Addfwyn

Their tools are just not up to keep track of all these things.

If only someone developed some third-party tools that could better help them with their job...

Living in Japan, this almost didn't register to me. I have literally never met anybody that didn't have one. When you move out, you use your family's old one until you can buy a newer one.

Everyone should have one, absolutely.

Most social media.

I used to use reddit, I have moved all my presence over here. That's about it.
I have a FB Messenger account because that is how a lot of my family keeps in touch with me, and I have this. I had a proper FB account back when I was in uni and Facebook was still only for uni students, but I think I dropped it shortly after that.

It's not some grand principled stance, I just don't get most of them because I am apparently an old man. Like Instagram, why do I want to share pictures with just random people? How am I networking with anybody by doing so? I honestly don't get why it is so popular.

They're probably right, depressingly.

I can't make anyone else leave, but I did what I could by leaving personally. I am generally enjoying the experience over here more anyway, so I am not missing a whole lot. Maybe a couple niche subs, but I was considering working on launching equivalent communities over here.

As somebody who vaped for a long time, I kind of disagree with this one. Of every method for quitting smoking, vaping was the easiest and most effective. It let me titrate down to eventually 0 nicotine juice, which let me stop altogether. I only very rarely vape anymore, I keep my mod around in case I am ever out drinking and get an urge, but it is definitely the reason I was able to quit smoking.

The popcorn lung thing is kind of an urban legend, there is no case of any vaper ever getting it from vaping, but diacetyl (the additive in question) has been discontinued in basically all juice just in case anyway.

The usual mantra in vaping communities was always to tell people that if you weren't a smoker already, don't start vaping. Is it better than smoking? Almost assuredly, but it's still not going to be better than just breathing cleaning air. The recommendation was always as a transition away from smoking. It's one of the few hobbies we would congratulate each other over leaving.

If you don't vape or smoke already, don't start though.

How could you possibly doubt the word of uh... Jefferey Tromp and his good friend Romaine.

I am childfree, she wasn't. 100% not going to work, but we ended on good terms all things ocnsidered.

Hate:

-Real Time Timers: Think FF13 Lightning Returns. It doesn't matter how many mechanics there are to alleviate the pressure, they make me so stressed out that I don't enjoy playing the actual game.

-Unrepairable Durability Mechanics: I mean things like Breath of the Wild where you can use a weapon X times before it breaks with no way to repair it. I end up never wanting to use "my good weapon" and tryto beat entire games with a 2x4. If I can go to a vendor and repair my gear, I don't mind as much.

-Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.

Love:

-Meaningful Choices: Not two dialogue options with the same end result, but things that shape either story or gameplay. This could be a major branching story choice OR something like a talent tree.

-Base Building: I like build base. It doesn't have to be a city builder or strategy game (Though I absolutely love those), but I am a sucker for games including any degree of base building. It's my favourite part of the XCom games as an example. Bonus if I have to make choices about my base, see previous point.

My country is exceptionally bad about this.

Buy a plastic package of crackers? It will be filled with smaller packages of crackers all wrapped in plastic with a plastic freshener pack for each one. I am not exaggerating. I am not sure I have ever bought something that didn't have at least two degrees of plastic wrap.

We did stop giving plastic bags out at cashiers unless requested, but that means shitall when everything you buy is triple-wrapped to begin with.

Rimworld.

It's kind of funny because I bounced off the game hard the first two times I played it. What really did it for me was the Ideology DLC, gave it a shot on a whim and the amount of structure it gave me for RPing colonies was exactly what I was missing.

Hundreds upon hundreds of hours in now, and it is the game I keep coming back to. Not to mention one of the biggest modding communities I have ever seen in a video game. The only video game subscriptions I maintain currently are to a few Rimworld modders whose work I really enjoy. When I am not playing it, I am working on ideas of themed mod packs to put into it.

Dyson Sphere Program is a close second, it's my favourite factory-builder. It is still in early access but is a VERY polished experience already. Amazing dev communication too.

