perfectmediaserver.com can give you some inspiration on system architecture/layout. There’s a lot of right answers here depending on your situation, so you’ll likely want to research the various options and trade-offs.
Some common base architecture layouts that I know of:
Any Linux + no parity: Just throw Debian on a box, put Docker on it, and away we go. No data integrity, and data loss will be permanent, but it’s an option if you set up backups for your important data and assume the rest is expendable. If you want to start setting up parity on raw Linux you’ll probably want to move down to a more dedicated architecture below for less headaches.
OpenMediaVault + SnapRAID + MergerFS + backed by BTRFS disks: my personal choice for ad-hoc/budget setups. Great for having really flexible storage that lets you make use of all HDD space that you have laying around without fuss. You’ll need to sacrifice your largest drive to hold RAID parity and the storage architecture is not especially performant but that’s not a big deal for a media server. OpenMediaVault can run Docker for you on the host without needing to run it in a VM (and you should be using Docker for your software stack).
Unraid: Similar in storage architecture to the OpenMediaVault combo, but it’s not free. I don’t have personal experience with this one but a lot of people like it. IMO this option would only make sense if you want a turn-key system and don’t want to think about anything on the software side. It has turn-key “apps” that are just Docker behind the scenes (to my knowledge).
TrueNAS Scale: This will be running ZFS for storage, but ZFS has a lot of problems with storage flexibility. You need to really know what you’re doing when designing your storage layout, and you probably won’t get full usage out of the HDDs you have laying around. In exchange, ZFS is bulletproof for data integrity and makes full use of your drives’ combined speed. You’ll likely be giving up 50% of your total HDD capacity to run ZFS - either explicitly by running mirrored drives or by running mismatched RAIDZ1/2 (which makes all drives become the size of the smallest disk). I would recommend a mirrored setup for home use due to its flexibility - it gives up more space than RAIDZ but it’s able to be upgraded easier in the future, so you can throw random drives that are on sale into your system when needed. You could write a book on ZFS’s complexities and trade-offs and I’m sure many have. TrueNAS itself is basically just a turn-key appliance to run a ZFS storage server, but the “Scale” version also comes with the ability to install apps via some Kubernetes+Docker thing. It’s still in beta and I hear a lot of people have problems with how the app system is designed, so if you go this route I’d recommend installing Debian/Alpine Linux under TrueNAS Scale in a VM with something like this method, and running normal Docker on that VM. TrueNAS is otherwise very locked down and if your usecase is not supported by them you’ll probably need to bail out to a VM anyway.
Proxmox + TrueNAS + Docker Host: This has all the caveats of ZFS from before. Proxmox is just a virtualization hypervisor that you can put other operating systems on, via VMs and LXCs. The easiest way to use it in a NAS configuration is to install Proxmox on the bare metal, then spin up a TrueNAS Core/Scale VM and pass through your HDDs to that (may require special hardware consideration). You’ll probably want to run a minimal Debian/Alpine Linux VM under Proxmox to hold your Docker stack. Then you can use an NFS/SMB mount to get access to your ZFS storage from your Docker VM. You can also run ZFS raw on Proxmox without the GUI of TrueNAS, but you’ll have to manage it by CLI. Proxmox can be more difficult to understand than the other architectures, but personally I think it’s easier to use once you do. It allows greater flexibility on the software side via snapshotting VMs and building up/tearing down operating systems at-will.
Proxmox + OpenMediaVault + SnapRAID + MergerFS + backed by BTRFS disks: Same as Proxmox+TrueNAS, except instead of TrueNAS you run OpenMediaVault’s storage stack to give yourself flexibility with HDDs. You’ll might also want to move your Docker stack into its own VM instead of running it on OpenMediaVault, but this isn’t required. While this is technically an option, it feels a bit weird. If you want to dive head-first into a robust server setup but don’t want to buy a bunch of new drives, this could work in a pinch.
Personally my two recommended options are the OpenMediaVault stack or the Proxmox+TrueNAS stack, depending on if you want to buy new drives for a clean storage layout. Keep in mind these blurbs are just a crash course on each option and there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that will also need consideration/planning.
In every game in Suikoden series, you’d have to recruit 108 characters in total to get the true ending.
Around half of these are part of the story, so you’d get them whatever you do, but the rest you’d have to do some sidequest to get them, a lot of them are missable.
Also, you can get some characters killed, dooming you from ever getting that true ending.
Suikoden 1 and 2 in particular have very precise soft-locks.
In Suikoden 1, Pahn has to win a battle that seems to be a scripted loss.
Suikoden 2 (my favorite RPG of all time) is actually beyond brutal. There’s a 3-5 second timed input that doesn’t even make much sense and if you get it wrong, nothing predictable changes except you don’t get the 108th star (just one person having a private word with the strategist that only makes sense later)
I dunno which of the two is worse. I fell for the Pahn one in S1, but managed to guess right in S2 by sheer luck (it’s between a default “Watch Out!” and “Nanami!”. You have to pick “Nanami!” or you lose out on the good ending. And you automatically say “Watch Out!” if you don’t pick fast)
It’s on the tip of my tongue; there was a whole series of ghost pirate themed “hidden object” point and click puzzle games. I’ll update the post when it comes back.
