sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Granted, but haven't you heard of all these studies about UAPs, Unidentified Arial Phenomena? The Air Force & NASA have been studying them. UAPs are like UFOs, but much more serious. Now the Red Chinese claim to be talking with their home planet from the Sky Eye radio telescope in Guizhou. I'll bet they're saying mean things about us.

LOL.  Luckily I wasn't drinking something while I read it.  

-SKA

VR Tabletop role playing

I have spent about half of my adult working life in ‘non-family’ duty stations missing my kids growing up. Online games and roleplaying have helped me stay connected with my family. For a few years I played D&D with a group here on the Acaeum, using simple screen sharing tools. That was so much fun, and I have wonderful memories of those games.

With my children, they were not as enthusiastic to play pen and paper games online, that was reserved for holidays at home (and they all played – I helped create a new generation of tabletop gamers – mostly D&D). With my boys, I think we started with Wizards 101 when they were young, later MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online and most recently Green Hell. Couldn’t keep my children’s attention for 2 minutes on a phone call, but interacted with them and chatted for hours through online games on opposite sides of the world.

This weekend for the first time I played an online VR D&D type game with my eldest son (who is now 23) called Demeo. It was a lot of fun. Sitting around a gaming table in VR and moving miniatures around the board. It is rather simple compared to pen and paper roleplaying with a DM. I suppose a bit more like “Dungeon!” with an AI playing the DM, but wow it opened my eyes to the potential of VR as a gaming platform. I might have to buy VR headsets for my other two boys!

Just thought I would post this as curious as to the experience of others here with VR and pen and paper / tabletop RPGs.

It is the first VR tabletop multi-played game I have tried, so nothing to compare it to, but yes, I would recommend it. The first game (3 levels) we played took us 2.5 hours and I didn’t notice the time pass. We were completely engaged in the game. We played with two, but you can have up to four players.

I have played quite a few other VR titles. From what I have seen, 90% of VR titles seem to have problems: lagging, exaggerated movement that induces nausea, freezing. The best titles (maybe 10%) have none of these problems and run seamlessly. Demeo is definitely in this top 10% in that gives a very clear picture and runs flawlessly.

I think the only negative was that I started getting a tired neck from looking down at the board with the headset. I read you can tilt the board so I will look into that (I have the earlier version of the HTC Vive, my son has the HP reverb G2).

In terms of the content, I think they have five or six different adventures. There is great re-playability as each time you play, you would get a different experience as you can use different characters / skills etc. Must have great potential though. The feedback thread on steam is full of people suggesting different ideas for scenarios and ways the game can be improved. I get the impression Demeo is a new benchmark in a rapidly developing field.

Curious that Nicole Carpenter’s article doesn’t use the gender pronouns of those being discussed. Is that because Polygon have a policy of ignoring gender preferences, or is it Nicole’s choice to downplay people’s gender choices? Pot, meet Kettle.

On the flip side, maybe a company that has made so much money out of encouraging people to imagine killing, should be celebrated for not ‘actually’ encouraging killing in the real world. Maybe celebrating life rather than wishing for the right to kill would be healthier? Who knows what goes on in people’s heads, eh?

Who cares? Smoke and mirrors. It’s a great distraction. Keeps all the brain dead engages. Keeps all the peasants divided. Creates the banner that a party needs to rally behind if the next election. And still they do nothing to stop themselves slipping into poverty. I wonder when they will realise that righteousness and vitriol cannot put food in their stomachs?

sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Is it possible to keep reality away from our insular little world of fantasy? Apparently not:
Wizards of the Coast workers object to Hasbro’s abortion rights response - Polygon

These people should be more worried about putting out a product that will sell when recession hits (some are saying it's already here).  This is noise that I can live without especially when it comes to my entertainment dollars.  

-SKA

I've been following too. Exciting times!

On another note, because this cropped up only a few weeks ago, another desperate simp went shooting in the US.
They don’t have mass shootings in countries without public gun ownership, and still people say it has nothing to do with gun ownership.

