Most forums have dedicated categories for common stuff like this. Written reports are fine if an explanation is needed, not for the newly created samename37 spambot account illicitly selling drugs (or something that is probably phishing, like the delta airlines refund ticket type stuff) without really doing much to hide it.
It's the same communities and overwhelming at times to the point it doesn't even feel productive or even needed to report it. This is the lowest of low-hanging fruit.
Lots of places that list ernest as the only moderator. Some I've seen are on communities such as: fediverse, internet, opensource, science, random (which also pulls content from various places, which had the added minus that spam from other instances will not have deletions federated). Even the ask communities are sometimes hit, or for instance in this community there's a spam thread for pills in Dubai right below this one in new (from 2 days ago).
Specifically I'm talking about stuff you'll either see piled up in the new feed OR in the 'random threads'/posts section. My new feed isn't lotsa spam like it was earlier, but the sidebar currently is.
I don't know if you saw my last thread about KES in this magazine
I did. I would still be commenting about it as I don't think extra stuff should be necessary to fix a problem like this. Filters should exist especially for new accounts (even the most cautious implementation could make a big difference), comparing names to banned accounts before account creation too (or shadowbanning so they don't just choose different names).
because it loads content that, AFAIK, doesn't respect your actual block settings
Oh yeah, funnily enough the one thread in my image that isn't spam was from a community I blocked. (at least I think it was, hard to tell with different instances)
Also to add to my list above, I just noticed a lot of spam posted in the food community. Also checking from the top of the magazine list with default sorting: tech, TodayILearned, space, showerthoughts, programming (though some of the spam is related SEO-type garbage). Books has 1 piece of spam and 1 user (probably bot given the post with 503 - Service unavailable in a title) who just aggregates Amazon links+descriptions.
On food I was actually talking about the non-related spam, such as the x8 newest. Mostly gummies and pills, though maybe you're already blocking those like you said (and this might apply to the below text too).
Though looking at it there are also some semi-related local-specific self advertisements by likely bots (Best X in location Y / near me). So I wasn't talking about food blogs, but I do see some of those that are downvoted (and they are clickbait-y). One of the blogspot ones (the one who marked it as 18+) has one thread about Quora SEO and another thread called "hot girl" (random woman outside)
Aside from blocking I could see soft hiding (especially with ratings and/or grouping), though I'm not so sure how well that would work with assessing a thread or a user. Though I notice a lot of accounts like this don't seem to comment much if at all.
To be clear, you're talking about /m/food on kbin.social? And particularly the threads side?
I'm the mod for that community, and I'm not seeing any amazon links, gummies, etc
Amazon links no, that was Books and the other user misspoke in one of their comments.
The other stuff, you deleted some of it after I commented, some is still there. Screenshot attached, the last one is about food but is that user's only post and looks awfully like a thinly-veiled advertisement.
Also, I have two posts you don't have. I'm viewing this directly in Firefox -- are you in an app of some kind?
That is weird, and nope also Firefox. I see what you do if I log out though. I checked, I don't seem to have that user blocked, and the spam still there then gone on logout/private-window is something else entirely.
EDIT: I don't see those 2 posts because they are categorized as Macedonian. I have it set to English only. Though the posts look like they are in English.
To be clear, you see the spam when logged in, then don't see it logged out, then see it again when logged in again?
Correct.
Or, I can do it if you don't feel like it and don't mind me using your screenshots
I haven't used codeberg yet, so I'll just say sure you can use my screenshots/words. It also directly affects you as a mod more as you've said, anyway.
Using those usernames/profiles to look at the posts directly, I don't suppose there is anything that might detail what is going on? There are ~500 open issues, maybe this is some existing database/caching issue possibly related to post/community IDs? Though I am still not sure why viewing would differ by user.
I ordered my Playdate last week, and it arrived today. I am having a blast with it so far. Highly recommend it. The build quality is really solid, and the software is snappy and fast. Seriously, get yourself one of these.
Does it even have touch capability? Though I could see the logic if there is some way to develop in a way that allows easily exporting to both the Playdate and Android.
Also I'd say a lot of those features are easier had with a Steam controller (or perhaps other gamepad). Granted they are not sold anymore, but I got one in the fire sale and likely a lot of people did as well due to being dirt cheap (PC Gamer says 48 million, 10% of sessions).
I was originally going to reply to @essell on agreement on cost, but the only real substance was
It's not really for me for a lot of reasons (I don't need portability, I don't like buying things generally+use what I have)
I haven't worked my way up to real creation yet (due to a lot of problems) but my desired aesthetic is more like these things I've made animated 2D eye (note:imgur links only work if opened in a private window for me) or 3D plant with only vertex colors.
