Demigodrick

Hi All,

Welcome to a new(ish) format Monthly update on Lemmy.zip!

We're testing out this format so please let us know if you want to see anything added to this. If you want to see the previous Server Rundowns you can start here :)

Communities you might be interested in

To start, lets look at some of the growing communities on Lemmy. I'll pick a few each month from the most active communities locally to share. If you're not already a part of these, then now you can jump in the action!

• Interesting News from Around the World - Something that happened recently anywhere in the world. It doesn’t have to have global implications. Just to be informative in some way.

• Gaming - Lemmy.zip's local gaming community for all things gaming related.

• World of JRPG's - World of JRPG’s is a community for everything arround JRPG’s. We talk about news, discuss about diffrerent games or share different events.

• Interesting Shares - A companion to Interesting News from Around the World, but for articles, projects and research.

• Linux Questions - A community for any and all questions regarding Linux!

• Free Software - software that follows the free software philosophy, which is free to run, study, modify and distribute.

Smaller Communities

These are relatively new or smaller communities that I've randomly selected that you might be interested in joining and helping to build!

• All things cheese - For all things cheese!

• Magic The Gathering - For discussion on the TCG.

• Watches - For discussions on watches

• Borderlands - For discussion on the Borderlands series of games.

If any of these interest you, please pop over and join in the conversation! Remember, no question or comment is wrong, and everyone loves seeing new content popping up in these communities.

Communities up for grabs

A few communities have been abandoned recently :( so if you've ever wanted to mod a community, with a pre-existing user-base, the below ones are up for grabs. Just PM me or let me know in the comments and I'll set you up as the mod. Currently they're not available to view publicly (except Apple) but I'll add some info on current subscribers. PS - you don't need to be a Lemmy.zip user for this, if you're reading this from elsewhere you're more than welcome to request one of these too.

• Apple - 128 subscribers
• Playstation - 418 subscribers
• Xbox - 131 subscribers
• Nintendo - 284 subscribers
• Retro Gaming - 452 subscribers
• Forza - 63 subscribers

Feedback updates and work being done.

A little while ago we posted about the feedback we had received from the survey, and some of the steps we were looking at taking.

So far, we've updated the intro post to be more relevant to new users, and to be a little clearer on federation, but please have a look and let us know if we've missed anything.

I've updated ZippyBots welcome message to new users to be a bit more expansive and include more information too, but these changes haven't been pushed to Zippy in production yet as I'm working on other things with the bot but these aren't ready (Lemmy's API is lacking in surprising areas sometimes!)

This is also our first attempt at sharing more local communities with the wider instance, and we're still exploring other ways we can do this within the confines of Lemmy and without spamming everyone all the time. Hopefully we'll soon find a good compromise :)

Interaction reminder (help support the instance!)

If you’re new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you’re enjoying your time here :)

I wanted to take a moment to encourage everyone to actively engage with our platform. Your participation can take many forms: upvoting content you enjoy, sharing your thoughts through posts and comments, sparking meaningful discussions, or even creating new communities that resonate with your interests.

Your involvement is vital in shaping and nurturing our Lemmy.zip instance. It's natural to see fluctuations in user activity over time, and we've seen this over the wider lemmy-verse for some time now. However, if you've found a home here and love this space, now is the perfect opportunity to help us thrive.

Together, we can make Lemmy.zip an even more vibrant and welcoming space for everyone. Thank you for being part of our community!

Donations

As always, we're extremely thankful to people who are kind enough and in a position to donate. You can always see the instance's financial position on OpenCollective, and what we're aiming towards. If you do donate, you'll get your name in the Thank You Thread.

We're also looking at letting those who donate pick custom emojis for the instance, as a little way of saying thank you. If you're a donator (past or present) then please drop me or Sami a message if you're interested in this, and we'll get that in place for you.

Want to help but not in a position to do so financially? Then please remember to interact with the instance! The more users who interact = the better Lemmy.zip becomes!

