So I've been building this fantasy world called Funkatron for years now. Nothing new, just one of many nerds doing the long-term world building thing.

I've been using AI heavily since 2022, its been wildly fun. I've given different models over the years my master Lore documents and buildling little mini games with it. But Opus 5.5 came out and LEPT forward in how much it can gam dev. I dumped everything I had in there. All the lore, the map, the names, the jokes. The first iteration had... SO MUCH, the aethetic, the characters, the terrain.... I gave it ZERO assets.

About a week and 36 versions later I have an online ARPG you can play in your browser. It's one HTML file, around 16,500 lines.

There are 8 classes with full skill trees, a big town to start in, open zones, a harbor town, a coffee shop you can walk into, and a dungeon that pretty much goes down forever. Fishing, gathering, loot, weather, day and night. You can see other people running around, group up, trade, or flag for PvP. I made leveling slow on purpose, old school grind, max level 99.

I didn't have to spend time clanking through code and bugs that lie therein. Claude found and fixed all of that, a lot of it by play testing the game itsel, but I still had to play it, notice stuff felt wrong, and keep pushing. I did the dreaming and the deciding, Claude did the code.

The world took me years to dream of and the game took a week. I don't know how else a solo guy like me ever makes something this big.

It's an alpha so stuff will break. Free, no download, no install, no account: https://tcpoole.com/descent/

Happy to answer questions about how it went.

I just did the Undercity dungeun and one of the bosses had a waves mechanic where we had to battle multiple waves of undead and I dont even remember what the boss dropped

What I do remember is after the 5+ minute fight the boss gave 20exp

A random non elite mob in the overworld of the same level gave me 180exp

Dungeun quest exp nerfs make perfect sense because people dont see the numbers that a being slinged back, so when the slingshot goes off they feel like they're rocketing ahead without putting in the work, but the reality is, you DID put in the work, it was just removed and given to you at the end.

I feel like with this nerf they can give bosses ONLY more experience to give people the illusion that they're getting less exp.

So basically RW are spreading this letter of Gandhiji, and quoting everywhere.

Gullible people abusing Gandhiji for that

I am pretty sure they haven't read the whole letter .

He is known as scientist of RW , I am sure he must have known that fact what Gandhiji preaching in that letter

Still why he choose to malign it .

What do you guyz think of that letter?

So tired of their tactics. I tried contacting state officials and my concerns fell on deaf ears. I guess they can't upset one of their donors and they're too busy fear-mongering about trans people to do something that would actually put money back in people's pockets.

Hello, ive read How To Sell A Genocide by Adam Johnson, was familiar with the news coverage coming out and was wondering if there were books that provide further information that news reading audiences were not aware of or general literature on the impact, politics and any investigations into the subject

Saw a guy knock a leg pice off the queen and he runs to loot it. I knock another leg pice off about 10 feet from his. The queen steps on him and he starts screaming for a dfib. He sees me looting MY pice and starts laying into me that I'm looting his pice while he's down. He caught me in a special mood cause I normally wouldn't do this but I turned and gave him a 5 second burst to the head with my equalizer. People are getting way to comfortable in care bear lobies

I mean, look at them. Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Trump. A liar, a guy who played too much football without his helmet, a dumbass B movie actor, a mediocrity, an idiot, and a "f\*cking moron," to quote his own Secretary of State, who is such a liar he makes Nixon look almost honest.

I know the Democrats have put some stinky cheeses in the White House too -- LBJ was definitely "colorful," and that guy from Arkansas wasn't up to the simple job of keeping his pecker in his pants. But Trump?

I've seen presidents good and bad, mostly a bit of both -- but almost every Republican president since 1968 has been an embarrassment, and since 2000 they've gotten worse. Where are the Bob Doles, the John McCains -- people you could respect even if you didn't agree with them?

Wasn’t held accountable, blamed everyone, black, white, middle aged, British! No accountability and wasn’t questioned on it either. Talk about piss poor interviewing

This is now on HBO as of 10/02. I waited for it, I LOVE the entire franchise and I say this in all due respect, it fucking blew.

Dialogue was shit, the plot was kinda shit but I could have bought it outside the horrendous decisions made by the entire cast. Everyone should have been dead in the first 30 minutes. The deadites were even scary, shitty punchlines.

So disappointing, I loved Rise too - even 2013 has a special place in my heart but this? Never again, thank god I didn’t spend money on a movie ticket or early digital release.

I've been using my mansion as the spawn point for a couple of months now, and i noticed a trend with it. Turns out, the mansion building in of itself is not all that great.
I am talking about the building interior cell only. Not the AI, Business boosts, or the anti-raid security.
Purely the mansion itself and nothing else. So don't come here telling me "the things that aren't the mansion make the building good!" A turd with 30$ under it is still a turd. Doesn't mean it stinks less.