Yes that’s also what I’m talking about
Your previous characters aren’t important anymore, it’s a fresh start all the time. On each new season there has been 0 previous time and effort investment
You have on the game as a whole, though. Mechanics, strategies, locations, weapons, lore, maybe friendships with other players. Hard to leave all that behind.
Diablo seasons are just a character reset for those who enjoy them. It’s a huge part of a lot of ARPGs like Path of Exile or Diablo. As you can reach endgame in about 5 hours on diablo and have your complete build in 20, it makes sense.
Enforces everyone to reset at the same time and not use gear and stuff from previous characters. Some people care about leaderboards and those usually reset at the same time. For other ARPGs with a trade economy that being reset is often the biggest draw, but that doesn’t apply to D3.
I couldn’t give less of a fuck about leaderboards, but I enjoy seasons in D3, but not D4. In D3 you get to max level and get a set of pretty good gear in a few hours. I’m a casual player, I don’t play the entirety of the season because I kinda hit my limit and stop getting new shiny things and don’t feel like pushing it so I stop playing. Then a new season comes out, I’m like “I haven’t played Diablo in a bit, that sounds fun” and I do the same thing, smash monsters and get shiny things.
In D4 the new season landed and I just couldn’t be bothered to level again and it really killed the game for me, I’m kinda maxed out on non-seasonal, it gets to the point where you’re doing the same thing over and over for hours, or you push harder content where it takes forever to kill something and everything kills you in one hit. I just want to smash shit and get loot, I don’t want to level again if it takes more than a couple hours.
Basically seasons can be fun (also they test new content, that keeps things fresh) as long as you can jump right back into the game. Without it you have a ton of legendary items for every class so you just never really need new gear, you just grind for that single piece you need for a 2% upgrade.
Tldr I don’t want to grind, I just want to smash baddies, and I’m basically a bird collecting shiny shit. D3 enables that, D4 doesn’t. It’s all about implementation.
Bladur’s gate 3 is awesome but if you can wait, do so and you will have a much more seamless experience in the near future once more patches come out.
My recommendation is the following.
NieR Automata. It’s a masterpiece of a game with innovation all over the place. Trust me, it’s much more of a JRPG with some hot chicks. Go in blind and you will have an amazing experience.
On a similar note, Death Stranding. The story is less cohesive and honestly as a game it isn’t as good either but I still maintain that it is a game that everyone must try at least once. It’s not one of the best games I’ve played, by far but I am 100% happy that I played it.
Last recommendation is Hades. Flawless game with incredible amounts of polish.
You’re an office worker bee who one day realizes the office you work in is deserted except for a voice that narrates what you do and gets frustrated with you if you do something else. There really isn’t a point to it apart from discovering your word surroundings and trying to break the game apart.
Also, there’s a Steam achievement you get by not playing it for 10 years.
Factorio - its a logistics rts but the pollution mechanic is different. Instead of just gather resources to build things which build bigger things, you also make pollution as a side effect. This feeds the native monsters and also evolves them. Managing your pollution cloud is a strategy. That or build massive defensives for when they come to eat you.
I can’t believe I typed out a whole recommendation about tunic and outer Wilds, and then scrolled down and saw your exact same recommendations. Lol. I guess excellent games are universal
I had a moment in Tunic where I realized what the references in the manual to the [HOLY CROSS] were talking about, but I don’t think my revelation was the typical.
I’d actually figured out the [HOLY CROSS] really early on, solved a bunch of puzzles using it, got some manual pages I probably wasn’t supposed to have yet, but didn’t know that the thing I was using was the [HOLY CROSS] because I lacked the context of a certain page that spells it out and based on some comments and videos elsewhere is the point where a lot of people first figure out how to use it.
It probably didn’t hurt that I was fresh off The Witness and my brain was subconsciously looking for tricks of perspective and environmental puzzles, which Tunic is absolutely full of.
Nearly all action games have some amount of RPG elements built into them these days. A few titles come to mind:
Horizon Zero Dawn and then Forbidden West.
God of War and then Ragnarok.
Spider-man, Miles Morales and upcoming Spider-man 2.
Read Dead Redemption, Read Dead Redemption 2.
Jedi Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Resident Evil 2 Remake, 3 remake and 4 Remake.
Ghost of Tsushima.
Plenty more but that should keep you busy. All of these have character progression, leveling up, getting better gear to varying degrees combined with forgiving dificulty (which you can tweak).
At least half my library on both Steam and GOG are games that I pirated, played the hell off and then just bought. Most I don’t even touch after buying them, I just do it to support the developer and actually own something I enjoyed.
Some people might argue it’s a different thing but for me individual YouTubers have replaced the role gaming magazines / websites took in the past. I follow a few who tend to enjoy the same games as I do. They usually do not release their videos right when the embargo is lifted but take a bit more time - which I enjoy.
That said, I could see how a fediverse focused gaming outlet might fill a niche. I don’t think anything like this exists yet and existing outlets barely have a presence here (or I didn’t notice, I haven’t exactly been looking for this).
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