Server performance

Time for some graphs - in the future, we'll be looking at sharing a public Grafana dashboard so you can see real time performance for the server, 24x7, but we're not quite there yet. So here are some graphs from the various platforms (previously these were in 7 day periods, now they're in monthly/30 day periods unless otherwise stated):

CPU Usage (over 7 days)

Network usage (over 7 days)

Backblaze (image hosting) usage (total)

Cloudflare overall stats (for past 30 days)

Traffic per region (over 30 days)

Bandwidth (over 30 days)

Unique visitors (over 30 days) outside of federation traffic

Finally, thank you all again for being here. We're always up for improving so if there is anything you'd like to see added to this in the future then let me know.

Thanks

Demigodrick

Hello All,

Heads up that maintenance on the site will take place at 19:00 UTC on Saturday 30th.

This will include rebooting the server, so there will be definite downtime although we hope this will be to a minimum.

We'll also be applying the latest lemmy update 0.18.5 at the same time.

Thanks

Demigodrick

Hi All,

I've finally had some time to break down the feedback we received over the two weeks the survey was up, and I've tried to pull out the key themes and topics of feedback to work on.

As those who answered the questions will know, it wasn't a yes/no type survey and so we can't share the feedback in terms of %s of answers, rather we've lifted the themes we've seen the most.

A big thank you to those who took the time to complete the survey too, the feedback has been incredibly invaluable and lots of people shared kind words about the instance which was really uplifting to read.

So, based on what you said, these are what we'll look to change/implement/improve:

• Update the intro post (the one in the home community that is also linked in ZippyBot's welcome message) to expand on the functionality of Lemmy, merge it with the other welcome post we put up during the reddit wave, and flesh it out with more information. We appreciate federated social media is a change to how most people are used to exploring social media, so the more we can do to support that transition the better.

• Expand ZippyBot's welcome message to include a little bit more information around personalising the site (setting a username, changing the theme to your liking via the settings tab, etc) as pointed out this information is not immediately clear or accessible, so may be easier presented in the welcome message.

• Changing the way we share information with the community, expanding to include more topics and helping to grow the local communities. We're thinking we'll change the server rundowns to 4 weekly, and add more information around the local communities that have been created, the biggest growers etc, to try and support and grow the local communities. We may also look at delivering this information differently, i.e. via a PM instead of pinning posts, but we'll trial this and ask for feedback when we do this.

• Finally, we won't make any promises right now, but we'll look at adding more themes for users to choose from. If you fancy making one yourself, we'll happily host it.

There was also a lot of feedback regarding expanding and adding more local communities. We hear you, and we agree too, but ultimately the power to create these communities lies in your hands. We will promote and share new communities more as we work on improving our communication methods, and we're looking at building new mod tools (where we can, using the power of ZippyBot) to support moderators of communities, so if you feel there is a community you want to see that doesn't exist, please create it and we'll try to help you build a community there. We'll expand the suggestions ZippyBot gives with new communities too, to help new mods out with the process.

These are the core themes we picked out, but there was lots of one-off or more complex suggestions and improvements that we've taken note of - some are out of our control (user specific instance blocking was suggested a lot which is out of our hands, but the devs have put this into a future version of Lemmy and we'll announce when this is available!) but we will continue to consider these and where possible work these in to future plans.

Again, thank you to those who took the time to complete the survey. We'll probably do this again at the 6 month mark. And please bear with us while we get some of these in place, anything with ZippyBot takes a little bit of time as I do a lot of testing before pushing any changes to it :)

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks,

Demigodrick

Hi all, bit late this week but lots of content!

TL;DR

• Feedback closes Friday 22nd
• Spam updates
• ZippyBot updates
• Interaction reminder!
• Donations are always welcome :)
• Graphs and stats

Feedback

We've had a great response to our request for feedback, thank you so much. We're going to close the survey on Friday (time undetermined right now) so please, if you haven't yet done so, add your thoughts into the survey soon. Every piece of feedback goes a long way to helping improve this instance.

