I’ve played other stuff, it all makes me a bit mildly queasy for a few min while I adjust and goes away.

Skyrim was intense violent nausea, and it got worse as I went. Whole different ballpark of motion sickness. I’d love to be able to play it but realistically I’ll probably never be able to get past that.

But it’s also not a game that was made to be VR, where literally everything else I’ve played was, so even with tunnel vision set to max during movement it was just too much texture, too “close”, and too fast.

You should try it if you haven’t, see if it makes you sick :) I’d be curious, if almost nothing else does.

That’s what I said about Skyrim. First person immersive world seemed perfect for VR.

It makes me violently motion sick, though, like to the point where I barely made it through the opening cart ride, and had to stop after 5 min of free movement. :(

Having textures race past, and feeling like you are in or barely above the ground due to the floor texture not having adjustable height to account for depth perception, while “moving” is super uncomfy, imho.

I’m super with you about wanting it, though. I’m desperate for VR to be immersive like that, and not vomit-inducing.

No you weren’t being unreasonable. They absolutely weren’t trying to help you out of the kindness of their heart, they were trying to seamlessly get your info by just keeping the conversation moving, and not asking if you -want- to sign up, to which yes or no are the only answers. When they ask for your number it’s weird to answer as though they asked a yes or no question, and that’s intentional.

I’ve worked retail, I was trained on canvassing sales (just trained, I quit before I started because it was super shady tactics I wasn’t comfortable with), that tactic is 100% intentional to get the info without you thinking about it. Some places even give bonuses if the employees sign up a certain number of people. Nothing altruistic about any of it.

When you don’t follow their script they get confused… because it’s a script. Not because they think you are mad; they don’t care about you as long as you don’t yell at them. You are just nameless face #545 of the day.

Whenever someone asks for my number or email I smile and tell them “oh, I don’t have an account with you, and I really don’t want one, but thank you all the same.” It’s direct and maybe a bit rude to some people, but they typically apply whatever discount anyway, and if they don’t, meh.

If they ask for zip code or address, I tell them they don’t need it, and with those I will get rude if I get pushback. This includes when I call for product support or something and just have a question. “No, you don’t need to know anything about me to answer my questions, and I won’t be providing it unless I feel you need it, regardless what you think or what your system says.”

There was some legit talk among the wealthy a while back about how to control their slaves servants… and the idea of bomb collars was floated…

I can’t find the article at the moment (I’ll edit when I do because I’m still looking but my app tends to crash if I wait), but this is all totally on the up and up and it’s really fucking depressing that there are so many articles now about doomsday bunkers for the ultra wealthy… like they could have just pumped that money into fixing things but they don’t want to… sociopaths.

Edit- found it faster than I thought!

https://archive.ph/l3Djh

Can you drop me there first, please?

I promise to be suitably wowed. Also, I’ll film them for you. Sacrifices for the greater good or whatever.

Pro tip: don’t hang stuff by the clasp. The weight can stretch them out if they are made of junk metal (most are).

Instead, hang them by the ring/chain the clasp clasps onto. You can use upside down earring hooks to string them up if you have a pack of spare, otherwise small head finish nails can usually accommodate the chains.

I am also the obsessive hoarder… now. Like as a direct result of that experience I never go below some arbitrary threshold of items (based entirely on the early portion of the game where you have no money but enemies are easy, and the max stack), even if I have to buy them. I used to never spend currency as a matter of pride. I still won’t buy gear if it drops, but I will stock consumables.

I guess I’m not really that familiar with it being different, I went from 8 to 10/10-2, to 13/spins, so it seemed pretty in-tune overall with the vibes and stuff of what I played. Each game was pretty standalone and tried different unique things to see what worked. I’d be interested to hear more of what was different tho!

I’ve heard… things about the remake… my partner played the first and couldn’t be bothered to buy the second when PS+ made the first a free game for cheap subscriptions a couple months after getting it for Xmas… but that seems… like a lot. I mean final fantasy games are looooooong and the mechanics are usually complicated af. I honestly haven’t been able to get into a ff game in a long time, they are just really involved… I can’t imagine needing to play through… what is it supposed to be 3 of them to get the full story? At least 10 and 13, it was the same story just differently applied and expanded… you didn’t -have to- play the next ones, they were still final fantasies (I know that’s not where the name came from, but it’s appropriate)

I’d be into a remaster of 8 (the graphical-only update doesn’t count, and isn’t that updated - I tried to play it and it was still grindy af), but not a fully redone game like 7… I’d like them to cut out most of the random encounters, scale the XP so it’s much less grindy, upgrade the graphics, and do literally nothing else, leave it alone. I’d totally play it again even tho turn based games aren’t my jam anymore. And it probably wouldn’t cost much for them to do that.

