Bjorn

We skew very progressive/social justicy (which not everyone can get on board with) and often try to drill down into the nuance of why various subjects/ideas/issues matter. I still find the occasional time when African-American feels like the better option to use, but generally I agree with you that it (and all the other hyphenate Americans) can make it sound like those groups are second class or somehow not fully American. It's also an interesting contrast with other historic nationality/ethnic identifiers, like people self identifying as Irish or Scottish, where no American is tacked on.

Sounds perfect, as I generally love horror that incorporates the surreal, or naturally questions the nature of reality. If I remember right, it had got middling reviews on Netflix (which I don't pay a lot of attention to, but I think the still affect how quickly I get around to watching something).

Babadook has been on my shortlist to watch for a bit. What's the style of horror in it? Jumpscares, psychological?

I think the Cookie Clicker thread is the only place I would say where the forum gets really....clickish

This topic is now for meta-commentary on the development of the Thumbs forums.

I'm almost 40 and I'm starting to catch myself referring to 30 year olds as kids (because some of them I knew when they were kids and I was an adult). On topic, another thing I like about resurrecting the specific game threads is seeing how the opinion/experience on a game changes as it leaves the zeitgeist, particularly when someone is playing it several years later. Another excellent thread was Zeus' journey through all the original Lucasarts adventure games, seeing his thoughts on them as he played many (or all?) of them for the first time and experienced the changes in design between them.

In seriousness (which I feel kinda obligated to post something now that I shit on the post with my first reply) I have pretty limited experience with F2P games. I've messed around with a few mobile games, and ended up deleting every single one, while paid games have stuck around. The grind vs mechanical enjoyment of many F2P mobile games are a complete mismatch for me. Now compare that to the 2 more traditional games I'm familiar with with F2P economies (Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer and Warframe), and in both those cases even though they clearly have a grind that can reach into the hundreds and hundreds of hours to reach late game content, the actual mechanics are so fun that I don't mind. And in both cases, the quality of the games convinced me to go ahead and spend money, something no F2P mobile game has ever done. TLDR - A good game is a good game whether it's F2P or not.

Haha, no, I don't feel new anymore, but sometimes something reminds me that some members have been around here for a long time. I honestly didn't realize that you had been around for less time than me. Edited to add: This was an interesting forum to join as well, as there were a couple of people I recognized from other places (SAM and Ben for sure), so it already felt more familiar than all strangers. I know that at least one other person has also recognized me from the old Joystiq days (same profile image, though different username).

I win. Sorry. Not Sorry.

It is a different structure than some other forums, but over time I've come to appreciate the particular culture and uniqueness of the Thumbs community. Each of the huge threads generally serves a good purpose for which individual threads don't. Life - Like mini-blogs where people talk about their lives. Babies are born, relationships end, jobs are learned and struggles revealed. Random Thought threads - Literally random things people think about during the day that don't necessarily feel like they need their own topic. Often used for smaller thoughts/ideas where taking the time to write something denser would prevent people (me for sure) from posting a new thread The Business of Video (Space) Games - All topics relevant to the business of games, big and small Plug Your Shit - A place for people to show off or advertise their projects (we have multiple writers and game designers who hang out here). Many forums frown on self promotion for commercial ventures, but that's the thread where they are welcome. Pretty much any game anyone wants to talk about has a thread (or you're free to make one). Like Clyde, I like having the history of people's thoughts on a game in one place to review if I want. I also personally think that MOST internet forums feel cliquish when you first join them, because there are new dynamics, people and norms to learn. I'm on the newish side versus some members (at a measly 2 years), some members have been around for 7+ years (I think, however old the thumbs are, there are members here from the beginning). Newcomers are always welcome, but this is also an established community of many people who have known each other and been friends for years. That familiarity will (almost) always feel daunting to some new people, just as it can in real life. Anyways, jump in, post, read, learn. It's a great forum. It's the last forum or gaming site I visit on a regular basis, as I've grown weary of most other communities or they've died off (RIP Joystiq).

In games with many different characters, I usually find myself gravitating to 5ish characters who I spend 90 percent of my time with, but ultimately I do want every single one just to have some variety to play around with. On Warframe, we've actually most been spending our Platinum (cash currency) on things to catapult us forward through the grind. Experience boosters, credit boosters, Forma to build our Dojo, and a couple of warframes a piece to give us some variety out of the gate. I think we've spent about $35 ish between 2 of us and we still have another $15ish left in plat. Now that we've got a great variety of equipment, we might start spending it on cosmetic stuff and progress at the normal rate.

