LadyCrimson

So long, Fry's Electronics. We haven't used you in a long time, really, but in the 90's and early 2000's you were practically a 2nd home. I wouldn't call them the best, but they were huge and handy, for TV's, PC's, DVD's, all of that. I still miss Tower Records too. The Good Guys, Circuit City, original Ace Hardware/Orchard, Mervyns, and others. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy - none of it's the same. I wonder if Microsoft/Google/Amazon will still be dominant in another 50 years.

Still mucking about in 7 Days. You can build a gyrocopter now ... which looks cool but is about as fly-controllable as the cars in Cyberpunk. Well, worse, actually, but...that 4x4 jeep/truck is the best thing in the game now, outside of walking, which as always I still generally prefer to do. I guess at this point, overall I'd say A19 is close to my fave version of the game. It used to be the one I started with years ago (A10) but now it's A19. At least for my admittedly not-normal, idiosyncratic use of the game. A10 to maybe A12 is still the times where I liked the zombie/combat action tho. Digging zombies turning my carefully cultivated yards and buildings into random swiss cheese is too aggravating and sleeper zombies are stupid. If you have the 7 Day horde on, ya gotta have two bases - your main "pretty" one, and the zombie-fightin' one.

The only game that will never "need" a remaster is Majesty, because it is already perfect.

^ "time vortex", I like that phrase. That's what's missing from most games for me, these days. Again, it's not that games suck or are bad. I might even find them fun for a brief moment. But ... whether it's a virtual novel, slots, or the most complex rpg in the world, a game must cause that time vortex to happen or it has no sticking power for me. I must be sucked in to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep. Most games I've tried recently I'm still watching the clock while playing. Pfft.

I think it's less "no original ideas" and more the "fear that having no name recognition will mean low sales/publicity/not worth investing in" syndrome.

When you're 16, summer can't come fast enough and lasts forever! When you're 30, summer boils down to a couple weeks of vacation that's fun but over in an eyeblink. When you're 50, by the time you notice it was summer, it's already winter.

...I don't know why, but for some reason I thought you were a little older. Who's the oldest on these forums, these days? Pffft, never mind, I don't want to know.

Can someone please explain why spending 3 hours doing nothing but trying to dig out every block of a giant ore node, regardless of whether I actually even need said ores, is such an obsessive task that I can't stop myself from doing it? I hit a node, think "I'll just clear out a little" and hours later I'm still going. It's so mindless, but almost meditative. *whack whack whack* In my defense, the occasionally wonky structural integrity mechanics of 7 Days means you do have to be careful that there aren't too many caverns or holes under any vertical support aspects of your base, if said base sits on top of, say, that ore node you're mining out. So part of that 3 hours is also crafting and using blocks of the basic "stone tile" and refilling some of the mined cavern to be solid again. I think the vertical/horizontal support stuff in the game is one of my fave things re: building. It's not a big deal most of the time but requires at least a little thought if you're making something huge/complex, since if you start stacking too many benches or chests on a ill-supported floor it could collapse if you do it 'wrong.' Even your chr's 'weight' could be the final straw towards roof/floor collapse as you dash across it.

Diablo2 remaster - I wonder if PS4 version will require PSN+. Graphically it looks like a nice job of overlaying updated graphics over the original game. But I have no desire to use bnet account/sign in just to try it. :P Diablo4 trailer - all of these arpg's are starting to look the same graphically (including the D2 remaster in a way). I guess there's only so many ways you can do top-down bushes, grass and walls but visually it looks so generic to me now.

^ I understand the sentiment but that falls under the "what is fun" category. Technically you could say the same regarding food/drink, weight limits, ammo limits, etc. Assuming one is playing "legit" within a game's rules, some find all of that part of the challenge. Without any of that it's no longer really a "survival" game anymore maybe. So for me it's not so much the mechanics can't be "fun", it's simply the implementation. I'm never going to be into combat games where you're struggling to find even 5 shotgun shells, so half the time you're carrying around a useless shotgun in the hope you're going to find some ammo for it (some people love that stuff tho). But I don't mind magazine size limits (even if they're not realistic) and having to buy/refill said magazine and the possibility of running out of ammo. It's all degrees.

