Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Spectere

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 14
31
Gaming / Scummy Mobile Devs: Game Insight
« on: February 09, 2018, 12:24:35 PM »
Yes, I know a more appropriate subject would be "Scummy Mobile Devs: ALL OF THEM," but this is about just once instance of douchebaggery.

When it comes to mobile games, I like to have one or two of the really crappy free ones installed just to pass time. They're pretty mindless so they're great for passing time for a few minutes if I don't have time to play a round of something that has any actual meaning. When I hit The Grind WallTM it's no skin off my back to uninstall them and move on to the next one. About the only one I'd spent any real time in was Clash of Clans, and that was a terrible idea all around. That was pretty much the game that taught me that even throwing $5 at those glorified scam artists to "support them" is a bad idea.

But anyway, the latest one that I tried out was Airport City, by Game Insight. The experience was short lived, however, as my account was soon partially blocked for terms of service violations.

Naturally, I looked up information on this and found a wealth of posts on Reddit and on some fan forums about how people were getting blocked for no apparent reason, blocked for "clicking buildings too quickly," or even blocked when going between time zones. I was told in no uncertain terms that my ban was caused by changing my device's time:

Quote
Dear Ian,

Your game has been blocked as a result of changes of the time or date on your device. Those changes are not permitted because they can give players an unfair advantage over others.

Follow these instructions to unblock your account:
1. Set the correct time zone, date, and time on the device. The changes should be made using the automatic option, not manually.
2. Send me a screenshot or photo of the selected settings. More detailed instructions on how to take screenshots can be found in this article: http://helpdesk.game-insight.com/hc/en-us/articles/204007898-How-do-I-take-a-screenshot-with-my-iPad-iPhone-or-iPod-touch-

Sincerely,
XXXX
Game Insight Support Team

Here is my response. I'm pretty sure my block is going to turn into a full ban very shortly:

Quote
If changing the time/date settings on a device can impact the game like this, there's a serious problem with how your games are designed (don't trust the client--time everything server-side). Considering the number of reports I've read that merely going between time zones (which I do somewhat often) is enough to trigger your anti-cheat measures, it seems like you're using local device time. Look into using UTC instead.

But more to the point: I have not changed the time/date settings on my phone. They are, and always were, set to automatic. Instead of sending you a screenshot, however, I've uninstalled the game and will never do business with your company again. I have far better things to do in my life than cheat at free-to-play mobile games and deal with companies that accuse me of such.

Warmest regards,

Ian

Message delivered, I think. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Now I'm playing Egg, Inc. instead. It's a silly little incremental/clicker game, but it seems to be intentionally designed so that you don't have to pay a dime on it if you don't want to. Definitely not as slow of a burn as many of those types of games are.

32
Computing / Laptop-splosion
« on: February 02, 2018, 12:53:21 AM »
Let me preface this by saying that in all my years fixing computers--both personally and professionally--not to mention using them, I've never run into anything like this happening in otherwise normal circumstances.

So I ended up getting a new work laptop recently. I was using a Dell Precision M4800, a truly fine piece of kit. Drop-in dock-compatible (sorry, E-Port Replicator Docking Station compatible. Silly me), plenty of ports, solid build, 15.6" laptop with numpad...honestly, that system is the only reason I'm typing this on a Precision 7710. I'd never used a workstation class laptop and was quite impressed (the 7710 is quite nice, too, aside from when Windows decided to fuck things up for a while, but I can't exactly blame Dell for that).

My new work laptop is a Precision 5510. Or, should I say, was a Precision 5510. Yeah. It kind of let its magic smoke out spontaneously. I put the CPU under a mild load and then all of a sudden it went dead and the smell of fried ICs filled the air.

Yeah. Holy shit. Last time I smelled that was on a hard drive that got hit with a lightning strike (through the PSU, into the 4-pin Molex power socket, then all over the PCB).

