Creaphis

I feel privileged that I'm able to fully appreciate this work of art. You really do have to be obsessed with Doom to be able to catch all the subtleties of how things slowly (and then quickly) break down. My dozens of completionist Ep 1 playthroughs have paid off.

I have mixed feelings on practicing socialization online, just because my own addiction to Runescape got in the way of learning to connect with people in the real world (which is what I really needed at the end of the day). But it's also hugely valuable to have safe spaces to socialize in, even if those spaces are online. It's a hell of a lot better than nothing. I agree with trying online roleplaying groups like WoOp suggested. The nice thing about gaming groups is that you'll be spending time with the same people every week-ish, so you'll get to know them over time - their personalities, what's going on in their lives, what they're struggling with, etc. However, there isn't any pressure to talk about anything personal. You can, but you don't have to. If you're comfortable meeting people in-person I'd suggest Googling "<your city here> board game club." If you like gaming, that would be another way to meet people who tend to be mature and accepting of people who are neurodivergent. Again, you can mention personal stuff when you want to, but you don't have to! Don't worry about fitting in - the only people who aren't welcome back to board game club are the people who are aggressively petty when they're losing. Don't be an asshole and you'll be fine. If you don't own any board games that's totally okay. Plenty of people in the group will have their own massive game collections and they'll just be thrilled that you're there to help them justify all they money they've spent on them. I don't recommend card game clubs as much. Magic the Gathering and Yugioh are expensive hobbies and you're more likely to run into people who are younger and more competitive in an unfriendly way. In general though, any community group (like gaming groups, organizations that recruit volunteers, choirs, recreational sports leagues, the right church if that's your flavour) has that same perk - you can talk about personal stuff but you don't have to. I really can't overstate how valuable this is when you're getting used to putting yourself out there. It takes away most of the pressure of socialization and you still get the benefits. You don't have to impress anybody with your charming personality. Everyone there is just happy that you're there, getting involved in something that they care about. They'll like you by default. Personal conversations will happen occasionally in a naturalistic way and you'll feel closer to everyone there as time goes by. If you want anecdotal evidence of the magic of community groups, I'm an awkward fucking mess at parties but I met my wife by singing in a choir every week. I agree with most of what rita remton suggested too, but I need to add something to it. You shouldn't go into social settings with the attitude of "I need to learn to express myself better." Go in with the attitude of "I'm good enough as is, but spending time here today will help me feel more comfortable around people." If you go into social settings feeling like "I have to know a lot of stuff and I have to say interesting things but I shouldn't dominate the conversation and I have to remember to ask questions but not challenging questions and I have to try to connect on an emotional level but I shouldn't show negative emotions or weirdly positive emotions" then you probably won't accomplish what you're hoping to accomplish. Obsessively self-monitoring will make you feel more anxious about socialization and more disconnected from the people around you. You won't want to socialize at all if it's just a massive anxiety-inducing chore and then you won't get the practice you want. Self-monitoring also gets in the way of just being your authentic self, and your authentic self is good enough. Yeah, I don't envy your situation of trying to find free therapy in the US. You can try googling "<your city here> free therapy counseling psychology diagnosis" or something like that, and see what comes up. Some non-profits offer free therapy (with a long wait list). Some universities offer free psychological diagnostic services as practice for their psych students (again, with a long wait list). One last thing! If you're feeling overwhelmed in your life because you're not sure what direction to take, like whether to work or not, and this means that you end up not doing much of anything, just pick one single goal to work on for the next month or two, and just work on a single baby step towards that goal. You don't have to work on everything all at the same time and you don't have to accomplish miracles in a month. Do one single thing and feel proud of yourself for doing it. If you want my suggestions, try to find either one free psychological resource or one interesting community group in your city in the next 30 days.

