Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm not sure what to make of this: Seinfeld, if Seinfeld were AI-generated and starring AI.

https://www.twitch.tv/watchmeforever

It's.... mesmerizing, if nothing else.  I am amused at how the AI blocks the characters. Their biomechanics are also questionable.

So my shiny new EV is actually now scheduled for delivery in a few more weeks*.

I'm curious if there are any others here that have made the transition to full EV.  Figure if so, we have a thread to discuss impressions, impact on life, etc.

For example, both my mother and my mother-in-law are skeptical of full electric.

I'm tempted to take the EV on the pending Thanksgiving trip.  Would be interesting - it could very well be snowing that time of year on the route.  It's 210 miles one way; my EV sticker range is 274 miles, but I have no real-world experience yet to know if it's conservative like the gasoline stickers, especially given EVs do better in stop-and-go than on highway.

There's a fast charging station 100 miles from my home on the route we'd take, but not really anything at the destination (although maps I've seen indicate there are a few L2 stations close to where we're staying, so I could potentially top it up a little).  So I'm thinking it might be worth a stop 100 miles in, then if I don't do much incidental driving while at the destination, I should have the 220 miles I'd need to get back to the fast charging station to top up for the 100 miles home.

I'd like to hear if anyone else has done a similar trip.  I'm not worried about taking a 45 minute break to recover 100 or 200 miles; I'll have my wife and 2 kids in the car, so that's like nothing to stop for food and restroom.  How busy are charge stations? Stuff like that...

Is it a faux pas to talk about console-only games²?  Horizon Forbidden West has been released!

I've been looking forward to this for a loooong time.  I imagine I can't be alone in this forum liking this series.  I have also intentionally been avoiding almost all media coverage of it because spoilers in this franchise would be seriously annoying.  It's also a challenge because my six-year-old son also loves the game and is way ahead of me in the storyline. He will say "Dad! I just..." and I have to cover my ears and go "la la la no spoilers!"

If you're not familiar with the series - it's one of the best action-RPGs I've ever played over the course of three decades.  Good game mechanics, an impeccably realized world (I'm not talking technical - I'm talking about believable social structures, realistic characters, settlements that look like settlements would actually look, NPCs that behave for the most part like people behave, worldbuilding through discovery, not narration).  The character acting and writing is also superb - I have yet to come across a protagonist or antagonist which doesn't provoke a real response.

So far my only gripes are too-abrupt¹ cuts during cinematics (which are *not* pre-rendered, at least on PS5; you can see distant detail assets filling in during the cutscene!), one NPC that was catatonic staring off into the distance despite having an interaction icon, and the a song that played during the delayed opening credits had lyrics in it (which I always feel is thematically odd - don't need no lyrics to convey emotion folks).  Oh and the language is a little stronger; the original only had some damns, but the new one already has dropped a few s-words.  Not the best for my 6-year old, but it's an opportunity to explain about appropriate language.

An example of how aware the developers are of their audience: they addressed the issue of "how do we make this a sequel and start a well-developed character over at level one" very well.  A notes early on in the game to your character "so... you seem to be traveling light these days" and your character goes "yeah, I ran into some... trouble and lost my equipment."  It is just reasonable enough, and makes you not have to suspend disbelief.  They also start you off with some combat moves that were previously unlocked skills so you can do some good stuff - but the enemies are stronger so even though you have your "moves" it still feels like a progression, rather than a regression.  Although I am missing my fire arrows and sharpshot bow more than anything else.

¹ It's like a literal one-frame cut; no transition. I think it's because of technical issues, because it's not on all cuts - just some of them.

EDIT:
²So apparently Horizon Zero Dawn is available (for Windows) on Steam.  I totally recommend it wholeheartedly. Worth every penny!

So this comes up here and there in other threads, so rather than the massive rails that be lost in those threads, it seems prudent to start a dedicated thread.

The goal of this thread is to foster Bible discussion - let's keep it focused on the Christian Bible.  I think we can include the Aprocrypha too as that's interesting (and to be honest, I know very little about it, so I'm up for some learnin'!).  I don't want to veer off into, say, the Book of Mormon though (I'm pretty sure they count that as separate from the Bible anyway).

Groundrules: this is about discussing Biblical topics and thoughts on grand themes.  It's not about comparative religion or about if it's true, a myth, or whatever - just focus on the book.  Discussing variations between translations is fair game.   Keep it civil, keep it focused, and I think we can avoid locks and bans.


Topic the First:  Job.  We started some brief stuff in the WTF thread regarding Job and its relation to the problem of evil, and how it fits in with various overall themes of the old and new testaments.

I've been working for quite some time on a "hobby" project game, and have a fair amount of infrastructure in place.  But for the life of me I can't decide on what "tech level" to use as well as "point of view".

Some background: this is another resource gathering, world-building game, although I have done some things that make it more than "yet another" DF, Minecraft, Wurm, etc. clone*.

By "tech level" I mean - stone age? Medieval? High-tech?  The basic engine would work for any of the above.  But, before someone says, "why not allow any of them?", part of the game is interaction between different worlds, and I don't want to have complex meta-rules for managing interactions between high-tech versus low-tech worlds.

But, there are pros and cons: High tech makes it easier to justify world interaction (can do it with tech, not with supernatural forces), but harder to justify why there would be so little infrastructure in the world.  "Low" tech fits better with the narrative, but needs some kind of hocus-pocus to provide inter-world interactions.

The other dilemma I have is deciding a point of view. First person? Squad? "Overlord" (e.g., DF)?  I'm almost leaning toward DF-type, but perhaps with an option to specify a squad for micromanagement (even though this makes economy somewhat more difficult).

Thoughts? What's popular? What would be fun and "different" from the numerous other options out there? Criticisms? Calls for more information?

*Mostly these are in world shape, economy, resource distribution, and simulation elements.