Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[overgeeked]

Most of those divides--and the earlier ones you were responding to--have a lot of middle ground, IME, that thinking of them as "divides" tends to exclude.

That's exactly the problem I'm having, yes. Thank you for proving my point.

I think having dedicated discussions about cars and trucks would be productive, but for some reason there's always someone who feels compelled to chime in with "But that excludes the El Camino!"

It's crab mentality.

"Hey, I'd like to climb up the wall of this bucket and see what's over the wall."

"Don't you dare!"

Yes, there is overlap and things are a spectrum and we can talk about that, too. Eventually. But this weird notion that we're not allowed to start somewhere because that isn't perfectly all-encompassing inclusive of every game that's ever been published in the history of ever is just dumb and exhausting. It makes even the possibility of conversation impossible. You're not allowed to start because it's not perfectly finished and complete when you start. And honestly, at this point, I think that's exactly the intent. That attitude is pervasive and it's meant to prevent conversation, not foster it.

When people are talking about something and a rando pops in and threadcraps "But what about X?" and the thread then devolves into an endless argument about that separate topic, that prevents rather than fosters conversation. And again, honestly, I think that's the point. For some reason there are a whole lot of people on this discussion board that simply don't want others to have anything resembling a constructive conversations.

 

[overgeeked]

It does seem to finally be breaking down, now that the videogame generations are in charge. The new Starter Set character cards have clear ancestry in videogame displays (as filtered through modern board gaming), for instance.

It can't happen fast enough for me.

I think doing it in the clumsy top-down "make it more like World of Warcraft; the kids like that, right?" doesn't work nearly as well as just having people who've lived in that world saying "you know, this is a solved problem -- let's just borrow the solution from Metal Gear Solid," or whatever.

Yeah. Even if designers would start with, "This is a problem. Is there a solution outside of tabletop RPGs?" would be a massive step forward.

 

[prabe]

Some people are lumpers, some people are splitters, some people see those approaches as both being useful and both being wrong.

 

[MoonSong]

No doubt. Its kind of a strange feeling for me to understand not being able to find players or GMs for a given game system because I spent much of my gaming career with access to a lot of players around who weren't wedded to one system (even D&D) so much they wouldn't try other things and potentially jump on board. Admittedly I spent most of that being a GM, but it wouldn't have been impossible to do it as a player back then. I gather things are a different beast now, even when playing remotely.

I bet I'll end up paying for playing some day if push comes to shove. Money isn't an issue. Time is the issue.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ironically, Plants vs. Zombies 2 is also a perfect example of a freemium game, designed to tantalize players with the illusion of progress through grinding and continual exposure to ads with the option to pay cash to advance faster (except there is no advancement, just more grind).

I will admit to putting more time into it than I should have, but luckily never dropped real money on it.

Yeah, my son and I are both avid gamers and we have a big disagreement about PvZ2. I understand why they did it -- the original was apparently the most-pirated game in China at one point -- but the resulting game really disappointed me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think having dedicated discussions about cars and trucks would be productive, but for some reason there's always someone who feels compelled to chime in with "But that excludes the El Camino!"

The El Camino, one of the great so-dorky-it's-cool cars. I kind of want to configure a Slate truck to replicate one, with a lowered, more car-like profile and retro graphics.

 

[prabe]

The El Camino, one of the great so-dorky-it's-cool cars. I kind of want to configure a Slate truck to replicate one, with a lowered, more car-like profile and retro graphics.

Heh. If I were pointing at stuff that blurs the car/truck line, I'd probably point at CUVs, myself. (Though those have a different raison d'etre than the El Camino did.)

 

[Scribe]

It's almost like the idea of condensing the book to a meme would be contrary to ideals the author was talking about. "The decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less,)" ... now down to a single image.

I mean yeah, but also, tiktok. /shrug

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

When people are talking about something and a rando pops in and threadcraps "But what about X?" and the thread then devolves into an endless argument about that separate topic, that prevents rather than fosters conversation. And again, honestly, I think that's the point. For some reason there are a whole lot of people on this discussion board that simply don't want others to have anything resembling a constructive conversations.

There are those that do this. But I think of this slightly more charitably.

Think of the old adage- when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Well, there are some people that just want to have the same argument discussion. So when they stumble into a thread, it doesn't matter if the thread is about A, B, C, or letters we don't even know about. They're going to bend the topic to X. Because that's what they want to talk about.

Some people are subtle about it. Some ... less so. But generally you know it. I don't think it's malicious, and I wouldn't even call it threadcrapping. It's just ... well, they really want to talk about X, and will find a way to inject X into all threads. Some values of X can be quite large, so it can be easy to turn almost any topic into X.

And ... that's enough.

 

[Scribe]

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.