Random Thoughts Thread

[darsparx]

Yeah people who talking about how cryptic older games were have a point, but also tend to forget that they came packaged with fat ass instruction booklets, hint books, and even maps.

Yeah he went a little overboard.....esepcially when you consider what bone said. I mean good lord the first one came with a map that told you where the first two dungeons were and a story in the booklet(because they couldn't do it really at the time). Plus every zelda is a experimentation with different ways to do things, And forget him, skyward was fun as heck. But the waiting in OoT was a bit longer than it should've been and they should've made the 64 more powerful or something so the field could've been populated like they planned originally(from what I recall). They're not perfect but they're decent...and fun

[SNESdrunk]

Yeah people who talking about how cryptic older games were have a point, but also tend to forget that they came packaged with fat ass instruction booklets, hint books, and even maps.

Yeah he went a little overboard.....esepcially when you consider what bone said. I mean good lord the first one came with a map that told you where the first two dungeons were and a story in the booklet(because they couldn't do it really at the time).

The counter-point I've gotten for this elsewhere has been "Whatever, I never looked at them." Riiiight.

[Erik_Twice]

I hear a lot of people give the "Back then, they didn't over-explain stuff, they just threw you in and you had to figure it out yourself" talking point. That's REALLY over-romanticizing things. People actually read instruction books back then

There's a huge difference between telling you how stuff works, what enemies you can find in the game and that there are secrets and over-explaining things, which is what Egoraptor complains about.

The manual of The Legend of Zelda is mostly composed of brief explanations of what enemies and items do as well as how to check your inventory, pause the game and save your progress. It doesn't tell you to burn a specific bush or bomb walls, it just tells you there are secrets and to be on the lookout for secret passages. Its most useful information is the assortment of tips found at the bottom of the page, which ease the unsuspecting player into the Druaga-inspired logic of the game, simply because The Tower of Druaga relied very heavily on metagaming and the social experience of playing the game which couldn't quite be replicated in a home setting.

Compare this to all the modern Zeldas in which your companion keep telling you stuff like "OH, A SPIDER'S WEB, YOU CAN BURN THAT". Egoraptor made a very good comparison between the open world that allows you to check places you are not supposed to in the first place and the gating and far more linear "go there, do that" of the later games. Which applies as much to Zelda as it does to Fallout 3 and Wasteland.

[dsheinem]

I have now spent 11 of the last 16 hours writing.

Academic writing is so painfully slow. The other morning I wrote a non-academic piece of about 5,000 words "for fun" in a few hours in the morning. By contrast, it has taken me 11 hours so far to correctly align about 3,000 words in this essay for a scholarly journal.

such a time suck

[MrPopo]

I have now spent 11 of the last 16 hours writing.

Academic writing is so painfully slow. The other morning I wrote a non-academic piece of about 5,000 words "for fun" in a few hours in the morning. By contrast, it has taken me 11 hours so far to correctly align about 3,000 words in this essay for a scholarly journal.

such a time suck

I bet it would be faster if the credit Nazis didn't force you to cite your sources.

[Forlorn Drifter]

You can find tons of homes throughout the US made of cinder blocks. They usually are older though and in rundown neighborhoods.

Ah. They aren't a thing here on the Texas coast and the west coast of Florida is the only other place I've spent enough time to pay much attention to house construction.

Well, in coastal areas they aren't really the best choice in cases of hurricanes and the like. I know of a family who had a giant house that was intended to be passed down for generations since it was made of concrete, but it got destroyed in the Galveston hurricane way back when.

I think a large part of American building using so much wood is simply because of how it developed. Wood was much more plentiful and much more easily gained by the average person over the years, and with the amount of moving and spreading that went throughout the years, wood was just much more viable, and kind of stuck. Its also cheaper and more quickly made. Throw that in with Americans tending to move away from home and not passing houses down, and intending for a house to last longer than the life of the first owner isn't really thought about. Though, it really depends. In the Texas hill country, as an example, a large majority of new and old homes are built of rock because of how easily it can be gained, whether found loose or built. Areas around me with a more German population tend to have more rock houses too.

Plus, depending on the environment, concrete built homes can be quite uncomfortable. Concrete houses without air conditioning in the heat can be a bitch, and not being able to properly heat a concrete house can suck too.

[fastbilly1]

Plus, depending on the environment, concrete built homes can be quite uncomfortable. Concrete houses without air conditioning in the heat can be a bitch, and not being able to properly heat a concrete house can suck too.

Aint that the truth. Concrete house in 90F weather with 90% humidity means your house is a broiler. Well unless you are using something crazy expensive like Insulated Concrete Forms or you have completely sealed the concrete on both sides - also crazy expensive.

[Hobie-wan]

What shocks me about American houses is how energy-inefficient they are. You need these huge boilers just to keep the house warm and there are no double windows on sight meaning the heat leaks out of every room through them. Weird

My parents went nuts with insulation when building their house. Their power bill is less for their 2 story decent sized house is less than it is for my crappily insulated apartment.

[RCBH928]

Plus, depending on the environment, concrete built homes can be quite uncomfortable. Concrete houses without air conditioning in the heat can be a bitch, and not being able to properly heat a concrete house can suck too.

A room without an air conditioner around here is consider an unliveable environment (not kidding)

In our concrete homes, I really have a hard time knowing if it is hot, cold, or sandy outside. As long as you stay in, you are protected from the weather whatever it is.

[alienjesus]

Plus, depending on the environment, concrete built homes can be quite uncomfortable. Concrete houses without air conditioning in the heat can be a bitch, and not being able to properly heat a concrete house can suck too.

Aint that the truth. Concrete house in 90F weather with 90% humidity means your house is a broiler. Well unless you are using something crazy expensive like Insulated Concrete Forms or you have completely sealed the concrete on both sides - also crazy expensive.

Yeah, it makes sense for people like ZeroAX who live in Greece (which I am assured is known for it's constant blizzards and hyperthermia risking climates, but for those of you who live in a warm place it's stupid.