This post is an awesome start. Well done! You're definitely not the only person here who's felt this way. People gravitate to niche hobbies like retro games when they're looking for a place where they can feel competent and in control. A lot of us probably came here for similar reasons. I definitely grew up not understanding myself well, and when I thought I understood myself it was still just the depression talking. My friends were like your male family members. Good guys, but not used to saying or listening to deeper and more personal things. I think what helped me was getting involved in more social settings where being radically open and radically accepting was the norm instead of weird. (Disability support work at first, social work school later.) Or maybe I got lucky and met some weirdly open people. When you know people who are very open about their inner lives and very accepting of yours, it helps you practice that kind of communication yourself. And it also helps you learn that you're good enough as you are, because other people accept you, including your own personal communication style. Depending on where you live and what you do, you might actually have more access to therapy than you realize. Schools, employee benefits and insurance plans usually have some programs that could be helpful. Otherwise, I do recommend getting involved in some kind of social service volunteering - it's a good ice breaker with people who are likely to be naturally caring and who will like you from the get-go because they're happy you're there to help. Also, it was a huge help for my mental health when I started distracting myself from my own problems by focusing on somebody else's. However, I apologize if this is an unrealistic suggestion; I realize most people right now are barely keeping up with their lives so saying "just volunteer more" might not be helpful.

I'm not sure if I'm joking with that title or not. I actually am really disappointed that he's headlining a sci-fi convention that's specifically for people who are "tired of woke propaganda." I guess he really is just famous for his technical acumen and I shouldn't have expected him to have emotional intelligence on top of that. https://www.basedcon.com/ Here's his tweet trying to justify his involvement as non-political. In reality, condoning and signal boosting shitty people is a political act even if you don't want it to be. And straight white cis men really are responsible to tell other straight white cis men that selfish bigotry is not okay. Bigots don't care when people outside of their in-group tell them to fuck off. That just fuels them. They need to hear it from their in-group. Ignoring that responsibility is a moral failing. Thoughts?

Fair enough. Changing anybody's mind on any subject is a nigh-insurmountable challenge, and right now we're talking about a group of people that is especially closed off against new information and prone to forming their attitudes from feelings instead of facts. So yeah, practically speaking, we have a better chance of outnumbering and outliving these people. That said, even if it's useless to say "you're wrong," we can still avoid casually accepting prejudice from people and make it clear that being outwardly bigoted comes at the cost of losing connections. We can also try to find the last nuggets of empathy in their stunted hearts and make an emotion-based appeal: You should be ashamed. I don't think Carmack personally did anything horrible and I'm not arguing that we should try to wipe him from the face of the internet (if that was even possible). I'm disappointed that he's signal-boosting shitty people and therefore showing them that it's okay to be shitty. Shitty people are gonna be shitty no matter what, but we shouldn't be okay with that, and apparently Carmack is. If it seems like I'm holding Carmack to a higher standard than everyone else involved in this BasedCon that's just because 4 hours ago I only knew good things about him and this was an unwelcome change. Everything happening in Florida right now is beyond horrifying.

I just wandered back to take a look at the 2020 Cacowards and I played this first. Awesome work Antares! I played on UV and really enjoyed the fight choreography and gorgeous abstract visuals. The weapon and enemy changes are satisfying. The "Do you like revenants?" meta moments made me laugh and the bonus ending map is incredible. I did have to give up on MAP31 when my poor laptop slowed to 1 FPS (and I don't think I would have been able to hack it anyway). My only critique of that map is I would have liked it if the restocking points for the final fight were easier to navigate to. The central pillars in the middle of each group of four lowering platforms with megaspheres and cell packs could be more visually distinct somehow, so the player can still home in on them when they're blinded by the horde of enemies in their face. Usually my spatial awareness is pretty good in this game but that fight totally overwhelmed me - though I guess that's kinda the point.

This is the first megawad I've actually played all the way through in years and years. Thank you all for your amazing work! Xaser's MAP26 is an astonishing piece of visual art that I want to show my friends whether they're gamers or not.

