Nor even planning in the future.

Here’s a disclaimer in advance:

I love the Monster Hunter games going as far as Generations Ultimate on the Switch, to Rise and its expansion Sunbreak, to playing World on PC, through the Steam Deck.

I love the monsters, the regions, the villages, even the foods (fluffy bunny dango~), and so much more.

And I wish I could say the same, even if I saw the initial teaser announcement back in TGA 2023.

But it went downhill not because of the reasons you believe.

You see, I mentioned earlier I have a Steam Deck, which has been my way to play PC games at home and on the go.

Well, back in October, CAPCOM announced an Open Beta Test for Monster Hunter WIlds, where we get a glimpse into the first hour of the story, its distinctive elements, the weapons, everything they allowed us to take a peek.

And me and along of my hunter friends around the world, are excited to test out and prepare ourselves for our new hunting adventure.

Now, technically if you are a PlayStation 5 user, you would be the first, so I technically got spoiled a bit (for the story at least), but it was a no big deal since it’s technically a test and anything can change in the final.

Now, fast forward to the day PC and Xbox can jump in, alongside the PS5 hunters~

I preloaded the build, I launched, and the first thing I noticed…

The shaders took a sweet long ride.

Around 30 minutes of the ride, which is… kinda longer than normal, especially for the Steam Deck.

But I thought, they’ll improve it in the final release…

And then it loaded the game…

…and the first thing I see is a black screen, with graphics not fully loaded at all!

That made me totally confused and making it feel bizarre.

So I scramble through the settings, and the only workaround I found is STRICTLY ONLY to turn off Frame Generation and set Upscaling to Off (no AMD, not even Intel option, and neither does NVIDIA - they’re open to use by the way, except using either one will black screen you).

So anyway, I got that sorted, and I played it…

I went through the avatar creation (which I love), the palico creation, picked my name…

And then the story begins…

Source: My Twitch channel I may use sometime soon.

BEFORE YOU PROCCED, I RECOMMEND YOU WATCH THE THING ABOVE BEFORE I TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED, BECAUSE THE TEXT BELOW WILL SUMMARIZE WHAT HAPPENED DURING THAT VIDEO.

Okay, you good?

Okay.

And they fucked up the framerate and the graphics.

I mean what on earth are they doing to this build?

Yes, I know I said, it’s just a beta, but I didn’t expect this unfinished, unoptimised bullcrap to be on my screen.

Yes, I lowered everything to the lowest and still fucked up.

Worse, the Steam Deck is literally in fiery flames touching the winds blown from the fan.

And to make matters worse, it so hot, my Deck force rebooted couple of times throughout the story segment, meaning I have to sit down with it for hours and hours hoping I finish the portion.

And good news somehow… I made it.

The bad news though, it truly left me a sour taste, wondering if my Deck can even go through on the final version.

With that, I didn’t went through multiplayer a lot, knowing my Steam Deck would rather take a dump rather than finishing through hell and back.

So then I thought, okay, hopefully they’ll fix it, they’ll optimize the build, and should be good to go, right?

OH SH-

Open Beta Test 2.

Yes, they have a second one weeks before the final release.

Other than they add another monster, it’s mostly an encore presentation, with changes from the first version of the OBT.

Now, what do you think happened when I gave it a second chan-

They still fucked it up… and they somehow made it even unplayable than the last one.

And now, I already lost hope. I waited for this, only to be gone like the wind…

But then, there is one more option left.

The Benchmark Test.

Around the same time the OBT 2 went live, they released a Benchmark tool specifically for Steam/PC users to make sure they are ready for Wilds.

And seeing how the OBT failed me, this is basically the ‘last resort’ if I’m really gonna go for it.

Anddddddd……………

You know what, I’m not gonna tell you, I’m just gonna show it to you.

(I did use it, however I can’t be able to record it because it likely affect the score, but close enough for this)

But, it still doesn’t mean I changed my mind, because after the two OBTs I had experience, I’m still not sure.

Not to mention, one thing that was baked into the release version was a certain DRM that has been every gamer’s worst nightmare: Denuvo.

And if that was even worse, GeForce Now (NVIDIA’s cloud service), when they have Wilds up on the library, not only I have to pay up $60, but depending on the session hours and all, I need to pay EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH (or more prepaid) if I wanted to play it.

And why you may ask?

Because the free tier, which based on a basic rig with RTX 1060 with 4 vCPUs, cannot run Wilds.

And apparently the same thing happened with the most recent Indiana Jones game (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle).

And with that, all have crumbled and that thwarted all of my plans to play the game.

And to be honest, I’m glad I decided not to.

Because either way, I still have lots of games to play, so I’m alright.

