Random Thoughts IV: the Abyss Gazes Back

[Takhisis]

That would have been the latest stable build, iirc 17.14 or something like that.

I… ??? Stable builds are supposed to be, well, stable.

And functional. I just got the latest Mint available back at the time, burned the .iso file into a DVD, rebooted the computer, inserted the disk into the drive, tested the hardware, then rebooted again, installed, and there I was.

So out of morbid curiosity I almost wish I had been there to witness the disaster.

XP x64 can handle a lot more than 4GB. I had it on a dell optiplex once.....

Yes, but the limitation Lemon mentioned was one which x32 versions of XP had.

Go ahead. Everyone enjoys a good bleat. Well, except Clarice Starling. Just put it in the rants thread.

Nah, I think the Rants thread has been driven off topic enough these days.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Nah, I think the Rants thread has been driven off topic enough these days.

Well, if a certain someone could let a rant about Linux pass without turning it into some sort of deathmatch maybe said bleats wouldn't derail the rants thread. Just sayin'.

 

[cardgame]

I… ??? Stable builds are supposed to be, well, stable.

And functional. I just got the latest Mint available back at the time, burned the .iso file into a DVD, rebooted the computer, inserted the disk into the drive, tested the hardware, then rebooted again, installed, and there I was.

So out of morbid curiosity I almost wish I had been there to witness the disaster.

My router is a WPA2 Personal connection, but it was giving me all these prompts as if it was enterprise or something. Except I think it even wanted my MAC address, iirc. It has been over a year now, so it's a bit fuzzy.

None of these were optional; trying to proceed with the standard password simply failed.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I was playing with one of those websites that measures the speed you type at, and I found that typing more slowly gets me a better WPM than typing as quickly as I can. I guess it's because of all the mistakes I make when I try to type quickly.

I used to be able to reach 180 wpm. Now I'm lucky to get 90.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, if a certain someone could let a rant about Linux pass without turning it into some sort of deathmatch maybe said bleats wouldn't derail the rants thread. Just sayin'.

*nananacanthearyou*

My router is a WPA2 Personal connection, but it was giving me all these prompts as if it was enterprise or something. Except I think it even wanted my MAC address, iirc. It has been over a year now, so it's a bit fuzzy.

None of these were optional; trying to proceed with the standard password simply failed.

…
My morbid curiosity is even more aroused. But some things are best left alone, maybe.

 

[Synobun]

I used a throwaway account on reddit to ask about my crow problem.

It got a little out of hand.



I'm famous!

 

[cardgame]

I once posted a #1 top all-time submission to a 350k sub

If it was included in the default front page I guess I'd be invited too, but it isn't so I'm not

 

[Synobun]

I once posted a #1 top all-time submission to a 350k sub

If it was included in the default front page I guess I'd be invited too, but it isn't so I'm not

You be postin' on the naughty subs?

 

[warpus]

There might be aliens out there watching and analyzing us, making conclusions like: "They're a social species, so they have social media". They're writing papers on the subject, shooting documentaries, blockbuster movies, and out there somewhere is an alien scientist and he's being driven into madness: "But why do they post so many pictures of other species on their social media networks? WHY?? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They're studying the cats, trying to figure out how they enslaved the stupid ape creatures who handle their media for them.

 

[Takhisis]

For a cat-owned medium, the Internet sure does have too many depictions of simians.

 

[metatron]

Did the President of the United States of America just call a woman he once boinked "horseface"?

I'm just checking.

Btw: Did i mention how you people really should have turned the other way on this business with Ms. Sarkeesian and "ISIL"?
Oh, right. I actually did.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Did the President of the United States of America just call a woman he once boinked "horseface"?

I'm just checking.

Btw: Did i mention how you people really should have turned the other way on this business with Ms. Sarkeesian and "ISIL"?
Oh, right. I actually did.

Here's an article on this from a highly reputable source.

Melania’s Heart Sinks After Realizing Husband Uses Pet Name ‘Horseface’ For Every Woman He ****s

Moderator Action: Please remember to indicate when links lead directly to pages with bad language. ~ Arakhor

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was playing with one of those websites that measures the speed you type at, and I found that typing more slowly gets me a better WPM than typing as quickly as I can. I guess it's because of all the mistakes I make when I try to type quickly.

I used to be able to reach 180 wpm. Now I'm lucky to get 90.

Mistakes count in typing exams. I wonder how people would do on manual typewriters, if they've never used one. I remember that it used to be mandatory to be able to type 30 wpm within 5 mistakes to pass Grade 10 typing.

Of course that school was using typewriters that were ancient even then. And yes, my speed was consistently a lot higher, although I never got anywhere near 90. At least not without some really creative spelling.

 

[MaryKB]

Have you ever tried play.typeracer.com? You enter "races" by touch typing, and your wpm is recorded as your speed. I'm not terribly fast, I'm only 80 wpm, but my accuracy is rather high and I win most of my races.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Actually, no. Most of them wouldn't have enough HDD space to even install it - it's become quite a monster. I bought a new PC to replace my 2001 model in about 2008 because it couldn't handle running around Dalaran or raiding in Naxx v2.

how do you like WoW in its current form? some of my friends have taken it up again and are asking me to join their mythic+ group (it's all IRL friends). me myself I'm a huge TBC nostalgiabot and pretty much hated on anything that came after sunwell. I played some Cata but quickly lost interest. my classes (rogue / enhance or resto shaman) seem to be doing pretty good rn (they always are, unless I'm actively playing ).

 

[Ryika]

how do you like WoW in its current form? some of my friends have taken it up again and are asking me to join their mythic+ group (it's all IRL friends). me myself I'm a huge TBC nostalgiabot and pretty much hated on anything that came after sunwell. I played some Cata but quickly lost interest. my classes (rogue / enhance or resto shaman) seem to be doing pretty good rn (they always are, unless I'm actively playing ).

