I really shouldn’t. Using discord is dumb. Using discord for a switch emulator, while Nintendos lawyers are waking around with their cocks out is stupid.
If their priority is to make a nintendo emulator, they have to think about keeping their lines of communication secure against corporate legal threats, because those lines of communication are basically what software development is.
Sure, but they also need to be on a platform that people actually use. I agree that there are lots of reasons against Discord, but my point is, they didn’t choose Discord because of a lack of intelligence.
Yep, I’ve known specialists that are extremely good at their job but when you hear them talk about other stuff you sometimes wonder how they manage to tie their shoes in the morning.
Have you considered that the person you consider smart is focusing all their brain power on their projects and they don’t have time to set up and maintain a website? That’s what discord is for, an easy, quick and dirty community aggregate
While there’s truth in your words, there are alternatives that require little effort. Even a IRC channel would have been better.
Discord is not only a terrible bad application, it’s the equivalent of writing posts on medium. If and when they decide to gatekeep your content, there’s nothing you can do.
IRC is considered unsafe too to a certain degree with pirating folks.
Also let me emphasize this: for every discord server shut down like this, there are 100+ servers with almost the same purpose that still exist and will continue to for at least the next 3y.
If you are doing development as a hobby, you just don’t have the time to use a different system, get used to that system, and then critically convince everyone else to go there too. Just look at Lemmy, I want it to be great as well but we have to accept that a few tiny steps more in the day to say usability of a system can be the difference between Twitter and Mastodon. And before ppl are saying “well Twitter was there longer”, sure but that doesn’t mean we cannot see the trend for growth that does or doesn’t exist.
Also let me emphasize this: for every discord server shut down like this, there are 100+ servers with almost the same purpose that still exist and will continue to for at least the next 3y.
you completely missed the point here:
the issue that those aren’t around NOW, the issue is that they WILL inevitably disappear eventually and every shred of knowledge platformed there will be irretrievably lost to the void.
discord is a black hole for information:
it sucks information in and deletes it from existence.
the issue that those aren’t around NOW, the issue is that they WILL inevitably disappear eventually and every shred of knowledge platformed there will be irretrievably lost to the void.
That’s still not really the purpose of discord, and I think you have actually missed the point. It’s not an informational archive, it’s a tech support line, and oftentimes one which can be used to improve the FAQ and documentation, which is usually found on GitHub or independently hosted, and is usually light enough in weight that it can just be copy pasted anywhere or even included in software. For much of these kinds of software, creating an incredibly comprehensive and well-organized FAQ isn’t as large of an up-front priority as mashing bugs. Of that use case, what strikes you as better, the app that everyone already uses, or IRC?
Not easily searchable, only solves the problem of the user who is currently being interacted with, and on top of that a forum does everything you mentioned but better because it is indexed in the web, meaning the next person with that problem will probably find the forum post before they contact you. No one is taking these discord chats and updating FAQs with them, and if they were, they could save that time by just having a forum that is indexed by search engines. IRC isn’t the best option, but it limits corpo takedowns like this so at least what you have doesn’t randomly get nuked one day. Altogether, moving from forums to discord is a massive downgrade and much information will be lost in the Discord Exodus that will come with time as the company consumes its users for the shareholders.
No one is taking these discord chats and updating FAQs with them
Why do you think this is, though? This really hasn’t been my experience, people are usually pretty quick to add shit to the FAQ if it actually comes up ime.
You’re also relying a lot, ironically, on Google, when you advocate for using search engines as a repository for forums. Google is not that good anymore, and most forums don’t come up. For a niche software, do you think the specific forum for that software would actually come up 99% of the time, or would the results just be flooded by a bunch of youtube tutorials and posts to random subreddits and other forums about irrelevant shit that you weren’t looking for? If you were even lucky enough to get results in the first place, that is. Partially this is due to things moving to discord, but partially it’s due to Google having an effective monopoly on search engining.
If you’re just going to like, go to a forum and use the forum’s internal search. One, it probably sucks because they always have these stupid idiot rules like no common words and it has to be in a range of 4-40 characters and no symbols, shit like that, which sucks. But also, you can do the same thing with discord and just navigate to the web version and then just look up what you wanted to find on the chat logs and read an old conversation. They seem functionally pretty similar in that respect.
Moderating a forum to protect against random people spamming you with CSAM attacks is also more time-consuming for a small developer, and it’s also time consuming to redirect people to previous threads when they inevitably come in and post shit that’s already been asked about, which is also going to breed probably a more insular culture than discord, as impossible as that might seem. Again, you’re also waiting like 2 days for a response, and this is especially stupid when you’re dealing with a back and forth, because not everyone is going to put in the effort to present their problems as thoroughly as possible and present you with like an actual bug report or screenshots or anything. They might not even know what to search for or ask about, and then they’re completely fucked. It’s easier to manage discord because of it’s more active nature.
Basically, the problem is this: Forums put more responsibility and onus on the users to adequately present their problems in a more easily parsable format, and better search for solutions to their own problems. It’s not a mystery, then, why people might prefer to use discord, in my mind.
I will say this, if you are a Lemmy user, sure probably.
But I did a simple websearch for “how to set up a freenode server.” The very first 3 things I saw (what fits on the screen) were a page full of syntax, a 13 minute YouTube video, and a page where the first thing that’s written is literally “Internet Relay Chat is a difficult thing to get used to, especially for people who were born into this world of full graphical interfaces and messaging web apps that handle user interaction seamlessly.”
For the average user, creating a channel does not “take seconds” if you need proof, discord. Its popular because it is so easy to use and the numbers back that up
Uhm, freenode already exists, you don’t have to set up another server just to create a channel. There are clients that are embeddable into webpages as well, so joining an existing channel could be as simple as opening a page for a new user.
