Gamemaster1379

I love projects like these. Between decomps and static analyzers, we've seen so many fantastic games modernized and ported.

Ocarina of Time is able to play natively on just about every system system imagineable (pretty sure native PS1 builds exist) Sonic Unleashed, previously an 360/PS3 exclusive, now can be played in ultra wide on PC natively.

Majoras Mask got a recent static deanalyzed PC port and has higher FOS and ultrawide mods.

Perfect Dark for the N64 has a native PC port with ultrawide and mouse and keyboard controls.

These are just a few off the top of my head.

Gundam Evolution, as someone else noted from my comment history.

This is a nice tool. A game I liked to play announced end of service back in 2023. They gave enough notice to let me capture some logs from their cooridinator service.

I captured them in mitmproxy and ran those through this to help me identify all the endpoints and their general structure. (A few things were a misnomer, like the examples suggesting certain values were able to be floats when they could only be integers)

I was able to get a team together and we were able to stand up private servers as a result.

First I've heard of fractional roles. Is there any loose guidelines of what level of experience is required to break into the space?

I've been doing software for about a decade now. But I'm still (relatively) young. I do feel I have good breadth though and could provide value to a fledgling company to move in the right direction.

I just learned about fractional jobs. I've bounced around my company for a while and also led some independent projects. I'd like to break into this space. I'd be curious to know what was causing your CTOs to strike out to know what pitfalls I could avoid (Also open to discuss your role specifically if you're interested in someone trying to get their feet wet in fractional work, but am comfortable in the engineering space)

I appreciate it. So far so good. We've been hosting lobbies for about about 6 months now.

Also, I made a typo. They shit down in late 2023, not 2024. So between November 2023 and March 2024, there was no public place to play the game we've brought it back since though.

Hope Bamco lets us be in our little corner for now!

The game is Gundam Evolution, so Bandai Namco is the owner. They are known to be very litigious and protective of Gundam IP.

The game was a multiplayer FPS and involved cosmetic micro transactions.

Due to mismanagement they shut down in one year. It launched in late 2022 and EOSed late 2024.

I'm in the US, yes. The company is Japanese though and they may not care as much about US law when choosing to pursue. Even if they ultimately don't have a case, there's still enough gray area to torment-by-lawyer.

For that reason I chose not to take any cash for the project. I also don't distribute any game files. Trying to minimize risk as much as possible.

But yeah! It was a good community building project. We're about to hit 10,000 members I hope it leads to some connections that are profit rearing.

I actually enjoy reversing APIs. A game I really liked to play announced EOS last year. I ended up capturing a bunch of mitm traffic and built my own API instead and now head up a private server for it.

I don't dare monetize that project, but I wish I could use my skills to make some extra money at reversing APIs. Wouldn't know where to begin though.

> game companies are highly incentivized to work with (or at least not antagonize) the elite players

Actually, this is generally untrue. Companies BELIEVE this but often times, these players are a vocal minority put on pedastal and they often end up making the game worse for the general player base.

I wrote a screen reader for an MMO I play that does day trading on the in game market.

It hooks into the games public API to determine items in my price and demand range and does buy orders everyday.

Since it doesn't do any injections, it isn't a violation of the games policies or anti cheats. Been doing it for years.

The items I trade in don't stack in inventory, which makes it tedious for any normal human player. But given the buying and reselling is scripted, it doesn't impact me.

I've generated a few thousand dollars worth of gold over the years doing this.

The games marketplace also is deflationary. 15% buy and sell fees. I imagine I've burned a considerable chunk of gold keeping my operations going.

The system is incredibly hostile to foreigners though who need to interact with a government agency. Especially on holiday. I'm sure that goes well with all the ZTL signs posted 8 ft high and hidden behind the trees.

For live service games, self-hosting is increasingly uncommon. During the Source era of Team Fortress 2, Half-Life Deathmatch, etc, self-hosting was certainly a thing. But in the modern era, games like Overwatch 2 have no means to be a server or listen server. Even "custom games" where you can make your own game mode and do fun, arcadey-style things connect to a dedicated server.

For things that are "single player", (e.g. Tutorials/Practice), I agree with you that it's to be expected that some sort of mock-loopback is likely stood up. But what was unusual in this situation is the _entirety_ of the code is there, to the point it even would bind to a UDP port and handle full bi-directional UDP communication.

I would expect that for something like this, they'd include a trimmed down version, and not ship the _entire_ thing.

Tyranny of the majority

Looking for some part time remote contracting. Focus on backend web in NodeJS/JavaScript and/or data engineering. Proficient with Snowflake, DBT, and other data focused tooling.

Not looking for full time opportunities at this time. Interested in game or game service opportunities, but open to any business ventures.

Several YOE in backend web + data. Have tackled a few reverse engineering ventures too. Currently working on private servers for an end-of-service game. Can check out the project on my website (see below).