Is there any way we, as users, can help deal with the waves of spam-meds-bots? When I get the chance I downvote, but that's not possible for microblog. Do reporting them have any effect, or they go in the pile and are more a nuisance than a help?...
I once again ask why there is no form of filtering, especially for new users who rapid post. Also spammers using the same names with a higher number after they get banned.
This is easy to ask for, but not easy to implement.
The problem I see (and what influenced the tone of my other comment) is that I don't think I've seen any acknowledgement about any sort of filtering and this is a persistent problem. I get it, but also it seems really unnecessary to manually remove the 10 threads obviously not made by humans (or even just the 3 accounts that just popped up in a close time-frame).
It doesn't need to be perfect, surely any technique can be worked-around eventually but that also introduces extra steps (that spammers don't need to take now) that makes it harder and less likely. Doing so I think makes moderation much more viable and impactful.
Even just some sort of auto-spoiler/warning (multiple suspicious keywords in a non-relevant community, new user, 3 threads in an hour etc) could have an effect.
I mean this is because of a technical issue likely on Kbin's side. Which is not a shock.
Also I posted 2 threads to kbin communities recently, 1 got most of its activity from LW and the other got 4 favorites from different instances and no comments (and it did not federate to LW, though I don't think that was related to the temporary block). LW could be too big but kbin seems kind of dead for the communities that aren't constantly in the feed (likely because of the same people posting, in many cases). Though technical issues always could be part of it in one way or another.
I've had similar thoughts here, but I'd add also that the remasters also bloat the data of a game massively while also completely cutting out some really smart rendering tech. Like vertex colors in general, but specifically Spyro's vertex color skyboxes.
Similarly was watching reviews on the Medievil remaster and hearing a few people say that they left some glaring design issues in.
Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with...
Games back then were pricier - once you account for inflation.
That's commonly said but ignores other economic factors such as income, unspent money, and cost-of-living.
Though lots of things are better now: the entire back-catalogue of games, more access to review/forums, free games (and also ability to create your own games without doing so from nothing) etc. Aside from when video store rental was applicable, early gaming was more take-what-you-can-get (niche hardware/platforms might still have that feel somewhat).
I'm feeling a bit better. Starting today, I'll be returning to work as much as possible. This week will likely be spent catching up on tasks, replying to emails, reading overdue comments, etc. I also need to work with Piotr on instance infrastructure. I'll be more actively handling spam as well, but it's clear that we need...
I'll be more actively handling spam as well, but it's clear that we need additional people for global instance moderation. I'll prioritize this. I'd like to delegate instance administration as much as possible and fully focus on code
Said before (forgive me if you planned on replying to it), but is spam filtering (and similar issues related to moderation/federation) something you're planning or?
The current spam is rudimentary so I don't think false positives are a reason for no filtering at all, particularly if existing users are not scanned the same way. If mods can un-delete false positive threads/comments made by new accounts surely it'd be less work than manually removing spambot stuff (even if it were per-user). Especially if manual spam removal means that people still see the spam.
EDIT: Also clicking on one of the new spam accounts, 13 minutes old with 6 threads (and that was posted almost immediately with the rest posted within the span of 3 minutes).
I check in here quite often, but for now, I'm just focusing on clearing spam and keeping the instance alive. In January, I was working on the AP module, and there has been significant progress in the work, which hasn't been publicly published yet. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, I developed a skin condition that...
Honestly no, he needs to implement some kind of proactive spam filter. A new account posting SEO spam or openly mentioning code generators should be the easiest thing to prevent. And I'm pretty sure other fediverse instances have done that.
Probably more admins (or at very least, global mods) just for daily operations.
Also not the main issue now, but also some sort of removal federation even if it can be reversed in cases of bias. Because spam (or worse) removed on another instance shouldn't stay up here.
Yeah, one of the things I liked in old versions was having just one type of planks (not having multiple variants of everything wood, particularly). And I've never cared about the bosses or searching for something 50K blocks away from spawn or whatever. The other annoyance is hunger, though eating to insta-heal isn't much better either.
One issue for me is that I really liked the block model system of newer versions (release 1.8), particularly as a resource pack creator. A ladder looks so much better as a few cuboids than it does as a flat texture, and my models (which I made in a text editor) looked a lot nicer than my textures.
Also, never migrated my account. Are the servers to download the old versions from the old launcher even still up?
Minetest could be a solution here, but it seems like most Minetest games are either following new MC's footsteps or are doing something completely different. At least I've never played one that made me want to keep going, something good enough to start my own thing with (I would like chaining sticky pistons or similar things that are powerful in single-player, blocks that look cool but offer specific benefits like an iron grate floor/ceiling).