Spam updates

As many will have seen, and as we as admins have been dealing with, there is currently lots of spam coming from Kbin instances. Unfortunately due to the ActivityPub implementation, moderation actions on Kbin don't federate to Lemmy, and we're needing to deal with quite large waves of constant spam from certain kbin communities. We're not the only ones dealing with this, and we don't want to defederate from Kbin altogether, so we've temporarily put a block on the Kbin.social instances that provide the most spam. These are:

• Random
• Gaming
• Technology
• Tech
• PCGaming
• Science

We will continue to review and remove these when we're able to do so. This is the lightest touch way we can do this, and as per our policy we absolutely dont want to be defederating and stopping their users posting on our instance.

ZippyBot Updates

We identified a gap in our signup process where users weren't recieveing enough information from Lemmy when creating an account, and so were resetting passwords or asking for help when we just hadn't been able to approve the account yet (we need to sleep too!). So ZippyBot now captures accounts that have verified their emails but have not yet been accepted and will send them an email that looks a bit like the following: (you might need to zoom in!)

Hopefully this should help smooth out the signup process.

Interaction reminder

If you're new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you're enjoying your time here :)

This is my regular reminder to people to please interact with the instance. That can be in the form of upvoting content, creating posts or comments and generating discussion, or even creating communities and gather like-minded people to discuss a topic.

Interaction is one of the key measures that helps rank Lemmy instances, and we've been able to punch above our weight in terms of user numbers vs activity. This helps promote the instance and in turn bring new people in. Please do interact, it helps out so, so much!

Donations

As always, we're extremely thankful to people who are kind enough and in a position to donate. You can always see the instance's financial position on OpenCollective, and what we're aiming towards. If you do donate, you'll get your name in the Thank You Thread.

Recently we improved our server's performance which has greatly improved uptime again, but this comes with additional cost. Thankfully we're in a pretty good position due the generosity of our users, but if you want to help secure the future of the instance, please check it out.

Want to help but not in a position to do so financially? Then please remember to interact with the instance! The more users who interact = the better Lemmy.zip becomes!

Now for the graphs!

Here is a pic of our CPU usage over the last week. Unfortunately Hetzner doesnt show enough detail to see the true peaks and troughs of CPU usage, but it gives an idea of the general usage:

And here are some network stats:

(We're looking at better performance management software and seeing if we can share this with you in real time)

These are our backblaze image hosting stats:

And here are our Cloudflare stats:

Including more detail on bandwidth:

And finally location traffic:

Thats all this week - if you want to see anything else in these, please let me know down below.

Thanks

Demigodrick

Hi all, been a little while since I've done one of these but the time is right to add some updates!

TL;DR

• Lemmy.zip turns 3 months old
• We're asking for user feedback on Lemmy.zip
• Server has had a performance upgrade
• Donations are always welcome :)
• Interaction reminder!
• Graphs and stats

Lemmy.zip turns 3 months old!

September 10th marks Lemmy.zip's 3 month anniversary. I've put a little post together detailing some of the things we've achieved in this time.

User feedback

We've opened up feedback.lemmy.zip for people to share feedback on how they feel Lemmy.zip has done in its first 3 months, and what they'd like to see going forwards. Users can get their access code for the survey by PM'ing ZippyBot with #feedback.

Server performance upgrade

Over the past couple of days we've seen the return of short periods of downtime on Lemmy.zip, most likely due to the server running out of RAM and causing the databases to lock up. We've also added some additional security to the backend of Lemmy.zip which probably pushed the server over the edge, and so we've now upgraded the performance of the server.

Previously we were on Hetzner CPX21 (3 vCPU, 4GB RAM) and now we've upgraded to CPX31 (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM), which should keep us going for now!

Donations

As always, we're extremely thankful to people who are kind enough and in a position to donate. You can always see the instance's financial position on OpenCollective, and what we're aiming towards. If you do donate, you'll get your name in the Thank You Thread.

With increased server performance comes increased cost, and we're currently at about 10 months worth of funding at the new server level. We'd love to one day jump to a proper dedicated server, but we need quite a reserve of funding to feel comfortable doing that, so anything towards that goal really helps.

Want to help but not in a position to do so financially? Then please remember to interact with the instance! The more users who interact = the better Lemmy.zip becomes!

