makes community about video game arguments.

then makes community about not arguing with me.

Don’t underestimate the power of shitposting.

That said, the Fediverse products are still behind in features, polish and ease-of-use. The mainstream prizes these surface-level things more than any others. It will take years of development still to fully catch up in that regard. So, it’s the long-haul.

It has its uses, helpful for remembering a short sequence of numbers for instance, or practicing a specific dialogue line that is going to be important, like for a job interview or something where you want a solid and confident delivery. But generally speaking I prefer it quiet, makes it infinitely easier to pay attention to my surroundings.

Meditation is basically the practice of learning how to turn it off at will. Can take awhile, it doesn’t always seem to like being quiet. It also turns off other times though, like when you’re suddenly startled for instance.

Very true. I simply see that as a pro, and not a con, and put the onus to address the core problem of some players potentially feeling bad on the DM’s shoulders, with creative solutions. I understand that is asking a whole hell of a lot, but I think its worth it.

One thing old school DnD did to address it was to give martials leadership mechanics. While the wizard could destroy an army if he wanted, he lacked mechanics for assembling and leading one well, which were given to a fighter.

The concept of a well-balanced DnD really bothers me. I do not think balance should be a core design goal. The Wish spell is horribly unbalanced, and should be. I think its representation of endless possibilities and horrifying consequences is emblematic of the spirit of the game itself, rooted in the olden days of DnD, when the DM was really doing his absolute best to TPK his party in a more competitive, adversarial, board-game-esque setup.

The lack of balance in the older versions of the game had benefits. A player who wished less engagement with the game mechanics could play a fighter, where someone who wanted a larger amount could play a wizard.

Balance in and of itself is not a problem, but unless done very carefully with a lot of attention paid to how that balance is arrived at, it’s just too easy to make everything feel very samey. Like a video game that becomes so well balanced that the awesome laser rifle is a perfectly balanced option against some other guys bow and arrow, making it all start to feel hollow and soulless. Like a fighting game that does not acknowledge that Green Arrow and Wonder Woman really aren’t actually in the same league, to be able to fairly fight each other in an immersive way.

Starcraft and Helldivers 2 managed to arrive at a degree of balance that still feels wholesome and maintains distinction, but they’re very much the exceptions to the rule. It’s such a difficult thing that the vast majority of times its attempted, it results in some sort of failure. Personally, I prefer a different route, where devs simply embrace the inherent imbalance, and allow people to do broken-ass things that might be fun, and allow other options to exist that are just plain bad. I see nothing wrong with this outside of competitive, pvp style genres.

Well, buying a house is smart at least. And nothing wrong with a nice, reliable automobile either.

I haven’t complained about a single thing. All I did was try to give you an idea that you may not have thought of, and then make an amusing observation and answer a question of yours.

Not my fault if it bothered you.

I don’t disagree with you at all. I just thought that maybe you hadn’t considered that you don’t have to read something if you suspect you may not like it. This doesn’t occur to everyone, you see.

So, since I’m not going somewhere and then complaining about going there, my actions are reasonable and normal. Since you clicked on the post, and then complained about what it clearly was going to be about, yours are not. Thus, we are not the same, and your “yea you too” comment simply made no sense.

Not that any of this is particularly surprising on the internet.

Yes, but I’m not complaining about being tired of reading comments about this.

You didn’t have to click on this post.

Many people like simplistic garbage. You can’t convince them to like something better, as that creates demands on them to grow as a person, when they likely have other priorities in their lives that demand their attention more forcefully.

This is why McDonalds is the worlds most successful restaurant. Not because it is good, but because it is undemanding.

So, when people think we can pull users from the McDonalds crowd with superior quality, it just makes me laugh.

Sounds like a correlation. Note, I’m not saying content quantity has no impact. I said several comments ago it is a factor. So, that it means I think it is a factor. It’s just one though.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s an important one too. But not the most important imo. It is, however, one we can influence, so that’s nice.

Need more cat pics communities.

Yes, I think we can agree on that. Our disagreement involves what will bring them, I do not think more content alone would be sufficient.

Your assessment of Lemmy content seems to indicate you follow news and Fediverse communities.

Truly diverse content will come with the users, the users make the content, not the content making the users. You need something with the polish, simplicity and ease-of-use the average public expects though.

Makes some sense, but market ownership doesn’t only go up, it goes down too. Services absolutely have downturns as well, and that’s what we’re really relying on. Like, reddits troubles the past year, for instance.

Also, note, we still have user-facing issues to resolve. This platform in its current form has a limited appeal to non-techy people. That won’t change until the front-end gets more development and features. As it stands, average non-techy user pokes around a little bit and goes “ehhhh”, and it’s not necessarily due to a lack of content. That’s just a singular factor.

In what way is slow growth incompatible with anything that requires network effects?

Slow, steady and sustainable growth through having a quality product.

That’d work I suppose.

Making a community and expecting everyone else to do the work for you isn’t how these things usually work, after the first few months of the service anyway. You gotta have the people that want to make the content first, which usually means you need to do the initial posting yourself to get the ball rolling.

This is why we get so many created communities with a handful of subscribers and no posts. It’s not the idea that makes a community, it’s the posters. The content creators.

Internet communities generally need to be led from the front, not from the rear. It’d be like starting a new business but not wanting to do any of the tasks yourself.

Honestly, I think the Beehaw admin might’ve simply nailed it when they talked about vision. There’s nothing inherently wrong with not wanting to be the lead over a project having hundreds of thousands or millions of people involved. That’s not inherently necessary to always grow.

I hate to bring political/economic ideology into this, but I’m reminded of Marxist philosophy. In that ideology, properly realized, there are no huge, massively-scaled organizations that lead top-down. Only smaller independent ones that work cooperatively, nothing much bigger than a city-state. The idea of endlessly-growing scale being beneficial is generally a capitalist value.

The ones making the mistake could be us, if we misunderstood the devs real wishes. We would just be projecting onto them, with our own ambitions and goals. That’s not actually healthy.