But I’m more than happy to watch my friends be carted and faint by so many new and returning monsters, after all, I enjoyed it a lot than being carted myself.

I kid, but in all seriousness, maybe someday… if I have a better hardware, maybe I might.

For now, let’s just play World.

I was about to wake up, review for my quiz, prepare my things for my class…

And I opened my Messenger, my Bluesky, my Twitter, all with one simple, yet shocking sentence.

You got hacked.

And then, they posted a screenshot that looked something like this (this is under my gaming Discord account, but yeah):

Now, before I dive on the cause of the whole hell thing, might as well explained this specific hell thing.

When you click the link, it will redirect you into some sort of a replica of the Steam page, and you will “login” and then it will ask for your Steam Guard (the authenticator specifically for Steam) code. and expectedly, you would received, well $20.

Except the last sentence is a HOAX.

What is actually happening behind the scenes, is someone, internally in the background, obtained that info, use it to reset a lot, email, password. And worse, if there is something valuable in your Steam account, they will just sell and you lose it, and even worse, they’ll dump it on the grey market.

And if it wasn’t enough, they will use it to scam your friends, and the cycle repeats to those who got it.

Now, with that being said:

Didn’t you learn anything about account security? Multi-factor authenticators/2-step authenticators, and passkeys, strong passwords, all of that?

I do those.

I usually reset my passwords so often. I usually keep security in check. I always used many multi-factor authentications such as Authy, and making sure not to click scammy links, like the one above.

Then how the f**k did you get hacked?

I have a password manager I formerly use nowadays called LastPass. LastPass, is one of the good password managers I have used throughout the years. While I no longer use it because I moved a while back to Proton Pass, it was a good password manager.

Except however, it would turn out that during the time I used it, little did I know, this would foreshadow my blindsideness.

Turns out, and I didn’t get to read it, LastPass was hacked few months ago, and someone who hacked may have gotten my account details, including a bunch of other accounts.

And at the point, because I didn’t take action fast enough, few months later, someone got access and here we are today.

I recommend you read this Reddit post, as it covered much.

And due to this circumstances, after the whole incident since, I have asked LastPass to wipe the account out of existence.

So, now, almost a week later, it’s around 90% restored.

I would say this for the record. While I tried to make sure all security measures of my account were in place. I am 100% taking the responsibility for not being updated at the time, and not taking into account fast enough.

And for that, I genuinely apologize to everyone who gotten the link, and to those who click it, as much as possible, please change everything in instant.

And if they managed to do what they have done on my account, please report to Steam Support and all of that.

And even if it’s not Steam, please, and with all warning, use 2FA/MFA, change into a strong password, keep security checks every so often, and in case you have lots of accounts, use a password manager, I recommend currently Proton Pass, or 1Password (haven’t used it, but putting it because a couple of my friends used it).

With that, I wanna thank to a couple of people who I don’t know, who sent me an email, as well a couple of my friends for alerting me on the whole thing. And thanks to everyone reading this.

I hope this will not be repeated again. But then again, this is the Internet, where anything goes.

(January 20, 2025 at 7AM PHT) - In less than 24 hours later from the ban, TikTok has been restored and made this announcement on their X (formerly Twitter)’s account @TikTokPolicy.

In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive. It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States. - @TikTokPolicy (1:27 AM · Jan 20, 2025)

While it is awesome news, we can’t deny it could be slapped again at some time in the future. We will keep this article below as originally was to remind ourselves not to depend on the platform.

Thank you.

Yup, here we are.

If you have been running an online business since then, you may have heard of many slaps.

The Google slap, the Facebook slap, and so on slaps.

But today, the history of slaps has a new chapter: the TikTok slap.

But why?

If you haven’t caught up, basically last year, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden signed an order detailing that if ByteDance, the platform's owners, refuse to sell within 270 days, they will face severe consequences, which yes, include the ban from downloading on digital markets and even using the platform.

And today, here we are. 170 million users in America are no longer able to access the platform.

Everything that they have. Short videos, dances, monetization, all of that on that platform. Gone in a snap.

But you are thinking:

Hey, I’m not in America, at least I can still use TikTok, right?

Well, yeah, but here’s the thing.

If that is only your platform, as if no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no YouTube, only TikTok, you are possibly f**ked.

A percentage of those 170 million people likely only has TikTok and nothing else.

And for that, where the heck would they go from there?

If you heard about the Arsenio Hall thing, you know that he had a television show back then; he became popular due to a guest playing an instrument, then the network suddenly canceled the show, and we never saw him again until years later, when he participated in a competition for a TV show, in which, if I remember correctly, he tried to contact everyone he could, but to to no avail.

(I know that story thanks to a book called Traffic Secrets by Russell Brunson. I recommend this book as it teaches you the fundamentals in traffic.)

