What You've Done Today - Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life

[majestic]

14 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I had to google that. But no, rules and reading didn't have much to do with how I played the game. I'm impressed I got as far along as I did.

Sounds an awful lot like the way I played Eye of the Beholder. I had no idea how to play the game, so I kept clicking on my equipped weapons and then on the enemy, and thought it was normal gameplay to throw weapons at enemies until they died. I got pretty far, all things considered.

Although, to be fair, it was all in English and I was nine or so, had no idea what I'm doing and no manual in sight either.

[Malcador]

One downside to digital games is no longer getting a manual to read.  The Caesar 3 and SMAC manuals are some of the best, even if the former seems to be of an older build of the game from what I recall.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Malcador

[majestic]

49 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I don't get how or why people play like that, it's not an airplane

  I suppose that very much depends on when and with what one started gaming. On the PC, for me that was Wing Commander and Red Baron, both games that came with an inverted Y axis by default because, well, WW1 flight sim and space sim. Mouse-look in first person games came way later, and by then equalling first person with inverted Y axis was so ingrained in my muscle memory that I'm not going to bother retraining that.

The fact that every developer keeps adding invert options tells me that there's not too small a part of the player base still used to that.

8 minutes ago, Malcador said:

One downside to digital games is getting a manual to read.  The Caesar 3 and SMAC manuals are some of the best, even if the former seems to be of an older build of the game from what I recall.

I spent more time reading my StarCraft manual over and over again than I spent actually playing StarCraft. The goods in the Wing Commander boxes were also fantastic. I get that today's mostly digital environment no longer allows for that outside of maybe collector's editions, but it was sure nice. The height of that was Command & Conquer when it came out, it even had a setup routine to match. Best installer ever made - can't recall any other instance where simply installing the game was immersive like that.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by majestic

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, majestic said:

I suppose that very much depends on when and with what one started gaming. On the PC, for me that was Wing Commander and Red Baron, both games that came with an inverted Y axis by default because, well, WW1 flight sim and space sim. Mouse-look in first person games came way later, and by then equalling first person with inverted Y axis was so ingrained in my muscle memory that I'm not going to bother retraining that.

The fact that every developer keeps adding invert options tells me that there's not too small a part of the player base still used to that.

I started off in flight sims like F-19, F-117A, also stuff like Gunship 2kj (full flight sim mode was tedious as hell...), never had an issue switching to the way FPS' did it.  Adapt and overcome!

 

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

I spent more time reading my StarCraft manual over and over again than I spent actually playing StarCraft. The goods in the Wing Commander boxes were also fantastic. I get that today's mostly digital environment no longer allows for that outside of maybe collector's editions, but it was sure nice. The height of that was Command & Conquer when it came out, it even had a setup routine to match. Best installer ever made - can't recall any other instance where simply installing the game was immersive like that.

Origin did feelies right, for sure.  Never did get the WC one, I just borrowed it from a classmate back in elementary. Regret not getting a hold of the ones LucasArts did for X-Wing and TIE Fighter.

[LadyCrimson]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

The Caesar 3

Yeah, that was a great little manual, full of details and stats. I still have it in a box somewhere.

I do see more digital games with digital manuals, but it's not the same at all. Especially if one doesn't have multiple monitors to be able to view them without disrupting the game being onscreen. Plus a lot of them are just a few pages and not in-depth. I think even the small Dungeon Keeper 1 booklet was more in-depth than most "manuals" today.

And then there's the occasional game like  Death Stranding that goes a tad overboard with in-game "help/tips/game lore" menus. Not just because of length but because of organization. Seriously, I never read all that crap.

[Amentep]

49 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Well now I feel bad about introducing that mod to you.

What about those of us just innocently caught in the crossfire between you two?  

Now I'm in a spiral reading about terrible BG2 mods I never heard of because I never modded the game... 

[Sarex]

 

1 hour ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Well now I feel bad about introducing that mod to you.