Of all the assorted protests I saw, I liked what interestingasfuck did the most. Just said "f it, here is what subs will look like with the bare minimum modding" and walked away. Mess up their front page, their advertising, and actually show what an unmodded major reddit sub would look like.

If every sub had done that instead of some milquetoast 48 hour blackout, I think it would have been at least moderately more impactful.

Most MOBAs are pretty notoriously bad, though Heroes of Newerth was definitely the worst one of those i had played.

Anecdotally, my personal worst experience was with FFXIV, which was probably exacerbated by how much praise that community gets otherwise. The Novice Network system they have is a mess, new players are put into a channel with a bunch of "mentors" that don't really want to help anyone, at least on the server I was on. They either wanted a global chat channel for their own use, or just wanted the cosmetic rewards mentors had on offer. I remember one actively trying to get new players to quit if he found out they had come from WoW. The channel is entirely self-moderated, and mentors would kick people out just for fun. It's an AWFUL first impression for newer players.

One thing WoW definitely does better with their Guide channel is giving literally no tangible rewards to guides, if somebody is opting into being a Guide it is only because they want to help new players, they get nothing else for it.

Honest question, why keep quiet? I assume they are aware of the shit that went down in Reddit, if you provide Lemmy as an alternative some may actually try it and end up liking it more. The more people swap over the more it becomes an attractive alternative for others.

You don't have to be obnoxious about it, but just a suggestion could interest them.

I quite like it, I generally like how it looks, and there was less of a learning curve than I expected there to be. Things mostly work without needing you to know HOW they work (though that is fun too). I am sure it will get more active as more people move over, but it's actually the perfect amount of activity for me right now. I can check in and there is usually some new stuff without worrying about things moving so fast that my voice gets lost in the noise.

Big plus is I can be fairly open about my leftist politics, at least around here, and not be downvoted into oblivion. Nor does everything thread even tangentially related to China devolve into racism within five posts.

Are there a couple niche communities I miss? Sure, I might recreate them myself honestly, somebody has to. Otherwise, I don't miss much.

I feel like if you feel like you need to cultivate a mindset for a particular activity, you are probably better off finding another activity. Unless you have extremely specific goals that really demand a particular exercise, it is better to simply be moderately active doing something you enjoy doing.

I've tried running/jogging, I am actually not bad at it. I freaking hate actually doing it though, I would rather be doing almost anything else. Which makes it a terrible exercise for me to do, because I will find any excuse to not do it. Same for lifting weights. I enjoy swimming but dislike public pools, in my current country nobody has private pools, even the rich.

For me I have always enjoyed martial arts, particularly sparring. I can't necessarily find people to do that with regularly where I live now, but I can still practice forms and the like by myself. I get a not insignificant workout from regular Beat Saber sessions too, honestly.

She didn't have kids already, but she wanted to have them in the future. I absolutely do not want kids, I even got a vasectomy in my early 20s.

It's not really an issue you can compromise on as a couple, so it was better to part amicably than pursue something with no future, for both of our sakes.

They can't delete it as far as I am aware. They could delete all posts and perma-private it I think, but that would be extremely tedious and the admins could revert everything a lot easier.

When you're working within their frameworks, effective protests are limited. It's why I just left.

Marxist-Leninist. Of the type that would probably unironically be referred to as a tankie.

I don't see capitalism as a sustainable model for the world, you cannot grow infinitely with finite resources, and there is no way effective way to "reform the system from the inside". Capitalists will actively sabotage such efforts as they go against their own best interests; they are dead set on convincing labor that it is also against their best interests, and have been depressingly effective at doing so.

I believe that humanity will naturally move towards a more communist world order as a unipolarity gives way to a multipolar world. Probably not within my lifetime, but either humans will get there eventually or we will die out trying.

Japan, you usually use "Taro Tanaka" as the goto placeholder name. Tanaka is a very common surname here and it's super easy to write as well (田中). Sato is actually the most common but also a lot harder to write (佐藤). Tanaka is also a very "working class" name, it litearlly means "in the rice field" and most likely comes from families with a background of rice farmers. Taro also a very common given name; there have been quite a few Taro Tanakas throughout history despite being the placeholder name on most forms and the like. Taro, incidentally means "Big/Strong Son".

