imsobadatnicknames2

[imsobadatnicknames2]

So I just learned that the way Ultima Online was originally programmed, a player was a “container” housing their inventory, the inventory was coded as a “map,” and horses, when first introduced, were coded as an invisible inventory item (pants) until called and mounted. But for the first 24 hours or so, someone had forgotten to code it so they reverted to an item when put away. So while this wasn’t actually visible, the horses wound up behaving in the inventory map as they would when released into the wild. Which means that the horses were wandering freely inside of the player characters, picking up some of their items, eating the ones that qualified as food items, and since there had never before been a need to give the inventory map any boundaries, the horse pants and their stolen items would eventually wander off into oblivion.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

this point and click adventure game where the main character has adhd fucking sucks. i got softlocked because i told him to check the computer and now hes just scrolling his dash and if i click on anything he goes "i cant do that. im locked the fuck in"

[imsobadatnicknames2]

"derivative and masturbatory"...? Hell yeah i love maths and jacking it

[imsobadatnicknames2]

[imsobadatnicknames2]

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Reading the playtest version of @anim-ttrpgs' Silk & Dagger (an RPG about dark elves navigating a society built on extremely byzantine rules of etiquette) the first thing that stuck out to me was the codification of, essentially, a co-GM in the rules: with one player basically having the role of making sure the characters are acting according to these rules of etiquette and deducting points for breaches of etiquette. And the player is rewarded for doing this, because the player acting in the "spider goddess" role accrues Favor which turns into Boons when enough of it is accumulated, and the player gets to transfer any Boons gained while acting in this role to their character the next time they play.

It's a really cool way of using mechanics and incentives to reinforce the theme: the game is about a society that really hinges on its bizarre social contract and people constantly scrutinizing each other's behavior. The system itself is hostile, so it makes sense for the game to incentivize really scrutinizing the characters.

It also makes me think of how few games actually account for rotating player roles in their mechanics. I have seen many games promote the idea of rotating player roles, but with very little incentive for doing so: the main incentive usually presented is "the GM should get to take a break every once in a while." The idea of rewarding a player acting in a somewhat GM-like role is pretty remarkable, because it's very rarely done. I have heard of some Japanese tabletop RPGs giving incentives for rotating GMs, but the idea of rewarding the player actually facilitating the game beyond the intrinsic reward of it being enjoyable is still quite rare.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this. It's already inspired a few ideas that I might want to plug into my World's Best Dungeon Game (a weird mishmash of ideas borrowed from other games that represent the ideal, platonic form of the coolest dungeon game I could ever want). They're gearing up for an alpha release on itch.io March 10th, so look forward to that (and while you're at it go check out Eureka and the funny hedgehog game from these folks)

[imsobadatnicknames2]

If you want to feel infuriated just look at this Reddit thread. Hundreds of comments supporting outdoor cats and insisting that only crazy Americans keep their cats indoors.

Comments basically boil down to:

tHe Uk Is DiFfErEnT!!!11

there are no predators in the UK

cats need to roam/hunt

"I've only had 3 cats killed by cars so it's fine"

Americans are stupid

I hate UK outdoor cat culture so much 😬😬😬

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Guy with acoustic guitar at a big concert: So I heard a rumor...about the sexual proclivities...of a Mr. Kanye West.

Crowd: *Cheering*

Guy: I heard he likes...

*shot of woman crying with joy*

Guy: ...Fingers in his ass.

Crowd: *going nuts*

[imsobadatnicknames2]

i've heard people recommend not playing Thief Gold and instead olaying the original release. I'm asking because the version in the google drive folder you linked is the gold edition. would you recommend playing that one?

I like the Gold version but I understand why people would prefer the original. And that "why" is one specific mission.

So, the gold edition made some changes. It added some new areas and objectives to existing missions, and it fixed a couple places where it was possible to softlock yourself if you're not careful. But the real meat and potatoes of it were the three new missions it added, sprinkled throughout the campaign: the Thieves Guild, the Mage Towers, and Song of the Caverns.

The first of the gold-exclusive missions, The Thieves Guild, is kinda infamous in the community and it's not unwarranted.

The mission has a cool premise. The Downwind thieves guild beat Garrett to a big score, so he's going to break into their base and steal it back from them.