I'm not the one you asked, but I like trashing WoW, so here we go.

A vocal part of the community thinks that the game's in a pretty bad state right now, but a lot of the reasons for that are comparisons to previous AddOns. Itemization is terrible right now; to know what Items are "good" for your character, you will need to run simulations for your char, and getting "good" items in general is based on multiple levels of randomness - the item has to drop, then it can proc upgrades. Very annoying.

Singleplayer-Content is mostly meaningless, you get a ton of free gear in the new Warfronts Feature (which is an undertuned a Non-PvP-Horde-v-Alliance group battle that you can't lose) and the actual world has little to offer for you in terms of character progression.

The Dungeon and Raid-Content itself however, is probably the most fun that it has ever been. Well, the dungeons only IF you're the "controlled Zerg and Rush against a timer"-kind of guy. If you prefer CC and careful pulls like they were the bread and butter in Classic and most of BC, the current dungeons will probably not be to your liking either. Raiding however, offers interesting and challenging encounters if you do it on the Heroic or Mythic Difficulty.

Overall, I would say starting with WoW now is not a good idea. The game is at one of its low points, the upcoming patch offers no big improvements, and the devs don't seem very receptive to community criticism in their communication.

___

While we're at the topic of WoW btw... there is that subreddit called "mildly annoying" where people post stuff that annoys them mildly (d'oh), but there should really be a "FREAKING INFURIATING" subreddit so I can post about the nearly-filled Zandalari Tribe Reputation Bar of my main that I can't complete because there's no way to gain that Rep anymore.

 

[BenitoChavez]

how do you like WoW in its current form? some of my friends have taken it up again and are asking me to join their mythic+ group (it's all IRL friends). me myself I'm a huge TBC nostalgiabot and pretty much hated on anything that came after sunwell. I played some Cata but quickly lost interest. my classes (rogue / enhance or resto shaman) seem to be doing pretty good rn (they always are, unless I'm actively playing ).

Here are my two cents on WoW coming from someone who recently quit.

Spoiler Longish rant :

In short, the game requires too much of a time commitment and rewards are too RNG based to be fun.

Endgame PvE content is basically mythic+ dungeons and raids and if you want to push the bleeding edge that means hours and hours of wiping until you can finally down that one boss who you need that piece of gear from only the loot drops are RNG so you may not get what you need for weeks/months. PUG groups are often elitist and require you to have close to the best gear plus the achievement in order to join their group. You say you have a group of IRL friends you would play with so PUGs shouldn't be too much of an issue but it is something to be aware of if you ever try to join one.

Raids are a logistical nightmare as you need a large group of people, with stable internet connections, and who are able to raid at a scheduled time each week. One of the nicer changes they made is that you no longer need X number of people to do the raid. Instead the damage/health of the bosses/trash scale to the number of people you have in your raid so as long has you have 10-25 people show up you are good as long as all the proper roles are filled. But if your main tank cant show up, well you are out of luck.

A lot of that is stuff that has been in WoW forever so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

For a lot of the above reasons, I was mostly a PvP player but they changed the reward system from previous expansions. Previously you could play 1-2 days a week, max out the conquest points per week and you were guaranteed to be able to buy gear with those points after a set amount of time. Now earning conquest basically requires you to play almost every day and conquest points are no longer a currency but some measuring stick that determines if you get a "loot crate" at the end of the week. The gear you get from a loot crate is RNG based so it may take you weeks/months to get that piece of gear you need. You can also have a very low chance to get gear after each arena/battleground match but that gear is of lesser quality than the loot crate and RNG as well.

Leveling alts can be fun, especially if you haven't played since BC since there is a bunch of new content, but it will get old after a while. Other single player content like professions, achievements, world quests, reputation, etc are mostly tedious grinds which I only did if I had to.

Plus all that stuff @Ryika said.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

When I played I was doing it pretty hardcore. Finding a raid group was never really a thing for me, since my guild was extremely active and we got multiple server first kills - Vashj, Illidan, some Sunwell bosses. We were on a strict schedule and took things pretty seriously, considering it was a horsehockey RP PvE server.

After I had achieved pretty much everything in terms of gear/raids I was fed up with PvE and started doing PvP more seriously. I played at around 1800 - 2000 in TBC and then stepped my game up with WotlK and came really close to Gladiator, sadly a teammate quit just a few weeks before the season ended. So if I were to play WoW again I would probably just do Arena 2v2 and 3v3 as well as some dungeons with friends, but nothing serious.

Are you more of an Arena or BG kind of guy, Benito? Personally I always saw BG as grinds and couldn't really enjoy them, but personally I don't really like Rogue nor Shaman as BG classes so it might be that. Playing SL/SL lock or Druid on TBC private servers was huge fun in BGs.

I

The Dungeon and Raid-Content itself however, is probably the most fun that it has ever been. Well, the dungeons only IF you're the "controlled Zerg and Rush against a timer"-kind of guy. If you prefer CC and careful pulls like they were the bread and butter in Classic and most of BC, the current dungeons will probably not be to your liking either. Raiding however, offers interesting and challenging encounters if you do it on the Heroic or Mythic Difficulty.

I mean yeah, that's what I'm used to really. I cannot imagine it any other way. It took us I think more than a month to clear Black Temple and the relief when we finally got Illidan after the 100th wipe was so cathartic that I cried and screamed and flailed like an idiot. I read your brain releases (basically) MDMA in situations like that: When your sports team is winning, when you're at a political rally, or when you finally slay that raid boss with a group of (distant) friends.

 

[metatron]

took things pretty seriously, considering it was a ****** RP PvE server.

SdP?
SuR?
Drachensilber?
Elemente?