That's not the type of failure that happens when a board simply has a delayed QC failure. That's what happens when the manufacturer fails to properly regulate voltages and current. In a system that essentially has a bomb inside of it (a Li-Ion battery that cannot be easily removed, since some idiot decided that an ultrathin laptop would make a great "workstation"), that sort of failure mode suddenly goes from an inconvenience straight into the "fucking scary" category.

Even if we overlook the fact that my laptop literally burned itself up after only two weeks of use, something that hasn't happened to even the cheapest laptops I've bought, this thing has some of the worst ventilation I've ever seen. It has an extremely difficult time cooling the quad-core processor and dedicated GPU because some bozo at Dell decided that venting from the thin slit near the hinge assembly was a great idea. I can only guess that they were copying the MacBook, but here's the difference between the Precision and a MacBook: the Precision is in a plastic case while the MacBook's chassis is basically a giant heatsink.

It's not even good plastic, either. On my 7710, you'd expect there to be a bit of flex on the lid due to it being a large 17.3" laptop with flexible plastic and, sure enough, there is a tiny bit of flex. What truly boggles the mind is that there's significantly more flex on the thinner, smaller 15.6" 5510. I'd say it's at least a quarter inch of flex. I was shocked by how cheap that ~$3000 laptop feels.

Oh, you know the best part about it? It lacks a numpad. My $700 Inspiron 5570 has a numpad, yet they couldn't manage to figure out how to get one on the expensive, "workstation class" Precision 5510. I guess it's just too small...oh wait, the Inspiron 5570 and my old Precision M4800 are also 15.6" and they had numpads. Hmm.

I mean, having to suddenly take my M4800 back and reimage it did get me off work early for a change (I usually work overtime, not undertime) but losing a bunch of unpushed git commits doesn't exactly put me in a great mood, and the fact that Dell refuses to let me pop the NVMe SSD out of the system to pull my data off of it seriously irritates me. I can understand why removing certain components could throw off their investigation into why their "workstation" failed so quickly, but the SSD? Really? Ugh.

At the very least, Dell enterprise support is far better than their home support. Small comforts. Hopefully the replacement I get doesn't fail the same way. :/

33
Computing / New Rig
« on: January 17, 2018, 12:49:02 AM »
Specs:
Even with all six fans (three for the radiator, three case fans) set to performance the system is still fairly quiet. I'm impressed.

Now for the fun part: getting everything reinstalled! That can wait until tomorrow, methinks.

Oh yeah, this thing is heavy as fuck. It has smoked tempered glass, though, so it looks freaking gorgeous. This is easily both the cleanest and nicest build I've ever done.

And now for a couple of pics:



And a quick video:


34
Gaming / Doki Doki Literature Club
« on: January 13, 2018, 03:54:39 PM »
http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/Doki_Doki_Literature_Club/


If you haven't played this game yet, play it. Unless you suffer from certain types of anxiety. Then you probably shouldn't.

35
Gaming / Rocket Jump: Quake and the Golden Age of First-Person Shooters
« on: December 19, 2017, 08:44:51 AM »
Shack News published a fantastic article about Quake and old school first-person shooters, available here.

Actually, calling it an article is a gross understatement. This sucker is massive. The first few sections are available for free, but you have to subscribe ($5/month, cancel any time) to view the rest of it. I guess you could call it shareware, which seems appropriate given the subject matter! It's well worth the entry fee, though I kinda wish they would make it available as a $20 eBook or something. There's a ton of content there.

Basically, it has a detailed history built from first-hand accounts of people involved in those games, as well as a ton of quotes from people who were absolutely huge in the industry (so far it's mostly been the id team and the founder of Apogee, Scott Miller, but given that the topics include games like Dark Forces I'm sure some ex-LucasArts employees will have their time in the spotlight).

Fantastic read. I highly recommend it!

36
Random Chat / [Music] Raizer - We Are The Future
« on: December 10, 2017, 10:22:51 PM »
Raizer is a new group that basically fuses aggressive drum and bass with metal. Best way I can describe them is like a sort of fusion of Pendulum and Celldweller/Blue Stahli (and considering they're signed to Klayton's label, well...).

