushing on large companies to reduce the amount of dividends and instead re-invest the money.

I wouldn’t call it “thriving,” however. All of this has definitely led to a slowdown in growth, which, as time goes by, will only get worse. But for now it’s fine.

Mistic , (edited )

They guy did his research, and he did it right. Even mentioning the “social contract”, that’s not something you hear from an average youtuber.

There’s only a few things I’ve noted

Although the monthly rate can be calculated as yearly÷12 and is acceptable, it is inaccurate. Doesn’t change much, but still. ( (1+monthly rate)^12 = 1+yearly rate <= this is the accurate conversion)

Next is “failed pension reform.” It’s failed in political sense. The intent of it was to temporarily lessen the depletion of pension fund, which it technically did do. But, yeah, it was absolutely not popular. Not to mention that it didn’t solve the root of the problem, which was obvious from the start. Back during his first or second presidency period, he promised not to raise the age for retirement, yet in 2018, he did exactly that. Needless to say that his ratings have been falling ever since then and up till February of 2022.

The one thing I would’ve liked him to also mention is “quality of foreign exchange earnings,” which is a relatively new term. Essentially, companies now need to pay attention to wether or not they can exchange earned currency for something that they can trade with other countries or within Russia. Previously, they traded in dollars, so it was never an issue.

Mistic ,

I’d also add Beyond: Two Souls to the list

Mistic , (edited )

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d play the hell out of BG3 when I was 12.

The amount of time I spent on TES 4 and 5 back then, and BG3 hits just the right spot with the variety of ways it allows you to play it.

Minecraft is also in my top favorites.

What I’m saying is, don’t count BG3 out completely. Not to mention that it’s very saturated, so a shorter attention span shouldn’t really be a problem, but you never know.

As for suggestions. Definitely Terraria, as others mentioned. There was also Lego Fortnite, which looks like it would fit the tastes. Maybe also party games?

Mistic ,

You’d be surprised how much changes from sole rotation of personnel.

Mind you, people wouldn’t be calling Putin a tyrant if he left after his second term. Yet he didn’t, that mofo rigged the system in his favour during that presidency, and… well, you know the rest.

Rotation is unimaginably more important than actual personas.

Mistic ,

Can confirm, surprisingly effective.

Icy roads is a huge issue that often gets ignored or insufficiently addressed in Russia.

Mistic ,

He’s probably yearning for the Russian Empire instead of Soviet Union.

Russian governmental officials have some really outlandish views for an average Russian person.

They’re very religious, believe in conspiracies, actively anti-lgbt, don’t support abortions, antisemitic to name a few. None of these qualities are present in the general masses. They are in their own informational bubble.

As far as I understand it, he believes that the Russian Empire and collective Europe were always at each other’s throats, and that never changed for over 200 years. At the same time, Russia is a successor of the Russian Empire, and USSR is being omitted for some reason. That’s the simplistic explanation of it.

For you to understand how crazy that is, Russians (in general) have little to no idea of how the Empire worked and what the views those people held. USSR essentially wiped out all of that culture.

Mistic ,

More than that. We have a giant demographical pit starting down from 25 y.o. and bottoming out at around 20-22 y.o.

It’s WW2 stacked on top of the economic collapse in the 90ies and now this. It is ugly.

Mistic ,

I think it works best in combination with fingerprint scanner.

Like when your fingers are wet and are difficult to scan. Whilst trying to make the scanner work, face unlock just does it for you.

But, yes, if it were one or the other, fingerprint scanner is simply way more convenient.

Mistic ,

Some windows-specific professional software that cannot run on Linux.

Also, work-related stuff. I may be able to make a custom setup of Linux if I try hard enough, but when it comes to dealing with servers and VPNs it’s a bit beyond me. Not to mention the time it takes to figure it out and set up.

Although, the more I hear about subscriptions from Microsoft the more I want to switch.

Mistic ,

I think the word you’re looking for is “Rossiya” (Россия) /s

But if for real, we don’t have a substitute for the word.

Also expansism isn’t exactly popular, people just don’t care and want to be left alone. Government officials have some really outlandish views, which sometimes leaves you wondering just where in the world could they have heard something like that. Srsly, I’ve never ever heard the words that sometimes come out of their mouths anywhere else. They live in some sort of their own bubble where everybody’s after them and any disobedience is Europe’s commision. Also they treat ex-USSR territories as being unfairly taken from them. It’s nuts.

Mistic ,

Wouldn’t be so optimistic about one on the left.