And the *concept* for the map is cool too. You have a restaurant serving as a front for an underground casino, and two small-ish mansions belonging to high-ranking members of the thieves guild, connected by a sewer system.

The problem is that... well, the sewers are a fucking labyrinth, and not in a way that enhances the mission in any way. They're gigantic, boring, visually indistinct, easy to get lost in, confusing to navigate, filled with annoying switch puzzles, and you spend A LOT of time going back and forth through them, constantly getting lost and trying to find your way. They could have cut them down to a half or a third of their size without losing anything of value, and instead spent that effort into fleshing out the casino and mansions, which are cool but very noticeably undercooked.

And to boot, on higher difficulties some items you need to complete the mission objectives are hidden behind extremely bullshit secret pannels that you wouldn't know to interact with unless you already know about them or you're closely examining every inch of every wall, and (unless you're playing with prior knowledge of the level beforehand) one of the objectives requires you to go back and forth between the two mansions to hunt for keys because there are a lot of doors in this mission that are just immune to your lockpicks. Which wouldn't be a problem if the sewers weren't such a pain to navigate.

It's a pretty bad mission that unfortunately also has some cool ideas and some good level design in the mansions themselves.

That being said, I think the third gold-exclusive mission, Song of the Caverns, more than makes up for it. It is one of the best in the game and it more than justifies playing through the gold edition over the original. It (spoilers in the rest of this paragraph if you care about that sort of thing) pulls a pretty cool bait and switch where at first it seems like it's going to be one of the boring cave maze levels, before you find out that the thing you're after was already taken by the wealthy owner of an opera house whose basement is connected to the cave system, and you have to go steal it from there. The opera house is a lot of fun and one of the highlights of the game.

The Mage Towers is one I'm kinda lukewarm on. The central keep in the middle of the towers is one of the best designed areas in the game, but the towers themselves... I don't like them. Out of the entire game they're the only places that I feel are not designed as actual environments but instead as videogame levels. Nothing about their design communicates that these are actual places where the mages live or work or do ANYTHING other than endlessly walk around patrolling what are effectively linear obstacle courses for the player. They have no area that resembles living quarters or a study or any room that seems to serve any logical purpose. Thankfully they're pretty short so it's not enough to get me to consider the entire mission bad.

So yeah I still recommend playing the Gold edition.

Just, play the Thieves Guild mission on Normal difficulty to cut down on the bullshit you have to deal with. Or if you REALLY don't wanna deal with it you can just use the skip mission cheat code when you reach it.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

that post with the jaegermeister logo reminded me of the symbology of the communards in disco elysium so i made a quick edit,

and one in the colours the communards are said to use, red and white.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

When I was a kid I kept failing classes because I'd lose my homework. I'd finish it, but between the dining room table and the classroom it would just walk away. Sometimes it ended up in my backpack, sometimes it didn't; sometimes I finished the homework at school and it got home in my backpack but wasn't there the next day.

To attempt to address this, my parents got me a neon orange folder to put in my backpack; it was my homework folder, all homework was to go into that folder and that folder only, and it was to only come out of that folder when it was being worked on. I was to put homework in the homework folder as soon as it was assigned and if I'd worked on it, put it back in the folder as soon as it was finished. The logic here was that using the folder was supposed to be automatic, and you wanted a bright color so it wouldn't get lost in the depths of a backpack.

I think I lost about eight of those before my parents stopped buying orange folders.

So it was very frustrating to search "how to be organized at work as an adult with ADHD" only to get a list that said "set alarms and write things down and try to make friends with a more organized person" which was immediately followed by tips to help your ADHD child stay organized and the one right at the top was to put their homework in a bright folder so they couldn't lose it.

If you have been harmed by the ADHD Tips Industrial Complex you may be entitled to a packet of fun-dip and a cactus cooler as consolation for losing your homework folder again.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

unblock me. whatever i said to piss you off i was right and i want to reblog your little post

[imsobadatnicknames2]

And you, too, are more 4chan than you think...

