I took a look at the Internet Discussion board again, and yeah, the topics in there are overwhelmingly negative. I definitely contributed to that, but I didn't realize it made up a majority of the topics (I usually only browse via Recent Posts). And there's lots and lots of other places to talk about that kind of stuff-- especially on the very platforms that are getting blasted.
That said, I'm personally interested in defunct or "historical" Internet services, and I've seen other people make posts about those. I'd like a place where I can still do this, so maybe they could get rolled into the existing boards? For example, historical virtual world discussion (like the topics about The Palace and TinyTIM) could get officially lumped in with video games, and stuff pertaining to the web (like the thread about Nintendo's old site) could fit in with Website Making? Just an idea, 'cause it seems excessive to make a whole new board for "Internet Discussion, But Old". :omg:k:
Ooooo I had a raccoon visit me last night! Does that count? They were trying to pull an entire 4 lb bag of cat food through the cat door when I caught them
I didn't get a pic, so here's an older one of a yard visitor!
I mentioned I've been playing Mr. Driller in another topic, and it's not a brain teaser puzzle game that deals with logic puzzles like Baba Is You, it's a more Tetris-like actiony puzzle game. The reason it's so addicting is because you can tangibly feel yourself getting better the more you play it, in a way that you kinda don't with other games. In other games, you make a lot of progress through scenario memorization and trial and error, but with these kind of quick-thinking action puzzle games, you get better by training your brain to think differently. You're able to read the board faster and recognize patterns quicker, and think more and more steps ahead. You're starting from scratch with a randomzied play field each time, but you're playing for longer and getting higher scores because your brain's getting more adept at the task.
One thing that's super satsifying about these Tetris kind of games, is when you have a long play session, and feel like you're hitting a wall and you're not getting any better. Then you go to sleep, and the next day you pick it up again... and crush your old score! There's something about just "sleeping on it" that really helps your brain lock the practice you've done, and you can see it in a super tangible way when you see your scores go up. It's all very addicting seeing your progress day by day!
As for "are we suckers"... well, yes, pretty much With this particular type of game, we're not really learning anything meaningful or becoming better at a task that has any actual application... but it does feel good anyway!
I never saw the point of Xbox until recently-- I was like, "why not just get a PC when it can do more?" But when my partner moved in and brought his Xbox with him, I was really impressed. Everything is so clean and streamlined! Game Pass is great, of course, and the backwards compatibility is also excellent. So is the streaming, both from games you haven't yet installed, and from streaming from console to remote device. And I love the new initiative to do away with console generations: where going forward, all games will work on all systems branded "XBox". So it doesn't matter what "series" you buy, it'll run (though it'll be up to the developers to optimize, obviously).
But yeah, I wish it was easier to publish your apps on there. XBox Creators Program still exists kinda, which lets you publish apps without any kind of approval process, but as of 2020 they're basically invisible if published this way and you need to have a direct link to them. And there's still id@xbox, which is fine, but it's really made for indie studios and not weekend coders; you have to pitch your project and get approval.
I'm figuring they'll come up with a new program for getting your apps on Xbox soon, in the same way they phased out the 360's "Xbox Live Indie Games" program when the XB1 came out. We're just in that weird transitional period where both generations are being supported, and it makes stuff like that messy.
Been playing a lot of Mr. Driller DrillLand recently, so I've got the music from that game stuck in my head. And man, the soundtrack slaps. Namco didn't have to go so hard on the soundtrack for a puzzle game, but they did, and it rules? I mean, these are the guys that'd do Katamari Damacy a couple years later, so it makes sense...
My old truck (RIP) only had a radio and a broken cassette deck, so back when I was driving that, I'd listen to a lot of NPR on the radio. My favorite program by far was Radiolab. It's a heavily-produced documentary-style show, and most of the episodes are exploring some kind of pop-sci topic. The presentation is phenomenal though; they manage to get you really invested in topics you ordinarily wouldn't give a second thought. I haven't listened in a while though, and I guess the main hosts left, so the show is on hiatus... but there's a lot of really interesting stuff in the back catalog!
That Active Worlds article is really cool-- it's surreal that he managed to find something that had been built days before he logged on. I found out about it through a Vinesauce stream, and the video for that has a couple million views, so maybe that's why there's still activity? It's just amazing that the servers are still up. I've also been on Worlds and There, and similarly, the servers are still up, with no word from the developers, no client working for modern PCs... just this eerie, abandoned, vast place that's been inexplicably presered.
If you just need to share a picture with your granny or order a pizza, you don't need a 3d world as an interface, it just gets in the way.
