I think this is where the nuance is and where the things can go off the rails. Your example is that you want to more easily be connected with people that you enjoy engaging with but find it hard to find - which you did attempt to find a work around for, which I do commend.

I think because of the volume of scale of the internet it has been fine-tuned and engineered towards benefiting the major players more as they have taken convenience features and frankenstein’d it into a tool of “increased engagement”.

It is like a market square and everyone is shouting out their wares at the same time and the major players (and others) have done their research on how to be the “loudest and most attention-grabbing hawker at the square”

Here the algorithm approach is useful to help “silence the sea of voices” and find “hawkers” that sell “products” that are of interest to you. It does require some discipline on the users part to curate their “hawkers”, but overall the experience is improved as one deals with “products” that is aligned with one’s interests.

I feel, in general, however that the intent has been twisted into something that has become a slippery slope that slides down towards “how can I get eyes on my thing and keep people coming back” for as long as possible. One’s attention gets bombarded with as many ideas as possible and, from this, one’s scope starts to bloat and becomes muddy as one processes too many different ideas and viewpoints in a short time frame and as a result one spends less time forming a individual opinion. I believe this does contribute to shorter attention spans as we attempt to “offload” our thinking onto something else as we try to make sense of all the information we take in.

The easiest thing I can think of is TikTok and how quickly the short video format was incorporated into the big platforms.

It is a human shortcoming I feel that gets taken advantage of (and I feel like it is being cultivated) and as humans we do have a side to us that tries to optimise the shit out of a things - often to our detriment.

I was served the channel by the algorithm and was concerned with the length so I attempted to share in a neutral manner unsure on reception.

I found it interesting and wanted to share the opinion

Yeah, there is a lot of evolving information, yet for now one can still have some measure of control over the content one can engage with

Build 42 unstable right now, is more single player until they iron out everything for a stable release.

I would say if you don’t mind playing build 41 until they release build 42 stable - then short story long:

I can be fun with friends, but if you want to play without having to worry about too much grind then it is best to play with sandbox settings and tweak gameplay towards what you and your friends find fun.

The world can made persistent, but your individual character is unique and when they die you would have to respawn with a new character

There are mods that do help with the starting out from scratch bit:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503622437&searchtext=journal - make a journal that stores a characters stats so you don’t have a grind a new character again)

The sandbox settings are very flexible (and mods can make it even more so) and you can even play in a world without zombies if you wish

Firstly, I feel offended you reduced the giant mecha vs a dragon cinematic to robot vs a doll army :P

Ff9 did the “all powerful god” but it is really a wtf out of no where momement that can feel jarring with the themes of the game - a ludonarrative narrative dissonance, unless I missed some obscure reference to it somewhere

I would argue that ff6 wrote a less jarring “kill a god” fight:

That is a shame, I would have thought that she would have some measure of control after the events of the first game

Especially, since the burden she was carrying was lifted.

FF 8 Spoiler Response

FF8 spoiler response

I do agree on it being a great game, and she fights gods on her way to her final goal but

Edit

It is a goofy game but that is what gives it its charm.

Environmental interaction( especially with spells) is great

Tip with the rogue, stealth will be very useful at one point

Haven’t finished 1,2,3 but spoilers below:

I would say anyone interested in the game a general rule of thumb would be trash mobs and easy fights = real time and bosses and difficult fights turn based.

One can luckily change that on the fly.

I mean if one is confident in their micro, then one can do most of the game in real time, but the game does have enemy encounters that just feel unfair when fighting real time while feeling better tuned in turn based.

Good game though as one journeys through one of initially 2 “ascension” paths that can eventually branch out into one of 10 different paths as one takes the fight against, technically, gods - but not in the heavenly sense.

The original 3D Prince of Persia trilogy - If I had to pick one I liked the most ( or left the strongest impression), then Warrior Within for the shear guilty pleasure of using time powers to hear what the Dahaka says to the Prince when it is chasing him and the story of the angsty, emo prince being knocked down a peg and starts the decision to take responsibility for his actions

I will admit Sands of Time had the most engaging story though and that The Two Thrones shook up the formula a bit with the a bigger focus on combat with the transformation ( which is a like a meta-narrative nod to the changes the Prince undertook over the course of the trilogy)

Pathfinder WoTR is an overall improvement, but Pathfinder Kingmaker also has its charms.

It feels like playing a DnD campaign with the developers acting as the DM.

It does require some metagaming if one wants to experience everything, it does have an ending act that drags on for too long, it can feel oppressive with the disaster timers ticking away while one is still trying to figure out a rhythm and it can end up with things spiraling into danger if one doesn’t “rush” and plan around each main act quest.

It is one of those rough games that does have a certain appeal to those that do not mind working through the frustrations for a more grounded adventure - relative to the setting.

Tyranny, from a world building experience was great, felt like it was short an act though as I got to the final act and thought - “wait, what is that it?”

Also it is refreshing to have a game where morality is fluid and open to interpretation and up to the player to rationalise their actions, where the decisions lean more towards following an ideology more than morality

For a Warhammer cRPG, Rogue Trader is something to consider as well as it captures the feel of its setting pretty well

Having people use me for their own self satisfaction

Finding out a “friend” is trying to hit on someone I liked after expressly telling them to stay in their lane, as they were very loose in their commitment to a relationship.

