1. This hasn’t been a notable issue in a while. That’s why Plex’s https-by-default was such a big deal. With https, even your ISP can’t see what you’re streaming. They can see that something is being streamed, but not what specifically.

Also, you totally glossed over the fact that Plex is simply easier for non-savvy people to set up. Plex provides a unified login experience similar to major streaming services, which Jellyfin simply can’t provide; If your mother-in-law can figure out how to log into Netflix on her TV, she can figure out how to log into Plex too.

And the unfortunate truth is that Plex’s remote access is much easier for 90% of users to figure out. It doesn’t require VPNs or reverse proxies at all. You just forward a port and anyone with access can easily see your server. But my MIL’s TV doesn’t even have access to a Jellyfin app without sideloading. Not to mention the fact that I’d need to walk her through actually setting the app up once it is installed, because there is no unified system for logging in. And if I’m not using a reverse proxy for my Jellyfin server, then I also need to walk her through setting up Tailscale, assuming her TV is even capable of using it at all.

Any single one of those hurdles would make Jellyfin a non-starter if I want to walk my MIL through the setup over the phone, and they’re all currently present. And some of them will never be fixed, by design. For instance, the lack of a unified login page is by design, because a unified login would require a centralized server for the app to phone home too. That centralization is exactly what Jellyfin was made to rebel against, so it’s a problem that will never be “solved”; It is seen by the devs and FOSS enthusiasts as a feature, not an issue.

From a FOSS perspective, Jellyfin is a modern marvel. But it’s definitely not at the same level as Plex when you compare ease of setup or remote access. Jellyfin is fine if you’re just using it locally, or are willing to run Tailscale to connect back to your home network. But if you’re looking for true seamless remote access and need to consider the mother-in-law factor, then Plex is hard to beat.

That’s actually exactly what they did to fix it. They now allow you to flag sinks as bathroom or kitchen sinks, which simply controls whether or not the dish washing function can be accessed.

The way The Sims does it is actually pretty interesting. The individual sims have very little behavioral coding involved. They’re basically just monitoring their individual needs. The vast majority of the objects contain “advertisements” that they broadcast, and the sims can simply look for nearby advertisements to decide on what to do.

Basically, you have a sim. They are simply listening to advertisements that are being broadcasted by the objects around them. Maybe the kitchen sink says “Clean +3” while the shower says “Clean +7”. If the sim’s cleanliness meter is low, they’ll check for local “clean” advertisements and choose one. As their needs get lower and lower, they’ll be more likely to pick stronger advertisements. So a slightly dirty sim will be likely to choose the sink, but a very dirty sim will choose the shower.

Then once they get to the chosen object, the object basically goes “okay, here’s how to interact with me”. The sim simply pulls from that pool of interactions for the specific object. There may be flags for specific interactions based on certain conditions, or certain traits that make a sim more likely to choose one object over another. For instance, if your sim is a witch, they may have specific magical interactions available. Or if a sim has the Active trait, they may be more likely to choose fitness-based advertisements.

This makes adding expansions very easy. You don’t need to do a ton of coding for individual sims, to “teach” them how to use new objects. You simply add new advertisements to the objects you’re adding to the game, and make sure your interactions are properly flagged for the various conditions that can exist. And now those objects can be dropped directly into existing save files without any fuss.

Worth noting that this advertisement system is what caused the infamous “my sim is using the bathroom sink to wash dishes” complaint that plagued the series for so long; the bathroom sink was nicer than the kitchen sink, so it had a better advertisement. The sim wasn’t looking at advertisements based on why they needed a sink. They just knew they needed a sink to wash dishes, and picked the one with the strongest advertisement.

Yeah, OoT feels dated by modern standards, but that’s largely because it set the standard for 3D games. Future games have built upon the mechanics, but OoT was what paved the way.

Blizzard is bad about this with WoW too. A lot of the content is only available as launch-day cinematics, and is vaulted once the expansion has launched. Getting the full plot for WoW as a new player is basically impossible, because so much of the game has been hidden from players.

It’s to create FOMO, and keep players active. If players know they can access content whenever they want, there’s no incentive for them to log in right now.

Watching Dutch slowly descend into paranoia and separate himself from Arthur (primarily due to Micah’s manipulation) was a wonderful bit of environmental storytelling. It was a B-plot that was running in the background whenever you return to the gang campsite… But Arthur only really begins to see it after it is too late for him to stop. Because by the time Arthur realizes what is happening, Dutch has already firmly made up his mind about Arthur, and Arthur has already started trying to get out of the life. And Arthur having doubts only serves to cement Dutch’s paranoia.

I was pleasantly surprised by New Dawn. I had some big complaints about 5, so I initially assumed New Dawn (being a direct sequel to 5) was going to be more of the same. It was an interesting take on the series’ formula.