Otherwise it’s just install a client, select freenode and join the channel.
I challenge you to find a non tech savvy person who can do this In under 10 minutes.
Lemmy is absolutely an echo chamber of the tech minded, you have to remember most people wouldn’t be able to even get on this platform because that “little bit of effort” is way too much for them
That’s what discord is for, an easy, quick and dirty community aggregate
and thats also the reason why this project is now gone…
also you are pretty much “paying” with all you information and since they started heavily monetizing Discord you will pay even more as they soon will start to sell you conveniences or essential features. Also Tencent you know, which is pretty much like Nestlé, so it should be avoided.
The lack of intelligence is thinking you can build a grey zone project in discord. It’s like saying you want to build a house but don’t want to pour a foundation. Like, good for you, focus on windows and paint, but you’re not gonna get anywhere.
Easy quick and dirty are not acceptable when you are trying to build emulation software based on the products of a very litigious international corporation
I think you just need to know what you are getting into.
It’s a private company, it’s closed to sourced, they capture and monetise your data.
For people who value transparency and privacy, there are better options. This emulator project, should have known better than to use is.
aaalll of that being said, it’s very popular and if you are not concerned by any of the points raised in this who threads, it’s a good place to meet people to chat about Warcraft or whatever your thing is.
Just be aware that any thing your write, effectively belongs to them forever.
This is going to be very interesting, as Dune Messiah is a radically different book to Dune. It eschews lot of the action and heroics in favor of discussions of politics and statecraft. Very much a slow-burn compared to book I.
This is great news. This is probably one of the companies that most desperately needed a union. Sure, I was laid off due to (bragged about) nepotism at my last dev job, and maybe a union would have helped, but according to my lawyer they didn’t break any laws laying me off. I’m just glad I was able to bounce back and land on my feet in a higher paying job.
Even considering all of that, I find it hard to think of a company more desperately needing of a union than Activision/Blizzard.
Alternatively, maybe a better work culture that could be advocated for by the union would result in better working conditions, more realistic deadlines, happier developers, and by virtue of these things a reduction in the kind of error you are referencing.
But also people make mistakes sometimes. Unions don’t cause that, and I’m skeptical of claims that they seriously aid or promote mistakes either.
As someone who worked for Activision, in QA, on major CoD titles, I guarantee you that wasn’t QAs fault.
I can’t even count the amount of bugs my team found, documented, and raised a hell of a stink about, that still went live.
Major bugs like that in live are not due to QA missing them. It’s due to the rediculous pace ATVI makes the team put out content. Doesn’t matter if QA reports something, if the devs are not given the time needed to fix it.
Maybe you should read how software is developed, what roles there are, how business functions in general, and so on - all that before blaming anyone for anything on the internet.
I make crappy corporate software. I know how this garbage is made and it has no quality. It’s all release after release and hope the bugs get fixed after a while by the tram.
Companies should not see this as a negative. They should think about this as a “radical invitation of social corporate interaction in the gaming industry to maximize long term engagement of the developers.”
Holy shit. Never thought I’d see the day. When I was working QA they would lay us off after the end of every project. It sucked. We’d be off work for months at a time. No benefits, no healthcare, no OT pay, long hours, bullshit 1099 contracts. And if you were on a shit title, sorry homie. Enjoy Barbie’s Island adventure.
QA could use some unionizing across the software/game industry imo.
It’s amazing how buggy websites of billion dollar companies are. They either don’t have a QA team or don’t prioritize any of the bugs they file. If I were still in that field I’d probably team up with some litigious ADA lawyers.
I’m super happy to see this. Just a few years ago, I was working as QA in a studio adjacent to this group. (We had our own QA, but worked alongside the activision group) and god they needed to do this.
So happy to see them fighting back. I hope the rest of the employees who don’t get fucked QUITE as hard as QA join too.
I applied for a job as a QA at Nintendo and barely was not taken. Hearing about all of the bad experiences people have had working as QAs, maybe it’s for the better lol
Oh no! Pretty soon the union will be demanding all kinds of crazy things like “stop stealing breast milk from the female employees” and “don’t drive employees to suicide.” When will it end?!
Hey listen, those employees signed an agreement when they came onboard that anything produced while in the employment of Blizzard was automatically Blizzard‘s property.
So when Mike Ybarra gets thirsty? That shit is his.
Those are things the Blizzard employees have had happen to them. The boys club that was going on there was horrific and the women that worked there went through a ton of shit.
It’s definitely sarcasm. It’s framed in “soon they’ll be demanding all kinds of crazy things like…”. If it weren’t sarcasm this would imply this person really thinks those things are crazy.
I could agree on the /s being sardonic over sarcasm. With how irony has been slowly redefined over the years I can see how people could preceieve why that would be a sarcastic statement and accepted as such, cus language changes over to time and whatnot.
I’m OK with them wanting to keep making money from it as long as they update it for compatibility with newer operating systems. Selling something they have completely abandoned us not cool.
What makes you say that this is aiming to make that impossible? I picked up RA2 because it was cheap and I figured if I didn’t like the port (doesn’t work well, forces you to play on their application, etc) I’d just return it and so far it’s been good enough for me to use. The installation process was a lot easier than the original game and I was able to hop straight in and play. Haven’t had any issues with it yet.
So far I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this is anything but them catering to a different market that being the steam community.
Yes I both am aware and agree that that would be acting against archives and the like. EA making these games available on Steam however is not the same as Nintendo suing emulators.
Used to play the crap out of some Populous (all of them) was a great game. Not giving EA any money though. Just get them on GoG so you don’t rent them.
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