Graphene OS is amazing, if you're degoogled. Terrible if you need Google, though.
I tried it and loved it until I tried to get my work Google account working, lol.
LineageOS is a good option if you still need Google on your phone since you can install GApps.
gog-games is still on Tor. Not sure if they have Mac releases, though and I'm not set up to check on mobile since I only use it on desktop.
Here's my full list:
Each subsection has my favourites near the top, then aren't really in order.
Complete LitRPGs:
Threadbare series (including Small Medium and Dragon Hack) by Seiple (suggested order: trilogies TB1, SM, DH, TB2)
Limitless Lands by Henegar
Master Hunter K by From Hell
World Tree Online by Hooper
New Game Minus by Lin (and Street Cultivation, but it's not a LitRPG)
Light Online by Larcombe
Eternal Online by Reynolds
Retired S-Rank Adventurer by Wolfe & Falcon
Life Reset by Kuznits
Blessed Time and Viceroy's Pride by Plamann
Towers of Heaven by Milan
CivCEO by Karevik
Forever Fantasy Online by Aaron and Bach (great series, but very limited progression; max level from the beginning)
This Trilogy is Broken (a.k.a. This Quest is Bullshit! from Royal Road) by Valentine (a.k.a. Nixia)
War Aeternus by Dean
PrimeVerse by Billiau
Everybody Loves Large Chests by Iliev (NSFW gore, nudity, demons raping each other but asexual protagonist doesn't understand sexuality and is mostly uninvolved)
Somnia Online by Hanna
The Dungeon Alaria by Kern
Rise to Omniscience by Oster
The Idle System by Pegaz
Last Born of Ki'darth by McGowen
Accidental Traveler (two complete trilogies) by Davis
Savage Dominion by Chmilenko & Penman
The Last Warrior of Unigaea and The Feedback Loop by Cooper
Factory of the Gods (a.k.a. Keldora) by Raizman (complete arc; once Dinosaur Dungeon concludes, this series will continue.)
Nova Online by Knight
Axe Druid by Johns
Tower Climber and Arcane Kingdom Online by Tanner
Emerilia by Chatfield
Euphoria Online by Tucker
Aether Gate Online by Hultberg
Chronicles of Ethan (and standalone sequel Overpowered Howard) by Monk
System Apocalypse™, Adventures on Brad, and Hidden Wishes by Wong
Combat Codes by Darwin is great, but it's /r/ProgressionFantasy
Below here I haven't read yet:
Death's Mantle by Cooper
Space Seasons by Chapman
Heroic Villain, and Bathrobe Knight by Dean
Metagamer Chronicles by Hunter
Fall of the Black Seraph by O'Kelley (a.k.a. The Genesis Game by Locke)
Afterlife Online by Finn
The Iron Teeth by Straughan
Dungeons of Perdition by Basu
Pangea Online by Rowland
The Weaponized by Deckard
Never Die Twice and Kairos by Durand (a.k.a. Void Herald on RR)
Headshot Online by Siege
Trinity of the Kairos by Sinclair
Chronicles of Wycon by Moore
Abduction Cycles by Cressman
They Called Me MAD and The Houndsman by Pal
The Bright Lord by Knowles
Nora Hazard by Corvin
Beast Realms by Jones
Arena Manager by Opo
Frostworld by Peel
Magnus by Prime
Metamorphosis Online by Grey
Alterlife by Moss
Underverse by Cajiao
The Orzare Chronicles by O Toole
Alpha Physics by Kozlowski
Legends of Ascension by Hultberg
Badges of Dorkdom by Hodges
Star Divers by Landry
Legendary Farmer by Elizabeth Oswald
Class Shift by Sean Oswald
Ten Realms by Chatfield
The Weight of it All by Thorn
Phase Shift by Johnson
Voidbringer Campaign by Hall
Sky Realms by Osgood
Cultivator vs. System by Valerios
Uniworld Online and Glendara Awakens by Brooks
Freedom Online by Lingard
Enora Online by Adams
Harbinger by Keene
Bad Luck Charlie (a.k.a. Dragon Mage) by Baron
Apocosmos by Gkirgkiris
Real-Time Starcommander by Gregory
Dungeon Realms by Yang
Death's Favorite Warlock by Dean
The Game of Gods by Kern
Tower Apocalypse by Cassius & Tang
Real-Time Starcommander by Gregory
Hack, Slash & Burn by Herzman
Cowboy Necromancer (some novellas to follow) & Tokens & Towers by Cooper
Apocalypse Gates (and I think other series) by Schinhofen (I've heard there are lots of sex scenes and he's known for "secret harems")
Standalone LitRPGs:
How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps by Rowe
Tales from the Upgrade by Henegar
The Card Job by Falbo (I used to also include The Crafting of Chess, but it now has a sequel. Regardless, it's already a complete story in 1 volume.)