I don't think anything will be worse that the Skyrim mods I've seen.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Sounds an awful lot like the way I played Eye of the Beholder. I had no idea how to play the game, so I kept clicking on my equipped weapons and then on the enemy, and thought it was normal gameplay to throw weapons at enemies until they died. I got pretty far, all things considered.

Although, to be fair, it was all in English and I was nine or so, had no idea what I'm doing and no manual in sight either.

Ditto.

45 minutes ago, Malcador said:

One downside to digital games is no longer getting a manual to read.  The Caesar 3 and SMAC manuals are some of the best, even if the former seems to be of an older build of the game from what I recall.

Never got to experience that because there were no original games being sold in my country then (even when they did appear they were prohibitively expensive).

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

34 minutes ago, Amentep said:

What about those of us just innocently caught in the crossfire between you two?

No. That's the price of freedom.

14 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I don't think anything will be worse that the Skyrim mods I've seen.

Yeah, I remember browsing Skyrim mods years ago and seeing some truly wacky ****. I have no idea what goes through some of these guys heads when they make this ****.

[Sarex]

2 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Yeah, I remember browsing Skyrim mods years ago and seeing some truly wacky ****. I have no idea what goes through some of these guys heads when they make this ****.

Puberty and hormones.

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Puberty and hormones.

Well, you hope so for the former...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Puberty and hormones.

Let's hope that's all it was.

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, majestic said:

Also I have no idea how people can play first person games without inverting their Y-axis.

I've heard of a small minority of people swearing by this, but I've never known exactly what it is that they played early on in their lives that caused them to do this (in your case, it's apparently flight sim games!). I play 3rd person games (e.g. Dark Souls) with both sticks inverted, but that's because my brain is, for whatever reason, attuned to think that I'm directly move the camera itself. Moving the camera left actually moves the camera left i.e. you can see more to the right, while non-inverted 3rd person controls are instead about what you can see, i.e. moving left makes the camera go right so you can see more to the left. That at least makes sense to me why some people prefer one over the other, but switching just the vertical axis in a first person game seems like madness to me - I'd prefer switching both over just one, I think.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Raithe]

I have to say, I'm one of the crowd that inverts the Y-axis the first thing in any game with that option.

Maybe it is a generational thing. I'd potentially lay it on Wolfenstein and Wing Commander.... 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I've heard of a small minority of people swearing by this, but I've never known exactly what it is that they played early on in their lives that caused them to do this (in your case, it's apparently flight sim games!). I play 3rd person games (e.g. Dark Souls) with both sticks inverted, but that's because my brain is, for whatever reason, attuned to think that I'm directly move the camera itself. Moving the camera left actually moves the camera left i.e. you can see more to the right, while non-inverted 3rd person controls are instead about what you can see, i.e. moving left makes the camera go right so you can see more to the left.

It's as good as any explanation I can give. It just feels weird to not have the Y axis inverted. I think it is early flight and space sims that are more or less the reason for this, because it is linked to directly controlling the camera with the mouse. I played these games with a mix of keyboard, mouse and joystick, depending on the input devices I had at the time.

I usually invert just the Y axis on third person games too, except for a small subset of them. Everspace, for instance, I've just always played with both regular X and Y axes. That's doubly weird at a first glance because it's a third person space sim roguelite game (it does have a first person mode, but I think that's borderline unplayable, the game is balanced for you to see projectiles flying towards you from behind, you just can't react quickly enough in first person mode if something sneaks up on you and you can't gauge the direction the shots are coming from when they just hit you - and the game most certainly expects you to react to that information). I actually didn't notice that I'm playing without inverted Y axis, and when I found out I tried to invert it and noticed that it feels wrong. I think this is because it has an unlocked crosshair with auto-tracking main guns and only indirectly steers the camera when going outside of a certain dead zone. It basically doesn't feel like playing a shooter because I just move the mouse pointer across the screen in the same way I'd do with any regular software. It's more like scrolling up, down, left and right.

On the other hand, I now know why games have the option to invert the X axis too. Never understood that, but moving the camera instead of looking around makes sense.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That at least makes sense to me why some people prefer one over the other, but switching just the vertical axis in a first person game seems like madness to me - I'd prefer switching both over just one, I think.