Anyway, I've been digging them. Check out their debut album on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRk-ZfTOM7Jnq69k0Staeg7v71qcspoCX

37
Gaming / Skyrim Mods (ATTN: ZEPHLAR)
« on: December 06, 2017, 06:53:14 PM »
I'm thinking of playing through Skyrim again and am looking to try out some new mods.

Recommendations plz <3

38
Gaming / NieR: Automata
« on: November 26, 2017, 12:48:35 AM »
Finally started playing this one. I'm about 3.5 hours in and...yeah. It's definitely a treat so far.

Anyone else play through this?

39
Random Chat / So I apparently have an IMDb page...
« on: November 21, 2017, 04:02:37 PM »
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7279661/?ref_=nv_sr_1

10/10, would donate to the Rap Critic again.

40
Computing / Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update
« on: November 18, 2017, 04:02:09 AM »
Avoid installing this shit at all costs.

I just spent two and a half hours trying to get my laptop running properly after the "upgrade" and, since the only way I was able to get it to run smoothly again was to disable switchable graphics, my battery life took a noticeable hit.

As far as my gaming rig is concerned, I get occasional stutters in gameplay because...reasons. Apparently an i7-3770 and a 1080 Ti isn't enough to run Windows and a game simultaneously nowadays! Supposedly there was a patch recently to fix this, but I haven't tested it yet. I'm seriously afraid to even play any of my VR titles despite being in the mood to since that goes beyond being a little annoyance (i.e. it can quickly make you feel physically ill).

It's worth noting that people in the Windows Insider program were reporting these issues months ago. The release of the FCU was actually pushed back to fix some of these issues. Aaaaaaand it launched with said issues anyway. Nice one, Microsoft.

Edit: Just installed a Twitter embed plugin (literally just for this post). Let's see if it works:


Edit2: Moved to the correct section. Apparently rage posting at 4AM causes mistakes to happen. Oops.

41
News / Profile Field Changes
« on: November 09, 2017, 01:48:40 PM »
So most of the online services in the SMF user profile section are defunct now (MSN is dead, nobody uses ICQ anymore, and AIM is shutting down next month) and Yahoo! ended up breaking the status icon, so I just disabled all of the ones that remained enabled.

Nintendo has so many ways of identifying accounts nowadays that trying to incorporate that mess of a system into a profile would be ultimately painful. If you twist my arm a bit you might be able to convince me to add in 3DS Friend Code and Nintendo ID (for the Switch) fields but...eh.

Xbox Live! and PlayStation Network are still there. Definitely helps that what's valid for 360/PS3 remains valid for XB1/PS4! Yay for consistency.

Finally, I added in a section for Blizzard BattleTags. Fill that in right now gogogogogogo!

42
Computing / Intel and AMD are working on a laptop chip together
« on: November 07, 2017, 11:03:49 AM »
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/06/amd_intel_laptop_chip/

Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Basically, they both want to take the wind out of NVIDIA's sales so badly that they're partnering up. Intel is providing the CPU component, AMD is taking care of the GPU, and said GPU is going to be tightly coupled to the processor to increase performance and decrease power drain. It's speculated that the Intel GPU will remain to act as a low-power graphics chip as well in order to decrease its power consumption further.

This is equal parts crazy and awesome. I'm really interested to see what comes of this.

43
Gaming / Destiny 2
« on: October 30, 2017, 12:30:59 PM »
So the PC version came out last week and I might have played it a tiny bit too much over this weekend (managed to get my main from 7/64 to 20/204, and then level another character from scratch to 20/204) but I've been having a ton of fun with it. Probably the best FPS I've played in years.

Not that it's flawless, of course. Bungie's shooters are traditionally floaty and slidey and this is no exception. Sliding off of ledges is shockingly easy and climbing anything is a chore. Fortunately, there's nowhere near the borderline egregious level of platforming from The Taken King. It also helps that, since this is a PC version, I have full range of motion at the start of jumps rather than having to slide my thumb over to hit X. It's also possible that they might have tightened it up again, but I still find the mechanic itself to be a bit wonky, especially the fact that you tend to literally bounce off of solid walls.