Leveled Up Love by Wong and Marshall
Battle Spire by Miller
Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Dinniman (trigger warning: gore, abuse of various types)
Below here I haven't read yet:
Zombie Slayer by Milan
Axilon99 by Cox
The Ridden by Kern
Aether Frontier by McCoskey
Royal Bodyguard and Just A Bronze by Richter
Hazelhearth Hires Heroes by Willison
Nigmus Online by Barnett
An Old Man's Journey by Allanther
Toothless by Thomas
Sci-Fi LitRPGs:
(this is my attempt to include science fiction stories with LitRPG elements, but that focus on the science-fiction implications of VR/AI/games, not on progression)
Continue Online by Morse
Virtual Realities by Schott
Puatera Online by Chapman (the first three books have very little /r/ProgressionFantasy elements; later books are a bit more typical of the genre)
Series that can be read as complete with a midway stopping point, but have been continued:
The Gam3 by Yap (a sequel series started in August on RR, but book 3 ends a complete story)
Nova Terra by Ring (to be continued in Forgemaster )
Series that are on permanent (?) hiatus but at a stopping point that could be an ending:
Desire by Milan (not harem... Really poorly-named series! Milan calls it complete, but it's an open ending.)
Monster Hunter NYC by Cooper (harem)
Below here I haven't read yet:
Greystone Chronicles, Shadow Sun, The Darkelf Chronicles and Mars System Reboot by Willmarth
Dungeon core series:
Elemental Dungeon (a.k.a. Bone Dungeon) by Smidt
Dungeon Crafting, Dungeon Fairy, Dungeon World, Station Core, Dungeon of Chance and Holiday Dungeon Core by Brooks
Derelict by Henegar (complete trilogy; more books to come)
Divine Seed (a.k.a. Tree Dungeon) by Karevik
Bio Dungeon by Logue and Brooks
Divine Dungeon by Krout (imho stronger as a complete trilogy, but it's also a complete series at five books.)
Guild Core by Reynolds
Futuristic Dungeon Core by Grant
Below here I haven't read yet:
A Lonely Dungeon (RR) by cathfach
Cat Core and War Core by Henegar
Blue Core by InadvisablyCompelled (adult content chapters marked; I assume so they can be skipped)
Complete web serials:
Worth the Candle by Wales
The Infinite Labyrinth by Vincent Archer
The Humble Life of a Skill Trainer by altonsleet
Mother of Learning by nobody103 is amazing, but it's /r/progressionfantasy not LitRPG.
Below here I haven't read yet:
Vainquer the Dragon by Void Herald
Azarinth Healer by Rhaegar (book 1 on KU, epilogue to follow still)
Everybody Loves Large Chests by Exterminatus (trigger warning: rapey demon sex, gratuitous gorey violence) (also Small Chests Are Fine Too) more NSFW than KU version?
Epilogue by Etzoli
Damage=MA: A Rolling Stone LitRPG by zechamp
Death Singer by geminirand
Or maybe just peruse COMPLETE-tagged stories on Royal Road.
Russian-translated complete LitRPG series:
Level Up by Sugralinov
Dark Herbalist by Atamanov
The Way of the Shaman by Mahanenko (ending on book 6)
AlterWorld by Rus
Below here I haven't read yet:
Galactogon by Mahanenko
Animus and Chronicles of KieraFreya by Anderle
Mirror World by Osadchuk
Realm of Arkon by Akella
An NPC's Path by Kornev
The Neuro by Livadny
Clan Dominance by Mikhailov
The Final Countdown by Ulengov
Asian translated LitRPGs:
Master Hunter K (on KU) by From Hell
Solo Leveling/I Alone Level Up by Sung-Lak
Infinite Competitive Dungeon Society and Everyone Else is a Returnee by Toika
The Legendary Mechanic by Peija
Seoul Station Necromancer by Jin
Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World by Mad Snail
Reincarnation of the Strongest Sword God by Lucky Old Cat
Emperor of Solo Play by D-Dart
borderline LitRPG:
Throne of Magical Arcana by Cuttlefish That Loves Diving
A Returner's Magic Should be Special by So-Nan
Below here I haven't read yet:
Demon King by Toika
Advent of the Archmage by Mo Xiang
Night Ranger by Dark Blue Coconut Milk
Warlock of the Magus World by The Plagiarist
Desolate Era by I Eat Tomatoes
The Second Coming of Gluttony by Ro Yu-jin
And there are a lot of complete translated cultivation web serials; search over at /r/ProgressionFantasy or /r/NovelTranslations for recs.