Parallel timeline mods are interesting, though I am not having luck with trying them thus far and I also doubt the modding tools are there enough especially for me who doesn't want to code in Java. I could also see it interesting if there were an easy way to just disable a large amount of blocks/items/mobs etc and then just add in new stuff... maybe even with data packs especially for this sort of thing.
I am thinking about game mechanics that interact (has anyone tried liquid-like gravel/coal piles yet?) or that just connect simply/are instant (rather than high-throughput automation). Or different systems for healing/buffs/food. Maybe alternate tools/transportation/skybridges etc.
EDIT: So they really added data packs without the ability to make "true" blocks/items (instead still dependent on entities and commands, data overridden not data driven), huh? Guess I shouldn't be surprised.
It seems like the old login servers don't even exist anymore (so I don't see how it'd actually verify unless it just checks a username's purchase status), but yeah that launcher does work for offline. (I still have my lastlogin file assuming it can't overwrite itself easily, but I don't think anything uses that other than the old launcher which can't seem to actually download the files because 404).
It's also interesting for the built-in modding, though it doesn't seem to be perfect. Also added an edit to my original comment mentioning parallel timeline mods. Though I'll just check out some classic(/revived) mods if I can get them to work.
Steam, the renowned gaming platform, is offering an array of free games that cater to different tastes and preferences. Let's delve into the details of these captivating titles that won't cost you a dime.
Hmm.
One of those games says right in its description that it's a free fan game, another says it's a student project for educational purposes.
Two of these are prologues, full games in wishlist phase. A third is similar, but with an upcoming sequel.
One of them is free-to-play (rather than free-to-keep)
Easier: Stop using trademarked terms (particularly in this case where it's the original game name) and screenshots of the logo.
It's a multiplier to being caught, and can still result in a takedown even with original assets (for example, DMCA's sky which originally used the M name in the title). The further you distance yourself from trademarks/IP the better.
It also doesn't matter how by-the-law they do that if they're still using trademarked terms so will easily show up as a search result when someone at a corporation has an intern run a script to do another batch of DMCA takedowns.
I mean unless they have the willingness+time+money to fight a highly-paid team of lawyers in court. (which could happen either way, but it's much more likely when it's so easy to find even if it gets 3 downloads)
I don't really care (especially when it's older than 2 decades), but when a company (this company especially) issues hundreds of takedowns in 1 batch (and they do this multiple times) I don't think they're evaluating each one at all let alone for any sort of merit/exemption. They have no real reason to do so, that's why I'm saying don't put the target on your back (especially scaling with how much work was put into it).
If anything I'd say I'm at the point where fan content kind of seems too good for companies that treat their users like dirt (and not just those who make fan content). Like that is inevitably going to be someone's introduction into a series, can this giant company not do better than free-time fan efforts? Well, I guess what I'd really like to see is a game that's simultaneously a love-letter to a game/genre yet a hate-letter (diss letter?) to the current owner.
Including a trademarked term right in the title is the thing that gets most fan projects. It's a multiplier for takedowns, it can't get any easier for companies than running a simple script that just searches Itch/Gamejolt/Github for terms and then doing a mass takedown of the results. And that will even catch things with 3 downloads.
Sure user-added* or redone assets could help, but just distancing the name would help a lot more. Having 100% new assets won't stop a takedown if you use trademarked terms (see DMCA's Sky), and the DMCA system doesn't really discourage overstepping unless somebody has the willingness/money/time to take it to court.
*=image detection could be a thing as well though, so be careful with screenshots especially with a logo
It's probably stuff being less "indie" than it appears on the surface. Both of those games you listed appear to have successful publishers, one behind Maplestory and multi-million (in USD) net income (also largest shareholder is investment firm, Maplestory NFTs). The other has more games (and significantly more DLC) on Steam.
That doesn't really answer your question, well aside from saying money. Though there may be a deeper connection as well (shareholders having hands in everything etc)
Some people might be against them for the reason that they can de-list their old games from digital storefronts. For newer games especially it'd make that hard to compare what was changed.
I guess it's not as relevant with newer titles, but I feel like many of the classics looked fine (especially with higher internal res which is a good option for emu) and had some really cool tech that gave it a nice aesthetic without it being bloated. So it kind of feels like it's missing the point (limitation and ingenuity or something like that).
Like with Spyro, a big draw for me is the usage of vertex color including the skyboxes (one example, album). So it went from ~300MiB to 30-60GiB+. I mean sure some old games were designed with raster graphics that look crusty now, but for something like Spyro I'd rather play even a fan _de_make (leaning further into vertex colors) with more fleshed out gameplay (/more content) though too many fan game creators haven't learned to distance even their game titles from trademarks.