I have 7 on switch but I can’t get through it. I’m bored very early on every time I try. Too many random encounters and they take too long with the intro, combat, and victory animations. It’s the whole reason I gave up on most turn based games; they used to totally be my thing. You can’t explore because you get turned around with the constant combat. I want to play it, but I can’t. I’d like that to also get a straight remaster treatment like I want for 8. No real change, just quality of life improvements.

I wonder why they opted not to do that… and -then- the remake…

I guess I got lucky that I never played 7…? Everyone hypes the hell out of 7, and you almost never hear about 8…

For me, though, 8 was more than the story, it was more than the game. It was the absolute most frustrating experience of my entire gaming life, thus far.

See, I fucked up. I fucked up and saved my game when I came across a save spot. I fucked up and saved my game right before the end boss. I fucked up and saved my game right before the end boss with a very nearly empty inventory.

Because it’s not a short game, I wasn’t willing to re-play it. That would have been faster, but less fulfilling. Nope, instead I spent about 72 hours over the span of two weeks, replaying the final boss with 2 heal items, one resurrection, and that’s about it. I did no other gaming in that time. That boss was the only thing I did for days and days.

I beat that bitch. I whooped her after hours upon hours of trial and failure. Different starting lineups, different item use, different summon use pattern… the works.

The day I beat it I learned that I could, if thoroughly motivated, do whatever I set out for, even if it took a while. (No, this definitely has not translated to real life but that’s because I have no motivation left to put forth in actual life… made a big difference in gaming tho!!) I also learned to never run low on items even if I never use them, and to create a backup save file and alternate which one I save to.

SNES and ps1 were really pushing the limits of what could be done. A lot of games from that era are super hard to play now, though, because the controls are just sloppy. I’m not even concerned with the graphics, but the controls… ungh and that was also the time of non-remappable inverted camera controls and shit…

I’m familiar with thither from the phrase “hither and thither”, which is a stupid-sounding phrase I read as a kid, and why I remember it. (Similar to knowing what “yon” means from “hither and yon(der)”)

I wouldn’t ever use either word, because I don’t see a need for pretentious pomposity, but perhaps he does. :)

I did used to have a friend who would use words correctly, but obscurely, and while he was smart and just enjoyed flexing his vocab, it was obnoxious af for everyone around him because even someone on the same intellectual level is going to go “what…??” Like, a lot… (basically, it is literally impossible for two people to know all the same things, so it’s just a “look I’m smart!” Flex). It’s just a bad way to communicate. Good way to be a poet, though.

It was the first rpg-type game I ever played and it awoke a passion in me I still have 30 years on.

I still have the cartridge. Don’t have an SNES to play on anymore (I’d just emulate anyway). But I keep that and ff8 on display, for being formative titles.

Or just know how to enable lockdown mode. On iOS that’s 5 rapid clicks of the power button, screen on or off, and it vibrates to let you know you got it without looking. Dunno what it might be for android, or if it varies by model.

It ends up like a newly rebooted phone; requires a typed passcode. It also provides quick links to medical ID info and the sos emergency call thing. It may, if you have an ID set up, also have a link to that, but I don’t have that configured so not super sure.

I have something like this, but it’s for game boy.

Also utterly worthless; it distorts the picture in uncomfortable ways, and honestly was a much worse experience than just using the screen.

It’s also only a couple inches bigger, so dumb.

8 was so bad with randoms. You can go like 2 inches at a time between over world encounters. And they were so time consuming even when it only took 2 hits to kill everything - intro transition, battle animations, victory splash… so long!

I have no idea how I managed to sit through those back in the day. Sooooo tedious.

I like the tales series for how they did, mostly dodgeable, but combat could also be fully automated if you were bored. And there’s a lot of combat, so it gets boring. Needless to say I used auto combat a lot (not for bosses or unique enemies tho). I’d prefer if it didn’t do the battle transition, but I understand the function of it.