Interaction reminder

If you're new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you're enjoying your time here :)

This is my regular reminder to people to please interact with the instance. That can be in the form of upvoting content, creating posts or comments and generating discussion, or even creating communities and gather like-minded people to discuss a topic.

Interaction is one of the key measures that helps rank Lemmy instances, and we've been able to punch above our weight in terms of user numbers vs activity. This helps promote the instance and in turn bring new people in. Please do interact, it helps out so, so much!

Graphs and stats and stuff

This is the last 7 days of CPU usage (from just before the server was upgraded)

And this is the network usage:

These are our Backblaze image hosting stats:

And these are our Cloudflare stats:

Thats all for now - please consider completing the survey as it will be incredibly helpful in shaping the instance in the future!

Cheers

Demigodrick

Hello all,

Today (September 10th) marks 3 months since Lemmy.zip was first set up 🥳

Since then we've grown to over 1.5k users, we smashed the canvas event, we've upgraded the server twice, and we have loads of vibrant local communities popping up.

I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who has joined here and helped build this awesome instance.

We'd like to continue to grow this instance in a sustainable and community-driven way, and so we're looking for some feedback on how you think things have gone so far, and what you'd like to see happen in the future. To that end, we've set up feedback.lemmy.zip with some questions for the community, if you have 5 minutes to answer them.

To make sure only Lemmy.zip users can access the survey, you'll need an access code, which you can get by sending a pm to ZippyBot with the text #feedback and ZippyBot will reply with an access code. Apologies this is a bit convoluted, but we only want genuine answers from Lemmy.zip users.

We'll probably leave the survey open a week or two.

Thanks again for being here! Demigodrick

Looks to have gone smoothly - please check your favourite communities and let me know if there are any issues.

Hi All,

Just a heads up that at 12 noon tomorrow (about 16 hours from now) the site will temporarily be offline for a short period while we perform some maintenance and upgrade the performance of the server.

We'll keep the downtime as brief as possible, and you can keep an eye on status.lemmy.zip to see the progress.

We'll make another post when the updates are completed.

Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/2221223

Since CD Projekt Red announced that alongside The Phantom Liberty DLC that the base game will also get a substantial update dubbed Update 2.0 there’s been some confusion around what will be in the free update and what will be locked behind the £24.99 DLC.

Well the developers have now stated exactly what upgrades Update 2.0 is bringing to the base game.

Redesigned skill trees and perks
Revamped cyberware and new capacity system
Vehicle combat and car chases
Combat AI improvements
New police system
UI and UX improvements
Loot, items and crafting changes
New radio stations

Coming as part of The Phantom Liberty DLC

New District - Dogtown
New storyline and characters
New quests, gigs and boss fights
Vehicle missions and air drops
New relic skill tree and abilities
100+ new items
Vehicle missile launchers
Level cap increased to 60

It must be noted that players on PlayStation 4 will NOT receive Update 2.0 or The Phantom Liberty DLC

No release date for Update 2.0 has been announced but we do know it will be on or before the release date for The Phantom Liberty DLC which is September 26th.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/6176552

Game Information

Game Title: Starfield

Platforms:

• PC (Sep 6, 2023)
• Xbox Series X/S (Sep 6, 2023)

Trailers:

• Starfield – Official Live Action Trailer
• Starfield Official Gameplay Trailer
• Starfield Direct – Gameplay Deep Dive
• Starfield: Official Launch Date Announcement
• Starfield: Official Gameplay Reveal
• Starfield: Official Teaser Trailer
• Starfield – Official Announcement Teaser

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 87 average - 91% recommended - 55 reviews

Critic Reviews

ACG - Jeremy Penter - Buy

Video Review - Quote not available

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But Why Tho? - Mick Abrahamson - 9 / 10

Starfield is Bethesda firing on all cylinders.

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CGMagazine - Steven Green - 9.5 / 10

Despite its occasional bug, unexplained mechanic, or small gripe, Starfield is one of the premiere titles in Xbox's library and adds to Bethesda's storied history.

