wizardbeard

Old School Runescape

Specifically Old School, as (Modern) Runescape is a dumpster fire of MTX. Old School's only cost is a membership subscription that grants access to easily 10x as much content and game mechanics, but I was still able to get over a year out of finishing all the free to play questlines (and the stat grinding needed to unlock some of them).

There are a few different projects that allow you to self host specific older versions (I think 2009scape and 2006scape), but "Old School Runescape" is an official fork of the game (from before they added MTX and overhauled most of the mechanics for the worse) that is supported by the parent company and getting new non-MTX content updates still (but mostly to member only stuff).

It was pretty much the poster child for browser based MMOs back in the 2000s. I believe it is still playable in browser, but most people play through a client now.

Last I checked there is the official client available through Steam, an official client for Android and iPhone, a purely graphics overhaul focused client called HDOS, and a developer approved client called Runelite that has an absolute ton of plugins (qol, graphics enhancement, various integrations with twitch/discord/etc) which have been verified by the devs as not cheating, since there's a big PvP scene.

All but one of the changes is AI related.

Notably, they have enabled AI autopilot by default, where it can take certain actions on its own without your approval, and the setting is intended to be managed at the organizational level instead of by your own user settings.

"memory famine" -> "AI data center greed"

Looks like you'll need registry access, local group policy editor access, or rights to install a replacement start menu and taskbar. So if this is a corporate device you don't have Local Admin rights on, then you just have to deal with it.

If you have local admin, the easiest/most reliable way appears to be to use group policy and adjust "User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar" then enable the policy "Turn off taskbar thumbnails".

Technically that just sets one or more registry keys that control the feature, but in theory if Microsoft changes the registry keys that control it, they should also update the group policy to point to the new ones so things keep working automatically.

Note: Group Policy is not available on Windows Standard/Home installs. Only Pro and higher. If you're on a Home version install you'd need to go the registry route if you don't want to replace it entirely.

One of my favorites is "can the network handle a loop?" Plug one port into another, it'll be fun.

More seriously, that doesn't look like a passive dumb switch/hub/splitter so you should be fine. Kind of regret not taking the chance in school to bring down the whole network back when dumb ones were more common.

"no, I prefer my brain to stay asleep thank you. asleep, smooth, and pristinely unwrinkled."

Statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged

Yeah, why would you ever hang those upside down unless that's what you were going for? Or you could just cut or snap off the handles.

Wouldn't you also need to replace the first letter of most words with R as well?

Roo rust reeze ruh reans ruv roduction

Or you're a fan of good music.

... who can also tell the incoming weather with their knee

Not sure it would be much different, honestly.

Don't forget work to upkeep your living space!

[Distant Screaming]

I'm really not trying to be a dick, but if you didn't realize this ages ago I feel like you weren't paying attention.

Pokemon Go is made by Niantic. Their last game before Go was a similarly GPS based game called Ingress. I'm blanking on specifics, but Niantic was either originally created as an Alphabet (Google) subsidiary, or was bought by them for all the GPS data they were getting through Ingress.

TL;DR- It's run by Google, what did you expect?