I also expect this list is missing many complete series. Please recommend any you think are worth reading!
#Harem series
World Seed by Miller
Reborn by Jackson
Reborn as a Baron Lord by Yang
Wolf King's Lair by Drake
I'm likely going to GDPR-Nuke my Reddit account, depending on how things shake out by July 1, so not sure how to share this back with /r/LitRPGs. Is it easy to link to here from Reddit? idk
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/35555
This is my first time linking to Lemmy from Lemmy. Hopefully, that works.
Edit: Cool. old.reddit link syntax works, too.
TL;DR: They demodded OP, the founder (I think?), of /r/piracy to force them to reopen. This shows that Reddit thinks it's very important for users to have access to piracy information and a place to discuss piracy on the platform.
This is tacit support for posting piracy on Reddit, and, really, the only reason not to list direct link to pirated content is now gone since the threat of taking the sub private is what "we" want anyway. I suppose you could also get your account banned from Reddit, too.
I'm not a lawyer, but I wonder about legal challenges this opens Reddit to. It would be amazing if Disney now sued Reddit for encouraging piracy of their content. You can definitely trust Disney to be lawsuit happy assholes, right? I'd get a lot of shadenfreud from that.
Same for Beehaw. They're working really hard to keep everything kind, to the point they defederated with communities with open sign ups that were sending lots of low-effort/mean/troll comments.
Lemmy.ml is a bit problematic because of ties to Tankies, or so I've heard. I'm avoiding all communities from that instance.
To add to this, in case people didn't know, Lemmy isn't centralized.
While there are Lemmy instances that are pro-CCP/STALIN/DRK, there are also instances that have entirely different values, from wholesome (Beehaw) to unregulated (Lemmy.world), and too many others to list (and I'm not really that well versed in them all either, tbh).
Point being, this community has absolutely nothing to do with Tankies aside from there being some Tankies heavily involved in creating the software backend for Lemmy to exist in the first place. (Or so I've heard; I haven't personally looked into this since I don't really care what they're doing over there since it has nothing to do with me or my use of Lemmy.)
From other comments, it sounds like there are no physical carts.
An Everdrive would probably work and they're only like $25 for a Chinese one, plus a few bucks for a micro SD. It's not like you'd need a big one!
They've also put together a few amazing mega bundles for charity over the years.
Not sure how to find them, though, since they aren't widely advertised. I've missed two that I'd have wanted.
Just wanted to add that not all instances are allowing new community creation, including Beehaw.
Record your baby's cry! It seems weird, I know, but they lose that newborn cry so quickly.
In general, though, remember to take pictures of the (literally) shitty moments, too. Kids love to hear stories about themselves as a baby and you're so sleep deprived right now that your memory isn't firing on all cylinders.
Records will help you remember so you can tell your kids the story of the time they shit an over the wall explosively. They'll love it.
And I know it seems like that should be something really memorable as a parent, but you'll be cleaning up so many bodily fluids it isn't really noteworthy after a while. And did I mention the sleep deprivation affecting memory? I don't remember.
Exactly my thoughts. $3/month would pay for a lot of server power for a Lemmy instance!
If Reddit charged a reasonable fee for API access and gave at least 6 months notice of the change, and, while we're at it, didn't write libel about Christian then we'd be in a very different place right now.
With Reddit doubling down on their misguided changes, I'm just done.
The incel terrorists in Canada were both on Reddit, iirc. There are some incredibly fringe communities on Reddit. And Lemmy, for that matter.
So, yeah. Agreed. If 1 in a million is violent, that's enough people for someone to get hurt.
I think that's already happened, for mainstream topics anyway.
Now, we're on the small side of a balance between small and large; as the Fediverse grows, it can support increasingly niche communities but, on the flip side, the less cohesive the userbase (and thus the harder to maintain culture) and the more attractive the platform becomes for spammers, trolls, and other malicious parties.
I think the technological barriers may be a good thing as it forces a minimum level of effort to get started. Just like private trackers are almost universally "safer" than public trackers since it takes some actual effort to get in.
Absolutely... with mods!
Granted, I haven't had time to sink into it recently, so I'm a bit out of the loop, but Path of Diablo is very popular, and I know there's another big one I don't have time to hunt down rn.
D2R is also an option.
That said, I have the nostalgia and patience for D2's idiosyncrasies from having played it for years; I'm not sure how well it holds up for someone completely new, coming from the more streamlined/polished UX from modern games.
To add to not taking rejections personally:
In most cases, for skilled work, most jobs that are posted will be filled by someone they already know, if indirectly, through their network of contacts. They often only interview people who come recommended to them, so it means absolutely nothing about you or your skills if you aren't interviewed.
On the flip side, networking is incredibly powerful. Meet & impress people. Put yourself out there.