^ I could see such being interesting/useful in areas that tend to lose power often or for long periods (places with a lot of t-storms, tornadoes, unreliable power for some reason). I don't see a huge market for such in cities tho. I can't even remember the last time power went out for more than an hour or two. And unfortunately the average citizen tends not to want to spend even $500 on the small chance of an earthquake or something maybe meaning no power for a week. Some business places might like it if it was cheaper and their business/servers would take hits even with short outages. But yeah, if we ever moved somewhere less citi-fied, backup power would be one of the first things on my list. I'd probably want both a generator and solar batteries.

That's actually something I wouldn't like, because it ties you to your base (or a town, or whatever) too much. I disliked games where exploring or dungeon crawling would be interrupted because you had to go back to town to repair. Durability as a concept doesn't bother me - having it limit your ability to wander does (or yeah, if you need to carry 20 different repair things around). Even in something like Diablo's where you could easily portal to town and click the blacksmith, it's annoying because it disrupted the flow of dungeon cleaning. So in 7 Days you have repair kits for guns and higher tier tools/armors, that you can buy, loot, or craft, carry a stack or two with you, use it to repair wherever, and keep on truckin'. Early tools you just need 1 stone and you're almost always going to be carrying/mining that stack of 6000 around with you anyway for other reasons. Food/drink is still my biggest beef with survival because in most games the amount required is stupid and while you're often allowed to carry 500 tons of stone or wood per inventory slot, apparently fitting even 11 jars of tea into that same single slot is impossible. Edit: also, any survival/building/crafting/looting games that have 7000+ different types of items and a tiny inventory of 12 slots or something, for no good reason, are stupid/not fun. Not saying inventory should be an endless magic bag of holding, but you get my meaning.

Yup, life was made exponentially better when 99% of delivery people stopped needing signatures, simply dumping packages on the porch so I can wait for them to drive away before opening the door.

All I'll say is that people thinking I'm nice is largely just because I'm an introvert with no desire to waste my time embroiled in conflict, even over the internet. But I think the only danger I represent is boring something to death. ...I've only met 'net folks a few times (individuals vs. gatherings). It's never what you expect, but it's always interesting.

@Keyrock So are you liking Valheim? I'm not at all into the Viking scenario but the building mechanics seem serviceable enough. But how much is combat the focus? eg, do you have to defeat bosses before you can get all abilities/skills/recipes or something like that? Is it moddable at all? It's being so hyped - does it feel like it might be more than just a streamer flavor of the month? ...my initial impression is I should wait and see what happens to it after a year or two. I'm not really seeing much that would make me think I'd like it more than 7 Days, at least - outside of boats - and I'm STILL waiting for that one to be "finished."

Maybe we should all move to TX and once a year we can have a Forumite Picnic somewhere, bringing all our fave tasty dishes.

As I've mentioned before, this whole covid thing has most of hubby's employer's employees not only working from home, but moving ... one of them to FL. While still working for the employer. So we've thought about it - his employer has even half-pushed/suggested it to him - but hubby's particular duties, he'd be less valuable/effective if he couldn't just hop over to work in 5 minutes (or 25, if one of the other offices south or north) when there's an actual physical problem, and he's done the hour+ each way commute thing before and never wants to return to anything like it. It's horrible. Some people may think it's worth it/can handle it, but ... yeah. You better really like the car alone time because after a year or so you'll start thinking about all the wasted time. Not to mention the extra cost of car gas and care. Edit: TX as a place to retire to definitely has a tempting appeal, altho I'd still prefer rainy vs. over-heat and t-storms.

I didn't like the guy (altho I didn't "hate" him either, he just didn't interest me/wasn't on my radar). Thus I do not "care" that he's gone ... which of course means nothing to the world or the grand scheme of things, whether I do or do not, anymore than when I feel sad because someone who *was* on my radar passes instead. Celebrity culture is a such an odd human thing that we all fall into, either direction. And that's pretty much my reaction.

