Flamekebab
@Flamekebab@piefed.social
- Comment on WH Smith in secret talks to sell historic high street arm 1 day ago:
I'm pushing 40 and I don't remember when I last bought anything from WH Smiths. I used to go in all the time as a teenager but these days they seem to not have a niche. They're a zombie chain.
I don't know what I'd want them to do, but they should have done it fifteen years ago.
- Comment on Can you see yourself cutting off by a generation of gaming? 2 weeks ago:
Lots of those aren't out yet, so the list is even shorter.
- Comment on Samsung, Google take on Dolby Atmos with new 'Eclipsa Audio' 3 weeks ago:
Samsung and Google? Two companies well known for maintaining tech long term rather than getting bored within a few months.
- Comment on What procedures do you take to save and archive your games? 3 weeks ago:
I don't, because if that happens either others will have done a more thorough job (because it's something they care about - I have my own obsessive areas that I'm the one doing that stuff for), or if they haven't then I have much bigger problems to deal with (e.g. war in Europe).
- Comment on GTA 6 will have a 'significant online mode' to generate revenue for years into the future 1 month ago:
Oh joy. What an important cultural contribution that will be.
- Comment on Patient gamers, which games have you discovered/played this week? 1 month ago:
I've finally been playing through Mad Professor Mariarti on the Amiga. I saw it played many times as a child but now I'm finally playing it myself - and beating it!
- Comment on Patient gamers, which games have you discovered/played this week? 1 month ago:
This is why I cannot abide the Halo series. I came to them having been raised on Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life. Halo was like moving through molasses.
- Comment on New measures unveiled to crack down on subscription traps 2 months ago:
I've spent much of my adult life with nothing positive to say about our governments. I'm not really emotionally prepared for being pleased about something a UK government is doing!
- Comment on 'My personal failure was being stumped': Gabe Newell says finishing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 just to conclude the story would've been 'copping out of [Valve's] obligation to gamers' 2 months ago:
I absolutely loved the modern day story. I was so very invested and it still smarts a bit that they lost interest in doing it justice.
- Comment on 'My personal failure was being stumped': Gabe Newell says finishing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 just to conclude the story would've been 'copping out of [Valve's] obligation to gamers' 2 months ago:
Manchester United: 3
- Comment on Half-Life 2 is currently 100% for its 20th anniversary 2 months ago:
Ye gods, 18 years, 4 months for mine. You'd hope that they'd just automatically stop asking if I'm old enough to view store pages, right?
- Comment on Clippy's coming for you 2 months ago:
I'm often not waiting for ideal conditions, just less bad conditions. This evening I made some progress on something I've not been working on because I've just been too exhausted, mentally and physically. Conditions don't have to be ideal, but they're often more than sub-optimal.
- Comment on Cyberpunk 2077 released in December 2020. Almost 4 years later, what is your opinion on it? 2 months ago:
Same. I want to play it but until it's available in some sort of convenient package at a price point I can justify, I'll play something else.
- Comment on Deleted my Reddit! I am now entirely federated online except for Pixelfed! 2 months ago:
In general I've found Lemmy to be closer to the feel of old forums in interactions. Arguments and petty squabbles are still entirely possible, but it doesn't feel like every interaction is about to become one. It's what pushed me to stop using Reddit - everything seems to end up as a fight for the slightest reason. Whilst I'm plenty abrasive as a person, it felt like Reddit got worse over the last 5 - 10 years.
They might have a bigger userbase now than when I joined but it's not ended up being worth it, I feel.
- Comment on Conversations like this are why I want more people, especially "normies", in the Fediverse 2 months ago:
Perhaps it's just me having different priorities, but I have no interest in making small talk with lots of people. There's plenty of spaces for that already whilst the spaces for enthusiasts have been sacrificed to the general public.
I'm not arguing this specifically about Lemmy, or trying to suggest policy, I'm just chipping in that there's at least something to be said for not trying to make all social spaces for all people.
- Comment on ChartDB - open-source database diagram visualization tool 2 months ago:
Amazing, I needed something like that a few months ago (and will need again in future).
- Comment on New mobile features are sh*t these days 2 months ago:
You're posting in Lemmy Shitpost. You're allowed to say "shit".
- Comment on I won’t be reading the replies 3 months ago:
But can they affect me?
- Comment on Random Screenshots of my Games #30 - Sir, You Are Being Hunted 3 months ago:
The scarecrow is awful. In a good way.