Man, so I've been watching this BBC docu-series called The Net that ran from 1994-1998, and I love how everyone seems to think this is the future. I really need to give The Net its own thread, but the series has so many interviews with dotcoms that are insistent that this is the way people want to access the Internet:
But yeah, to address the topic at large: the "metaverse" isn't a new idea, it's just a buzzword. People have been doing virtual worlds for as long as the Internet has been around, and Horizon Worlds (Facebook's current virtual world project) doesn't do anything new. I'd say that stuff like VRChat is leagues ahead of it, and also predated it by years. And as far as making something that feels like a coherent, persistent world, Second Life beats out VRChat, and SL is heckin' old at this point. The only thing that's new about the "metaverse" is the marketing: virtual worlds have always been a niche thing, and the people that are into them are REALLY into them. Facebook wants to change that by wiping the slate clean of the stigmas of the old virtual worlds. If they can rewrite history to say that they were the first to try this, nobody will draw comparisons to the failures and controversies of the virtual worlds that predated it. Their worst enemy is the historical trend that virtual worlds have attracted geeks and outcasts (that's me!), but as long as they keep insisting that the metaverse isn't a just virtual world, it's something new and different, they're hoping to attract a new, less tech-savvy market. And I mean, they succeeded in making VR incredibly accessible with their Quest line of headsets, but despite their aggressive "not for nerds" advertising, the Quest hasn't become the next Wii like they'd hoped. And this is after hemmoraging hundreds of billions of dollars in their efforts! So if the Quest hasn't even caught on, and only a percentage of Quest users are even going to hop on Horizon Worlds, what hope does the metaverse have? This will pass just like the silliness in the 90s did with their "shop the Internet in 3D" initiatives. But this time, we all get cheap VR headsets, since Facebook is so desperate to sell them at a loss. I mean, that's pretty cool, at least!
Edit: Oh, oops, I didn't realize this thread is like months old! I should have read the whole thing before replying
But more in regards to Zepeto, and "can a metaverse be fun and not be greedy," I've spent a lot of time on Tower Unite in the past few years. And keeping it from being greedy has always been a big part of their mission statement! You spend $20 for an account, and that's the only payment they'll take. There's nothing you can buy with real money, and you can't trade any of the items or in-game currencies with players, which means "off-site" cash trades don't happen. And you can make your own models and such, but as soon as it's uploaded, it shows up in a directory for everyone to use-- so there's no Gumroad model sales happening like VRChat. You still get a virtual space to build in, and there's lots of toys and bling to collect and show off on your avatar-- there's just nothing in Tower that equates to real money. It's basically the complete opposite of what these blockchain-driven, NFT-minting, "play-to-earn" metaverse projects are, and it warms my heart that stuff like Tower still exists.
Oh wow, this looks really nice! I haven't read it obbiously, but I might argue that it's better that it's "looking backwards without connecting that past much into the future," since it's probably aged better as a book.
It is really interesting that it was written in 2001, though. That would be like writing a book now that interviews people that worked on PS2 and Xbox games. They're not really in the realm of vintage yet, they're just old. So yeah, I can see why the people being interviewed would be like, "wow, you guys actually care about this old stuff?" It seems like an interesting read!
Hi, welcome! Sick website, been poking around it a bit. I have to say, I'm fascinated by very early Internet stuff-- the $10 an hour era-- and I'd love to hear about what that was like when you were online on your campus. The kinds of stuff you had access to, what other students were using it for, and so on. Do you already have a journal about that? If not, it's definitely something I'd read!
I never played Chakan, but I've heard tons of people sing its praises and did watch someone play through it. Looked incredibly difficult, but the unlimited tries is written into the game's plot in a super clever way. Honestly, the premise is really cool, and it works great in the context of a video game. I'll probably give it a try some day, but I'd need a cheat sheet for the potion combining stuff-- I wouldn't have the patience to puzzle it out myself
On a related note, I follow this daily t-shirt website called The Yetee, and they carry lots of limited-edition video game merch. A couple years ago they had a Chakan collection, and had a run of these:
Turns out the figures were all handmade by Robert Kraus, the original comic book artist that designed Chakan, which is incredibly endearing to me. Guy's still active online too, and he has his own Chakan website. He just seems like a cool nerd that really likes his creation, haha!
Oh man, I love this. The aesthetic is so good; the super stylized and clean character and object designs mashed up with the world's lo-fi photo textures is such a cool look. There's something really surreal and dreamy about it; how the textures lack definition, so you're having to use your imagination to fill in the blanks, and how everything is kind of vibrating and melting with that PS1 vfx shader. And it makes all the objects really pop, since they're very "stable" in comparison.
That's... a really good idea actually! I got my pin collection on a lanyard; I could grab another one of those cassettes, glue a jewelry pin onto it and sneak it on there. That'd be a really cool conversation starter, I'll have to think about doing that!
Something my partner picked up today. It's an NT cassette!
He got it new in box, the guy selling it didn't really know what it was. It's almost exactly the same size as an SD card; it's (as far as my research tells me) the smallest commercially produced cassette ever made! Too bad the microrecorders for them hover around a thousand dollars...
Posts: 100/24hrs 
Reminder: Forum messages stay readable for years! Keep yours high quality! 
Show Posts
With this particular type of game, we're not really learning anything meaningful or becoming better at a task that has any actual application... but it does feel good anyway!