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COGconnected - Oliver Ferguson - 90 / 100

Starfield is Bethesda’s most polished game yet. It has a ton to do but falls flat on the exploration aspect. Without vehicles, walking around planets is not an efficient way to travel. The story is fantastic however and the game is visually stunning. It’s a unique experience you shouldn’t miss out on.

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ComicBook.com - Tanner Dedmon - 4 / 5

My opinion of Starfield is overall high despite what my many criticisms might suggest. It's a Bethesda RPG, and even Bethesda's middling options blow competitors out of the water when it comes to choice and freedom, so Starfield was always going to be a success. Whether it's enough of a success to uplift Xbox and make someone buy a new console is another discussion, but Starfield itself is perfectly competent and – dare I say it – fun, and even the most frustrating moments were unable to deter me from wanting more

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Destructoid - Steven Mills - 10 / 10

I wasn’t sure if it could be done, but Bethesda has managed to raise the bar for sandbox games even higher. In the end, Starfield is an epic sandbox open-world RPG with a beautifully immersive universe, a captivating story, and fun and compelling gameplay the whole way. I’m so happy to have experienced Starfield organically, and I really hope you get to as well.

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Digital Trends - Giovanni Colantonio - 3.5 / 5

Starfield isn’t the generation-defining video game that overeager fans might be expecting; it’s a fairly typical, though impressively constructed Bethesda RPG where depth and stability often come at the expense of scope. The surprisingly limited base adventure isn’t so much the draw here, though. The enormous intergalactic playground feels custom-made for modders who want to explore the infinite possibilities of space just as much as Constellation and Bethesda itself.

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Game Informer - Matt Miller - 8.5 / 10

Go in with the expectation that it will take some time to find your footing in such a vast gameplay space, and there’s a universe well worth discovering here.

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Gamepressure - Giancarlo Saldana - 9.5 / 10

With hundreds of hours of gameplay, various quests to complete, and thousands of planets to survey and explore, Starfield capitalizes on everything that has worked for Bethesda in the past, giving us an experience that feels like a giant leap in greatness.

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GamesHub - Edmond Tran - 4 / 5

It's the static and mechanical elements of Starfield that shine the brightest – the art, the environments, the combat systems. They make up the strong foundations of a playset with a very intriguing scenario. But you need to mentally meet Starfield partway to complete its vision of a vast, living universe. You need to stretch out the expanse and envision the journey. You need to look past the menus and form the fantasy. You need to help breathe life into its paper dolls. You need to add your own dash of wonder, and imagine your own unknowns. Truly, Starfield is a role-playing game, through and through.

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GamesRadar+ - Leon Hurley - 5 / 5

With this kind of freedom 'avoiding the main mission' is the main mission.

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Gaming Nexus - Eric Hauter - 9.5 / 10

When they are firing on all cylinders, Bethesda games deliver pure video game magic, and Starfield is no exception. Offering an enormous galaxy to explore, a ludicrous wealth of interesting content, well-written characters, and innovative mechanics that push the genre in new directions, Starfield is a (mostly) clean experience at launch that should be experienced by all action/RPG fans. This is a new classic.

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Hardcore Gamer - Adam Beck - 4 / 5

Starfield is a momentous RPG, even if it doesn't quite deliver in all its areas.

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Hey Poor Player - Andrew Thornton - 5 / 5

Starfield isn’t a perfect game. No game is. That said, for a game to have this much ambition and actually pull off almost everything it set out to accomplish is a remarkable achievement. I haven’t even talked about some of the game’s most interesting elements, such as how it approaches New Game+, which I can’t wait for more players to see. Starfield is a triumph that I’m confident players will be exploring for years to come, not only because it will remain incredibly compelling but because it will take that long to see anywhere near everything it has to offer.

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Infinite Start - 10 / 10

All in all, Starfield stands as a testament to Bethesda's creative prowess and dedication. It has succeeded in crafting an immersive universe that encapsulates the spirit of exploration and adventure. With its captivating storyline, refined mechanics, and attention to detail, Starfield beckons players to venture into the cosmos and experience a journey that will likely resonate for years to come.

