A new update and a new discussion

The work continues on my many ideas and projects, and more roadblocks occur constantly, but that wouldn’t be fun, now would it? Regardless, I’m trying to tackle a few infrastructure-type issues before moving on to new projects. The current issue I’m wanting to iron out is utilizing a VPS to host a server for me so I don’t have to keep my personal desktop online at all times to use my Jellyfin server. The good thing about that is I can just use Ubuntu and set up Docker Compose to pull my config down to the new server. I’m currently using Vultr; I’ve found they’re the best price-to-server performance for the money. At around $5 a month, I can utilize a 1 vCPU, 1 GB of RAM, and a 25 GB virtual server through their service and have some flexibility in the other services they provide without breaking the bank.

The other issue I’m trying to work out is how to utilize Docker secrets to keep things like API keys and admin logins safe when deploying these containers. I’ve been trying to have a security-focused mindset when creating these resources, which is why I utilize Cloudflare Tunnels to protect the network traffic into my Jellyfin server, but I want to make sure every bit of data I need to protect is protected. I realize this concept is not hard to grasp; however, I’ve never had to implement features like this in a production environment, and that’s my goal: to have a test bed that mimics a production environment in order to be better educated in my career.

My next topic I want to dive into is a little different; it’s more of a shift in direction and more me wanting to just share my thoughts on something that’s been a hobby of mine forever: video games. Some of you may already know of my love of this topic; I talk about it all the time, and I can’t get enough of discussing video games whenever I can. It’s a hobby that I’ve had since I was about 8 years old. What do I want to talk about? Well, I’m glad you asked! I think one topic that gets brought up these days is live service and the negative impact it has on the video game industry. The fact is simply that live service drives a constant pressure toward game developers to continuously evolve on the same intellectual property; this, in turn, destroys creativity and stagnates the market. As we’ve seen recently with games like Concord, live service can fail miserably, and it can drive companies into the ground, putting those developers out of work. It’s really a horrible thing to invest in these days, considering there will always be games that will fight for your attention, and live service games are built to have your complete and uninterrupted attention, driving that FOMO (fear of missing out) to the edge, only to leave you hanging on for the next piece of the story. Destiny 2 does this; Warframe also, to an extent; almost every MMO in existence has done this in some form or another. You gotta keep those subscribers locked in somehow, am I right?! In all seriousness, I love video games, and unfortunately, live service games either crash and burn or become massive hits, and that’s what these companies bank on, pumping out live service after live service until one just sticks and makes that sunk cost worth all of the efforts.

The final point I have in regard to these types of games is that they don’t respect you as a consumer; they’re designed to keep your attention and time-lock you out of content to keep you coming back the next day when that lock opens. You might be asking yourself, “But Defaced, are there ANY live service games that you can recommend?” Why, yes, I can! The first one that comes to mind is Guild Wars 2. It is an extremely consumer-friendly MMO that never pressures you into dumping money for power or even cosmetics. There are character slots that you can purchase, and bank and inventory slots you can purchase; however, nothing feels gated or out of reach, and there is absolutely no power that can be purchased. It is the ultimate consumer-friendly MMO. The next game I can recommend, to an extent, is Warframe. Now, some of you may be against this; however, I enjoy it, especially when playing “The New War.” Yes, the entire progression system is time-gated; however, if you queue up a couple of weapons every few days, you are constantly earning new gear, and not a single questline is gated. The only one I can think of that might be considered gated is “The New War” with the Necromech and Railjack, but if you have PlayStation Plus, you can redeem some free packs for Platinum and just purchase those or farm for the parts. It’s really not a massive time sink. I’ve played a few gachas, like ZZZ and Genshin Impact, and while I like those games, I’ve never gotten far enough into them to be taken in by the gacha gameplay. So, in conclusion, live service games, with the exception of a very small few, create a stale industry that is too afraid to take risks and chases the idea of a jackpot intellectual property that will fund a studio for years at the cost of limiting their creativity to a single IP and reinforces the idea of chasing trends. Games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 have shown if you make a quality product, people will, in fact, purchase your game. Indie developers are really driving the creativity in the market with games like Nine Sols and Risk of Rain, with the latter being purchased by Gearbox (for better or for worse…). Stardew Valley has broken all expectations on how long a game should be supported and how many features a game should include. I realize this is over a large amount of time, but it still puts other games to shame with the quality of the gameplay and story. Create cool games, profit, and move on to the new cool idea; that’s what the industry needs right now, not multi-seasonal live service slop.

Phew! That was a long one, eh? Well, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking around and listening to my rant about the current state of the gaming industry. For now, this is your friendly man without a face, DeFaced, signing off!