Last time the kids mum said the kid had his reasons. This time the dad says he has no regrets buying his kid guns. Maybe if you can’t agree on gun control, you could agree to pass a law criminalising raising a mass murderer. Then no-one need worry, and if some kid does go postal, you round up his parents and jail them for 20. The kid may well hate his parents and not give a shit anyways, but the parents might take their child rearing more seriously, and may respond to red flags differently. Like, if your kid comes home with a ladies hair-do and tats on his face, you don’t suggest to your wife that a father-son gun range bonding session might help.

The US averages one mass shooting every three to four weeks over the past two years. Any guesses where the next one will be? What are the odds it’ll happen in the next four weeks?

Still, being an outsider looking in, the link between gun ownership and mass killings is clear.

That all said, I did go to a local gun show in Orlando, once (I was there because an ex liked mice.) It was great. And if I lived in a country where people were allowed to shoot other people up in public, I’d want to carry too. So I can understand the fear people have about living in a society without guns.

I get the arguments for personal self defence. I won’t dispute them, particularly in a country where criminals carry guns. I also have no truck with cops blowing holes in people who decide they want a Police chase, or thing its a good idea to fight or threaten them. If they don’t understand slow steady clear nothing in a world where cops who make mistakes dies, then if they die, they deserve it. It’s called natural selection.

What I don’t understand is why no-one gives a damn about regular monthly mass shootings. Every month without fail. Is it because it makes for good TV ratings and keeps society fractured? There are so many solutions but choosing between holding parents responsible for their children, or sellers for their choices to make a sale, of public servants for their decisions to grant a license, instead of holding enablers responsible citizens seem to prefer continued the dead children option.

In the most recent case, the whole family knew of red flag incidents and concealed them. Every one of them. Why not round the whole extended family up and hold them in prison for 18 month while you get to the bottom of why they wanted their family member active? Take any young kids into the care system and round up the whole family and charge them for failure to alter authorities as to his crimes.

If you went after the entire family in a mass shooting, there would be less mass shootings because families could be relied upon to either regulate who among them were capable of being responsible gun owners, or end up in jail.

The down side of course, if there were less mass shootings, is there would be lower gun sales, and less TV time dedicated to it, so there are two groups who are heavily incentivised to maintain the status quo.

In a society where you have a choice (currently) to either own a gun or not own a gun, one has to wonder why anyone should choose not to protect their family even if they are just going shopping. A choice to relinquish your responsibility to protect your family can have fatal consequences as many seem to discover. It’s almost like they never watched the news before and didn’t realise these sorts of things could happen.

Hey ho. I’m sure there will be another mass killing next month. Is it really a price worth paying?

Almost 65% of burglaries in the UK happen with someone at home.  Its about 25% in the USA.

This is very real for me. Many years ago I left a window open for a cat one night and in the morning discovered my laptop and a few other things had been stolen. The burglar had been in the house during the night with me asleep upstairs. Now, this was long ago before people carried knives regularly in the streets. But it left me absolutely paranoid about making sure my doors and windows are locked at night before I can relax enough to sleep.

Not that I’d want to blow the guy away. But I get where you’re coming from. Easier to protect yourself from a guy with a knife if you’ve got a Glock under on your nightstand.

You can blame mass shootings squarely on the media. Sensationalizing these things makes it attractive to the ME generation and people who have come unhinged. Blaming the ease of obtaining guns is ludicrous, since there are many countries where it is just as easy or easier, and they don't have the same incidents.

I am in the middle of writing up a petition for NH to have all details of a criminal case kept from the public until AFTER a trial. People are now tried in the court of public opinion, and the media puts their spin on it, uncaring of the lack of justice. There is zero reason to publish a police log of ARRESTS, they are NOT convictions. But if someone is arrested for domestic violence, they are immediately guilty in the public eye and that stays. You know what isn't published? A list of trial results.
Also, the penalties for crimes in the US are laughable.

At the end of the day, the media has done an incredible amount of damage to the country in the name of selling clicks.