So what am I saying here?

Divest in other traffic sources.

Use multiple traffic sources. Use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and email strategically.

Oh, and build a list of your own.

Your email list is your base. There is nothing to worry about regarding algorithms, bans, or shutdowns. That list is yours forever.

\Forever as long as you keep it growing and active.*

Let me tell you this: If your audience lives entirely on TikTok today, imagine the cost of losing them tomorrow—without warning or a backup plan.

That is already on Google Ads. Thousands of businesses disappeared overnight because they only depended on that single platform.

What are you waiting for?

Start building something you control now. Control your audience. Because if you don’t, platforms will control your business—and your income.

But first…

I owned two laptops, both running Windows. My first laptop was an Acer TravelMate P214-52 G back in 2020, and my second and most recent laptop was an Acer Extensa 215-21G. I won’t go through the whole lot in terms of specifications, but long story short, I had a small budget at the time to buy another laptop, and freshman me decided to go through Facebook and search for laptops and went with it. Their offer was decent for the time, around P19K.

Since then, I kept using my second laptop as my primary laptop. While in the early days, I still use my TravelMate, now as secondary, it soon became a fad and it just became a thing on the shelf.

Until… around early October, I decided to dust off the laptop for migration of stuff. It hosted almost four years of stuff I did back in the online marketing work, as well as my gaming works around the time. The plan was I back up the majority of the files, and then we would call it there. But oh how wrong I was.

As I was progressing with the backup, I wanted to find a way to make use of this again. It just so happens that it was around the time I got introduced to the world of Linux, courtesy of the Steam Deck from Valve. Without comparing to Windows, it runs well. Sure there might be some quirks in and out, but, it functions well as a gaming handheld, and believe it or not, a desktop device.

So… what if I transform one of our laptops to Linux?

And this is where the experiment began.

I have a tough choice which laptop should I convert to Linux? But in the end, we went with my old laptop mine, you guessed it, the TravelMate.

But then, there is one more question.

What Linux distro are you going to use?

I was like, huh?

So I searched for Linux distros, and there were so many, I couldn’t even decide.

So I asked one of the prominent people in the coding world, and one person whose name is Naomi, gave me recommendations depending on the level of stuff. And I went with one of Linux's first baby steps distro, as she called it: Linux Mint.

Now, with that settled, I made sure some settings were configured on my laptop before proceeding with the installation, it took a little while for it to install, but I did it. Linux Mint has officially replaced Windows on my laptop after almost four years of it being on my hard drive.

And now with that done…

How was it?

Well, it feels like I have a brand-new machine.

No, seriously, it feels like I bought the machine again in 2020.

Now sure, there are things on Windows, that are either I cannot or limited on Linux, but for the purposes of office work, I’m quite okay with it.

In fact, Google Chrome, which runs like trash on Windows, runs well on Linux. I’m not joking, somehow it likes it.

Now, you are thinking…

Does that mean you are using this laptop more?

For office work and coding-related, yes.

For full-on hard stuff, not really.

Don’t forget, I still have my lone Windows laptop on me, so don’t expect me to go full-on Linux for quite some time.

But hey, it's been such a positive change that it will forever be noted in my book as, the one thing I never thought I do, but I did.

This was meant to be launched couple months ago…

But, due to me being busy with schoolworks, doing my side hustles all of that, it went out of my brain and I forgot about it.

And now, I finally remembered I have this on shelf and now I’m finally taking it out.

So with that…

Who the frick am I?

Glad you asked.

I’m Eiron, glad to meet you all (virtually).

Some of you know me as a student studying Information Technology…

Other know me from a couple of side hustles and businesses I owned and operate.

Either way, don’t worry about it.

Here’s why.

This blog is mostly a “slice of life” type of blog. Anything goes.

Don’t think by the way this will be something I’ll do daily or weekly, more or less monthly if possible.

I could talk once in a while about the world of online marketing…

I maybe could talk about technology…

Or maybe, whatever the heck I’m thinking at the moment.

Either way, it’s mostly whatever I’m thinking worth talking.

While I’m active on social media platforms where you find this link, however this blog will be seldomly active and will post from time to time.

But Eiron, don’t you normally make separate stuff for separate audiences? So you normally would not confuse a lot of people thinking where is this and what is that?

Actually yes, I did normally do that.

But, since this will be under a different, backstage umbrella than what I normally do (have a post being catered to a specific audience), we’re opening the curtain to everyone interested behind the stuff on all of my stuff.

Anyways, that’s who I am, what is this, and why I’m doing this.

With that, if you want to hear from me what I do, you can follow this blog, subscribe to my newsletter (technically this also), and yeah.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you all later with the first couple of posts.

• Eiron