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Is it me or are games really not fun anymore
  • Live service games, MMOs, gatcha games, and many hardcore multiplayer games are the worst for this. They love to waste player's time on some repetitive grind because they want players to keep playing their game. They usually have either microtransactions (often for cosmetics) or a subscription.

    Personally, I love MMOs, but I try to avoid playing any grindy content (or at least as long as I don't think I'll genuinely enjoy it). So I'll usually play a game for a few months (they're really big games) and then quit for years, if not permanently (I have a bunch of MMOs I intend to someday return to, but have not yet).

    Single player games are generally much better at being genuinely fun. Especially story driven games. I also love open world games because you largely get to make them your own. It's perfectly valid to beeline the story missions if that's all you care about. Or you could do just the side quests. Or you could additionally explore like crazy. e.g., with Tears of the Kingdom, you really can ignore most of the shrines and largely focus on the story quests. None of the side quests are necessary, either. You don't have to explore the depths except for a tiny few places for the story. The vast majority of sky islands can be ignored. But I personally had a lot of fun exploring, so I explored nearly everything and loved it (except most of the depths -- they were way too big, empty, and repetitive).

    Some people don't like long games, though. And that's fine! There's tons of short or more streamlined games out there that you can have fun with. e.g., The Last of Us is a fantastic one. The sequel is about 24 hours long for the story and it felt like it flew by in the blink of an eye for me cause I was having so much fun.

  • Reddit remnants [initialisms explained]
  • To be honest, I rarely noticed the votes tally. I think the bot just applied a flair to the post eventually? It wasn't that relevant to me. I could see from the comments what the top posts were saying. For most posts, it's usually obviously leaning in one direction, anyway. I always went to the comments for the discussion and drama, anyway.

    I do think the existing voting options are good. And think that all top level comments should contain either a clear vote or INFO, because I think the sub doesn't really work if people aren't voting in some way.

    One rule of perhaps interest is the not accepting your judgement rule. I'm not sure if I care for that rule in the late subreddit. On the surface, it makes sense, since why post here if you're not going to accept the judgement? But I think we have to be honest here. The sub exists because it's amusing. The cases where OP doesn't accept their verdict can be quite dramatic and fun in a certain sense. That seems like it's conductive to the true goal of the sub. Also, I'd rather have an OP that argues against everyone than one who never replies (especially when there's so many requests for info).

  • Canada will soon have new rules for clean fuel. Here's what they'll cost when you fill up | CBC News
  • And that's just what the Parliamentary Budget Office predicted. The article also has another prediction:

    "There's a zero per cent chance it would be worse than what the Parliamentary Budget Office is saying," said Wolinetz, who predicts a cost impact of under 10 cents a litre by 2030.

  • Canada will soon have new rules for clean fuel. Here's what they'll cost when you fill up | CBC News
  • Good. Some people will try to phrase this as a bad thing because yes, you will pay more (eventually, anyway -- article says they don't expect "any real bite until around 2025"). But we should be paying more given the environmental damage that burning this fuel causes. We should not be effectively subsidizing oil companies by paying the cost of their negative externalities.

    If anything, I think there should be even more than this. We should have Norway style taxation on fuel. They have a massive savings fund that massively dwarfs our own closest equivalent.

  • Family of missing Barrie woman fears human trafficking, expands search | CBC News

    It's been over three weeks since Autumn Shaganash, a woman from Barrie, was last seen or heard from by her family. They are urging the public to help with the efforts, and told CBC Toronto that police in Barrie need to follow more leads.

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    Stabbings at University of Waterloo send 3 to hospital, 1 person in custody
  • Some degree, I think is imported from the US. Let's be honest, US news dominates our internet more than Canadian news. I have to go out of my way on sites like this (or formerly reddit) to see Canadian news. I would actually say I am more familiar with American politics than I am Canadian politics (which isn't to say I'm unfamiliar with Canadian politics, but rather that I'm really familiar with American politics despite not being American). That means the current US culture war, which is very heavily attacking trans people and anything gender non conforming, is being a heavy influence on Canadians right now.

