Just A Salty Rat

[asaltyrat]

//Clip Available

||Subject: Final Fantasy 10

//CMD. Samuel Black

[T://ASaltyRat] I think I had a valid crashout.

[asaltyrat]

This is probably the first time I picked up a tablet in like 10 years. Two hours, quick paint on Krita, absolutely no plans on a single layer. Honestly? This program rocks. And Now I'm absolutely FUCKED cause I just wanna do this shit all the time. Turning myself into DUST STG!

[asaltyrat]

"GOD BLESS SUPER EARTH!!!" - Rat Probably, seconds before being nuggetized.

I still have no idea what got me in the end. Probably some shrapnel or a automaton head after being valiantly removed by my fellows.

[asaltyrat]

EXTREMELY UNFORTUNATE!

I actually really adore the lil' emotes everyone has access too, but seeing it go terribly wrong just adds to the flavor, dig?

[asaltyrat]

I'm about to become absolutely INSUFFERABLE;

[asaltyrat]

It's messed up that they gunned me down like this. SAW vs REBELLION is probably my favorite game mode.

[asaltyrat]

I've determined that men's fashion consists of only suit vests and skinny shirts.

Wake me up when we're back into trench coats and shoulder capes I hate this society so much. Someone prove me wrong cause I'm at a loss.

(NGL Though I think a suit vest is kinda fly)

[ely-lilac]

i go to the ytp bar and order the usual. the bartender sets a Snoopingas in front of me. i pick it up, raise it to my lips, and set it back down, repeating all of this while gradually accelerating until i have finished the drink. my favorite way to spend a frirfday evenineve

[unagi-eel]

i go to the ytp tennis bar and order the usu. the usuasusual. bart- orders the Snoopingas. the bartender sets a Snoopingas in front of bart-. i pick it up (hey!), and set it back down, and i pick it up, and set it back down, and i raise it-and set it back down, all of this while pea-ing and gradually accelerating until i have finished. *cartoon splat sfx* i repeatedly drink bart-s drink until bart- sets me on FIRE!! *crackling* my favorite waaw to spend a frirfday evenineve. …veve.

[auberylis]

y y y i go to the ytp siis bar? *long pause* to order the bartender to set me on FIRE!! The bartender iS Snoop *snoop dog smoke weed song distorted* i pick the PINGAS up (hey!), and set it on FIRE!! *tf2 pyro happy noises* llAll of this while bartender Snoop gradually accelerating and ♪it's the wall, hit the wall!♪ *cartoon splat sfx 3 times, last paulstretched* waw waw waaaw way to drink aT the ytp siis bar on a friirf evenev lAl

[diamondbrickz]

Visit Original Link

Visit Original Link

Visit Original Link

the ytp bar

[taigacryptid]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[asaltyrat]

The Death of FUN and FLAVOR in MMOs

I remember a time where every little action was hammed up for the sake of ham in online gaming. Runescape of course was the master of this, with certain skills being leveled up equates to tiny little improvements that are nowhere near ‘meta’ or ‘helpful’ towards the end of the game. Level 42 Cooking? Congratulations, you can make wine now! Is anyone going to use that wine to heal, since that’s the whole point of food items in runescape? Absolutely not. But it’s there! An entire quest about bacon and being able to stack bacon ontop of eachother? Excellent! Useful? Nope, but the whole questline has a fully voiced vocal track that’s as unhinged as it could be!

But modern MMOs tend to be forgetting their roots, steadily and slowly with focus going towards ‘useful’ skills and items rather than a little badge of honor you have for reaching a certain level or cap on wealth. Final Fantasy 14 is heralded as a masterful storyteller with boundless quests, hours upon hours of content even before you get to endgame, and some of the best graphics in the industry. But with the game being mostly about combat and less about downtime, there’s really nothing outside of mechanics that set classes and players apart aside from pets and housing. Sure Warriors get Axes and Blackmages get Staves they hold at a slightly different angle than Whitemages. (The angle makes it aggressive!) but where’s the fun little perks of being those classes?