Yeah, it's weird.

There's also supposed to be a ledge grab mechanic, but I find it fickle at best. You do get a feel for the in-air movement in the game after a while, but it never feels as intuitive as, say, Quake 3 (which I consider to be the golden standard in FPS movement).

The new weapons layout caused me to raise an eyebrow at first, but I generally like it. Rather than having two slots with distinct weapon types, Bungie dedicated one slot to kinetic weapons (strong against unshielded enemies) and one to energy weapons (strong against shields) and made it so that all normal weapon types are available in each slot. So, yeah, now you can walk around with two hand cannons. Sweet.

Power weapons have also changed significantly. In the first Destiny there were only machineguns and rocket launchers. In Destiny 2, the range of power weapons has been expanded pretty dramatically. Several of the more situational weapons in Destiny have been reassigned to power weapons, such as sniper rifles, fusion rifles, and shotguns. In addition to that, other types have been added, such as grenade launchers. This makes those weapons feel far more balanced and worthwhile. Before, sniper rifles had to be balanced alongside scout rifles (and, honestly, having both felt somewhat redundant in many ways!). Now they have the freedom to make sniper rifles powerful weapons with limited ammo. Definitely a positive change.

Much of the original's extreme levels grindiness has been polished away. Subclasses can now be leveled fairly quickly, and the choices within each subclass have been stripped down to the essentials. I've played my hunter in the original game for a decent amount of time (I'd say at least 100 hours) and never fully unlocked a single subclass. I've played the second game for maybe 24 hours so far and can fully complete three subclasses, between the hunter and warlock, and that's without grinding out upgrade points (which involves doing actual scripted adventures, not playing through the same levels over and over again).

The story is presented far better, with the primary storyline being available in-game through cutscenes and voice acting rather than being trickled down to the player in grimoire cards. There are also some objects that you can find and scan in the world, as well as in items and such, that give you additional lore. It's nice to be able to actually get that information within the game rather than in their mobile app or on Reddit.

The microtransactions are a bit more heavy handed than I would have liked. They conveniently push you toward the Eververse vendor multiple times in order to give you level up rewards and such, and the fact that shaders are single-use is just...yuck. It's such a shame, as the shader system itself in Destiny 2 is much richer than the first (the first game only let you apply a shader to your entire armor set, this one lets you apply it to individual pieces of gear, including armor, your Ghost, your ship, and your sparrow).

Oh, speaking of sparrows. I miss having one in mid-game. ;_; You don't get it until you've beaten the campaign. Ugh.

So, anyone else here following their destiny? ;D

44
Computing / Ian's Advice for Buying Tablets
« on: October 08, 2017, 05:35:05 AM »
Disclaimer: This is very ranty and rambly (I probably shouldn't be up this late). Read at your own risk.

Since I'm currently in the process of dealing with an almost literal piece of shit right now, I figure I should throw out a few pointers on how to buy a decent tablet for both Android and iOS fans, based on my fairly extensive experience with both platforms.

Android

Thinking about getting a cheap throwaway tablet from your local grocery store? STOP. Keep walking. Save your money for a while and get something decent. See, when you go with something like that, you're not getting last year's technology. You're not even getting the year before's technology. You're getting something that makes the GameBoy Advance look like a cutting edge product (by 2017 standards). I saw one that has a resistive touchscreen. Imagine trying to use a modern tablet OS on something like that!

Have you saved up a few hundred dollaroos? Aiming to get a tablet from the likes of Samsung, HTC, or whoever's making Google's latest project? Woo! Go for it. You're probably in good shape. Wait, you are buying new, right? Looking at a refurb of last year's model?

Yeah, let me stop you right there. There are two issues that have been plaguing Android for a while now: chip manufacturers and OEMs. The former seem to like to discontinue support for their chips despite them being fairly new (hi, Qualcomm!). The latter make so many bloody changes to Android's UI that it takes them a year to even get on the newest version of the OS. Odds are you're going to get 1-2 years of solid software support if you buy new (Google guarantees 18 months). If you buy a refurb, especially from a previous generation model, you're directly affecting your support window. Now, Google has been in the process of moving more and more of the OS into the Play Story over the past few years, but that only does so much. Eventually there's going to be a core system update or a new kernel that needs to be dropped in. That's going to be something that's fundamental to the OS running and/or tied to the hardware, so that's probably not going to be easy to deal with.