Attempting to have a relationship born on open and honest communication, to which it gets misinterpreted which leads to a situation where I would have been more forgiving if they told me about it before deciding to do something rather than tell me the next day about it.

Having one’s decision to accept something, feel bad about it and then come back to that the person and in accepting them again have them brag about something, double back on it and then try to make their own terms to try, with a time limit, to smooth over the offense - basically being tone-deaf to how I was feeling

Being promised something repeatedly, put up with a lot of non-sense, then with the promise in sight, asked not to participate as I watch the dream die in front of me

Being told I do not qualify for a bonus because I was “legally” employeed a month too late and only qualify at year 3

Having someone drag me into a social situation (a group chat room), then then proudly brag about something good they did with someone who I abhor

Working my ass off and my fellow employee taking it easy ( like sitting in the lunch room easy)

Repeatedly reporting a problem and because of the problem having a knock on effect on work efficiency, leads to another problem, that then the managerment is eager to gaslight how it can be a problem. A problem mind you, that the regional manager asked why their aren’t enough people and that I should insist when I am alone - which the manager would never want to have it reported or bother to properly resolve.

Going into an interview with one of the interviewees showing an attitude of such disinterest that I feel it would have been better to walk out as they clearly show no interest

Having to deal with someone dumping me for an ex( maybe not dump so much as having fallen for someone and then being thrown away after I could not serve a purpose), the moment I mentioned I felt a bit jealous, to then realise that I was only an attempt to get back at the ex for what they did(infidelity), which I did not take well made worse by working in the same place and having said person rub it in my face,essentially, how they are going back out

This then got worse when she showed a bunch of people where I lived which made me, I guess, put me in a dangerous mindset as I felt my actions were putting my family at risk and the “monkey brain” response was wanting to remove that risk. That got directed towards writing an inflammatory letter to her, which the little bitch of a boyfriend came with 2 of his friends to threaten me at work. He threatened violence after work, I got excited, followed by a self realisation of what the hell and proceeded to have a panic attack as tried to come to terms how excited I was getting at the thought of wanting to go out in a blaze of anger and glory.

People telling me they understand, when their actions repeatedly and clearly show me that they, in fact, do not understand

Asking someone to politely, at first, not doing something - like leave crumbs in the margarine (vegetable butter) or margarine in the jam, have it ignored and continue to do it

Using a electric kettle and only pouring enough water for themselves, as the water quality leaves residue in the water and requires it to be thrown out, and in my case given a wipe, when the water is too low. This leads to having to use the kettle twice

Being told to meet someone at a club, be an idiot and wait 4 stupid hours in the cold and rain outside waiting for them, telling me all sorts of bullshit, while they were in the club the whole time

Being told I was an equity employment - I guess for the Americans know it as D.E.I, and told I would basically be stuck at the position I will be applying for. A few years later, I am in essense doing work outside of speciality for the lower position pay, which the company was transistioning towards, I hate it because they are doing everything they can to “extract value while cutting costs” and pushing that narrative and then when I do not perform to satisfaction be rhetorically asked if do I not want to be promoted - which I know is just a bs ploy to try make me work harder because I will never be promoted.

Having my personal social information be discussed behind my back without asking permission - example having someone tell my parents above my relationship with someome in high school.

In high school,telling someome to leave me alone and they repeatedly violated that space, made worse when my parents allowed said person to come near when I expressly displayed in action to not want to engage with them. It ended up with a emotive kangaroo kick when they pushed to far and me going for a very angry through bushes to avoid being followed.

I do not know if all this qualifies, but that is all I can think of off the top of my head, I am willing to amend points that do not meet criteria

Reading that, seems you were fortunately not traveling too fast, as I can imagine traveling along, the sudden stop, falling over face first into the packed snow and just sort of enacting an image of your one foot being propped like a hand trying to pull excalibur from the snow.

I understand that

It was years between the robbery ( headed back home after spending time with my then girlfriend) and the attempted assault ( work decided to have me work around that area) and I would always be uneasy but trying not to look like a too easy a mark again while thinking of “what if” scenarios as it feels like one’s intution is on a fine tuned edge being alert for anything that seems suspicious.

I guess it could be described as practical fear

After the attack, I was insistent and since then do my utmost to keep as far away from that area as possible.

I will admit, I also felt apprehension like how you might have felt like when I started posting details

I was paranoid as I was robbed in that area before to which I froze, but the police were around then and arrested one of the suspects.

The paranoia part comes from thinking that they might have wanted revenge as I ID’d and provided a statement that allowed it to be prosecuted ( got a call from a prosecutor) for the robbery.

So the immediate thought was if it was payback, as they said nothing through the whole ordeal, but realistically, if it was they would have not run away so quickly or took advantage of my poor positioning.

The most rationale thinking in hindsight is that it was a bunch of meth-heads were looking for quick score and by me escalating they decided for a quick and dirty robbery instead.

That area where I used to work is dangerous and I know I got really lucky considering considering the type of incidents that do happen there

Also lucky that that the impact of the fall didn’t cause any other damage to your legs as it took the impact like a champ from the momentum of the flip and sudden stop if I am assuming it was something like a 1-story distance from the deck to the ground?