201–210 of 312 posts
It’s also basically engineering catnip, consider yourself warned.
For those who are interested, it’s the stated goal of the devs to never put the game on sale. They think it’s worth $30, and they intend to sell it for $30. So if you’re interested, don’t wait for a sale, buy it now!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that people have finite bandwidth but we are talking about people investing in skills that are useful for the primary function of their job. It’s the first thing to consider if you want to improve your productivity at work.
Pain in your spine, constant headaches or lung problems would also hurt work productivity. Focusing on first-order problems could lead to gains both at work and home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the exact same way. It's interesting that you mention Rimworld - I dived into Rimworld when I first got it and came to appreciate the way little things add up in that game and make the simulation more interesting (be it positive or negative). The complicated UI is slowly unraveled and becomes intuitive as you learn the game because there are simple feedback mechanisms for actions that affect your colonists. Ev…
Yes, Rimworld is easier to get into for many. "Survive" is a way more obvious and natural goal. But once I got more and more into the details, Rimworld was the one frustrating me. I probably just despise this kind of "Storyteller" aka Event choosen by Wealth & RNG. This ruined the fun for me and is probably the reason I played Factorio easily 10 times as long as Rimworld. The closest Factory has to that is the pollut…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When those tools’ lifecycle is 2 years at most fewer people are willing invest the effort to master them and instead learn on a need basis. If there was a guaranteed lifecycle the benefits would indeed compound and pay off handsomely. For example I worked on an Angular project and invested a bit of time to learn the framework and certain libraries. I completed the project and it was successful, but my new projects ar…
I'd argue that Angular is just a framework and the tool is whatever you use to hammer your angular code together. Your text editor/IDE of choice will probably outlast your use of Angular and therefore OP would be suggesting it is worth the time learning how to maximize your effectiveness with the IDE.
Plus, Angular comes with a bunch of tools in itself. If you take a break for a while you'll have to re-learn the new ways of doing things a few versions later. This is not only taxing, but makes one reluctant whether to invest the time in it or not, and the learning process is a bit encumbered by the idea that it all may go to waste soon-ish. The reality was that even older tools proved to be useful to me as I had to pick up and maintain older projects and having learned that it made it easier. But this may vary from case to case.
Moreover, when something new comes out, everybody is hyping it and when we start using it in my work place, my gut feeling tells me to wait for v2 or v3 or so, such that I don't have to deal with the many confusing changes that take place in the few iterations. But I do that just because I had some bad experience in the past. Others break their teeth with the same frustration that I had. They too may build their reluctance as I did.
As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.
In the last couple of years, I have had a few games finally make me feel the enjoyment that I remembered feeling when I was younger. And examining my own feelings when playing, what strikes me is that the first 5 to 10 hours of a game with some depth can be quite un-enjoyable, and they become dramatically more engaging once I've gotten over that hump. I think that was the case when I was younger as well, but when I had more free time on my hands it didn't feel like as much of a waste of time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eating and sleeping sure as hell are tedious and wearisome, since they're basic maintenance tasks that you have to do if you want to function, taking time and attention away from the things you're interested in doing. (Yes, I enjoy a tasty meal and a good night's sleep. But I'd much prefer to just live without having to sleep or eat at all. Or, eat a pill and recharge in a base station for 20 minutes.)
Oh man, I've been saying this for years, count me in. Let's find a way to reduce or eliminate the need for personal hygiene while we're at it. Robot bodies! We could theoretically still have sex virtually, too.
I think the biggest hook for Factorio is that it's an _actual_ visual programming language. So much of what we do day to day ignores this (dominant!) mode of perception. It's extremely refreshing to be able to simply look at a system to reason about it. (as an aside, I think this is also why the Zachtronics games are so effective)
I seriously struggle with factorio, You have to have a seriously good planning ability to create something that doesn't instantly turn in to a spaghetti. I always end up having to scale up things and then having no room. I find text based programming to be much much simpler. If I need to add more somewhere, I can, my text editor will push everything else out of the way.
That's not failure it's just part of the gameplay! There are a few mods that can make your life a bit easier though - check out Factorissimo which lets you make self-contained buildings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that people have finite bandwidth but we are talking about people investing in skills that are useful for the primary function of their job. It’s the first thing to consider if you want to improve your productivity at work.
>useful for the primary function of their job the number of things that affect your job performance are endless and it is arbitrary where you choose to stop improving. not only is it arbitrary where you draw the line, its arbitrary that you chose to optimize your job in the first place. these things are non-self-evident choices based on personal and societal feelings rooted in first-principle thinking about the meani…
Factorio is probably one of the best $$/hr values outside of Dwarf Fortress, which is free. It’s also basically engineering catnip, consider yourself warned. For those who are interested, it’s the stated goal of the devs to never put the game on sale. They think it’s worth $30, and they intend to sell it for $30. So if you’re interested, don’t wait for a sale, buy it now!
$30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.