    But that's only "some degree". We aren't blameless. While it's nice that we have a PM that has a mostly pretty great on gender matters (no matter your opinion on Trudeau for his other faults, I think we can all agree he's very progressive on LGBT+ topics), that only goes so far. Canadian news media often leans right (and we're currently seeing a risk of the Toronto Star being acquired by a right leaning US media company). Pierre Poilievre has been stoking these alt right flames. And now we have a bill that is going to see more people using US media because Canadian media won't be found on Google search. And that's because of our own, badly written bill (it should have been written just so that sites couldn't copy/summarize most of the story without sending clicks to the original site, but for whatever reason they instead wrote it as requiring payment to link to news at all!).

  • Doug Ford’s right-hand man, PC MPP went to Las Vegas with Greenbelt developer: sources
  • They don't even try to hide their close friendships with developers.

    I guess it wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that the PCs clearly cannot separate business from friendship, too. We do need development in the province. But not at the cost of the Greenbelt. Nor do we need things like selling off highways or healthcare for profit.

  • How to create a decentralized kind of wiki?
  • Yeah, to be clear, MediaWiki is open source and also has alllll sorts of really cool extensions. You also already can download the entire contents of Wikipedia.

    I think this desire to federate everything is going too far. Most things don't benefit from this and in fact just become over complicated. If you can host a regular copy of a site easily... that's frankly most of the benefits there.

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  • I'm sorry, are you saying you indent the braces? Cause if that's not unintentional, those are both horrifying!

  • Pride Month wrapping up, have you seen any company or organisation do anything remotely meaningful?
  • Yeah. It might not be some massive move, but it does mean something. It's great to see your employer, other possible employers, your local politicians, your municipal services, and even just random businesses that you might use (or not) show that they're accepting, especially when the status quo is to keep quiet to satisfy bigots.

  • What are y'all doing for Canada day?

    There's once again separate Canada day events in Waterloo Park and Downtown Kitchener (and probably several other places, too).

    Last year I went to the Waterloo Park one mostly because of the drone light show (which seems to be returning this year), but found that they were waaaay overloaded for food options.

    What were the other events like last year and where are you planning to go this year?

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    Wildfire smoke returns to Waterloo Region, Guelph
    www.therecord.com Wildfire smoke returns to Waterloo Region, Guelph

    A special air quality statement has been issued by Environment Canada, but conditions are expected to improve by Thursday evening

    A special air quality statement has been issued by Environment Canada, but conditions are expected to improve by Thursday evening

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    TL;WR for June 26 through July 3 2023

    We probably should have signed the kids up for camp.

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    The Coup of /r/AssholeDesign
  • If your employees (even if they work without payment) dont follow your instructions you search for someone who does follow them.

    If they work without payment, they're not your employees. And reddit isn't a registered charity either.

    It is their site so they can technically do what they want, but it makes them assholes and is not "ok" as you put it.

  • thesilphroad @lemmy.world CoderKat @kbin.social
    Squirtle Community Day Classic (July 2023) | Pokémon GO Hub

    On July 9th, 2023, Squirtle returns to Pokémon GO for a Community Day Classic event, giving players an opportunity to evolve a high-level Blastoise with Hydro Cannon once again. During the event, Squirtle will appear more frequently in the wild, and players will have a chance to encounter a shiny Squirtle. Blastoise’s exclusive Community Day […]

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    How does everyone feel about Oneplus phones?
  • I currently have a 7T. It's not bad. Felt pretty impressive at the time that I got it. These days I feel like the camera is a bit lacklustre and every now and then something freezes. I'm gonna upgrade to something else soon. Probably something much higher end as I'm more comfortable spending money on a high end phone these days. But it's been a pretty solid phone, especially for its price and age.

  • Can I block posts about Reddit?
  • Reddit definitely has better features. It's not even a competition. The reason we're here is because of the Reddit administration and because of future potential. Eg, the apps are so new right now that Reddit's official app is better. But in a couple of months, that won't be the case anymore.

  • GOOD games with female protagonists?
  • Specifically the first game (unarguably the best one), its prequel, and True Colours. Life Is Strange 2 has two brothers, instead. They're all very, very good games that all have made me cry (some multiple times).

    They're also pretty gay if that interests you.

  • [REPOST] Won't Let Me Go To Jury Duty? Enjoy Being Questioned In Court
  • You often don't get paid or don't get paid nearly enough. Too many people like paycheque to paycheque to be able to do that.

    And in extreme cases, you can get sequestered, where you're expected to basically put your life on hold for the duration of the trial, which complete bullshit and feels as if you're being punished.

