emeraldheart

joined 1 year ago
[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

This is still going? I remember this from such a long time ago. I used to love this series a lot

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I'm looking into this technique! I'm going to definitely try this method out! I wonder if I should get an app/website for it or get a physical timer that ticks.

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I've never heard of this tea, I will have to try it!

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Ahh, lucky!! I'm very envious!

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Ooh, these are all really good ideas! I may borrow some of these! :) Especially the string lights, fake plants, and blanket! That sounds so nice.

I should also get some little photos of loved ones that I can look at; that's another very good idea!

 

I'll answer first: One thing that I do that helps my work environment feel a little nicer is I have a stuffed Totoro on my desk, a nice-smelling candle, and a few tasty snacks in my drawer. I also very quietly play video game music or ambience to remind myself of my hobbies that I like 😊

I just started this job, but I'm trying to make myself feel a bit more cozy, since the work can feel a bit heavy sometimes.

Curious what others do to make their environment a little nicer. :)

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

"Stray Gods" is an incredibly beautiful game. I was turned off by the playstyle at first, but then I embraced it and got really invested in the characters and the story. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Greek mythology and/or fantastic stories about interpersonal drama and enjoys games with tough dialogue choices.

The soundtrack also!!! It's a musical game and the songs are all SO BEAUTIFUL. I teared up a few times.

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree with most of what you said. I think it's important to be conscious of where our money is going and to be comfortable discussing that with others.

About FF14 and Yoshi-P, however, I've actually heard the opposite about his opinion on trans people and NFTs. I heard from my friends (and upon a quick Google search I just did) that he expressed sympathy towards trans community members and that he was trying to keep NFTs out of the game? If you've heard otherwise, can you please share the information? I was going to resubscribe to play with my friends, but if you know something, I'd love for you to share it.

I will also check out those companies you mentioned near the end, such as KO_OP and Supergiant!

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I really admire your response here as you put my thoughts and feeling about this more eloquently than I could. I really want to incentivize the good work people are doing, and while my dollar going somewhere else might not mean much to EA or Blizzard, it means a lot more to smaller groups who are trying to do the right thing with less resources. It also just feels nice to spend money on something good :)

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

I really appreciate this response. It balances the want to do good and make ethical choices with the reality that I can't do everything perfectly. It's important to do the best we can and also leave room to enjoy ourselves :)

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you for your response. I also think it's good that people are becoming more aware of these issues and doing what they can to address them.

I also think your point about FOMO is a good one; it becomes much less frustrating when I look at my backlog of games I've already purchased and have thousands of hours left to play. There will always be new games, and they won't always be made by people that make me feel uncomfortable.

As others have stated, you make a good point about indie game devs. Jonathan Blow is one that my partner brings up regularly. I didn't know about Ion Fury or Kovarex but that's disappointing. It's hard to keep track of it all, but when I find out about things like this, I'll do my best to consider it when making future purchases.

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I appreciate your thought-out response. I'm going to respond as best I can to your points.

I struggle with moral/ethical conundrums in all areas of my life. The current discussion is games, but I really do consider the harm I might be causing any time I buy things. There are some harms that I cannot avoid, such as the purchase of gasoline (my current income is low and I cannot afford a greenee car). Others, such as food purchases, are limited in what I can do... But I try anyway. I have an app for telling me about ethical sourcing by company/product which I use at the store. Clothing, sadly, tends to be unethical no matter what, unless I make my own clothes - I sadly don't have the time or money to do so.

With video games, which are themselves a luxury, I have so many choices of what to play that I feel I have much more ability to decide what not to play, based on how I feel about where my money is going.

I should also acknowledge that I don't think any of these games/developers will suffer as a result of me not purchasing them. Developers/programmers also do not make income based on sales, and layoffs happen after the release of many major AAA games, simply because they don't need that large team anymore (I don't agree with this practice at all, and I think it's horrible to do to people who already don't make enough for their work, but it's relatively industry standard). The gaming community is also waaaay too large for any kind of boycott to be effective. I'm just trying to be mindful about my purchases based on my own feeling.

I think you raise a fair point about indie games. I think it's a good reminder to me to look into those as well. As long as there's no major publicized controversy surrounding an indie company, however, there's no information I can use to steer me away from it. But, I appreciate your reminder not to blindly purchase indie games just because the company is "indie."

Overall, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. I will be considering your points as I move forward.

[–] emeraldheart@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry to concern you! If anything I'm on the complete opposite side of the gaming politics pendulum.

 

Hi, everybody! Sorry for the rant!

I'm just posting this as a combination of question and vent. Does anyone else here feel frustrated by the current ethical dilemmas of purchasing games from certain companies? My partner is very tuned into the various ethical mishaps happening in the world and keeps me apprised of which companies are doing shitty stuff and which people/companies I should stop supporting. This is important to remember, but it is also frustrating to see how many companies out there are doing bad things.

