tess

tess, 8 days ago

Looks like I did not need to go to Everett lol

image/jpeg

tess, 9 days ago

@renwillis

"regular search absolutely sucks"

--> funny enough, also ChatGPT's fault

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva I mean, I also firmly believe that most procgen interactive experiences are bad, but that's a taste issue and not a moral judgment

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva

It's very complex, because I know there are people who love games, art, etc. with some kind of procedural generation, and you can put a lot of work into creating a procgen system that creates really nice results.

But also, procedurally-generated games feel like empty content to me. Even Hades. The parts that do appeal are the parts that are hand-crafted, like the story and unique bosses.

Procgen art for me runs the gamut from "fun toy" to upsetting. I'm almost never impressed by it.

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva I would make a distinction between simulation or procgen as a starting point/background deatil, and procgen as the primary mechanic.

A civ-type game that generates a random world by simulating plate tectonics, wind and weather patterns, etc. or an open-world game where foliage is auto-placed are fine.

So while I don't love e.g. Dwarf Fortress or Minecraft, I do like them more than most roguelikes.

The more of the game is gameplay-focused procgen, the emptier and more pointless it feels.

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva I guess to answer your question more directly, "yes, I always view procgen negatively" - but again, it's not a moral judgment; it's a "me" thing. I'm glad people are making art that other people who are not me enjoy.

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva I like the technical qualities of what you are doing; the procgen seems to be largely a way to demonstrate it?

Perhaps I don't "get" your art, but I do enjoy the things you post?

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva that does seem broad; like, is an art tool that fills a surface in an image with a realistic-looking texture be procgen in the same way as 99% of Starfield is?

If you define it that broadly, I don't think there's anything I can really say about it.

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva in my defense, I'm pretty dumb

tess, 10 days ago

@aeva I believe you!

But there's a vast spectrum from "the textures on the bushes in this landscape are procedurally-generated" to "the entire landscape you will be traversing as the primary goal of the game is procedurally-generated".

How I feel about these are extremely different, to the point I consider them different things conceptually?

tess, 10 days ago

@skinnylatte I think it's "look at these other countries with people who look like us where the government still appears to work and people don't seem to be in a state of constant precarity".

(In other words, white people just see other white people and don't necessarily realize that e.g. there are still major cultural differences. But also I relate to the frustration with how awful certain things are here that we could totally fix.)

tess, 10 days ago

@skinnylatte yes, but then there is also the racism

(with faith and perseverance, someday we will sauté the racism)

tess, 10 days ago

This post brought to you by every fantasy role-player who ever thought that doing an accent would give their character more gravitas but instead ended up making them sound like an extra from a high school Shakespeare production.

tess, 10 days ago

Did you know that in General American English, vowel quality is largely allophonic and primarily conditioned by syllable codas?

Did you also know that pretty much no other English dialect does that, and that "long" and "short" vowels are actually long and short?

(Now you do.)

tess, 11 days ago

@lzg NO CREATE ONLY CONSUME

tess, 12 days ago

@eniko this post was inspired by the fact that in my most recent ER playthrough, in which I did not use armor or defense-boosting talismans or spells, there were a lot of attacks where I was like, "wow, that's bullshit". And I found myself saying it over and over again. Until I realized that, actually, the bullshit was what made them challenging, which was the whole point.

The common denominator was that if a boss is gonna murder you with some absolute nonsense, it needs to look impressive 😁

tess, 12 days ago

@eniko

Dying because you got run through/eaten/blended: five stars, funny, would get eaten again

Dying because you got clipped by a random hitbox that didn't even look like a deliberate attack: zero stars, frustrating, I cannot believe the absolute jank this game sucks

tess, 12 days ago

@eniko anyway my point is that you should totally make bosses and make them complete bullshit on purpose 😛

tess, 12 days ago

@skinnylatte can we show some compassion for what immigrants lose when they leave their homes? I feel like that's the thing we overlook the most - many of these people are leaving the only lives they've known; their culture; their families; their friends.

Nobody does that on a lark.

We love our home. We never want to leave. But if the US becomes hostile to our family, I'll do what I have to in order to protect them. Even if that means being a refugee somewhere alien to us.

tess, 12 days ago

@skinnylatte one of my favorite artists, Vienna Teng, is a child of Taiwanese immigrants. She sings a number of songs about the immigrant/refugee experience, but one of her most clever is "No Gringo", which imagines a world in which the US collapses and white Americans are fleeing across the border into Mexico.

There's a verse that just talks about all of the things the singer, a young person, would be leaving behind forever. It's heartbreaking.

(The whole album is a banger; give it a listen.)

tess, 13 days ago

Managed to get in and, actually, it was 19 mil; happy to have that cash back.

I'm hoping they open a new housing zone in Dawntrail; I like my current house but I'd love to swap up to a medium or large.

Also: housing in Sharlayan or Radz-at-Han would kick ass. So would Crystarium or Bestaways Burrow, but I understand that for spoiler reasons they can't actually do that.