Bugmenot sometimes has LinkedIn credentials https://bugmenot.com/view/linkedin.com

Don’t click any of the scam ones though

Guy I know worked for a pretty big video game studio or two. (You’ve definitely heard of some games he worked on). Then he realized it sucked. Took a job in FinTech, made like double the money for half the work.

Fingers crossed for total conversions. Give me some non-5e rule systems. (Unlikely, I know. Double unlikely to get anything other than maybe Pathfinder, but I can hope)

Yeah if I take photo/video I put the camera in front of my face or chest so no one behind me can see it.

That sounds pretty similar to how I like Guild Wars 2, except offline. That’s cool. I signed up for the beta thing.

You can either buy it once to gain access to the offline “ironman” mod

This sounds relevant to my interests. What updates come with this? Just security? Nothing?

I agree with your ideas on micro transactions here. They create a lot of temptations to make the base game worse. “Your inventory holds 12 items but for a very reasonable price you can hold 6 more!” may seem harmless but it also sucks. The game is objectively and arbitrarily worse without that transaction.

Purely cosmetic skins are a little better, but you end up taking advantage of people who buy more than they should.

Mildly interested. Concerned about monetization. I don’t do subscriptions or microtransactions, and “pay once and you’re good” is pretty rare, probably in part because there’s ongoing costs to running a server and in part because lol most people will charge as much as possible. But that’s why the only MMO I play is guild wars 2. You buy the game and you’re good. They sell expansions every couple of years.

Also you should mention lemmy on your site where you mention discord and reddit.

Oh yeah GW1 was harder at launch because you only had limited NPC support, but the later expansions really expanded that (no pun intended) by adding more robust npc Heroes that could join your party and be customized.

Though GW1 came out 19 years ago, so a good chunk of potential GW2 players were in diapers when it came out. Gosh, I’m so old.

GW2 is very “solo” friendly. I put solo in quotes because there will typically be other people around, but you don’t have to talk to them or wait on them for most stuff. Like, earlier I was flying around one of the maps doing a little quest thing, and I joined in several events to fight monsters with other people. Didn’t say a word. It’s all very seamless.

I still play guild wars 2. It’s the only MMO that doesn’t piss me off. No subscription fee. Never raised the level cap. Only added a new tier of gear once close to launch and said that’s it. Plays like a real video game.

Because the level cap and gear cap doesn’t change, you can take a break and come back just fine. My characters I made years ago are just as mechanically viable as anyone else. (Knowing how to play them is a separate question. I’m pretty bad at thief, but some people are little immortal jerks with it)

It also feels more like a real video game than some MMOs. You can dodge attacks. Like there’s a dodge button that moves you and gives you iframes. There’s a lot less of the old timey “your character moved away on the screen so the monster did its attack animation way over there, but you still get hit”.

They also solved a lot of the anti social problems of old MMOs. You don’t need to form a formal group for most content. There’s no kill stealing. You just go into the world and do stuff.

There’s no mandatory quest chains. There’s the main story you can follow, but there’s very little MMO filler. There are “hearts” you can do that are kind of MMO busywork, but you can also just not do them.

I know the game is old but it’s still very good. I haven’t been able to get a lot of friends to play it. I think they think it’s like a shitty MMO where you just grind for gear to grind for more gear, and level up so you can level up and grind for more gear. It’s not.

Oh my gosh I played that years ago. I even made a world for it that was exactly what you’d expect from a 13 year old.

I’ve always thought the same. Apples to apples you have to be a little creative. Cards against humanity is like playing a shooter with an aimbot.

Can you share nerdy technical details about how you made it? Custom engine? Something like unity? Solo project or big team? Edit: probably Godot from the communities. I know nothing about Godot. How was it?

When I was a kid I thought a lot about making games, but now that I’ve worked in software and spent hours being like “why the fuck does the font get bigger when I open the date picker?” I have a greater appreciation for how hard it can be.

Free cloud backups of save files is really nice.

Free hosting of screenshots, too.

Free forums (though they tend to suck. I guess that’s like they only have basic yellow mustard or something, in this metaphor)

I do live in a city and wouldn’t have it any other way.

You don’t consume movies books television music art? Variety of food?

I recognize that some people want to be hermits but that makes me uneasy. But like, whatever, it takes all kinds I guess. Not a fan of subsidizing anti social behavior though. Lots of roads and highways and shipping and such to support people living in isolation.

People are interesting. People produce culture. Cities are where people are. Cities are always going to be more interesting and more cultural.

You want to start a band in nowhere, Utah? Ok, well, you’re going to have a lot fewer people interested in joining or watching than a city of any size.

Some stuff might move online. But I’m reminded of an interview I read during the pandemic. Someone was asked “what can I do at an in person party I can’t do online?”. The other person replied, “fuck people.” So there’s that. In-person social stuff matters.

So like yeah I guess it might be cheaper but it’s probably going to be less interesting just because there’s fewer people around.

“looter shooter” is irrelevant to most (arguably all) of the complaints listed.

They all have kind of bad pacing. Takes too long to get to the good parts, spends too much time walking back and forth or driving around. The core gameplay is meh- it’s more about levels and gear stats than like strategy or execution. It takes too long to get enough skill points to do interesting things.

Unless they address that stuff, I’m going to wait for the game to be in the bargain bin.

Sometimes you feel like the shittier game took players from the game you’d rather be playing.

Sometimes you feel like the shittier game is kind of a knockoff, and it feels bad when that succeeds.

Sometimes a game is made by a horrible company with a history of abuse from its high ranking staff.

On the one hand, not a big fan of moba or purely PVP games.

On the other, I deeply dislike overwatch specifically and would like to see it dead. Maybe this would make a dent.