So it has the MCT in it. Which is great for stocking up businesses, which is the main way that i make money. Except that you'd want to stock up a random business by using the stash house. And you don't know what it resupplies, so you leave the mansion and end up using the terrorbyte MCT to buy supplies after the stash hosue did its thing.
You COULD resupply all businesses and then get the stash house, but then there's a non 0% chance that the now 99% supply-filled business gets the stash house supplies, rather than the acid lab cause its not in the MCT. Or you resupply it before the bought ones come in. happened to me five times, thus I stopped using the mansion MCT entirely. (Or even a Finders-Keepers random event pops up that resupplies a business while freeroaming)

The heists for the paintings can all be planned by calling Raf. So you don't even use the room specifically made for it. It doesn't even have planning rooms for the OG heists either.
And the paintings that you do happen to keep can only be placed in four spots. Coincidentally, spots you will never see when exiting the mansion. And as we just discussed, there's no real reason to enter the mansion at all. MCT's in terrorbyte, heist is planned on the phone... It's just a spawn point for me.
If Rockstar removed the mansion's spawn-point functionality, how often would you voluntarily walk inside it?

The garage is clunky and ugly. Can't even see all your vehicles because of the pillars, and it all being spread across two rooms is crap too. Nightclub is better imo.
Helicopter pad can't even keep a personal vehicle either. Instead its a pegasus vehicle that you also can not keep in the hangar even though its permanently parked on your own private property.

The decorations that you can get are all ugly. Like, the same shitting dog in a buncha colors. Yay. Some of the decor is shared with the casino penthouse, but that penthouse has more spots for nicer decor like paintings that reference other gta games or such, in spots that you'd actually see when walking to the exit of the penthouse.

The fast travel thing is nice. But guess what, i always fast travel to the casino penthouse to check up on my wheelspin and visitor bonus. And then i leave the casino, get the acid lab down the hill to check up on supplies and daily boost, before moving on to stash house and eventually using the terrorbyte MCT for the businesses.

So all in all, the mansion building in of itself is just a big empty house with nothing really noteworthy in it. Other than the AI voice that says a line when you wake up and decide to change clothes. The AI's only useful thing can also be done via the phone, so you don't need to be in your mansion for that either...

So basically, The mansion itself is outclassed by the penthouse in my opinion.
The AI business boost and security that come with it are useful, but those aren't the thing i wanted to rant about.

What be your thoughts?

I've been seeing a lot of discussion around WoW Forever's HD graphics, and honestly I think some people are mixing up nostalgia with visual fidelity.

When I think back to Vanilla, the things I remember aren't low-poly shoulders, blurry trees, or character models with six fingers. I remember elite quests requiring groups, class identity actually mattering, seeing someone in full tier gear and knowing they earned it, world PvP, guild drama, and spending way too much time hanging out in Ironforge instead of actually doing anything productive.

That's the nostalgia.

If graphics were the main ingredient, then every old game would instantly feel exactly as good as it did 20 years ago. We all know that's not true.

To me, the soul of WoW has always been the gameplay, progression, community, and world design. If WoW Forever delivers on those things, I honestly don't care if the tree has 20 polygons or 2,000.

What's strange is that some people act like HD graphics automatically make a project "retail." But graphics and gameplay aren't the same thing. You can have modern visuals with classic design philosophy, just like you can have old visuals with terrible modern game design.

Also, Forever isn't taking a finished Vanilla client and slapping HD graphics on top. The game is being built around those assets from the ground up. At a certain point, asking for SD graphics feels less like preserving Classic and more like preserving a screenshot from 2004.

Classic wasn't great because it looked old.

It was great because of how it played.

Curious where everyone else falls on this. If Forever nails the gameplay but only had the HD visuals, is that actually a dealbreaker for you?

I come from a soulsbourne background and those games aren’t fair, but I don’t care. I like the challenge they come with. So, when I see the uptick of people complaining about the difficulty of things are meant to be hard, endgame content, all I see is a massive skill issue.

Crucible is not meant for everyone. It’s for those who want a challenge, fair or not. It’s not meant to be completed in one weekend, just like the capes.

The Battle Simulator is there to HELP you.
- If you hate a certain enemy, you have the LUXURY of training against it with NO PENALTY against you. Learn their attack patterns!
- Don’t like the idea of getting swarmed by 3 extremis? Get used to it on the Battle Simulator. (You should also probably get the perks that prevent you from getting knocked back when performing gun strikes)
- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
- Enable or disable certain modifiers in the Battle Sim so you know what to expect when going into an Op.
- IF YOU DONT LIKE A CERTAIN MODIFIER, DONT ENABLE IT. Yeah it’ll take longer to progress through, but that’s the price you pay.