  • Almost broke 2.5 million daily total users on Lemmy in the last 24 hours.
  • You gotta stop counting total users. Only active users should be counted. We know there's utterly massive numbers of bots being created. Plus people have multiple accounts from trying out different instances even if they'll only use one.

  • TikTok Keeps Removing Abortion Pill Content
  • Tiktok is the absolute worst at irrational censorship. It's a shame because the site is immensely popular and that means it is full of very interesting content. Yet, this is far from the first unreasonable thing they've been removing. It's well known how Tiktok users came up with alternative words to circumvent words that were likely to get their content removed (e.g., "unalived" instead of "killed").

  • I'd like to discuss Horizon Burning Shores

    I just finished Horizon Burning Shores (I know, a bit late) and wanted to discuss it!

    FULL SPOILERS FOR THE DLC

    SPOILERS

    SPOILERS

    So, random thoughts in no particular order:

    1. The Horus fight was fantastic and a long time coming. I think we were all waiting for a chance to finally fight a Horus and it didn't disappoint. The initial sneaking past the invincible and very hard hitting tentacles set things up great. Seeing the whole thing rise up had me giddy! And then it just goes on and on and really makes us work for it (I would have been disappointed if a Horus -- even an ancient and rusty one -- was too easy).

    2. I liked Seyka and also liked that there was a romance option (but it also made it clear that saving the world is the priority). It's just nice for Aloy to have someone she can relate to in that way.

    3. I wish there were more machines. It kinda felt like the bilegut was the only new machine. The waterwing feels nearly identical to the Sunwing. The stingspawn don't feel like standalone enemies (more like a part of the bilegut). The Horus is great, but it's only a one off boss enemy. I was hoping for some fresh new enemies to make exploration more interesting.

    4. Exploration sometimes felt a little disappointing. I enjoyed how absolutely gorgeous the game is. It is fantastic world building. But so much of the map just doesn't have anything actually there. It looks pretty, but besides machines and generic items, there is nothing to collect. I feel like a few more side quests were needed and for a several more buildings to actually have some kinda lore to them. As an aside, I don't understand why datapoints are so hard to find. I scoured every inch of the map and found fewer than half of the world datapoints

    5. Overall I liked the villain. It was good to have a single villain to focus on so that he could be built up more. I felt a bit bad for him when I learned his wife cheated with his best friend and that was the start of his rampant paranoia. But then I learned he was literally brainwashing people (plus the whole radiation space ship thing) and it was back to "yup, he's gotta die".

    6. I'm really glad this DLC takes place after the base game and takes advantage of this. Waaaay too many games these days are seemingly afraid to make DLC require beating the game. I guess they want to make the DLC more accessible? Putting the DLC after the story let it utilize the threat of Nemesis as well as carefully incorporate flying.

    7. I do kinda wish there were more returning character interactions. It was nice to chat with Sylens for a bit, though.

    8. I really liked Pangea World! It was a fantastic setting. Full of interesting old world sights, lots of potential for stealth, it was compact and had lots of depth, and I always like theme park levels in general.

    9. I kinda think Nova, Walter's AI, was a bit underused. A thousand year old AI from off world? I would have soooo many questions. But instead she almost immediately asks you to kill her and you do. Wish we could have sent her to live freely with Gaia so that she could lore dump us in the third game. And a bit more lore dumping in this DLC, for that matter.

    10. The Heaven¢ sanctuary was really neat. Stepping into that place and seeing all the gigantic posters of Walter's face was quite a moment. It was when we really started to learn what Walter was like. I felt bad for those Quen. To them, the ancestors are like gods. But they seem to know the ancestors are dead. Finding out an ancestor is alive and witnessing their god-like technology has to be seriously convincing. And those Quen thought they had a chance at a better life. A world where they wouldn't be constantly fighting against horrifying machines to survive. Only to find out it's a sham. Oof.

    11. Some of the new abilities are neat. Though a bunch are so forgettable that I don't remember what most of them are. I loved the grapple critical strike and used that a ton. I also found the valor ability that berserks all nearby enemies to be very fun for dealing with large groups.

