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Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

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101–110 of 176 posts

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#101
post #5

> But those games are about stretching and challenging him to fit the mold of the game’s demands. When we play Minecraft together, the direction of his development, and thus our relationship, is reversed: He converts the world into expressions of his own fantasies and dreams. And by letting me enter and explore those dream worlds with him, I come to understand him in a way that the games from my childhood do not. Is…

I played a lot of red alert as a kid, and flight simulators, but honestly, calling the first 'creative', and the second 'open world' is ridiculous. They were nice games - but if you play them today, you'll see how far games have come. You can literally build a computer in Minecraft. I don't like the game, don't like that the developer ripped off the idea, and find the art obnoxious - but you have to admit, it's basic…

RAedit (the Red Alert game editor) was simple enough for a child to use, and powerful enough to basically build your own RTS. I spent hours designing maps for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 as a kid. It was really not that different from how I played Minecraft as an adult.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#102

I tried Minecraft for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. Together with my 5 year old son. He loved it, and I liked it too, but we really didn't get very far - the moment night fell, we got brutally slaughtered by zombies or whatever. Respawning only made things worse, because later nights seemed to bring stronger attackers. I played some Quake back in the day, it's not like 3d games are totally new to me. Sti…

Spend night underground, mining. There won't be any enemies as long as you put up enough torches and don't explore natural caves.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#103

I tried Minecraft for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. Together with my 5 year old son. He loved it, and I liked it too, but we really didn't get very far - the moment night fell, we got brutally slaughtered by zombies or whatever. Respawning only made things worse, because later nights seemed to bring stronger attackers. I played some Quake back in the day, it's not like 3d games are totally new to me. Sti…

This series, by Paul Soares, is the canonical Minecraft how-to.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7326EF82122776A9

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#104
post #97
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put a finer point on it, most people still believe that (monetarily sovereign) governments are constrained by their income and by the willingness of lenders to accommodate government debt. But that view is incorrect: the real constraint to government spending is only the economy's real capacity for production. Another way to think of it is that the real constraint to government spending is inflation (because exces…

Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective. Couple of questions: - Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment? - Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time? - Where can I read more about this?

My naive question is why so few governments or central banks tried implementing QE as helicopter money, rather than for bond purchases. It seems to my (undergrad-only econ) perspective that the person in the street is far more likely to put the money to use in the economy.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#105
post #41
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this a Minecraft PR Piece? Because the games of my childhood were not just action games of the NES. You accuse this of being a paid plant because you can’t imagine that someone played different games than you as a child?! > RTS made you build bases from scratch and react to impending waves of enemies until you finally could crush them. Flight simulators were all about "open world" since you could have missions a…

> You accuse this of being a paid plant because you can’t imagine that someone played different games than you as a child?! I accuse them of making a very simplistic comparison against "old video games" while that person does not seem to have much exposure in terms of video games genres in the first place. Either they are ignorant or dishonest. It's difficult to be ignorant these days with the mass of information on…

The whole point of the article is that it's about the author's experience of video games compared to his son's. It's clearly not meant to be a comprehensive comparison of games of his generation and now.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#106
I grew up playing computer games with my father. He was terrible at the actual button pressing so I would drive and he would be responsible for the logistics (and often for removing the copyright cruft, as these games were pirated in USSR). It was kind of like buddy programming. I don't think we would bond as much if we played on separate computers.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#107
post #13

There should be more collaborative games rather than competitive games. One of my fondest memories is playing Quake 2 in COOP mode at a LAN Party back in the 90s getting stuck in a mineshaft with the group way past midnight. Extremely immersive and bonding experience. We still talk about this moment years later.

I can warmly recommend Warframe for that coop shooter feeling. :)

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#108
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I think it's a bit of a tragedy that the most successful game since Doom was a copycat. It's also a shame that really creative game-makers, like ToadyOne or Zach, tend to not do that well - while Notch, who basically copied an entire game, presumably having even read the source code, is now made out of money. I've no idea about the exact mechanics of the copying - whether he just copied the idea, or copied th…

It's true they make less money, but I think ToadyOne is happier than Notch is. I don't know that Notch is as happy with the way things turned out as you imply.

[deleted]

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#109
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, this is a very interesting (and intriguing) perspective. Couple of questions: - Does this mean that there’s a case for QE to be made permanent under a low-inflation environment? - Under this model, govermnents would be directly responsible for the allocation of the newly created money. How can this not lead to a depressed economic output over time? - Where can I read more about this?

My naive question is why so few governments or central banks tried implementing QE as helicopter money, rather than for bond purchases. It seems to my (undergrad-only econ) perspective that the person in the street is far more likely to put the money to use in the economy.

Bond purchases or helicopter money is essentially the same thing.

1) The government sprays more money around in welfare and salaries than they raise through taxes

2) The government issues bonds

3) The central bank prints money to buy those bonds

It's equivalent to the central bank printing money to pay for welfare programs and salaries (which go to common people in the streets)

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#110
post #28
post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

Resource management in video games is a skill that I'm sure transfers to real world resource management. Apart from the simulators you mention strategy games like age of empires and red alert also teach about it. Some weeks ago a co-worker told me something similar to what you share, how he learned about resources while playing SimCity. He also said his younger sister asked him "If people doesn't have money, why does…

What? When is monetary policy ever an issue in SimCity? How does managing a city's resources, revenue, or budget teach you anything about that?
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