It’s good, but I wish it were even more like X-COM with loads of deaths and managing a roster of heroes rather than just a small party.

Especially since BG3 has done the small party adventure thing so well.

Shadow Empire without a doubt. Practically a one-man team, and yet a better logistics and supply system than any other game out there.

Shadow Empire - best strategy game I’ve ever played.

It’s more of a tactics game than an RPG really.

Like D&D X-COM.

Yeah, for both OpenVPN and Wireguard.

On Linux you can do this with full control via network namespaces. I use vopono to automate it - https://github.com/jamesmcm/vopono

But if you can afford it I’d recommend paying for Proton’s services as they offer a lot together, or a low-end VPS (where you could do it yourself, although be careful to find ones that don’t ban hosting Wireguard, etc. for example). Both are really useful if you want to test making something local available on the Internet e.g. ports for multiplayer games or a webserver prototype.

Another benefit of using network namespaces is that I can just disable IPv6 in the network namespace itself.

On Linux you can use network namespaces for the same effect (and then a firewall) - this way it doesn’t affect other applications running.

I do it with vopono.

ProtonVPN for port forwarding, Mullvad for easy usage (Wireguard on Linux).

I use vopono on Linux too.

How long until people will be carrying Raspberry Pis over the borders for their own hotspots? /s

It’s crazy how quickly mass censorship is becoming commonplace though. From shadowbanning on Reddit and Twitter, to court blocking in the UK, Spain and Italy.

Check out the Nand2Tetris course on Coursera for building your own Java too.

With that budget I find it hard to imagine you could beat the Raspberry Pi, but please post what you do find!

The EU’s AI Act isn’t far from this really. Regulating the development of AI so much, it’d be like if they regulated compilers to stop GNU back in the day.

It downloads from YouTube.

Baldur’s Gate 3

It’s more than a re-master though, Laser Squad was independent missions IIRC? No geoscope

And it also didn’t have elevation, etc.? That said, Laser Squad released on the ZX Spectrum so it’s incredible as is.

In terms of games that were so advanced they almost feel like they were made by time travellers:

• Elite (1984) - procedural open world space sim

• Ultima VII (1992) - full NPC schedules, open world and day/night system so you could rob stores at nights, follow people, etc. and awesome exploration. In 1992!

• X-COM (1994) - a voxel-based LOS system, destructible environment, z-levels, natural elevation on terrain (deforming the isometric grid), reaction fire, etc.

• Daggerfall (1996) - a faction system, procedurally generated areas and quests, a lot of options to get to different areas (climbing, levitation, etc.)

• Thief (1998) - a full sound simulation with different materials having different properties, the ability to extinguish torches (dynamic lighting!) and cover metal surfaces, a light system for visibility too (now commonplace).

• Baldur’s Gate (1998) - a semi open-world AD&D2e implementation - with co-op multiplayer! (most modern games don’t manage this)

• Deus Ex (2000) - a branching FPS/RPG campaign where choices matter with a basic stealth system and lots of approaches to each level. It was basically a completely modern game out of nowhere in 2000.

• Runescape (2001) - one of the first major graphical MMORPGs with a full player economy.

• Morrowind (2002) - a fully 3D open world with a lot of options for magic (including custom magic) and exploration.

• Hitman 2 (2002) - first stealth-focussed game with a full disguise system, map, etc.

• Oblivion (2006) - like Morrowind but with some NPC schedules (like Ultima VII), a stealth system (based on Thief) and Havok physics based traps.

• Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) - fully destructible buildings and environments in an open-world campaign.

Those are the ones that really stick out (also Super Mario and Zelda on consoles, especially the SNES, N64 and recently on the Switch handheld). It’s a shame that the rate of progress seems to have slowed down a lot at least in terms of ground-breaking features and simulations.

But who knows maybe Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield will both be on future lists like this.

Ultima VII really sticks out as just crazy though, that game could have released 10 years later and held up.

Also the original X-COM was so far ahead of its time - a voxel-based LOS system, destructible environment, z-levels, natural elevation on terrain (deforming the isometric grid), reaction fire, etc.

In theory it’s easy to monetise - allow some targeted ads to communities and/or occasional relevant boosted posts, or paid awards like Reddit, etc.

The issue is greed / growth. They always need more and more - so you end up with more irrelevant ads, political ads, more boosted posts than natural ones, etc. - most companies aren’t happy to just do one thing well with a skeleton crew maintaining it and keeping costs low - they need constant growth.

Just look at Reddit and Twitter for example.

How would this work? What about people that need to contact their parents?

We need to move away from schools just being prisons for children while parents are at work, and encourage learning and more autonomy over what to study. Imagine having full access to Coursera and EdX and being able to choose what you wanted to study and collect credits like that - building your own syllabus from some of the best educators in the world.

Let kids program video games together at school, build sensors and robots, do basic genetic engineering (e.g. plant patterns), simulate and build model bridges, etc. like stuff that is actually fun but requires basic skills. So you’re not just memorising the trigonometry equations but really learning it because you need it in your projects.

And have zero tolerance for disruption and bullying with cameras, etc. It should be a place for collaborative learning, not a prison. It should feel like a much better place to learn than anywhere else.