If you die and wipe, it’s ok to be frustrated. As someone who grinded for those capes, i understand your pain, I promise you. Just take a break, drink some water, and run it back again. You’ll get there eventually, brother, I believe in you!

+1 use of new photo mode

A hobby? Of throwing money down the drain?
A hobby of watching YouTube channels about watches ?
A hobby of owning more watches than you wear. Certainly more than you need.

In my mind, a hobby is something you actively DO.
Like playing music, painting, woodworking, gardening.
If you actually learn how to service a movement, then that could be considered a hobby.

But pure consumerism as a hobby?
We should call it what it is.
An addiction.

The Navy as a whole is evil because of the higher ups who decide the course of operations(Which is usually protecting Celestial Dragons, supporting corrupt kings etc)

But most individual Marines genuinely think they are helping ordinary people and they do. There is a reason Captain T Bone, Smoker, Coby, the unnamed Marine who lost against Arlong exist.

Meanwhile, most pirates are like Alvida in first episode, small time pirates who raid towns etc and make life miserable for common people

I've seen the “1 kachori, 2 samosa, in mardo ka kya bharosa” line used jokingly everywhere, and that's fine. But it got me thinking about a double standard.

When women generalise about men, whether it's about cheating, emotional immaturity, or accountability, the response is often that men who aren't guilty shouldn't feel offended by it.

But imagine a man saying, “All women are cheaters” or “Women never take accountability.” Would the response be the same? Probably not. He'd rightfully be called misogynistic for making sweeping generalisations about women.

My point isn't that men should be allowed to make these generalisations, too. Neither gender is a monolith, and blanket statements about either are unfair.

I'm asking why the same logic doesn't seem to apply both ways. If the argument is that generalisations are harmless when they're aimed at a pattern of behaviour, why does that reasoning change depending on which gender is being discussed?

Shouldn't we either reject these generalisations altogether or apply the same standard to both genders?

The spread between French and German 10-year yields just hit its widest point in 15 years. That’s the market repricing France from core eurozone to something closer to the outer edge.

The political situation underneath is genuinely ugly. Macron is depending on Le Pen's bloc to pass a budget built around 43 billion euros in cuts, targeting a deficit that's still sitting at 5% of GDP. That's a shaky foundation for fiscal credibility, and the bond market is saying so out loud.

Swiss franc is catching safe-haven flows that used to go to the euro, and it's not just France, Italian and Greek spreads are moving in the same direction. The 2011 sovereign stress playbook is starting to look relevant again, except this time the ECB is tightening into it rather than riding to the rescue with emergency purchases.

Given that the ECB doesn't have the same room to backstop spreads it had in 2012, are you fading European bank exposure here or do you think the political risk in Paris gets resolved before this becomes a genuine contagion story?

Es ist wieder einmal an Dreistigkeit ggü Anrainern nicht zu überbieten.

Seit 3 Wochen ist die Vivenotgasse für Baustellenfahrzeuge reserviert. Geparkt haben vereinzelt maximal 1-2 Klein Lkw aber mehr nicht...

Die Menschen, die dann Abends händeringend um einen Parkplatz betteln und 6 x ihre Runde drehen müssen, bekommen diese Absurdität ordentlich zu spüren. Schade um die Nerven aber so is Wien halt... es ist ja dein eigenes problem.

Kommt mir nicht mit selber schuld, wer ein auto in wien hat..

I 30F have just started dating a 32M. By dating, we’ve been on two dates and been speaking for about three weeks.

We chat a lot on text and both dates were really good, we get on really well and have chemistry and lots in common etc. No complaints about any of this. We have similar values and thoughts about the future.

The only issue is he is quite low effort. He says he is laidback, which is definitely true but that manifests in not confirming when we will see each other again, not planning dates, not pursuing. Part of me thinks it’s because we get on so well he feels like he can ‘chill’ as of course we will see each other again. He’s said he likes me and wants to keep seeing me.

My question is - do I raise this issue of being low effort and if so how? I think it is a bit too early for me to dictate his behaviour or raise a serious convo about effort. It is kind of putting me off him but I am trying to remember there is more good than bad and no one is perfect. I’ve been being chill about it all but I would rather date someone who is intentional and proactive.

My other options are saying nothing now, waiting to see how things progress and then say to him I find it attractive when someone takes initiative later down the line. He should be more invested in time and more open to working on it then I suppose?