On console you still have to wait an absurdly long time for the ubishit to load, even if you never use any of it. Pretty sure they threw their launcher in there, too, and just hid it a bit.

Fenyx, a game I love from 2020, takes several extra minutes to boot (and the launch screen completely freezes for the duration, so you don’t know if it’s going to launch successfully or hang) because it has to query the server every single damned time to see if there’s new dlc or news nobody cares about or whatever. Like guys, I didn’t care the first dozen times you tried to get me to check out ways to give you money…

The worst part is I actually did buy one of the dlc for it on switch. I was intensely disappointed. It was not just not worth the money, it wasn’t worth the time to download it; I didn’t even bother finishing it. And still every time it boots up it tells me all about this marvelous new dlc I could buy (there’s another dlc I didn’t buy, but that’s not the one it showcases)! So it takes forever to query the server and then does fuckall with that information. Cool.

I feel like the point of that in it takes two is communication. It’s pretty heavy-handed in the whole “sort out your shit amongst yourselves” theme, and it’s sort of meant as a way for a gamer to get a non-gamer into gaming, so you’d have one person with the skillz leading the other through challenges.

Or at least that’s how it played out with me. The person I was playing with is also a gamer but not really environmental/puzzle games (and easily frustrated) so it was sort of playing around with what to do and walking each other through - calling out timing and stuff, etc.

It’s a very interesting take on co-op, imho.

If you like small people in huge environments, exploring, and not being super hand-held, tinykin is a cute game, not super long, it does sort of a bit guide you through some major things but not in a particularly obnoxious way. Mostly just exploring on your own. :)

-.- you’ve just described a significant portion of my home remodeling….

-.-

I think I need to learn new skills…

Women/female bodies basically stop growing entirely about 2 years after menarche (first period), regardless when that hits. And once menarche hits they only grow another 1-3 inches, typically.

For some girls, myself included, menarche was around 9 years old (the historical normal age of menarche was around 15 years, as far as we can tell, and that age has been going down in modern history) meaning I didn’t really get a chance to grow before my body stopped being able to do so. I have not grown since I was 12. Had I been able to delay puberty by a few years, I may have ended up average instead of 2 standard deviations below average. On the plus side I can wear kids stuff sometimes.

Male puberty doesn’t work that way quite as dramatically, since puberty includes growth spurts through the early-mid 20s, but eventual adult height for men is still based on the height they are when the growth spurts start.

Here’s a really surface level resource that explains further about female puberty if you are interested in learning more.

https://www.familyeducation.com/teens/puberty-sex/do-girls-stop-growing-when-they-get-their-period

I think this shift will be the end of me buying newer games, period.

I am that person who doesn’t ever buy digital. I have not bought a single digital game thus far (I haven’t pirated a game since like 2006, either). I have certainly played some, like with the PS+ subscription I got for a year when it was pretty cheap, but I wouldn’t buy them because I can’t be sure I own them, and there’s really no way to transfer the license to resell them.

If I can’t buy physical media, I simply won’t buy the games. Maybe I’ll use subscription services now and then, but more likely I’ll either find a way to play free or won’t play them at all and find other stuff. I want the physical media because I’m poor, and having the option to sell them in a pinch is important to me if I’m going to shell out a significant amount for something I’ll probably only play once, particularly since there won’t be a used game market to reduce my spend. I haven’t had to sell my games in a very long time, so I have some 400 discs, but it’s something of a savings option that inflates alongside currency, and sometimes much more.

Despite being cis myself, I wish I had the option to delay my puberty a couple years. I stopped growing at 12, and am very short. Even another 2 inches would have only put me in the “almost average” category.

It’s something that doesn’t harm anyone and allows kids to choose another aspect of who they want to be as adults. I’m here for it.

That’s totally fair; I’m also not really capable of doing something like that consistently (even tho I would absolutely love talking to smart people - my degree is science communication, so talking to smart people to learn about things and pass them along is easily my favorite thing), so I get it.

That kinda makes me wonder if interviewing comedians would be funny… I’ve never really talked to any in person for the full impact, but some of them have that timing and wit that means any conversation can be funny. I certainly thought morning radio shows where they have guest comedians on sucked big time, but those are meant more for mass appeal, and they probably work for a lot of people or they wouldn’t have them on.