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Humans are the real monsters. But there's also Dracula's

[imsobadatnicknames2]

And I know many of you might not be seeing much news updates coming from the occupied West Bank and that is because Palestinian journalists are being hunted down, their cameras confiscated, their footage erased, they are imprisoned, disappeared and killed at unprecedented rates. Israel is working very hard to suppress the truth. It is exactly why you should amplify the reporting coming from Palestine, from Gaza to Jenin, whenever you see it. These journalists are literally sacrificing their lives to keep you informed on Israel's crimes. Don't ever forget that. Everything that you know today about the genocide is due to their relentless commitment to the truth.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

You once said you mostly like playing Dwarf Fortress in adventure mode nowadays, right? Any adventure mode tips you can give for a total noob?

Okay I'm not any kind of expert by any means, but...

For combat, there are weapon skills (e.g. Crossbowman, Swordsman, Hammerman, Bowman) which determine how good you are at using a specific weapon, but there are also two I like to call "parent skills": Fighter, which determines how good you are at using melee weapons in general, and Archer, which determines how good you are at using ranged weapons in general (as well as attacking with thrown objects). Attacking with a sword uses (and trains) both your Fighter and Swordsman skills. For character creation I think it's better to put points into Fighter and/or Archer, and train in the use of specific weapons during play. That way, if you ever need to switch to a different weapon from the specific one you're trained in you'll still be able to use it competently.

Always put one point into the Reader skill, otherwise your character will be illiterate. Since the only way to train skills in game is by using them, there is no in-game way to ever learn to read if you start with an illiterate character.

There is currently no implemented in-game way to fulfill the needs to be with family, be with friends, or make romance in adventure mode, so you should avoid creating a character with a personality and set of values that gives them these needs, otherwise they will inevitably become distracted from being unable to fulfill them. Also, the need to eat a good meal is technically possible but extremely hard to fulfill (since it requires either eating an extremely valuable meal, or a meal made with one of your character's randomly selected preferred ingredients) so you should probably avoid it too.

For purposes of trading, carrying small high-value items such as gems or high-quality crafts is a lot more useful than carrying coins around, since coins don't have any monetary value outside of the civilization that minted them, so you can only use certain coins for trade in certain sites.

However, with a high Thrower (or Archer) skill, coins make for a surprisingly decent and easily replenishable thrown weapon.

In certain climates, the water in your waterskin may freeze at night, or even stay frozen all the time. This took me a while to figure out back in the day, but: If you need to drink but your water is frozen, you'll need to interact with an adjacent empty space to make a campfire there, and then interact with the campfire and select the ice to heat it (or, in pre-steam versions, press g and then choose the option to make a campfire, and then while standing next to it press I to open advanced interactions with your inventory and then select the ice and choose the option to heat it)

If you find it annoying to constantly have to find food and water, play as a goblin, since goblins don't need to eat or drink.

I haven't tested if it works the same way in the post-steam versions, but in iirc performing anything at a tavern and then talking to the tavern keeper about your performance would get them to give you a discount on your room and drinks, regardless of the actual quality of the performance. I don't think this has been changed, but still.

Offloading a site by moving in travel mode will instantly heal you of all temporary damage, such as wounds, broken bones, bleeding, etc. If you're bleeding out during combat you can avoid dying by running away from your enemies until you're far away enough to initiate travel mode and then moving in any direction.

The only way to heal permanent damage such as lost body parts or severed nerves is to become a werebeast, since your body will be completely restored every time you transform. You can become a werebeast by getting bitten by one and surviving (the bite has to tear at least one tissue layer or it won't pass on the curse), or by getting cursed either by toppling a statue at a temple dedicated to a deity you worship, or by rolling one of the divination dice found at shrines three times (although when you get cursed it's randomized if you become either a vampire or a werebeast). However, being a werebeast will make you vulnerable against a random metal, and transforming will unequip and drop all your worn items (including backpacks and pouches) unless the size of your werebeast form is relatively similar to your normal size (plus destroy all non-leather clothing you're wearing regardless of size change)

If you don't start with a high Armor User skill, wearing a full set of armor can actually be more harm than good, since a low Armor User skill makes you more susceptible to the armor's encumbrance penalty, and makes you tire more easily while wearing armor, making it harder to dodge attacks and get attacks in.

However, any leather clothing counts as armor for the purposes of training, and doesn't have encumbrance penalties. So if you don't have a high armor user skill you should equip yourself with maybe a metal helmet, gauntlets, and or/boots, and then put on as much leather clothing as you can, so you can avoid the penalties while you train the skill to the point that you can wear a full set of metal armor.