I've bootstrapped a network from effectively nothing in four different cities/towns, now. I started by just showing up in person to introduce myself and tell them about my skills and that I'm looking for work. Then, once you have your foot in the door, make sure you're staying visible and contributing so people remember you when you apply for new jobs/promotions. Networking has landed me literally every single job I've ever had. (Well, not counting my school's co-op program.)
Beehaw:
This thread gaining traction and thoughtful responses is indicative. I'm grateful for the positive community here!
In life:
I'm very grateful for my kiddos who make me laugh and fill my bucket every day, a meaningful job I enjoy, a supportive partner, living in one of the best places in the world (imho), and having effectively unlimited great books to read.
I'm living the dream!
D4 is worse, imho. It forces you to play multiplayer at all times, completely destroying any immersion in the lore.
Sucks, too, because they nailed Diablo's atmosphere (from games 1 & 2, not the WoW-ified D3 aesthetic.)
The lack of touch controls was a red flag for me, too. Having a trackpad as a backup input device for menus and things seems like it'd be pretty important, but I don't have a Steam Deck so maybe I'm wrong.
ALLDOCUBE iPlay 50 Pro 10.4" tablet – Surprising quality from a cheap AliExpress tablet
My context / use case
I got Fire 7 tablets for my kiddos a few years ago and they're dreadfully slow and can't really run many apps at all. With my daughter needing some educational support at home, I was looking for a cheap replacement that actually had enough power to manage recent education apps, and hopefully be future proof for a while.
Alternatives
The cheapest tablet at Costco.ca, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, is $500 CAD, has a weak processor, only 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage.
I'll never touch Apple products for a zillion reasons, but cost was completely prohibitive for a device my child could drop any day. Even used ones are insanely priced. And the app ecosystem for education on iOS is almost entirely paid apps, increasingly using a subscription model. (Or so it seems.)
Newer Amazon Fire "HD" tablets suck, too, but at least they're cheap. And they might be powerful enough to run some things? idk. I wasn't enthused.
Then, I thought to check AliExpress and found an 8GB tablet with 128GB storage, a processor better than the S6, and a 2K (1440p) display. After reading reviews to check if it's legit, I ordered one.
Informal Review
The great:
Price/value for the specs. I paid ~$240CAD for a bundle that includes a nice case, screen protector, charging block and cable, and a child-size Bluetooth keyboard. (It doesn't have a digitizer, so I skipped the stylus.)
The good:
The tablet is snappy. The battery lasts a long time. The screen has plenty enough resolution to render everything crisply on a 10.4" display.
It's a perfect tablet for my kids use as an educational tablet. It's great for PDF ebook reading (mostly picture books and early reader chapter books to date, lol!) and has handled all the education/edutainment apps without any slowdowns.
3.5mm jack. 18W fast charging. Build quality feels solid. Well positioned hardware buttons and 3.5mm jack make it easy to use in either orientation. The included case works as an angled stand. SD card slot for expansion. SIM compatible for phone/data.
The bad:
The viewing angle is pretty terrible. It's completely fine for solo use or for applications where colour accuracy isn't important, but it's very noticeable.
The speakers suck. I'm not a sound geek, so I don't know the correct terms, but the sound is muddy and distorted. They also have a fairly low maximum volume, and become increasingly distorted at higher volume. They work well enough, but it's not enjoyable for music. I would definitely use headphones for music/video/games.
I haven't tried the camera at all, but I've heard it's not great. Can't comment on that.
The purchase
The vendor I ordered from (ALLDOCUBE Direct Store) swapped the EU plug for a US plug at no extra cost. It arrived quickly (3 weeks?) from China.
The package arrived with the retail box crushed, so the included screen protector broke. After using it for a day, I decided to buy a second one for my other child, and asked them to include a replacement. Not only did they include a replacement, but they pre-installed the screen protector on tablet #2 so it couldn't break, without my asking them to.
I would recommend the seller, but ask them to pre-install the screen protector (if you plan to use one) so there's less risk of damage in transit.
Discussion
Anyway, not sure if this is the kind of content people want here, but I thought I'd do my part to add something!
Has anyone else experimented with cheap AliExpress/Chinese Android devices?
Based on my success with these, I'm considering getting a phone for my wife there. I'm a bit more worried about data vulnerabilities and software support longevity on a daily driver phone, but it's really hard to find a small quality phone for a reasonable price. Also, it needs to have a good camera or it's a nonstarter.
Do you have any experience or thoughts on this?
I just uninstalled BaconReader a couple of days ago. I replaced its shortcut with Jerboa yesterday.
I logged into old a few times since to check for any orangereds, but it's been long enough now that I never need to go back to check on anything.