Well I have a lot of problems with how people design games so I don't really buy stuff anymore, plus I haven't really seen a lot of stuff that focuses on vector (esp textureless). In other words it's pretty niche even for indie, and discoverability generally isn't great even on the best day.
I don't think that's it. For 3D the workflow is already there and vertex colors are powerful (though usually used for shaders or other effects like terrain-based sounds). Even going for Spyro's approach (esp. grayscale textures that disappear with LoD so it's just color) wouldn't be too bad as I imagine its music/voice is actually what takes up the most space (newer audio compression or MIDI-like music would reduce that), though a more minimal/stylized look could make it a lot easier. Certainly some things are more suited for it than others.
I could say a lot of technical reasons for or against this workflow, but I think the biggest is just that it's something that people don't think about or would rather have photorealism or blocky pixels instead (or at least that's a large chunk of the market). Vertex lighting is cool but doesn't have much use over modern lighting (if it did, it'd be very niche) and developers often don't really care about optimization much, instead telling players 'upgrade your PC'.
(admittedly my experience with 2D vector seems less supported as far as editors and AA, though I'm not sure if Godot's clip children feature has an equivalent in 3D or if you'd just need to use meshes/rigging more cleverly... which is fair, I'm not aware of non-skeleton rigging tools in Godot's 2D either)
I mean yeah we're mostly on the same page... but it should be clear that I'm not suggesting crazy detail everywhere, mostly just being a bit more intentional with model design when possible to integrate vertex color (or another old technique, use multiple objects when it means a simpler mesh). And I mentioned Spyro's texture/LoD system which is good, was going to mention sprite usage and also Crash having only 2 textures (shoes, back) but was too wordy (also Crash taking advantage of a linear camera for custom culling and view-specific models).
I'd say it's really good to give variation (and unique-ness) on detail and effects that way every tiny thing you decide to add isn't a fixed workload. Or in some cases the opposite approach, a more re-used/modular design for certain things like characters.
The problem with textures (aside from data w/high-res/high-color, resolution dependency, and workload) is that when you play an older game at modern resolutions (higher internal res or even just a Flash game) the elements that were designed for older resolutions/displays are really apparent next to the meshes that scale perfectly. Particularly if it's a GUI or pre-rendered cutscene (sometimes other random stuff). Textures on meshes can still be a really solid aesthetic for the environment/characters.
Also generated textures (see .kkrieger for an extreme example) might be a potential fix for the drawbacks, or something like textures that are designed to be used with an upscale filter (or in a similar way, maybe converting to SDF textures).
I kinda hate the mention of "that's not universal!". That usually isn't even claimed (and factors are usually discussed in long-form videos), and needing to constantly change wording to prevent that gets old for both sides of a conversation (at least that's my experience, most of the time).
For me a lot of the things that make games not fun are things that I can describe. Hunger/inventory management/decent items being rare/underwhelming rewards/backtracking/lack-of-information-or-feedback are the most common that make games feel tedious to me. Often a tiny removal or tweak could go a long way to fix that, but that isn't really even viable in most cases (particularly for me).
I just have stopped buying games because money/purchase regret, though if I were: GPU and storage space(+6-8Mbps internet shared with other people) are considerations that block off many newer games for me (and indie games are not immune to this, particularly with resistance to buying).
That, and anything that's heavy on story or atmosphere I can probably get 80% enjoyment (if not more, because I won't be experiencing the issues) by watching a video of someone else play (particularly someone with a good voice adding their own narrative/spin). A lot of games that I've played were pretty obvious and thus don't seem to have much below the surface.
On a more general note, it often seems like games either expect too much of me or just don't respect my time (and I say that as someone with a lot of free time). And on a specific note, games that are co-op-first often just suck to play single-player.
As for Minecraft, due to the updates I was slowly losing interest until I stopped playing in the 1.8/1.9 era (I had my own resource pack with 1.8 models that kept me somewhat interested, 1.9 broke them). Then you needed to create a Microsoft account.
I've tried different Minetest games and there isn't really a base that I enjoy enough to try modding onto, especially as many go for the same types of things that MC does.
The last thing I bought was a charity bundle more than a year ago (2022 march), there were a few games that I enjoyed but not for long and most of it seems not that great. Since then I've just been playing free games, which again some is pretty OK and a lot of it isn't (it's kind of annoying to sift through it on itch).
Influencing fun or depending on others for it is one of the reasons I've never really played multiplayer. I see the SS14 update posts on here and like the idea of playing but I'd rather watch a story (Tex or BoatB) than be a part of crafting one.