Yup, I also found out about this thanks to the Cacowards, and this is the first set I downloaded to play. Good stuff! I really enjoy learning to use new weapons and strategize against new monsters, and yet I never download weapon mods because I always feel like I should play levels in the way the creator intended. It's nice to have a level set that's actually built around a gameplay modification from the ground up. Also, I was really impressed by your arena design - I think that the way you use damaging floors is inspired. It's interesting to have "maneuvering space" as a limited resource during combat - you can dash into the nukage to maneuver around enemies or dodge projectiles, but only for a limited time before you melt. Does MAP06 imply that your next project is going to be built around slidey ice physics?

I lost my virginity in a threesome.

This is only tangentially Doom-related, but DoomRL is the game that showed me roguelikes could be addictive and accessible instead of obscure, idiosyncratic grind-fests. So, I figure I might as well give the spiritual sequel a holler. Besides, Jupiter Hell is, for all intents and purposes, Doom. They haven't tried very hard to hide their influences. The Kickstarter is a few days old and it's doing pretty well, assuming they didn't just convince all their friends and family to buy into the higher reward tiers. Wrack 2 didn't pan out but I'm giving the dice another roll. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2020043306/jupiter-hell-a-modern-turn-based-sci-fi-roguelike

Sigh. If fan sites are allowed to be a thing, why can't you have free "fan games?"

Yeah, it does add a lot to a roguelike's atmosphere when room shapes are more organic and variable. The best dungeon generation I've seen is in Brogue, which might be worth drawing inspiration from if Jupiter Hell is going to feature any cave/hell areas. DoomRL's procedurally generated levels are pretty clunky and rectangular but the game is fun enough that I was always willing to forgive it.

The gameplay will be tile-based so I guess it's unavoidable that the visuals will be too. It's easier to forgive repetitive grids in an ASCII roguelike, though - with more detailed props it'll be more obvious when you're seeing the same ones over and over. With enough development time you could get clever. Throw in lots of decorative height changes, alternate decor schemes, and maybe different ways of bounding playable areas to create unique atmospheres. Rooms could be outlined by deep chasms, windows to vacuum, industrial magma, etc.

Proper sound design.

I think those are both new to the lineup. Also, our very own Dime is running Plutonia the same night. I'm not sure I'll be able to donate this year (I went back to school and I'm hemorrhaging cash) so I'm going to contribute to the cause in my own way. In all the archived GDQ Doom runs, the runners and their couch groupies just can't seem to explain a trick in less than thirty seconds of stumbling verbiage. Here's a handy list of quick, naturalistic explanations that any speedrun fan can understand. Dime, pin this to the back of your chair. Wallrunning: "Doomguy moves so fast that the engine has to check for collisions twice every frame or else he'd run right through walls. But, when you're running against some walls, there's a glitch in the extra collision check that basically gives you two frames' worth of movement in a single frame." Glides: "The gap is the same width as the Doomguy, so you'd think it'd be easy to get through. The reason it's hard is that the Doom engine tracks Doomguy's exact position to about seven decimal places, and you can't squeeze through until the decimals are exactly zero." Death slide: "Doomguy loses most of his height when he dies so his corpse just slides underneath the bars. Corpses still activate all movement triggers, including exit triggers." I might review past runs to see if there are other sticking points in the commentary. Any requests?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2134746636/wrack-starfall-fps-video-game I played a ton of Skulltag back in the day and I'm still feeling some lingering loyalty to Carn. I remember writing some pretty intense criticism of Wrack on this forum but that's water under the bridge. I'll probably back this at the $15 level and at least get my money back if things don't work out. It looks neat.

As of today, the project failed to be funded. I publicly offer my condolences.

If you like FTL, try "Convoy." It's not quite as refined as FTL, mechanically and graphically, but it has an interesting combat system and the writing is great. It's set in a sci-fi Mad Max-esque wasteland.

Half Life 3 will be Valve's answer to Hearthstone.