The funny part is that the official dock was what gave me a ton of issues. Steam Deck’s screen would go blank like it was outputting to a screen, but the TV would refuse to accept the video signal. So it just looked dead until I unplugged it. The JSAUX dock has been hassle free.

The first game was cool. Vastly over-promised, but still cool. Fable 2 was mid, at best. Then Fable 3 was just pure dogwater.

I don’t have high hopes for a reboot. If it’s actually done properly, it’ll be a nice surprise. But I refuse to get my hopes up.

This is the answer. It’s freely accessible, and duplicated across servers all over the world so it’s difficult for copyright claims to take down.

I’d argue that is just another example of why delaying games isn’t a bad thing. 2077 clearly wasn’t ready at launch, and would have benefitted from a delayed launch.

Yeah, the Witcher 3 release should have taught the game publishers this. CDPR delayed the launch by several months because the game wasn’t ready to ship yet. And the game was phenomenal, and received rave reviews pretty much across the board. Gamers were disappointed about the launch, but basically went “this game will be worth the wait.”

Holy shit, I had forgotten about SOLDAT. My friends and I used to play that on the library computers in middle school.

IIRC it had a portable version that you could boot from a flash drive. Or at least the installation happened on your local user account, so it didn’t require admin rights from the school IT team.

Also, the old Dungeon Siege games. IIRC, 1 and 2 both had LAN multiplayer, where each person took control of a different character. It was basically the groundwork for the gameplay that Dragon Age Origins built upon.

Calibre doesn’t natively support reading DRMed files, but there are anti-DRM plugins which are trivial to install. You need to provide a legitimate Kindle serial number for Amazon DRM, as it uses that to de-encrypt the files. When you add the file(s) to your library, the plugin automatically runs as a file conversion. It basically converts it from a DRM-locked .epub/.azw3 to a DRM-free .epub/.azw3 instead. Since Calibre already has file conversions built in, the plugin simply uses that existing system to spit out a DRM-free version of the same file, then it adds that to your library instead.

Or give the awards directly to the credited teams, and not to the companies.

We don’t give Oscars to film companies. Imagine if an actor won an Oscar for a movie role, but didn’t walk up on stage to get it because they were already working on another movie. Sounds asinine, right? So why is it accepted in the game dev community?

Because running it on your router gives you access to the entire network of devices, not just the Jellyfin server.

Not in the way you’re probably thinking, no. The VPN (like Proton) will be isolating devices from each other. This is by design, so you don’t end up in situations like different customers seeing each other on the network.

Your router might be able to act as a VPN host. This would allow you to connect to your home network from anywhere, and use it just like you would use a service like Proton. And if your home network is set to allow devices to see each other, then you could see your Jellyfin server. See if your router can run Tailscale or can act as a WireGuard (or OpenVPN) host. Tailscale will be the most straightforward approach, but not everything can run it. Worst case scenario, you could just run Tailscale directly on your Jellyfin server.

The big issue with requiring a VPN is that it makes remote access on some devices difficult or damned near impossible. For instance, good luck getting a smart TV to run Tailscale. Tailscale will be fine for things like phones, laptops, or tablets. But if you have a smart TV you want to remote view things on, you may need to consider a reverse proxy instead. And a reverse proxy is such a rabbit hole that it would deserve its own post.

Yeah, this is the unfortunate truth. Jellyfin’s setup will never be as simple as Plex, purely because the simple setup requires a centralized server to coordinate things. And Jellyfin is built specifically to rebel against centralization. Plex is easy because the company has servers set up specifically to handle the remote access handshake.

Because of the Wife Factor. Getting people to convert requires getting past a lot of social inertia. It requires you to first convince them that the convenience of streaming services isn’t actually worth paying for. Then it requires an elegant onboarding experience. Lastly, Plex simply makes remote access easy. Sure, you could fiddle with reverse proxies for Jellyfin. But that’s easy to mess up. Instead, it’s much smoother to simply sign into Plex.

I can talk my tech-illiterate “My google chrome desktop icon got moved, and now I don’t know how to check my email” mother-in-law through Plex’s sign-up process over the phone. In fact, I did. It’s familiar enough that anyone who has signed up for a streaming service can figure it out. I can’t do that with Jellyfin, because their eyes glaze over as soon as you start talking about custom server URLs or IP addresses. Hell, my MIL’s TV doesn’t even have a native Jellyfin app available on the App Store. If I wanted to install it for her, I would need to sideload it.

Jellyfin does a lot of things right. But by design, the setup process will never be as elegant as Plex’s, because that elegant system requires a centralized server to actually handle it. And centralized servers are exactly what Jellyfin was built to rebel against.

To be clear, I run both concurrently; Jellyfin for myself, and Plex for friends/family. I got the lifetime Plex Pass license a decade ago, and it has more than paid for itself since then. But it sounds like a bunch of my friends and family may end up switching to Jellyfin if they don’t want to deal with the PlexPass subscription.