Blackmages could easily dabble in juggling fireballs or conjuring runic symbols on the ground, Whitemages could cast a little spell to light up an area. Sure bards get access to a steadily growing swathe of instruments to play and the Bluemage can self destruct on command! But there’s so much missing from it’s earlier entry that made classes interesting, like Blackmages being able to teleport their party anywhere they had a scroll to, or Puppetmasters being able to command their little pet to dance with them.

World of Warcraft was one of those MMOs that had a growing swathe of neat concepts built around their classes, and thankfully a lot of those spells and nick nacks haven't left. Warriors can jump over gaps, Mages can summon portals, Engineers can make an insane amount of fun little toys and tools to make the journey more interesting, and thankfully enchanting still has a bunch of fun little wands for illusions, but the trim is even happening here. Alchemy barely provides anything more interesting than buffs. Engineering itself has lost a lot of their little neat gadgets they can put together, and we really are missing -more- flavor outside of combat for the various specializations. Do I think MMOs are getting boring? No, The adventure and fantasy are still there. I’ve been sufficiently impressed with both FF14 and WoW that it took me a bit to decide which one to ultimately subscribe back to, but I fear they are becoming less and less imaginative when it comes to what they give us little peons and players between dungeons and quests.

While World of Warcraft’s “Midnight” Expansion is going to launch hard with some extremely excellent features, including the long awaited Player Housing? I’m not sure if they’ll shake up the crafting and class system enough to let us have flavorful downtime or for roleplaying purposes. Shame that, But I remain hopeful that the devs don’t forget players aren’t always on that grind.

Stay Salty~

If you liked this, you can discover this and more over on https://patreon.com/saltyrat, or follow me at twitch.tv/asaltyrat

[asaltyrat]

Broadcasting from your local arm of the Galaxy

It's time for more TNT.

Pain is real, and it comes in a convenient chaingunner package.

Watch this video on Twitch Live

[ratfuck]

horny

[durasoup]

Yakuza 3 // Taking Care of Business

8:00 PM EST // https://www.twitch.tv/durasoup What kind of business does Kiryu do?

[durasoup]

WE'RE LIVE!!!

Watch this video on Twitch Live

[asaltyrat]

Civilization 7 and the Fleeting Wow Factor

I’ve said this before, I’m a giant fan of strategy games.

Civilization 5 has a couple hundred hours put into it. Civilization 6? It didn’t feel nearly as !FUN! As 5, and I’m entirely unable to put my finger on exactly why Civ6 didn’t cultivate the same sort of excitement and ‘one more turn’ FOMO as some of it’s earlier titles. Granted the graphics were stellar and the game itself ran rather well without many defects. But there was a lack of wow factor I think Sid Meyer’s longest running franchise depends on to make it a truly good game.

 The experience was largely the same, which was pretty much what a lot of Civ players want. A ponderous, thoughtful experience where players can take their time and make the exact right play they want to in order to progress, grow their cities, and enjoy the banter of other players, if they were anything like me sitting in a voice call with six other people. But somehow the experience in six didn’t have the same punch as five did.

 It wasn’t the fully animated, somewhat cartoon-like representations of world leaders. I thought the eccentric displays of some of these notable names were perfectly on par with a alt-history spanning experience like civilization. I’m a particular fan of Teddy Roosevelt and Ghandi, both having extraordinarily expressive faces, broad movements, and some of the crisp multilingual dialogue i’ve heard in a game.

 It wasn’t the gameplay. I rose cities, sent my scouts out, and complained about barbarians. Every note in the game hit the mark perfectly for it to be an outstanding civilization experience. I was particularly impressed with how smooth of a transition it was between games. There were a few notable quality of life improvements with combat animations and interesting changes to the map layout, but it wasn’t anything that held me up for any appreciable amount of time.

 It was something about the whole package. Cities were lovely to look at and interesting to see, but they didn’t feel like they were growing or improving as ages went by. Landmarks seemed to be a little out of place. And of course I don’t mean in the historical sense. No, in fact it wasn’t the great wonder builders of Egypt that built the great leaning tower of Piza next to the Oxford University. That’s just par for the course.