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Merlin'in Kazanı - Ersin Kılıç - Turkish - 83 / 100

Starfield is a game that you'll play for long hours, you'll be frustrated by the limitations from time to time, but for the most part you'll enjoy it just as big as the game itself.

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Multiplayer First - James Lara - 9 / 10

It has everything you’d want from a Bethesda game: a deep and prosperous universe filled with endless possibilities and limitless potential. Be who you want to be, go where you want to go; your freedom is in your hands, and what you do with it is entirely up to you in Starfield.

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Noisy Pixel - Azario Lopez - 8 / 10

Starfield is a true space adventure that only Bethesda can deliver. It's an experience catered to the fans of large expansive RPG narratives, but this one takes it a step further to stretch across an entire universe. There are minor systems and menus that cause confusion, and the lack of real tutorials paired with a flimsy opening holds back the opening hours. Still, the experience is undeniably memorable, and the writing for NPCs makes up the best moments. Although the many systems can be overwhelming, this is a game full of discovery for all who play.

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One More Game - Chris Garcia - Buy

Starfield is arguably the most important Xbox release in a long while, and it delivers an impactful experience that Bethesda fans have been waiting for. Despite a few dated mechanics and systems, it's a relatively polished release compared to their usual offerings, and that alone is a massive achievement.

I had hoped to see Starfield as a great step towards an evolution in the Bethesda formula, but sadly, this isn't the case. Starfield is, most likely, what you would expect it to be, and while that's good enough for fans, it does miss out on the opportunity to take that next step.

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PC Gamer - Christopher Livingston - 75 / 100

Starfield shares plenty of DNA with Skyrim and Fallout 4, but ultimately falls short of both.

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PCGamesN - Nat Smith - 7 / 10

Starfield is a true behemoth of an RPG, and in many ways it's the logical endpoint of Bethesda Game Studios' well-worn formula. However, its massive scope pushes this formula to the absolute limit and the cracks begin to show, from feature creep to the stop-start nature of its exploration. Dedicated Bethesda fans are sure to get their fill, but this interstellar adventure never leaves the atmosphere.

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Polygon - Nicole Carpenter - Unscored

In trying to do everything, Starfield obfuscates its most compelling mysteries.

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Saudi Gamer - خالد أحمد - Arabic - 7 / 10

Starfield can be described as a mixed-bag experience that combines great features from excellent side mission designs with amazingly world-building potential and an engaging story with suspense elements to offer. On the other hand, exploration in the game is unfortunately weak in many aspects; This is due to the large reliance on procedural generation of environments. Also, the role-playing elements do not have a strong presence or impact.

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Saving Content - Scott Ellison II - 5 / 5

Starfield doesn’t reinvent the RPG genre, but it does make it quite exciting. It’s a game that feels distinct from the studio’s prior work like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and this even represents the best of both worlds. Bethesda Game Studios managed to incorporate streamlined systems to make exploring space something fun, and never a chore. There’s just nothing I dislike about it. Starfield is ambitious and magical, capturing the curiosity and vastness of space beautifully, for what feels like a truly next-gen experience.

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TechRaptor - Erren Van Duine - 8 / 10

Starfield's biggest strength is its complimentary content - sidequests, exploration, and more will gather your attention for hours despite a less-than-compelling narrative.

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Tom's Guide - 4 / 5

Quote not yet available

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VGC - Jordan Middler - 5 / 5

Starfield is the ultimate Bethesda game. It takes what people loved about Fallout and Skyrim, and casts it across an enormous galaxy filled with captivating characters.

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Worth Playing - Chris "Atom" DeAngelus - 9 / 10

Starfield both hits and misses the mark. Starfield has both improvements and steps backward from the previous games, and whether you consider it to be better or worse than Fallout is dependent on what you prized from those games. If you're looking for more Fallout 4 with bigger and more detailed environments and quests, then Starfield is pretty much everything you could hope for and more. If you're looking for No Man's Skyrim, however, it's disappointing. Almost everything on the ground feels good, while the space travel and exploration feels lackluster. If you're looking for a Bethesda-style, open-world RPG, Starfield scratches that itch, and Bethesda fans will lose countless hours in scouring every nook and cranny.