- Comment on Day 95 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I’ve been playing until I forget to post Screenshots 3 months ago:
Alan Wake
- Comment on Fallout 4 is a great game with big flaws 3 months ago:
Something I've not seen anyone else comment on Fallout 4 is that the voiced protagonist could have been used to fill in the world.
As in, when I visited the remains of Boston airport, it'd be great if my character could talk to herself (or voice effect to imply thoughts) about how s/he had memories there. Give me a feeling for their life before they were frozen.
- Comment on Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Dev Says Big Budget Games Are Failing in Part Because Teams Are Over-Scoping Their Projects 3 months ago:
To quote Bernard Black: "Well expect away!"
- Comment on Request for CRPGs recs on the current Steam sale 3 months ago:
The Temple of Trials is intended to be a tutorial - something the executives insisted they include. The first game's tutorial is in the manual.
- Comment on Request for CRPGs recs on the current Steam sale 3 months ago:
The maze puzzle with the electrified floor is some absolute bullshit. I wonder if there's a mod to remove that nonsense?
As for the beginning, I used a mod to skip the Temple of Trials because you're absolutely right, it's such a tedious slog. Yay, executive meddling!
- Comment on Request for CRPGs recs on the current Steam sale 3 months ago:
I really enjoyed playing through Fallout 2 on my deck.
- Comment on How did we move from forums to Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord? 3 months ago:
I really don't get how one is supposed to use more than one server. As in, how to spread one's attention to feel like one is present in so many places. It's a total non-starter for me.
- Comment on How did we move from forums to Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord? 3 months ago:
Whilst I don't disagree with your points, don't they primarily apply to specifically a support forum?
- Comment on How did we move from forums to Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord? 3 months ago:
I am very biased in this stuff, I'll say that up front. I was in the "in-crowd" for multiple forums over the years, ran my own for many years (essentially a personality cult, as per your article), and so of course I have a warm and fuzzy view of the medium. Importantly, I found my time on forums to be socially stimulating. By that I mean that the interactions were strong enough that I didn't feel lonely, despite being stuck in various isolated places. I have never felt that way about the interactions I've had any other platforms, with the exception of direct IM clients.
With that preamble out of the way, something that's come up in the comments below but I don't feel has been explored sufficiently is permanence. Modern profit-driven platforms focus on transience. They are built around the endless-feed model and keeping users engaged as long as possible. This is built into their very bones - it's always about new content and discussion isn't designed to last more than a day. Old content is actively buried.
That's antithetical to the traditional forum model. Topics on a subject would persist for as long as there was interest (sometimes too long, of course) and users' contributions would form a corpus of work, so to speak. I found that forums that allowed for avatars and signatures were particularly good in this respect as they served as "familiar faces", allowing users to become visibly established community members.
I've used Reddit for 14 years (although lately I've given up on it) and not once in that time have I felt a sense of community. The low barrier of entry and the minimal opportunity cost of leaving a community makes the place a revolving door of (effectively) anonymous users. It's my opinion that a small barrier to entry is a good thing, coupled with persistence of content. It's not enough to have much of a chilling effect, but it provides a small amount of consequence to users' actions and that's arguably good for community formation and cohesion. A gentle counter to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory ( https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies ).
I run a Facebook group and we have an entrance question - the answer to the question is basic knowledge for the target audience, however the question itself also includes directions for where to find the answer (the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article OR the group's rules). Most people just give the answer (and some overthink it and put a load of extra info in, because the question is suspiciously easy) but a subset of people either can't be bothered or *don't even finish reading the question*. In my opinion, the community we've built is better without those people.
This ties into the concept of profit-driven vs. community-driven platforms. A profit-driven platform wants as many eyeballs as possible, regardless of what the owner of those eyeballs can contribute to the community. The community exists purely to facilitate profit, something which feels to me like a terrible basis for a community.
Something I do feel OP is correct about is discoverability - that's particularly an issue in the modern era of garbage search engines. I don't have any particular thoughts on the subject, I just wanted to say "Yep! Agreed!", haha.
- Comment on PS5 Homescreen Now Replaces Unique Video Game Art With Annoying Ads You Can’t Turn Off 3 months ago:
Or *two* Steam Decks!
- Comment on PS5 Homescreen Now Replaces Unique Video Game Art With Annoying Ads You Can’t Turn Off 3 months ago:
I'm sure that'll help PS5 Pro sales.