Wandering Adventure Party

@Canageek @ami_angelwings The whole "if you want more info, go buy these things and read them first" thing is good enough reason. I'm behind you on that.

@Canageek @ami_angelwings Wow, that went beyond "unfair to the player" into straight up "go buy our crap to even be able to play the game right" level shovelware.

I guess when the first game set the bar with some dude stopping you and demanding that you go buy DLC because your family owes him it kind of already ruined any possibilities of ever being decently fair in that regard.

@ami_angelwings Here's another argument in favor of making the deal: first, as you say you're saving lives and lives generally come before policies, but also...

what prevents people from later coming back to destroy it? Say, for example, the people who are now alive instead of dead...

Yeah, generally speaking lives come first unless it's some kind of situation where saving them means destroying the universe or something stupid like that. That's how any decent leaders/diplomats/whatever would handle it IRL anyway. It's stupid for the game to in any way whatsoever penalize for making that particular choice...

@ami_angelwings I do want to say, more generically and a little bit on topic of your own example, a lot of games put you in a position where you're supposed to decide someone's fate and often enough there just isn't much actual evidence. I'm trying to remember the specific game, but there was one I remember playing a good while back where there was just hearsay on the part of witnesses and no evidence at all one way or the other but you had to decide a person's fate solely on that.

That just isn't right... No one's fate should be decided by some random adventurer just passing through based on hearsay...

If a game puts us in this position I think it should be required to give us sufficient evidence to reach a definitive conclusion at least.

@ami_angelwings I'm not sure if anything can beat when some games make you decide the fate of the whole universe...

Shin Megami Tensei is a really good example. In some (like SMT3 and 5) the world as you know it is already gone and there's not much you can do about that, but in almost all of them you ultimately decide the fate of the universe. Add to this that a more neutral fate is really hard to get as they tend to drive you to decide between order or chaos (not really good or evil — I give D&D lots of credit for showing us that these are separate alignments.)

And really, any extremes are just... not ideal...

@OctaviaConAmore @futurebird @emlove I can absolutely believe it's by morning people...

I mean, I get that the actual farming generally needs the light of day. And certainly traditionally farming was done in the light of day. But there's so much else in the game and wow is it punishing on time to try to do any of it.

I think of all the games of this type I've ever played it has the fastest timescale and the earliest bed time.

@trixter All of it.

ALL of it.

@OctaviaConAmore @futurebird @emlove I dunno. The way Stardew Valley handles sleep is more of an anxiety inducing panic IMO. In every stream I've seen there was at least once with the person running in panic as that clock ticked down.

I still can't, for the life of me, understand why they made the timescale so much worse in Stardew Valley versus the games it's copying or, for that matter, why they made the punishment for not going to sleep on time so much worse, or why they made the time you must go to sleep or else so blasted early... In Rune Factory you go to sleep by 4am or you have a random chance of maybe getting sick (which can be cured by taking a sickness cure or at the clinic in some games — was a good excuse to visit Iris in Oceans, lol.)

It just temporarily lowered stats.

@earthlightning @futurebird This is actually a game. I'm trying to remember what it's called, but it actually exists. Literally exactly that.

@kilianheap @Edmonds_Scanner As long as I can get to look at the maps I'm fine with that.

@kilianheap @Edmonds_Scanner So, what you're saying as that, rather than a human librarian, we need a mon- uhm, orangutan?

@Edmonds_Scanner Well you could just pass the same one around because everyone is going to end up just following the maps and disappear forever.

Just randomly pick people. "It's your turn to care for the library. You can read any books you want." "What happened to the previous person?" "They went away..."

Wait, I think this just turned into horror instead.

@ckr So how on earth did it end up in a trash can?

@ckr And you didn't answer?

That trashcan was the start of an epic sidequest that would have taken you all across the world in the pursuit of a master jewel thief who, in the end, would have stolen your heart too but if you succeeded, they would have changed their ways and become good, dedicating their skills to aiding orphans for the rest of their days.

@rufustheduck No, it's not fair when cats do the little paws up in the air and folded over like this. It's not fair...

@Gh0stlyM0use @Daojoan Really? I thought I was the odd one out. A lot of people seem to still love it though? I think? I must admit I did try to rewatch it some time ago and did not get into it at all, but I thought that was just me.

@Daojoan This reminds me of the Fox jokes back when Fox was like 20% less horrible. I suspect the communities will never forgive them for canceling Firefly.

@stux I disagree with the image's claim.

Logos are licensed, so if it's an official licensed logo, they should pay YOU to wear it because they are using you to advertise in an official capacity. It shouldn't just be cheaper, you should get paid.

@atomicpoet I don't know. I've heard the difference on some of the things where it was possible and honestly, I'd say there is a LOT to be said for having the dynamics.

The real, true issue here is you do all that to gain access to what should be available as the baseline. They just shouldn't be compressing the dynamics in the first place. You shouldn't have to pay all that just to get the original full dynamics...

Of course, part of the issue there is most people don't know that that is the true difference between the two, so they're paying for all that super equipment to get diminishing returns and really it's the baseline itself that is the issue.

There is literally no reason the CD version should not sound just as good or better than the record. Companies just ruined it.

@atomicpoet Well, CDs can be better. What's wrecking them is the freaking "loudness war" as they call it. That's the thing that makes records tend to be better: they're not fully immune to the loudness war, but they're darned close to it since compressing the dynamics makes it hard to actually fit the full thing on a record, thus records are generally made without that.

Which means the real issue is the loudness war and I really wish people could do something about it.

I have a bit of a sensitivity to the scratching sound (or whatever I should call it) that records make, so I kind of couldn't do that even if I wanted (though most of my favorite music isn't really going to be on records anyway.)

And yeah, the price has become a major problem these days too.