Someone from my class in junior high used inverted X and Y axes for everything, including regular Windows usage. That is madness.

He actually did that by turning the mouse around. He had his thumb and ring finger on the buttons and moved it with the index and middle finger. It looked weird, not to mention painful to hold the fingers like that, but he was as accurate with it as anyone.

[Sarex]

Edited April 26, 2022 by Sarex

[Amentep]

I struggled with most games with inverted Y-axis, but it made sense for flight sims at least.  

[Gorth]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Geez, Gorthfuscious....3 bathrooms? How many bedrooms, why dont you take some photos. I would like to see it, is it a house or apartment ?

I didn't take new photos, but I took one when I had just moved in and my furniture had arrived. Kitchen counter is completely covered in stuff coming out of boxes

(I did find it hard to find any good angles, because of the stair well at my side and piles of boxes behind me, but this is the living room with a view to the balcony)

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

He actually did that by turning the mouse around. He had his thumb and ring finger on the buttons and moved it with the index and middle finger. It looked weird, not to mention painful to hold the fingers like that, but he was as accurate with it as anyone.

I'm using a left hand-only mouse for my right hand, so I'm not going to be throwing any stones about controls. Whatever works for somebody works, . I also can't play anything first person with a controller in the first place, because for some reason my brain breaks whenever I'm trying to operate two analogue sticks to do movement and aiming at the same time in first person.

5 hours ago, majestic said:

On the other hand, I now know why games have the option to invert the X axis too. Never understood that, but moving the camera instead of looking around makes sense.

Joystick on the back of the head a la Sarex's image also makes sense, but really, it's more like I am the camera itself. In a sense, I'm actually controlling two characters at once:

Interestingly, Super Mario 64's camera controls were always inverted with no option of changing it. It was one of the earliest games I played, so there's a good chance it's literally Mario's fault, .

Edited April 27, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

I didn't take new photos, but I took one when I had just moved in and my furniture had arrived. Kitchen counter is completely covered in stuff coming out of boxes

(I did find it hard to find any good angles, because of the stair well at my side and piles of boxes behind me, but this is the living room with a view to the balcony)

 

 

Are you sponsored by Lounge Life?

[Gorth]

3 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Are you sponsored by Lounge Life?

I wish. Those things were horribly expensive, but I got a decent deal on a Black Friday sale last year (33% off). The brand name is just sneaky advertising, as I don't really want to remove the protective cover (yet). The parts underneath foot rests. The sofas have built in recliners for when feeling particularly lazy and you just want to kick back and relax.

[Labadal]

Not doing much. Mostly wage slaving, and playing computer/video games.

My dentist told me that one of my wisdom teeth needs to be pulled out. I have a phobia for needles, and always hate my dentist visits.

Edit: Damn, it was almost two years ago I revisited this place. Still haven't played The Outer Worlds, but I'll get the bundle thingamajing they have when it is heavily discounted.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Labadal

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

15 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

so there's a good chance it's literally Mario's fault, .

Damn Italians.

I can't play most 3rd or 1st person games with inverted axis. Probably just got socialized playing games without it to the point it feels weird otherwise. For movies and series it's the opposite, where I usually find myself thinking like the camera. This can be distracting tbh, because if a scene isn't particularly engaging I find myself wondering how the shot(s) were done instead of engaging with the movie or show.

[Gfted1]

1 hour ago, Labadal said:

Edit: Damn, it was almost two years ago I revisited this place.

Welcome back!

[majestic]

Well, there's a slight upside to taking extended walks when you're not that far away from a national park.

When I was little it was possible to ice skate here in winter. Goes on for a bit beyond the bend. While they're not on the picture, there are several white lilac shrubs lining the way further into the park, the air is heavily fragrant with their scent. Not the worst way to spend some time walking.

Edited April 27, 2022 by majestic

[Malcador]

Meh, I prefer my area.  I go for a walk, see vapid yuppies, tweakers coming down from a high and crazies warning me about the ChiComs coming for my sperm.