emb @ emb @lemmy.world

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4

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165

Joined

2 yr. ago

Right, I don't even know how you would cheat it. Down at this point, I guess I'm just lamenting that more games aren't able to keep healthy communities after dev support ends.

Wasn't Rising Thunder the one that at least handled part of shutdown right by semi-open sourcing?

But yeah, it's all part of a wider problem. Personally I don't want an invasive devloper over-tuning fighting games all the time, and I don't want any microtransactions. But unless you keep dangling new shiny, very few players will stick with a given game, making it hard to find matches on-demand.

So bizarre to me that a game has to be a runaway hit to even remain accessible for any length of time.

Stopping updates I get (and good, most game updates are annoying), but shutting down servers completely and especially delisting it seem so over the top.

TWSBI has been good, in my experience, for fountain pens. But I haven't tried many different brands, just a handful.

Sorry! Just wanted to say why people might, in case you were actually asking. 😅

I upvoted the post, but the caps and mulitple exclamation marks tempted me not too. Feels a little overbearing.

But overall, I guess I'm more glad to see the excitement than I am annoyed by the yelling.

Checked this in my state a few years ago, ended up getting like 50 bucks back. Took a while, I forgot about it by the time the check got here. Seemed like the state treasure was happy to have his signature prominently slapped on there.

Jeremy Parish has less than 100k, and constantly puts out great retrospectives on the nooks and crannies of retro game history.

While the Retronauts podcast he's involved with is well known, I feel like his YouTube kinda flies under the radar.

There are dozens of us!

Yeah, I also wish they'd have better support, but Linux players are not a huge group.

Steam Deck and Steam machines have helped a lot though. Without Valve's weight behind it, trying to game on Linux would probably be a lot worse.

Not far off from what already happens from the race-to-the-bottom popular content found on YouTube, in f2p games, and on social media.

AI slop will get better at grabbing, holding, and harvesting attention. Kids will grow up on it and adults will get comfy with it, shortening attention spans. They'll end up under-educated and under-ambitious, leading to a more gullible, more anti-intellectual population.

I don't have any sources to cite, it's all vibes. I'm already a product of manipulative media. 💀 That, and some of this is exaggerated inter-generational grumpiness.

(This is not even touching on the potential for propaganda that a lot of other answers are getting at.)

Yep, that is indeed what I was thinking of (though I don't have a link handy either).

Didn't mean to imply that's where experience levels were invented. The clarification is appreciated though.

And even thought I was alluding to that DQ comment, I'm sure it wasn't the first game to adapt experience levels, and across the board making things easier wasn't always the impetus.

Don't know about CRPGs in particular, one way or the other. But in general I agree with you op.

If you level up, and it means your stats go up and all your enemies level up and stay at the same balance with you, it's pointless. It still affords a moment of happiness 'cool I levelled up', but in a much less satisfying way.

The point of level up early in RPG video games was, to my knowledge, so that any one with time and patience could beat a game regardless of skill. The idea of level scaling is almost the exact opposite, to remove the advantage of levelling. They cancel out and both player level and enemy level should be removed if that's happening.

That's assuming a 1:1 unversal scaling though, which is rarely the case. In the details it can be tuned to something worthwhile - which enemies scale, how much they scale, etc.

Still, my thought is when games want level scaling, they should consider why. If you want players not to overpower enemies via stats, maybe get rid of the stats (or don't change them on lvl up). Levels can still augment your player with new spells, unique abilities, or more options. Or maybe more carefully consider the placement of enemies and what their default level and stats are set at. Or maybe consider a lower level cap, or a lower range of stat values.

The possibilities are wide open, but level scaling done poorly can make level ups feel like a punishment.

Yep. Not even always ads exactly, but just dummy notifications to make your dumb brain keep opening the app or website (which is kind of a self ad).

Most apps I have to disable or heavily tone down notifications in some way to get them to stop yapping about nothing. Even then, sometimes you can't get notifications you do want without junk.

Yes. ❤️

I remember going on a trip when I was younger, and my (also young) friend was driving. At one point we got onto a stretch of highway and he met speed with a slow or speed limit vehicle like that, kept going for miles.

I don't remember what prompted it, maybe an aggressive driver we encountered somewhere and were able to block in, maybe just because it'd be funny. But I do remember he'd tell that story for years, and we'd laugh about traffic being backed up further than we could see. Looking back, such a jerk move. I didn't argue against it at the time, but now I'm half surprised we didn't get a ticket. It's kind of a safety hazard.

Come to think of it, that was around 15 years ago. >.>

To tack on - if you're still pretty early, beginner textbook style lessons will be the most helpful at the start. If your main goal is to communicate with folks in a the short term, memorize set phrases and common verbs (along w/ basic conjugation rules).

It's surprising how much you can get by with when you have limited vocab and speed, but know how to ask someone clarifying questions or ask if they can slow it down.

Picking up a 2nd (or more) language is just going to be hard. There's not a magic shortcut, or anything you can buy or course to take that will make you fluent in a month.

That out of the way, there are lots of resources out there!

Look up comprehensible input channels on YouTube (eg, Dreaming Spanish). You can find something at your level, even down to the point where they'll mostly point at pictures and say words. Eventually add in things like cartoons, news, podcasts, or social media when you feel up to it.

There's debate about whether you need anything besides input. I'm partial to a mixed approach, so I'd say get a good textbook too.

Anki is great for vocab flashcards (but you'll have to find decks, which can be annoying). Apps like Duolingo can be a good supplement too.

Make a habit through the day or thinking about how to say things in Spanish. Repeat your sentences in your head, or think about what the Spanish version would be of signs you see.

It's just a long term goal though, to get anywhere meaningful. Engage with your target language every day.

Yes. Having centralized ownership (to whatever extent) is a concern for sure, but it's a hypothetical concern in and of itself: "what if the leadership does bad things?" Is different from "the leadership is currently doing bad things."

Decentralization helps. But if the networks effects aren't behind it, jumping from platform to platform when things DO get bad is also viable.

I didn't really think so, but to each their own! I like the progression from not being able to afford much, up to maxing out upgrades on each tower.

There's a speed multiplier to cut back on the waiting around. I mostly leave it around 8x speed so it's a little faster paced.

I think Anuto TD (a tower defense game) is the best I've come across.

I also really like Gauguin (Sudoku-esque) and Lexica (word game) on the more casual side.

Don't know that it's on F-Droid, but Lichess is also high quality and open source.