Now we're talking about two different kinds of value: artistic/sentimental versus monetary/practical, but I like this analogy as it illustrates something important. Metallica was significant regardless of how many other people ever picked up a guitar, and that significance is increased by the larger cultural movement they were a part of. However, if it somehow transpired that Metallica was the only band in the world with guitars and drums during their most active years, would they have made even more money? Probably, yeah; they'd have a higher practical value as more of the world would come to them for entertainment, and their assets would command more monetary value. I agree with CSonicGo that valuations based on speculation are meaningless, as historically these valuations have trended down to zero when actual usage doesn't rise up to justify them. The bulk of BitCoin's valuation has nothing underpinning it besides speculative forces. People invest in BitCoin for its sentimental value. They have a picture in their heads of what they want cryptocurrency to be, and as the first major player in that space, BitCoin is a rock star. However, its monetary and sentimental value are both threatened by copycats. The best case scenario for cryptocurrencies is that the average consumer has room in their life for one of them. These currencies directly compete with each other for a limited number of potential adopters. On the sentimental/speculative side, BitCoin will slowly lose its cachet as investors realize there's nothing inherently unique or irreplaceable about BitCoin amidst the sea of competitors. Thanks for posting this. Their Bitcoin Mining Profit Calculator has a ton more content. I'm still poking around it and I seem to have wandered into a fully realized Monkey Island parody.

Lack of scalability is a symptom. The problem is that BitCoin is under the control of a handful of developers and Chinese miners. BitCoin was supposed to be a peer-to-peer payment system where no government could call the shots. Unsurprisingly, the free market did what the free market always does: it concentrated all the power into a few hands and left the rest empty. I figure if you're going to be a slave to something no matter what it might as well be a state. "#1 cryptocurrency" is an inauspicious title when none of them have gained traction as a value store or trade token. Plus, flooding the market with new, improved cryptocurrencies just highlights their individual insignificance. Everybody and their doge can make their own cryptocurrencies. At least fiat currencies have artificial scarcity.

Lots of people already make their living doing arbitrary, pointless shit. Writing, making music, playing sports and so on all fall into that category. But, if people want to watch you do your thing and they buy your merch then there's a legitimate living to be made. The problem is that online media platforms put too much power in too few hands. A songwriter that gets screwed by their label can find a new one. Athletes can get signed to a new team. Youtubers and streamers are fucked.

There's an excellent segment in Animatrix that takes that idea to the extreme. Some latchkey kids stumble across an abandoned building that's rife with glitchy physics. If anybody likes quirky animated sci-fi I'll save you some time. Download The Animatrix, watch "The Second Renaissance" part I and II (a history of the Matrix world), World Record (a stylish celebration of human willpower), Beyond (the glitchfest), A Detective Story (sci-fi/noir, directed by the Cowboy Bebop guy), and Matriculated (a story by the Aeon Flux dude in which robots are converted to join the human cause by making them explore a psychedelic dreamscape). The rest of the segments are dumb action but they're still alright.

I was expecting him to win this, but it's completely insane that he's already been awarded more than his asking price of $100 million and that punitive damages are still on the table. $115 million isn't punitive enough? Any publicity is good publicity for an over-the-hill wrestler, so you can't establish $55 million in economic damage, and nobody's emotional distress is worth $60 mil. I have a feeling that no jury would give two shits about my emotional distress if I was the plaintiff.

It's thermodynamically impossible for 3D printing to ever become more energy- and resource-efficient than mass production due to the complexity of the process, having to manage a supply chain for small amounts of a huge range of materials, etc. 3D printers themselves would still have to be manufactured somewhere, and the requisite complexity of a device that could print me a smartphone would make it more expensive than the grand total of all non-perishable goods I will ever buy in my entire life. For 3D printing to mean "nearly free" goods for the "average person," each printer would have to serve several city blocks and last for generations, and you need to completely remove corporate profit from the equation. Someone still needs to design the blueprints for printed goods. Pirating designs from major manufacturers is only possible if enough people keep purchasing their goods the normal way to keep them in business, which means nothing has changed for the "average person." Just using old, freely available blueprints for everything means that consumer technology stagnates. Hoping that layman engineers design goods as a hobby project is going to leave you waiting a very long time for reliable tech. Choose your dystopia. 3D printing isn't going to rattle copyright law to its core. Legislators are already comfortable with paradox. You can't copyright a number. You can copyright a program. Reconcile that.