I am not sure offhand of a female equilvalent, it's usually Taro as the placeholder.

Microsoft out here treating studios like most of us treat new games on Steam. Acquire them and then never do anything with them.

I said this in the other comment, but vaping is the one thing that helped me successfully quit smoking.

Is it healthy? No, at the absolute best it would be neutral. You shouldn't be breathing anything other than clean air. However, I have little doubt that it is better than smoking. My lungs are in great shape now, and I feel just generally much better. If people want to continue to do research on longterm effects of vaping, great!

Are there issues about underage vaping? Sure, but that is a regulation/enforcement issue and shouldn't be used to punish adults with. I have friends that went back to smoking because of vaping being made illegal where they lived, and you cannot convince me that is better for their health.

A lot of the issues we have had about vaping are regulatory issues with stuff like the Vitamin E incident, not a problem with the underlying concept.

I am kind of used to sometimes poking the bear on this one in particular. It's what I personally dislike though, I don't necessarily think they are badly designed. I totally get some people absolutely love that kind of thing in games, and I am glad they have games that scratch that itch. It's just an instant turn-off for me though.

That said, I have never quite understood the people vehemently opposed to having a difficulty slider though; just keep it on hard and it's literally no different.

I have only very recently come around on that. When voice commands first came out, they were absolute garbage. I am still conditioned to never expect them to work, and am always pleasantly surprised when they do.

To be fair, I largely only use them for things like setting my alarm, because I still have an engrained expectation that they won't work otherwise.

I feel save points themselves are becoming an increasingly archaic design choice. Just let us save anywhere, especially in a single player game. I think most people are just suspending games without expressly saving most of the time.

I can only speak to the portions of the game I have played so far ( I just finished Main Mission 13, maybe 5-6 hours in total) but it's very linear so far. Each area is basically a straight path you follow, I honestly haven't even found many places where you can diverge from the path just for extra treasure or the like.

It could very well open up more later on like XIII did, but it's not open at all so far. There is a side quest system that could definitely lend itself to more of an open-world exploration feeling. I only have seen two sidequests that are given to you when that system is first introduced, so I can't speak as to how common they are yet.

I have definitely heard that argument, and I understand it, but at the same time there are a good number of us who would just simply not play the game then.

I realise it is up to the devs who they want to make their game for, and I am probably not their target audience, but banging my head against a wall until I get through something doesn't give me any kind of feeling of triumph when I manage it. I just feel frustrated. Whereas the soulslike games I have played where I could turn the difficulty down, I enjoyed way more.

I am in Japan and have no issues with tap water here, used to drink it regularly.

I live closer to Mt. Fuji now and go get spring water from the mountain weekly instead. There's a basin at a shrine nearby that collects it and is free for people to take. No issues with the tap water, but this water tastes a lot better.

I used it a little bit, not extensively. I watched Diggnation with Kevin and Alex though semi-regularly, as I used to watch TechTV prior to that.

I love FF, played them all and generally liked every one to varying degrees. I am about there with you overall on XVI. I liked my time with FFXVI well enough, but in my overall series hierarchy it is basically smack dab in the middle. I thought it was good but it didn't blow me away like a lot of people are raving about. I certainly don't regret playing it, but I also wouldn't want to see this be the direction they take the series from now on.

I liked the characters a lot more than I expected. Story had pacing issues but overall it was good. Music was more atmospheric but generally quite well done, though thinking back to it now I can't really recall any of the music.

Gameplay-wise though, it felt like it was lacking a lot of RPG elements. I don't mind action combat at all, I am not a turn-based purist and I loved FF7R, but the combat in FFXVI seemed like a big step back. There really wasn't any itemization, levels didn't feel that impactful, and even unlocking nodes on the skilltree felt very low impact. About halfway through the game I had unlocked everything I would use until the end of the game, so skill points really ceased to matter. There were no resistances or elements, so even though the game makes a big deal about learning different magic-types (which are all 100% the same as each other), you can approach every single fight exactly the same. The big bombastic kaiju fights people loved were actually my least favourite part though. You were basically given a simplified version of the character you normally play, and they were all about 30% too long. They were a spectacle but weren't actually all that fun or interesting to play.