I probably stated that poorly, it's got so much adroll and production stuff as a percentage of its length. Now that I'm paying attention to it, there are a lot of episodes where upwards of half the running time is not related to the content of the episode. I've gone back to skipping it, but it definitely stands out from everything else I listen to.

Let's try to take an example of one possible situation (something that does actually happen, across multiple cultures). 1) In my town is a university that only serves native peoples, it was set up to do that because of their historic lack of access to higher education (it's also built on the grounds of an institution the government used to try and forcibly assimilate native peoples years ago, but that's another story). This university holds art fairs, pow wows and other public events throughout the year, at which lots of white people go and buy art, learn about native history, meet and hang out with native peoples, etc. The people going to these events are (probably) not engaging in cultural appropriation. 2) A middle aged white woman opens up a store that sells art and holds classes based on native art/religion, but employs no native peoples, buys no products from native craftsman and seeks to profit from their image because it is popular and holds certain symbolism among certain crowds. She's taking someone else's culture to profit from it personally, while cutting off that culture/people from her activity. In her pursuit of her business, she's also likely making a number of both minor and major changes to the actual style, meaning and history of the work she is providing. However, her clients are likely to be ignorant of this and view her work as legitimate, and may even come to view actual native work as inferior or wrong in some way. A comparison like that can be scaled up or down in impact and severity, but the essential idea holds that someone from outside of a culture benefits from something primarily produced or associated with that culture, often in a way that benefits the outsider but has no benefit or even harms the originating culture. It doesn't have to be monetary. It can be as small as just benefiting a person's image. Appropriation isn't about the spread of ideas, it's about the sterilization of them to fit within the existing dominant culture, which is often the outcome regardless of what the intent was.

Yes, yes I do. Not folding and sorting them would result in a civil war in my house. It's one of the lady's little OCD things I indulge (and lord knows she indulges some of mine, so that's fair.

I think a large reason for my animosity towards socks is how much I hate having to fold and put them away. The fewer socks I wear, the less time I have to spend fucking with them on laundry day. I do most of our laundry. The lady loves socks, quite often wears them 24 hours a day. Owns a staggering variety of colors and sizes and material types. I swear she must wear every pair she owns in a couple of week span. I just spent as much time putting away socks as I did putting away most of the rest of our laundry. The result of this, after years, is I wear as few socks as humanly possible in my climate.

I just got around to reading this. Perfect timing in the dark of the night with a cold winter wind howling as background music to an otherwise quiet house. These kinds of stories, exploring the life of the ordinary dead, never stop being fascinating to me.

I didn't care for bathrobes until the lady bought me a really nice, plush one (like the type you'd use at an upscale sauna or something) for Christmas a few years ago. I've probably spent more time wearing it than I have any other single piece of clothing over the last few years, since I usually wear it at least some every day. It's warm, and enveloping, and soft. Just a great way to start a morning or end an evening.

I am a Baby Grandpa. I also sit around in my robe a lot.

Socks are the worst. I only wear them when absolutely necessary. Otherwise it's barefoot, or I'll put on some house slippers if it gets really cold, but only until my feet warm up.

I am Baby Breckon, confirmed.

I usually only get 2-3 wears out of my pants between washing, usually because I am the messiest eater/drinker and it's rare for me to got a few days without spilling something on myself.

Jeans are really recommended to be worn multiple times (up to 5 or 6 times) between washing. It extends their life and color, sometimes adding years of life to them.

I think this is one of those theory versus reality problems. In theory, I agree with you that anyone should be able to engage in activism that they care about in whatever capacity they think they are best suited. However, in practice, I don't think it works out well when people from the majority try to take leadership roles in causes that are most heavily identified with minority populations.

The Nemesis system would work wonderfully in a superhero game, particularly if you could combine the emergent element of it with some developer guidance. Instead of having fixed minibosses, each player's miniboss could in fact be a henchman that had developed through the Nemesis system. There would even be the possibility of having a new super villain being born through it with the right circumstances.

I listen at work, and can easily skip the intro and cut off the end. But after someone else complained about that earlier, I made it a point to listen to an entire episode. And yeah, 99 has more wasted/advertising time than any other podcast I have ever listened to.