This time, I'm going to make and finish a multi-building, multi-level hilltop castle if it kills me, darnit! I might even dig some ... trenches! Maybe make a waterfall or two. Then move in.

@ majestic - yeah, no inheritance tax here either. Which is definitely a nice thing. I have too many ... issues ... for persistent employment that's worth much of anything, and after hubby's income grew higher and higher I just stopped trying. So I haven't officially worked in a long time. I made up for it in the long run tho, I guess, by having parents with a surprising (to us kids) amount of money to pass down, in the end.

Yeah that's about the size of the house we rented near Morgan Hill. It was a nice size for us. I miss that house, rental or not. Sigh.

I live a bit north of Hurlshot and our 3bd/1 bath/1 car garage, 980 square foot house would sell for around 1.3 million right now. The house was built in the 1950's as cheap worker housing, looks cheap, and is not "updated" to the nines. I call it a "postage stamp house." At least the area is pretty decent (eg, "safe" and pretty 1st time buyer/family attractive), that's about the best thing. Hurlshot's area he might get something newer/bigger but it won't be a mansion for $800k. For us personally, 980 sq. feet, combined with a cramped layout (not a lot of "communal" living space) feels like a glorified apartment. Hubby and I don't have kids but we're space hogs, what with our two dedicated PC/offices. It works and we're used to it by now but it's amazing how much difference even another two or three hundred sq. feet can make in terms of function and feel. Smallest I've lived in was a 675ish sq. ft. 2 bd apartment, which was ok when I was 19 but would drive me nuts now. On the flip side, if it was much bigger than 1600-1800 sq. foot my response would be "Ok, but I'm not cleaning it." I understand where Hurlshot is coming from - we struggled with that same issue/thought we'd never buy, living here - and we thought that way even back in the late 1980's. For most, income won't increase faster than housing inflation. I assume it's like this mostly everywhere, only in some areas, like popular or business centralized urban/suburbian, the rate of increase is so magnified it eventually drives people out of the area if their jobs/lives allow it. House size wise - the average size of American homes has been increasing since the 70's or so, I think. Nationally it might've been around 1500-1600 sq. feet once, it's probably closer to 2500sq ft. now. But like everywhere, it vastly depends on the richness of the area and/or the age/region of the area, even down to what block. As far as hiding - well, in some areas, more modern/newer houses 2500+ sq ft might have more bathrooms than bedrooms, so, y'know, they can all hide in those? And yeah, inventory vs. demand/population is always problematic, as well. If it wasn't, the prices wouldn't get quite as crazy.

Santa Cruz doesn't have as much rain, tho. ...maybe I'm weird, but weather is one of the main reasons I'd move somewhere. I've always wanted a house with a giant plate glass living room wall so I can watch storms. So parts of OR would be great for that. Hmm...that makes me think I'll spend the afternoon looking at homes for sale up there, again.

The critic reviews have been pretty positive overall ... hopefully they'll at least finish the first season. That's all I ask. tbh, I'm not sure Resident Alien would hold up for more than two or three seasons anyway - it's great initially but I could see it getting "old" before too long if they don't up the ante and tighten things re: plot/device content. A little more mystery/murder/mayhem and a little less sitcom, over time, for example. SyFy once had some decent shows on their space for a while, like Battlestar, Eureka, and Stargate, but yeah ... maybe this could be the start of a new period for SyFy. Edit: I still can't stand typing out "SyFy."

SyFy put the first two episodes of that new sci-fi/comedy Resident Alien series on their YouTube channel. I don't know if they'll put up any more, but I watched those. And it's great. I mean, it's totally silly, but great. To quote one of the top comments under the 1st episode: "Alan Tudyk is an intergalactic treasure that must be preserved". Such an adorkable hottie. Also, he's killing it in terms of the fish out of water alien in human disguise mannerisms. The whole cast is pretty good, humor is right up my alley. I hope they don't cancel it mid-season or something. At least finish a full season first.