  Location: Sacramento, CA
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: JavaScript, NodeJS, SQL, Snowflake, DBT
  Résumé/CV: https://1379.tech/content/files/2024/02/2_12_24.docx.pdf
  Email: contracting@1379.tech

I'm a backend and data engineer that loves working in both. I have the same issue as OP. I don't really have any passion of a business I'd like to start. I just like using my skills to build and enable. Been hoping to pick up some contract work here and there. Think you may have some use for my skillets or know someone who may?

People still do this in small US towns. Your last name defines who you are to the town heritage. If you have the wrong last name, then you don't matter.

As non-contrarian as it sounds, I'd argue that as someone who came from a small town, having to define yourself by your "tribe" last name is worse, because if it the "wrong" last name, there's nothing you can do about it. You can, within reason, change what you do for a living.

I think Plex would be the closest to this.

> Data trumps anecdotes That's just it. The way politicians solved it is by making theft under a certain dollar amount a lesser offense so nobody bothers reporting it anymore.

Apparently one way of reducing crime is by making certain types of theft not illegal.

> pay someone to stand at the door and check receipts ... And if the person refuses to have their receipt checked? Is the store going to risk liability of their employee or being sued by the customer if they're injured? Very real risks and not worth letting a person just walk out. My local grocery stores have receipt checkers and I still see people walk out with full carts. Security will stand in front of them but the thieves just walk around them because even security isn't allowed to touch shoplifters

N64 controllers had an issue where once the lubricant dried out the joystick began grinding it's contained bowl into dust. It's not a springiness issue as much as it is a holder destruction. Massive design flaw.

Who would be the target of the claim? The identity of the thief is unknown. The only identifier is a crypto wallet. Otherwise, the only other targets for a civil case would be Binance, FBI, or SS. None of those are seemingly appropriate targets, but I'm no lawyer.

Claims were filled. In a few cases agents were spoken to to take statements. There was a secret service office close enough so he went in person. No avail.

I used to work for a computer repair company in the Sacramento area that had a dementia patient who'd call in every two weeks or so to have his computer reformatted. The company never intervened. They charged $200 a service. The technician who was sent out quickly realized what was happening and morally objected to it. The manager told him "its not his place to question operations" and they continued to do it indefinitely as far as I understood.

The company had serious issues. They offered financial incentives for reviews. The CEO asked people to clock out and continue to work. CEO also brought a roulette of scantily clad suspiciously young age girls into the office.

My company has been remote even before COVID. They had twice a year gatherings that became once a year as they got bigger. Everyone spent most of the time socializing. It was cool to get to know your online coworkers face to face and you didn't see them everyday so you spent a lot of time socializing. You want tu make the most of it. IMO it works quite well to strike a balance.

Seconding. I put a 1 TB in mine up from an HDD. It's also softmodded and has PS1 and PS2 title I injects in it. Having sleep mode and resume for my favorite PS1 and PS2 games has been great.

Student loans argument is not 1:1 at all.

Every student loan forgiveness proposal I see suggests that taxpayers foot the bill and the counterargument is why should those who did not attend and/or those who paid off have to foot the bill.

I agree with that counterargument and will never vote for forgiveness.

However, send put a proposal in front of me that seizes assets from the universities selling these degrees that apparently can never pay for themselves and sell off their assets to pay down student loan debt? You'll get my vote.

> thousands of people in the US sleeping on sidewalks Somehow this is capitalism's fault and I don't understand how. I have been touring Europe over the past month and throughout the many major cities and small towns I have been in, the amount of homeless is exponentially less. Does Europe not practice capitalism? Or is it possible that our government and culture is to blame, and not our economic system?

Maybe around there. Where we are you can't find a store that charges under $2500 for a Mattress. Was such a racket I rolled the dice on a $300 shipped mattress from Amazon. No issues insanely comfortable. I'd absolutely buy another

To add a bit of flavor, Nintendo/Game Freak has allowed players to migrate Pokémon from the current game generation to the next one for every game generation with the sole exception of Generation 2 (Gold, Silver, Crystal) to Generation 3 (Ruby, Sapphire, Firered, LeafGreen, Emerald)

Players could migrate Pokémon from the virtual console re releases for Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal to Gen 6 and onward, but never to Gen 3, 4, or 5. Furthermore, there was never an official way to use your Gameboy Cartridge saves on the virtual console.

For players lucky enough to have their Pokémon save batteries still living, this is an opportunity for them to save their Gen 1 and 2 Pokémon.

Isn't it a false dichotomy to suggest that a degree exclusively leads to white collar jobs and no degree leads to blue collar jobs?

Your sample size and personal experiences are small. I can easily contast your story with my own limited anecdote. I grew up in a poor dysfunctional family in a high school so bad it nearly was state mandated. I dropped out of university two years in. The rich kids in my class and many of my peers got degrees. Yet very few moved away and of those who did they all struggle to be more than entry level office workers or interns making double minimum wage at best Yet somehow I'm making 6 figures.