    12. I like that we got a smidge of progress against Nemesis, in the form of Walter's notes where he lists 21st century arms companies that may be useful against Nemesis. I was kinda expecting the DLC to dance around Nemesis, leaving it entirely for the third game. Was good to get some teases. Similar for Walter's notes giving the first person perspective of just how Nemesis killed some of the Zeniths and how terrified he is.

    13. Perhaps I'm too used to other games where anything that looks interesting probably contains something. But this DLC is just chock full of buildings that look interesting but in fact have nothing. Can't be entered, nothing on top (I checked a bunch), nothing around them. In a way, this is probably just a sign of how great their world design is such that downtown LA is actually full of unique towers, but does feel a bit oddly disappointing when most of them are just for looks.

    Overall I'd give the DLC an 8/10. I enjoyed the story and setting a lot, but it felt empty at times and I really wish there was another machine type or two.

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    Missouri teens want to lower the voting age to 16 in local and school elections
  • I also like to draw analogies to other age restrictions. If they're allowed to drive a car, literally the most dangerous thing they can do in terms of causes of death, then how can they not be responsible enough to vote for their leaders?

    We also have no qualms about sentencing 16 year olds as adults if they commit a bad enough crime. This one strikes me as society knowing 16 year olds are perfectly capable of being responsible but we just give them a bit more leeway.

    And personally, I've met plenty of 16 year olds that are better informed about politics than a number of adults I know.

  • FYI the mods of r/dndnext, r/rpg, and r/dungeonworld have created a Lemmy server
  • I just want my r/dndmemes equivalent the most!

  • I don't understand why people still want to use reddit instead of moving to Lemmy or Kbin
  • It's genuinely hard and needs to be improved. Subscribing to a magazine that someone else on kbin has subscribed to already isn't too bad. Go to the magazine (eg, click what looks like the subreddit name in the post) and scroll alllll the way down and there'll be a subscribe button.

    But if nobody has subscribed yet in the instance, it's hilariously hard. You have to search in the general search (not the magazine search) for specifically "magazine@domain.com" and you should see a subscribe button then. You will not content in that magazine that existed before you subscribed. If that sounds terrible, it's because it is. Thankfully, most of the time, you won't be the first to subscribe to a magazine and thus can just use the magazine search or browse the front page to see posts.

    PS: the subscribe option is also as the bottom of each thread. So you can alternatively just open a thread in the magazine instead of the magazine itself.

    PPS: I've mentioned the subscribe button being at the bottom because that's the placement on mobile and I think many of us are on mobile. On desktop, it's in the sidebar.

  • 📢Entire mod team on r/mildlyinteresting (and more subs) removed and locked out of their accounts after changing their rules upon community's request. (They're also switching subs BACK to SFW)
  • Yeah. The unethical bots will just use scrapers, as they already do for the many websites that don't offer APIs. They're already violating ToS, so they don't care. Ethical ones won't have that option (at least not past the fairly low quota).

  • I created a sub (aka community/magazine) for the Waterloo region (Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge)
    kbin.social Waterloo region, Ontario, Canada - kbin.social

    A subreddit for the Waterloo region, including Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and several smaller towns.

    Waterloo region, Ontario, Canada - kbin.social

    I intended this to be akin to r/Waterloo, since there's a ton of value in local recommendations and discussion. I've met some really cool people from the city subreddits and hope to rebuild that here.

    Link: @Waterloo !Waterloo@kbin.social

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    B.C. man questions 9-year-old's gender in 'gobsmacking' track-and-field incident

    A B.C. family has garnered sympathy online — and international media attention — after sharing what they described as an incident in which a man questioned their nine-year-old daughter's gender during a sporting event.

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    /kbin meta @kbin.social CoderKat @kbin.social
    Can the magazine subscribe option be made much more prominent?

    One thing that made Reddit great and scalable was that you'd typically not view all Reddit subs (or even all popular ones), but rather you'd subscribe to subs that interest you.

    Kbin has subscriptions. But they aren't the default and are quite hard to figure out. I had to look alllll over on mobile before I realized that the subscribe button is really far down (basically underneath the entire page of posts). It should be at the very top.

    It'd also be great if when you create an account, there'd be some wizard to help you pick magazines to subscribe to.

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    CoderKat CoderKat @kbin.social

    I write ̶b̶u̶g̶s̶ features, show off my adorable standard issue cat, and give a shit about people and stuff. I'm also @CoderKat.

    Posts 12
    Comments 25