Too much mold to my liking and interior is pretty tasteless.

Here’s a documentary about it, with English captions. I highly recommended watching.

Mistic ,

I would still disagree about phone usage.

Even when in school, phone helped me quite a bit with education. Having a way to do a quick fact-check is invaluable.

Now as I’m finishing getting my degree such devices became an inseparable part of the process.

Yes, you may not always listen to what’s being said whilst using them, but lets be frank, you wouldn’t be listening to those parts either way.

School education in a lot of places is fundamentally flawed. It’s extremely difficult to learn when you’re expected to absorb information just by listening and writing.

I’d agree with OPs sentiment here, off-topic smartphone usage isn’t the cause for worse education, but instead is a result of poor engagement in the first place. Should people be more engaged in the topic then suddenly smartphones start being used as a studying tool and not for entertainment. There are many ways of achieving that, but that’s a whole different story.

Mistic ,

“fact-checking” was a bit of a crude way of putting it on my part. I’m not native, so there could’ve misused it.

(Went a bit overboard with a wall of text again, but of well)

Although it wasn’t without the fact-checking in it’s normal sense. Take “English as a foreign language”, for example. One teacher will say the word is pronounced one way, the other will say its different. Who’s right? Let’s check Cambridge dictionary. Although it isn’t always teacher’s fault as a professional. Sometimes you just forget things no matter how well you know them.

The other part that I may have failed to convey is looking information up, be it a math formulae, a word, some sort of rule, name or a date.

It’s way quicker than going through your books and is actually not a bad way to remember something. You either have a tab left off or you’re seeing it when using the search, which makes you remember that you did look that up a while back. It’s very minor, but because you’re still being reminded about it from time to time, the information sticks. Essentially you’re doing unintentional passive memorisation.

That’s why I think that maybe not in primary, but definetly in secondary and high school banning technology is not the way to go about it. If the student uses it for entertainment during class, they won’t suddenly start studying if you prohibit them from usining it. You’re essentially solving a non-issue, because the majority of students aren’t even using phones during classes (Well, maybe to cheat on tests, but that’s hurting the quality of assessment and not education itself).

Banning phones is easy, but it’s also the least impactful thing you could to to “improve” educational system. It would be of more sognificance you were to reduce classes to 8 pupils, lessen teacher’s paperwork, introduce new active teaching practices, reward students for persuing their endevours and so on. But that’s difficult, banning phones is easy and brings you more polical approval.

Mistic ,

Another way that I became quite fond of using is Rufus.

When creating a distro it allows you to customize it. Set up language beforehand, a local account, remove hardware requirements and data collection by simply checking some boxes.

It’s a very handy tool, saves a lot of headache with this bloody install.

Mistic , (edited )

I used to think the same.

Turns out they are a good alternative to laptops.

If you don’t need powerful hardware, then tablets allow to save space in the backpack, are way lighter and always have a touch screen, which in connection with a stylus is big deal for taking notes. Laptops with a touch screen, in comparison, cost way more (at least where I live they do).

Personally, I use it for studying and media consumption. It replaced almost all of my paper. You can also sign documents using those (depends on laws in your country). Inserting photos into documents is one thing you can’t do as easily with laptops as well.

And when I do need access to better hardware, I just remote to my PC at home.

Mistic , (edited )

Not every digital signature is legally binding, I’m afraid.

In my country, there are 3 types of it. A simple one (login/password), unqualified (encrypted series of numbers), and qualified (same as unqualified, but encrypted using certified means by government). The last two are stored on a physical drive.

The higher the grade, the more legal power the signature holds.

When signing it by hand from a tablet it’s the same as signing it personally where I live. Which, unlike qualified digital signature, can be used for any document.

Mistic , (edited )

If we’re being completely honest, all of those are in rotation and although some items cannot be grinded for during that time, it can still be traded for, so it is not an issue.

Dailies and weeklies are here to keep you engaged. They provide some rewards, but I wouldn’t call them mandatory to progression. They’re more of a side-bonus.

Personally, whenever I’m bored of warframe I just leave. After a while new quests appear, new guns and all of the other stuff to work toward.

The best part is that whenever you return you’re pretty much at the same place as you left it off.

Hence I personally see no rush in getting all of the stuff I want. I’ve been playing this game on and off since 2013 and have yet to experience fomo with it, because of the things listed above.

Destiny, for example, is much much worse. Especially after they decided that it’s a good idea to vault planets and remove quests. Made me leave the game, I just can’t deal with it and have life stuff to do. Mind you, D2 is easily one of my most most favourite games.

