JCPhoenix

@JCPhoenix@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Earthbound / Mother⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s certainly a fan theory, but that’s not a confirmed thing by any means. The location of the last battles does look the inside of a vagina, looking towards the cervix, but that’s supposedly only a coincidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Earthbound / Mother⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Earthbound was probably the first game I was ever really enamored with. Even today, it’s definitely one of my favorite games ever. And it’s probably the first JRPG I ever played, and it’s what started me down a long path of JRPGs.

  My parents got me a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, and I remember reading about the game there and wanting to play it. They didn’t buy it for me when it came out, but I did rent it from Blockbluster a few times. And they did eventually buy it for me for Christmas. It even came with the strategy guide!

  Everything about the game was great. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was insanely accessible, even to a then 7-8yo kid like me. JRPGs tend to be darker and complex (though not always). But Earthbound still had complexity, but it wasn’t darker. Yes these kids were having to save the world from destruction, but the story was told in an upbeat, fun way. And it was just the right amount of complexity.

  Earthbound is also probably the first game I ever beat. Certainly the first JRPG.

  I did try the fan-translation of Mother 3. I didn’t end up finishing it. I got close, but it was far too depressing and different from EB. The game was beautifully done (as was the player-made strategy guide!), but I just couldn’t really get into the story and characters. Just wasn’t for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 14th⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Mainly playing Rimworld, FF7 Rebirth, and a little bit of the Ace Attorney Apollo Justice Trilogy. Also finished the visual Coffee Talk last night.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I know some airports have similar Amazon convenience stores. But they’re not staffless; there’s still at least one person at the exit. Sometimes even another person at the entrance. Yeah it’s quick for me since I’m not waiting in a line or being rung up (though I rarely see people in them compared to the traditional convenience stores), but is the company really saving money? Not that I really care if they are or not, but seems pointless if they still have to staff the stores.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are game studios suddenly abandoning Black developers?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Final Fantasy XIII had Sazh Katzroy. He’s not the main character (that’d be Lightning), but he is a playable character right from the get-go. He has his own storylines as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can Reddit—the Internet’s Greatest Authenticity Machine—Survive Its Own IPO?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There will always be new, perhaps younger, users who come through who don’t know what it was like before. And of course, there will always be more veteran users who perhaps don’t care. I care that reddit is going to shit, but I’m still on it (less than pre-APIgate though). On the other hand, my brother who’s been on reddit almost as long as me, doesn’t care. As long as gets his memes or whatever else he uses reddit for, he’ll be there. He barely knew about that protests last summer.

  It seems that the only way a social media actually collapses is when the company itself pulls the plug. Twitter has been circling the drain since Elon bought it, but it’s still one of the main nodes of information from companies, governments, journalists, and just regular people. It’s still used by millions of people daily, even if it’s also used by millions of bots, too. Google+ was in a sad state for a bit, but there were still users. It only died when Google finally shut it down. I think Vine was in a similar situation back in the day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Social media lobby group sues US State for protecting children from Meta, TikTok and Snapchat⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Doesn’t COPPA already require this for children under 13? This state bill raises it to under 16.

  I guess it comes down to the particulars. Is there something more onerous in the Ohio bill than in COPPA? Because I don’t think I’ve heard of any company seriously getting mad that COPPA is a thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨5+ man group games⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
  • Barotrauma. Game can be challenging and serious, but all ridiculously hilarious and off the walls, often in the same playthrough.
  • Valheim.
  • Project Zomboid. You might want to consider upping some of the difficulty with more players, though. More zombies, for example.
  • Minecraft.
  • Planetside 2. Squad/platoon up and just roll around together. The learning curve, however, can be surprisingly high.
  • Battlebit Remastered.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m almost 37. I remember as a kid being my parents’ "navigator’ on family road trips with the map. My parents still carry an atlas in their cars, but ofc, they’re using GPS on their phones/cars like anyone else.

  As far as actual pre-Internet, I was on the Internet at a pretty young age (back then). I think was 8 or 9 when my dad signed us up for AOL. Roughly 1995/1996. And I was all over that (only briefly did he put a filter on my account). So I don’t have a whole lot of experience truly being pre-Internet. I was playing online PC games while my friends were playing on the N64 or whatever.

  As a kid playing in the neighborhood, I either called my parents from my friends’ houses (which I rarely did to my mom’s anger) or periodically stopped back home. Or at the very least, be back before the streetlights came on.

  I had a cell phone by 8th/9th grade, esp since I was involved in band and other activities. I think I used pay phone maybe once before that? And then never again.

  I was driving before GPS was widely available on phones (which existed pre-smartphone), but you just printed out MapQuest directions before leaving. Which obviously relied on the Internet.

  So yeah, I don’t have much experience pre-Internet, really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that’s the case. Like they’re not unheard of here in the US. Like I could go out to the store right now and buy one. Wal-Mart or Target or a home goods store still sell htem. A lot of schools and colleges still have them in classrooms. But at home or in the office, I suspect they’re more decorative than anything. Like all clocks in my place are digital. The only analog clock I have would be a watch in some box that I have that I never wear. I think my parents have one, like a small mantlepiece one. Otherwise, everything else is digital.

  Analog watches are probably the most common encounter. But with so many, including me, using smartwatches, how common are they actually?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The fall of Firefox: Mozilla's once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I worked at a small MSP 2020-2021. Some of our customers needed access to government sites for reporting. The fact that some of these pages still had the “Best Viewed in Internet Explorer” badge or language was sad and frightening. Luckily there’s browser compatibility mode in Edge (which as you mentioned is probably just changing the user agent string), but still. My dad works in govt IT and even he’s encountered internal sites that require ActiveX. He has to sometimes figure out workarounds.

  I did have one medical client that used some web charting/reporting platform. And it required a specific, long outdated version of Firefox. We had to intentionally turn off updates in Firefox so they could access it. Anything newer than that version and the site wouldn’t load. It was very strange.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clicks is a BlackBerry-style iPhone keyboard case designed for creators⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Trackball or bust.