Adjusted price is a common talking point here, but it ignores the other side of inflation... that wages have stagnated and rising prices obviously means that people have less spending money.
Consider also that there is a lot of choice with the back catalog on PC as well as free games (that people can make in their spare time at no cost thanks to FOSS tools and free information). Pre-broadband, gaming was more of a take-it-or-leave situation.
So yeah, I think most people already see increasing prices as being motivated by greed. And some people likely see the $60 price as already greedy when games are often filler and spectacle (with poor QA testing on top of that, because they know people will pre-order it anyway, and then buy the later DLC or cosmetics).
I am not sure this is something other engines even offered at this level, but my issue is bindings support.
3.X had (3rd-party) production-ready bindings, even for niche languages.
4.X, with hopes of improving support for compiled languages, has a new bindings system meaning that all bindings need to be redone as a new effort. This happened with the language that I'm interested in, the group that made the production-ready 3.X bindings abdicated the crown and there have been splintered efforts by individuals to work on 4.X bindings.
So it (3.X vs 4.X) is language vs engine features. When/if 4.X bindings do come out, it is not known how similar they will be so (aside from non-Godot-specific code) that will likely add complication to it as well.
I don't really care about consoles (needing to jump through hoops to develop for it is one reason) so a different potential issue would web export limitations. Both for different languages and for visual quality (AA). Those were issues in the past, though I'm not actually sure where they're at now (the 4.1 docs do say you can't have C# web exports in 4.X).
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
I know that's probably rhetorical, but probably a similar problem to modern movies where (as described in the video Why Modern Movies Suck - They're Too Expensive) they are going after spectacle (rather than story or other elements) and due to cost they must make a 'safe' product to stay profitable, where a bland but universally palatable product will sell more tickets/copies than a stellar niche thing.
I'd also add that companies know they can usually ride the success of their own name/brand recognition. Even worse here with games because of pre-ordering, early-access as a product, and crowd-funding (which some wildly successful publishers still do--on top of unpaid self-promotion and all the other things--because people still think of them as indie).
I gave the title of it and I figured that would easily be found (title only because it was something I saw in not-logged-in YT recommendations, figured others may have seen it too).
As someone who admittedly usually has a bad experience with roguelikes, that seems about right.
My first playthrough was pretty easy until a character died quickly (it's all downhill from there), my second playthrough seemed a bit harder+more resource constrained+worse luck with research.
Also generally seems like one of those games where micromanaging is the key (even though I don't think it's really fleshed-out like games that typically do that), and some situational benefits (that may not pan out due to floor turns left, placement etc) that your characters completely lack at the beginning (also you can't see actives/passives on the character select screen). The generators seem expensive for how little they produce per-turn (at least without upgrades, and especially as their cost increases).
Then again, this is likely one of those games that'd be significantly easier with multiple players.
Banning spam accounts (kbin.social) angielski
Banning spam accounts on kbin.social is a cumbersome affair....
I just got a Playdate!
I ordered my Playdate last week, and it arrived today. I am having a blast with it so far. Highly recommend it. The build quality is really solid, and the software is snappy and fast. Seriously, get yourself one of these.
Can we help against spammers? (kbin.social) angielski
Is there any way we, as users, can help deal with the waves of spam-meds-bots? When I get the chance I downvote, but that's not possible for microblog. Do reporting them have any effect, or they go in the pile and are more a nuisance than a help?...
Lemmy.world has gone read only to us (kbin.social) angielski
We'll still get their content but be unable to interact.
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Gameplay mechanics were also a lot better with more replayability. (lemmy.world) angielski
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/kbin March update (kbin.social) angielski
I'm feeling a bit better. Starting today, I'll be returning to work as much as possible. This week will likely be spent catching up on tasks, replying to emails, reading overdue comments, etc. I also need to work with Piotr on instance infrastructure. I'll be more actively handling spam as well, but it's clear that we need...
RE: Is Ernest still here? (kbin.social) angielski
I check in here quite often, but for now, I'm just focusing on clearing spam and keeping the instance alive. In January, I was working on the AP module, and there has been significant progress in the work, which hasn't been publicly published yet. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, I developed a skin condition that...
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Steam, the renowned gaming platform, is offering an array of free games that cater to different tastes and preferences. Let's delve into the details of these captivating titles that won't cost you a dime.
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This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
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When should developers go back and remaster or remake their most popular games?
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Game prices are too low, says Capcom exec (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
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While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
Dungeon of the Endless is free to get on Steam for a limited time (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Its a novel mix of Tower Defense and Roguelite games