 There was a distinct lack of ‘wonder’ in Civ 6 that made it fall flat, despite the game’s attempts to really drive home that concept with unexplored regions of the map showing up as old sea charts and vague sketchy details. For a 3d game it felt flat and uninteresting. But if you were to look at screenshots of the game, you’d wonder what the hell I was talking about. The game itself is bombastic and vividly colored with the developers making full use of cell shading and bright, complementary colors to make structures and units really pop.

 Now we have Civilization 7 to look forward to. I’ve seen the trailers, the overview of the new game, sat down to watch and dissect the gameplay and I’m starting to get a little impressed. Part of my complaint with Civ 6 is that cities really didn’t look like they were expanding and changing, but with the new experience in 7, we’re looking at tile improvements that expand the borders of the city and overall empire in new and exciting ways, with buildings, roads and facilities rendered in what feels like a more organic urban spraw. The new system Feraxis is calling “Ages” where you can willingly change the empire you represent as time progresses feels less like a major shakeup and more an expansion on the old system we saw in 6, where Civics can be hot-swapped to pivot an empire’s focus to readily fit the gameplan.

 I’ll be keenly watching this for a time longer, as we still have a good while before we see it’s full release in Febuary of 2025 and see what features get expanded, if the graphics are improved or reeled back. With GoT’s Gwendoline Christie narrating our empire-building experience, it will at least sound regal and grandiose. Cross your fingers to see if CIV7 brings back that wow factor I’ve been missing.

Stay Salty~

[asaltyrat]

Doom 1993 | Why does it play good?

I played the original DOOM when I was 10 or 12 in my Aunt's Dusty Ol' Office with her Dusty Ol' Computer running Windows 95.

I probably shouldn't have been playing it.

But I did, got to plow through hundreds of angry demons through space bases and huge pits of hell. I learned to understand pain-states and got so excited when I finally beat the first chapter in one sitting. Then something strange happened. I kept playing DOOM.

It wasn't like I had a habit of not revisiting my old favorite games. Legend of Zelda, Starcraft, Quake. These games are burned in my brain and I love picking them up for a few days and enjoying a good ol' fashioned adventure, despite that the games themselves havn't aged well with the times. But DOOM is something I would happily actively stream again. Play through again, dive into the dedicated modding community again. Over and over, and I have absolutely no idea WHY it's like this.

Doom is an OLD game. Not exactly old as dirt, old as the land itself, but it celebrated its 30th anniversary not too long ago and it slaps me in the face that this game is nearly as old as I am. And yet it still keeps offering gameplay I'm dedicated to. That I want to keep enjoying and toying with. I've even considered trying to Speedrun the game a few times.

What is it with DOOM that keeps it's fan base positively frothing for new releases? Not just the overhauled, high intensity action that was 2016's DOOM or DOOM Eternal, but even the older fan .wads and, even still. SIGIL from John Romero, and now Legacy of Rust from the folks at Nightdive and a few extremely dedicated veteran .wad makers.

The Ultimate Doom Steam Port is stellar (sans a few strange sound issues) and people are still remixing E1M1 with some very exciting results. I had a variable amount of whiplash when I found out that OCRemix's "Dark Side of Phobos" started back in 2004, 11 years after the game's release.

I don't need to review the game or give a solid opinion. This is more just me absolutely out of my mind because the DOOM Train hasn't stopped, and I don't understand why.

It's no wonder I'm hitting up the full Vanilla release for the next few upcoming streams while making Crass commentary through it.

Stay Salty~

[positivelyadhd]

i cannot stress enough how much of an impact changing the way you talk to yourself can have on your mental health. swapping out self deprecating jokes and changing unhealthy sentiments like "i hate myself" and "i want to die" to kinder, more forgiving ones like "i need a break" and "i'm trying" can make such a difference to how you view yourself. the things we say to ourselves become a part of our lives and so we deserve to me kinder to ourselves in our heads.

[asaltyrat]

SOMEONE ON TWITTER REFERANCED SHADOW THE EDGEHOG AS "gun husband" AND I'M LOSING IT