But these so-called “dungeons”? No captives. Not even any cells. That’s not a dungeon. that’s a glorified cave.

I’ve always wondered how the term “dungeon” as it’s used in RPGs came to be. a lot of appendix N literature had locations we would now consider dungeons, but were they called that at the time? and then the first RPG dungeon was the literal dungeon under Blackmoor Castle, but very early on we had dungeons that stopped being literal dungeons- didn’t B1 and B2 exclusively have cave “dungeons?” and the Ruined Tower of Zenopus in the first Basic book had underground portions but I think those were caves too!

turns out commodore really is keeping up with you

jim morrison predicted that some day a single person will be able to produce a full song with machines but never lived to see it happen, so i’m not sure exactly what but i’d definitely show him something entirely arranged and rendered on a computer

the artist, keith stack, uses to do daily comics leading up to major releases, hiding a countdown in each comic

also worth checking out Babylon 5 and Stargate SG-1 if you haven’t already, both have a lot of Trek in their DNA (and in B5’s case there was cross-polination in both directions)

i think about this every time i open outlook on my phone and have to wait a full minute for it to load and hopefully not crash, versus how it worked more or less instantly on my phone ten years ago. gajillions of dollars spent on improved hardware and improved network speed and capacity, ans for what? machines that do the same thing in twice the amount of time if you’re lucky

no racquet? i think you were playing hand ball

i would watch all of the above. with discovery at the very least the first four seasons, because S2 is a backdoor season 0 of strange new worlds and S4 rocks but needs the context of the first 3. it can be very uneven but i don’t think it gets bad as often as Picard did and doesn’t stay bad for as long as Picard does. Enterprise is similar, a rough-at-times ride that does really pay off in S3

you’re only gonna watch one, though, i’d do strange new worlds. it’s essentially a return to the TOS/TNG format and has a stellar cast. and frankly you don’t need to watch disco S2 to fully know what’s going on, they explain everything- i only watched disco after snw S1 left me hungry for more. SNW is seemingly unique among trek shows in that every season has been less well recieved than the last, partly because the short seasons are increasingly dedicated to gag episodes, but i’d say with the exception of one particular stinker in S3, a weaker SNW episode is still gonna be better than most shows at their best

but also- you’re your own person and may walk away from all of these series feeling someghing different! no harm on trying and if you hate something hey, it only cost you 40 minutes of your life

adam savage would not be a bad orc name

i’ve heard this called the Seinfeld effect, where Seinfeld was so influential on sitcoms that built off of it that it seems generic in hindsight

plenty of folks are playing old editions or clones thereof now though

appropriate given they’ve been screaming “DON’T YOU WANT ME” at disinterested parties all this time

i still think Balan Wonderworld was awesome. the single button controls were refreshing after three decades of controller bloat, the suits felt like a fun evolution of the character switching from LEGO Star Wars, the game is full of weird nooks and crannies that constantly had me thinking “i can’t believe they thought of that,” and the music and art kick ass. there are definitely areas that could be improved and i think we were all hoping for something more kinetic from Sonic Team alum but it’s still ultimately one of the better AAA games in the last few years. i still don’t understand the backlash, especially after the crickets Naka’s previous and signifigantly worse game Rodea the Sky Soldier got

+1 for Bandcamp. they often run a “bandcamp friday” event where they waive their cut of all music sold that day, so almost everything (payment processors still take a cut) goes to the artist. there are also self-hosted alternatives to bandcamp like faircamp

i can hear it in Dorn’s voice so clearly: “Bubbles is not a traditional name for a targ.”

something that i think gets lost in the sauce in thrse discussions is whether fun is derived from playing or winning. people are comparing Silksong- and to get ahead of it right now i haven’t played and am not criticizing either of the Hollow Knights- to old arcade and early console games and their legendary difficulty, but a lot of those games were meant to be complete and fun experiences even if you game over very early on. they also didn’t have levels full of bespoke Stuff in them, it was the same few tiles and entities in different configurations., so being stuck on level 1 didn’t mean you were missing out on a narrative and worldbuilding. with how the lines have blurred between games and narrative art forms in the last few decades, there are different incentives at play and someone stuck on world 1 of SMB isn’t missing out nearly as much as someone stuck on whatever the first stage of Silksong is. it’s all ultimately apples and oranges

thank you!

can anyone recommend a good read into the actual developments happening with ATproto as of late? i’ve seen a lot of insisting lately that things are changing/have changed but no one’s saying what exactly is or has changed

i think it’s becoming an inevitabiliy. when you have the EU passing laws preventing data collection and US states like mississippi requiring it, eventually the laws become incompatible and your only options become serving a different site to every jurisdiction or just blocking large swathes of the planet. i think unfortunately we’re in the last years of there being a singular “the internet” as things shift from nations reactively geoblocking sites to sites proactively geoblocking themselves

what confuses me the most about these videos is the call to action. go back? that’s not how time works!