Same with gacha games like Genshin or Honkai 3rd. It’s exhausting.

Didn’t have that experience with Warframe.

Mistic ,

Warframe’s “BP” system is the most non-intrusive out of all games with BP that I’ve played.

I was disappointed when saw it initially as well. But on closer inspection, it is completely free, you’re not being locked to playing on a certain week to get the missions done and, what I recently found out after years of not playing the game, is that old rewards return to BP on low levels.

This essentially makes it very easy to catch up should you choose to.

About player interactions, toxicity happens, but it happens in every online game. You can’t really expect an MMO game to not have player interactions.

I too am a little anxious when dealing with people I don’t know, but it really is not that big of a deal. If you’re actually having problems with it, consider seeking advice from a specialist.

Having an auction house, although is nice from a convenience point of view, could be going against the design of the game. A bazaar type of trading has it’s own charms, and some people may prefer it. Either one is fine with me, personally.

Most of what you’ve listed don’t sound like problems with the game itself, but rather the game being just not for you. And it is normal.

And trust me, there are quite a few problems with warframe, especially for newer players. Like the story not being explicit, you being thrown into the game with no real set goal, game mechanics not being explained properly and so on, which makes you have wiki open on the side to play the game without issues.

Mistic , (edited )

I’m missing one key detail here.

What are your criteria for a mechanic being predatory?

Heed to my long explanation of what I would consider predatory or not:

In my opinion, a predatory mechanic is one that is set to make you spend more money by means of obfuscation.

So, obstacles to progression, purchases with no affirmation, currency obscuring and etc.

In this way, for example, if an item can only be bought with non-tradable premium currency, the currency is predatory. However, if the currency is tradable then it isn’t predatory because it’s main purpose lies in trading and not obfuscation.

Same way gacha is also a predatory mechanic, gambling is predatory, and loot boxes. Because you don’t explicitly know what you’re getting and how much it costs you to get the thing you want.

Therefore to me a free battlepass cannot be considered predatory, as it’s main purpose is to increase level of player engagement.

I would agree, however, that making BP permanent would make it a much nicer feature. As in, you can work towards completing previous BPs you’ve missed. Otherwise it’s kinda meh. I don’t particularly like them anyways, it’s a pretty lazy way of achieving that goal.

Mistic ,

So, it’s the same idea, but not necessarily related to money? Understandable.

Mistic ,

A lot, actually

In Russia change org was one of very few channels to bring change into politics.

For some reason our politicians actually listened to those. So it was a very useful tool.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much idea how effective it is since Feb of 2022. Imagine our gov as an armodillo. It has a sturdy shell, so it is very hard to get good changes through it’s head. Now that armodillo closed up in a ball, it lives in it’s own bubble, its being fed by it’s own lies. Nothing good can come out of that head. And it doesn’t.

YouTube and Reddit are sued for allegedly enabling the racist mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead (fortune.com)

YouTube and Reddit are sued for allegedly enabling the racist mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead::The complementary lawsuits claim that the massacre in 2022 was made possible by tech giants, a local gun shop, and the gunman’s parents.

Mistic ,

The thing about hoops is that they do prevent a lot of things.

Not all of them, but a lot.

“Ah, that’s too much to bother” is surprisingly a good deterrent.

Mistic ,

Am a finance student from Russia.

12% is fine. It’s a temporary measure to keep the currency at bay. It’s not great, don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather it was at 4-5% as it was in 2020, but it’s appropriate given what’s happenning with the country.

In comparison, on February 2022 it was 20%, which in simple terms saved the banking system from collapsing, our Cenral Bank is one of not that many agencies that are at least compitent.

It does slow down the economic growth, but trust me, there are way bigger problems than expensive credit when it comes to economic growth. Short-term everything is quite well, but long-term if nothing changes? Oh boy, oh boy.

Mistic ,

Just a couple years ago Meduza was a very prominent news outlet in Russia.

There weren’t that many and they weren’t allowed on TV, but you could always see their presence on the Internet.

Since adoption of a law about foreign agents in 2017 many if not most of such news outlets were deemed as “foreign agents” and faced problems with funding. And yet persisted.

2022 was the breaking point. In February all of the remaining oppositional news started to get blocked. One by one.

By 2023 all of them ceased operation as Russian media and migrated abroad due to de facto being outlawed.

Taking control over media is how Putin started his presidency. This is what came out of it.

If there is nobody to speak, then there’s nobody who’ll listen.

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