Oh, well there'a always projects like LineageOS that can push you past what your tablet would otherwise support. True! However, there's some major, major caveats to that. First, you're going to have to do some pretty major research into the device you want. Are the hardware device blobs licensed in a way that allows them to be repackaged? No? Is your bootloader locked? Yes? Do you have something like Knox on there, trying its hardest to prevent you from unlocking it? Yes? Does said protection blow an eFuse that will permanently invalidate your hardware warranty (I can't say "fuck you" enough, Samsung) if you trip it? Yeah, this is getting a little scary. Maybe if it's a cheap refurb.

Alright, so you're getting a new device from a major manufacturer. Awesome! Hope you like it.

iOS

You want a new iDevice? Buy a new iDevice. It's going to be supported for a while.

You want a refurbished iDevice? Well, it's going to be supported for at least three years (usually more nowadays--iPad 2 and iPhone 5 had 5 years of updates; all 64-bit devices are still receiving updates). If you're covered for more time than you're not, why not?

Conclusion

I realize that this might be coming off as very fanboyish, but I actually do like Android as an OS. Hell, I bought a G1/HTC Dream when it was still a new thing.

What I dislike is Google's mismanagement of its OEMs and part manufacturers. They needed to keep this sort of shit on a tighter leash from the very beginning of the project. The problem was that their obsession with being in everyone's pocket (literally) drove them to licensing their platform to just about anyone. These cheap, barely functional slabs have the same level of access to the Play Store as a flagship device does. Why were these devices not vetted? They're clearly not fit for purpose. I've seen several people suckered into buying them and literally all of the ones that I've seen barely fucking work. They're too sluggish for any sort of serious use (consider how sluggish Chrome runs on a high-end Android device, then ponder how it would run on a device with about a hundredth of the performance) and they tend to shit themselves when you reboot it. Forget about updates, pleb. You don't need any critical security fixes. "Fuck you, we already have your money. When too many people catch on, we'll just start up a new company and run the same racket over and over and fucking over again."

Oh, and their battery life is worse than your average Wintel laptop. Just think about that for a moment.

And the chip manufacturers. Oh boy. I completely understand why Apple and Samsung took the ARM specification and freaking ran with it. The number of devices that were prematurely buried when support was abruptly pulled for the Snapdragon 800 is just shocking. That wasn't even the first time that happened! The Galaxy Nexus had some difficult times due to Texas Instruments pulling out the ARM design business. It made use of the TI OMAP 4460, and when that was pulled from the market the phone stopped receiving updates. Google supported the phone for its promised 18-month period, but within two years the phone was no longer receiving official updates. Considering at the time it was common for US phone contracts to demand two year commitments, that's frankly unacceptable.

But let's talk about the good for a few moments. What makes Android unique is that it's sort of like a playground for new technology. I'm certainly not advocating for OEMs to be kept on a tight leash (which is what Microsoft did with Windows Phone 7). What I want to see is the dude doing licensing for Google Play services looking at the devices and either saying, "p cool fam" or "this fucking sucks" and granting approval or denial based on that. I want to be able to tell people, "hey, you have an Android phone! Sure, grab an Android tablet!" I want consumers--my friends and family--to be able to comfortably walk into a store, buy an Android tablet, and be able to use it as a daily driver. I don't want it to end up on my lap in the midst of an inescapable boot loop that seems to happen every time they dare to use the damn thing (guess what prompted this rant!).

In the meantime, I'll just keep saying what I've been saying: if you want Android, buy from a major manufacturer and buy it new. That'll give you the best odds for success.

45
Gaming / Space Sims
« on: October 02, 2017, 02:45:15 PM »
Can't believe I didn't create a thread for this already.

Any fellow Commanders out there?

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 14