This is a very "first world problem," but it's frustrating just how many games out there look cool, but I can't play them because it'd be giving those companies/people money. The biggest examples are Activision Blizzard, J.K. Rowling, and Wizards of the Coast. I think Baldurs Gate 3, for example, looks so awesome, but I don't feel comfortable playing it because my partner has alerted me that some of that money would go to Wizards. I feel somewhat frustrated that the discussion around these issues has evaporated when the games are released; it's as though people stopped caring about the bad things these companies/people did. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure if I myself would be able to keep myself accountable if my partner doesn't remind me of it; I think I may have bought the games like everyone else because of how fun they look, and how much they remind me of games I grew up on.

On a similar note, as my partner is working on becoming a game developer, he follows the state of game development and tells me about it, which seems bleak. I mourn the old studios that I used to have a lot of enjoyment for, like BioWare and the others that EA ate up.

Thanks for reading all of this. :) I wish things were more hopeful, I suppose. My partner urges me to support indie developers, so I'm trying to move in that direction. Does anyone have any recommendations on staying hopeful, given the current state of entertainment?

TL;DR: I'm frustrated by the current largely-unethical state of the games industry and want to know how I can regain some hope about it.

 

Hi everybody! I couldn't figure out a good place to put this so I'm going to put it here. All the running/fitness communities seemed dead.

I've recently gotten into running with my boyfriend for fitness and our general health. I get bored just exercising with nothing to do while I exercise, and I found an app a few years ago called "Zombies Run!", which has a companion app called "Zombies Run 5K" that gets you slowly trained to run consistent 5k's.

I really love it because it has some really great characters and a plot that you progress through by running.

I really wish other apps like this existed, that gamify working out, because I'm quite a lazy person who needs an extra reason to workout besides just "it's good for me." Being able to talk about the plot and characters with my partner is really helpful at keeping me motivated.

Has anyone else tried this app or apps similar to it?

 

(the app is forcing me to put a link so I put Timesplitters 2 gameplay cuz this is mostly a text post)

Hi everyone! I've been feeling frustration about games lately, remembering experiences I had as a kid playing co-op story games with my friends, like Timesplitters and Destroy All Humans, etc.

Modern multiplayer games sometimes have some co-op elements, but many of them are party games like Human Fall Flat or Among Us, or big Battle Royales or Multiplayer shooters. The co-op ones seem to only be survival games like The Forest.

I'm always looking for good co-op experiences to play with my friends, but it's hard to find what I am looking for. I recently played It Takes Two with my partner and that was so wonderful.

Does anyone know any games like what I am looking for? It seems these kinds of games are so few and far between, sadly.

 

Hi everyone! I'm in my late 20s and I've been reminiscing on my young adult life and what I like/don't like. One point that has been coming up for me is close, vulnerable friendships. I used to have a few friends who I was very close to a few years ago, who I could talk to about deep life stuff, big emotions, vulnerable feelings and worries, and also just enjoy time together discussing silly/serious media or the world.

I have since lost these friends, one way or another. Some simply drifted, some left in a flurry of drama and hurt feelings. I thankfully kept some friends, but a lot of them have been lost.

Despite the volatility of those friendships, there was something I was getting from them that I really needed and still need. I think that need is simply the human desire for close companionship. I have a partner, and he's wonderful; he's not particularly feel-y however, and my friends aren't either. I think I need more emotionally-vulnerable people.

My question is this... How does one make these friends as an adult? In fact, how does one make any friends as an adult? I'm finding myself not knowing how to proceed and find other emotional folk. Any advice would be appreciated. <3

 

Hello all! I'm looking to practice my German with other German learners or patient native-speakers! I'm at/near the A2 level and am actively studying as much as I can! A huge part of learning a language is writing/speaking to others, however, and - living in Ohio in the U.S., I don't have much opportunity for that. So I'm looking online!

I'm looking for either: people here who would like to help me practice, or directions to where I might be able to practice with others.

Thanks! :)

 

Hello everyone! I'm learning German and I'm trying to make sure my language learning habits are the best they can be. I was using Duolingo and Busuu, but that was taking a lot of time away from immersion/fun and what I learned in one app I often learned in the other, so it felt redundant. So now I just use Busuu for grammar learning.

Any new German words I come across I then enter into Anki for memorization, which I practice once or twice a day.

After these two activities, I try to fill my day as much as possible with German media; this includes German podcasts, music, games translated into German, and YouTube videos.

I want to know... Is this an effective method? I'm always a bit of a perfectionist, so I'm looking for feedback or constructive criticism. Alternatively, you could just share your own language learning methods!

I'd also love to know if there are any great instances for people learning languages! I tried looking, but none of them seemed active :(

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