Google, that company famous for creating new technologies and supporting them for long periods of time. Definitely something I am interested in becoming an early adopter for.

30/70 maybe? The pacing has actually felt totally fine, I don't think there has been any moments where I felt the cutscenes were dragging out too long or dungeon sections went on for too long.

Not sure exactly how much money that constitutes, but assuming I somehow inherited a reasonably large sum of money, do mostly the same thing I am doing now.

Pay immediate cost of living expenses for myself and my partner. I don't have any expensive hobbies that I would need much more. I don't make a ton of money right now, yet it's still more than I can reasonably spend. After rent and food, like half my paycheque goes into the bank already. I am lucky to live in a country where I don't have to worry about an unexpected medical condition costing me millions.

The remaining would go towards charities/local political groups I am involved in. While not without precedence, it would be a strange look to be a stupidly wealthy socialist, and again the money would have no real use to me and would be better served elsewhere.

I have always hated that advice. While exceptions exist, there is no faster way to burn yourself out on something you love than making a career out of it. I generally do like my work (IT) now, but a lot if that is because I actively try to not even look in the direction of a computer when I am not in the office. I probably consume less tech/IT industry news now than I did before I worked in the field.

When I was vaping I always mixed my own juice, so was very sure of what went in. There's always the chance of buying from a sketchy vendor and getting something weird in your mixes, but most were fairly benign. Vaping liquid is actually pretty simple in composition.

Not a game I hear mentioned much, but man Secret World had so many great things going for it. The best quest design in a MMO* I have ever seen, and a really unique setting too. Shame it was managed so badly, in an alternate world where TSW took off and was still getting content updates, I would be thrilled.

*MMO-ish in Legends.

I would consider them a few different genres, but they are easily my favourite types of games these days. I cateogrize them in my steam list as below.

-Colony Builders: Games about building well, a colony, often from little to nothing. Often lots of You vs Environment friction, with the natural world. Tends to have a bit more focus on the individuals that comprise the colony. Examples: Rimworld (my favourite game of all time), Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Stranded Alien Dawn, Space Haven.

-City Builders: A bit broader in scope than a colony builder, working more on the macro level. Friction is often economic, sometimes adjusted with the natural world. Cities Skylines is kind of the prime exampe of this, but also games like Timberborn or Anno.

-Automation: Games about building a factory that...builds things automatically. Challenge tends to be logistical complexity but some games do feature combat as well. Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program (my personal favourite), Satisfactory, and Captain of Industry are the Four Horsemen of this genre to me. Techtonica is very early still but seems to have some promise as well.

For many of these games, there is a whole world of content to explore if you are interested in mods. Rimworld players regularly run hundreds of mods, my current game has about 350. Factorio has extensive overhaul mods that can take literally thousands of hours to finish in some cases (Py's). Satisfactory has a surprisingly robust mod scene for an early access game too.

You don't want to use a wiki that makes your battery start to visibly drain away?

I am really curious how this will pan out for the casual city building enthusiast.

I liked everything about Skylines a lot, but I always ran into a roadblock (ha!) with traffic. I never designed well for it, resulting in my cities locking up by mid game. I briefly tried to learn, but it seemed almost impossible to retrofit a solution and trying to design from day 1 with traffic in mind wasn't really enjoyable. I always wish there was a mod that just abstracted traffic simulation out because it was the one thing I didn't really want to deal with.

Dealing with parking and accidents sounds like kind of a headache, but the smarter lane changes and path-finding hopefully alleviate some of the load as well.

Finished what is available in Techtonica, so went back to Dyson Sphere Program for a bit to work on missing achievements. DSP is definitely my favourite of the Factory-Automation games at this point.

I still have a Factorio (Industrial Revolution 3) game going too, but am feeling DSP more at the moment right now.

Tropical Connect the Dots.