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Cake day: November 21st, 2025

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  • Devial@discuss.onlinetoGames@lemmy.worldGaming Pet Peeves
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    3 days ago

    I mean that is kinda exactly what the developers want to provoke with timed dialogue choices. Timed dialogue choices are a game design mechanic to try and get a player to answer on instinct/gut feeling, rather than over analysing and trying to optimise the dialogue.

    You not getting to think about it long is very much the intended effect, and allowing a pause would entirely defeat it.

    There are of course definite accessibility concerns that should be considered and worked around, such as people with dyslexia who may not be able to properly parse the dialogue options before the timer runs out, but as a game mechanic I think forcing the player to pick on instinct definitely has merit. It helps make the game more immersive, because it puts you under the same pressure to react as your character is in the story right now, and it can lead to more interesting and ultimately enjoyable games by forcing players to potentially make a mistake, and having to find out a way to deal with the fallout.


  • Devial@discuss.onlinetoGames@lemmy.worldGaming Pet Peeves
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    3 days ago

    Games that don’t allow you to pause and skip cutscenes.

    I don’t want to have to miss half of the cutscenes just because someone interrupted me or the phone rang or something half way through. Alternatively, when I’m on my 23rd replay of a game, I do not want to have to sit through every cutscenes I already know by heart.

    Oh, and modern games that allow manual saving at any time, not having any kind of regular auto save (looking at you here BG3).

    If you’re fine from a gameplay pov with having the player save whenever, then there’s really no good reason whatsoever to not have one or two auto save slots that get saved every 10-20 minutes or so, at least as an option in the menu. ESPECIALLY in open world games (like BG3…) where you can easily go literal hours at a time without hitting a checkpoint save. And yes, I am still salty over learning about BG3’s lack of regular auto save when I lost like 2.5 hours of progress on my first run.


  • Devial@discuss.onlinetoComic Strips@lemmy.worldIt lead to this
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    3 days ago

    Fun fact, basic ethanol works excellent as a fuel additive to reduce knocking, but because it’s already a well known compound, fuel companies couldn’t patent it as an additive, that’s why they invented leaded petrol instead, so they could patent it.

    (E: For full completeness, it should probably also be noted that potential legal difficulties surrounding reliably obtaining or producing industrial quantities of Ethanol alcohol in prohibition era America probably also played some role, but the patent thing was definitely the main reason)



  • That’s pretty much universally the view on freedom and rights that today’s neo conservatives have.

    They cry states rights and freedom when someone else wants to ban them from doing anything at all, but the instant someone else is doing something they don’t like, they suddenly make up moral panics to justify federally banning those things.

    That is to say, conservatives by and large don’t have any principles beyond being selfish and hateful towards minoritied. Everything else, including fundamental freedoms and human rights is negotiable so long as it doesn’t negatively affect them OR negatively affects the people they hate more than them. They just use terms like freedom or rights to virtue signal when it suits them, but are just as happy to drop the pretence the millisecond doing so becomes beneficial to their goals.

    A good example is the free speech screeching of conservatives in the heyday of fact checking, Vs. Their tortured justifications and dismissals of Trump’s blatant attacks on free speech and press today.

    Or alternatively, many TERFs and their open willingness to draw support, and work together with misogynistic conservative groups and even straight up open Neo Nazis, just because those groups also hate trans people, all whilst turning around and claiming with a straight face that they’re doing this for women.





  • Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

    And not allowing them kinda sucks for people who want to talk about smaller, less popular games (or niche topics/interests in general), because any posts on an overarching all-games-including community about a small niche indy game is almost certainly just going to get swallowed amongst the flood of posts about other games, and even if there’s people in that community who would’ve engaged with the post, most of them are likely to miss any given post, because they only make up such a tiny fraction of the total members.

    For example, I love discussing the Eragon book series, but there’s no Eragon dedicated community on Lemmy (at least I didn’t find one), and I don’t really want posts about every other fantasy work ever in my feed, so I don’t really want to subscribe to overarching fantasy book communities.

    And sure, if I explicitly feel the urge to talk about it, I can browse a big sub and filter for Eragon content (though the fact that niche topics posts on big communities are likely to get low engagement probably also discourages people from regularly posting about it in the first place, so there’d be fewer posts to even find), but this still robs me of the ability to see Eragon Posts Show up in my feed when I’m not explicitly looking for them.



  • In general it can be said that poor people do not have the capital to make upfront investments which become profitable over time. Not even just literal investing, but investing in things like a more fuel efficient car, upgrading the insulation in your house/apartment to save on heating, buying non-perishables in bulk when there’s a good deal, buying a dish washer instead of hand washing…

    So many things that let you save tons of money in the long run, require relatively large upfront investments, that poor people can’t afford. That’s a big reason why poverty can be such an insidious vicious loop, that can be extremely hard to escape from.

    Two identical households, with identical income could have vastly different financial situations, just based on if their income was previously low, and they weren’t able to afford any of these investments, vs. If their income was previously high, having allowed them to previously make these large investments to reduce their long term monthly costs, and secure enough liquidity to be able to continue occasionally making these investments.




  • Also, even if you do decide to try it with a partner who wants to try your scheduled sex idea, I would definitely not start with sex.

    Start slowly, by for example offering to jerk him off, or allowing him to masturbate to your naked body. Try it out slowly, and then see if you’re both comfortable with, and (at least he is) actually enjoying this type and level of intimacy, before jumping straight to penetrative sex.

    It’s a very delicate affair, not just for you, but for the man as well. Having sex with a woman who is unresponsive, and just passively accepting, has a potential to make your partner subconsciously feel like they’re abusing, or even raping, you (even if you explicitly give consent, the subconscious is rarely swayed by rational arguments), which has the potential to lead to serious sexual trauma.


  • Scheduled sex is itself fine, however most men (at least those worth considering as a long term partner in the first place) derive much, if not most-all, of their enjoyment of sex of the human connection, and feeling the desire, arousal and pleasure of their partner.

    Sex with someone who isn’t enjoying it, and just passively accepting does not sound appealing at all to me, and I’d be weary around men who are open accepting such an arrangement, because imo it strays into areas of ambiguous consent.

    At that point, it’s probably similarly enjoyable, and much healthier, if your partner takes of their urges by masturbating. You could potentially even support a future partner in that, by e.g. gifting him solo male sex toys like fleshlights. It shows that you genuinely care about his pleasure, even if you’re not into actively participating in sex. This is for example a relationship I (as a cis man) could exist in perfectly happily.

    And whilst it’s obviously not for everyone, and it can be emotionally challenging, and requires a high degree of emotional maturity and communication, I would also at least consider the potential for an open relationship, where your partners urges could be satisfied without your participation.