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How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

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Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#61

Post by Dylan16807 »

indigoabstract wrote: post #34
runeblaze wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Also Factorio AFAIK has no good copilot. Sadly the best LLMs are not fine-tuned on Factorio so my productivity takes a massive hit when moving from side projects to Factorio.

Lol. My parser failed at this step, so I had to look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

I'm looking over the sentences in the comment you replied to and I can't figure out where you would have gotten lost, can you quote the partial sentence that confused you?

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#62

Post by switchbak »

atrus wrote: post #45
satvikpendem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, I actually used to play America's Army 3, a game which explicitly was funded by the DoD. It was pretty fun, not gonna lie, much more tactical than many other shooters during that time.

It also convinced me to never join the army, because I was a bullet magnet haha.

Operation Flashpoint (early version of ARMA) did that for me. You sneak around for an hour, then get shot in the face and it's all over. Imagine that, but for your life ... fuck war.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#63

Post by satvikpendem »

dasil003 wrote: post #54
satvikpendem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can make in Factorio or similar.

Not everything is about impact.

Perhaps not, but my fun can in part be traced to impact.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#64

Post by duckmysick »

satvikpendem wrote: post #53
Taek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just fun. "Okay wth, today we're going to make the entire base solar powered" When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it and if its weird it'll be bad. But in Factorio? Nobody is using it so sure, make it bizzare. Change the rules, let yourself go. Don't test the design just send it. Bored? Too challenging? Don't bother finishing…

I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can make in Factorio or similar.

> I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose

Such freedom is extremely rare when you get paid for writing or maintaining software.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#65

Post by averageRoyalty »

satvikpendem wrote: post #63
dasil003 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is about impact.

Perhaps not, but my fun can in part be traced to impact.

Are the FPS games you play also about impact? You seem to have set yourself a different bar for 'fun' for this title (or genre?) alone.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#66

Post by SigmundA »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

I feel the same way sometimes, it definitely closer to the same loop of plan execute refactor then many games. I do find my self getting wrapped up into then backing off because it does feel like work.

But I like the fact that I can see it working in realtime, its just pretty, this machine I built that I can zoom into and see the smallest detail actually working.

Wish software was more like that, a good debugger can get closer to that but way more clunky and poor performing than Factorio.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#67

Post by delichon »

satvikpendem wrote: post #53
Taek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just fun. "Okay wth, today we're going to make the entire base solar powered" When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it and if its weird it'll be bad. But in Factorio? Nobody is using it so sure, make it bizzare. Change the rules, let yourself go. Don't test the design just send it. Bored? Too challenging? Don't bother finishing…

I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can make in Factorio or similar.

This behavior is known as "play". Many of us find it stimulating. If it doesn't work for you you have my sympathy.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#68

Post by satvikpendem »

duckmysick wrote: post #64
satvikpendem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can make in Factorio or similar.

> I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose Such freedom is extremely rare when you get paid for writing or maintaining software.

It depends on whether you make software for a living or for OSS. One does not preclude the other, even if one is rarer. Given my situation, as I had initially stated, I am part of the latter. Even still, were I the former, I still don't get why one would work "for free" basically, especially in terms of a game versus real life.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#69

Post by uoaei »

switchbak wrote: post #59
uoaei wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your implication that the definition of fun excludes meaningfulness is equally problematic.

I don't think they're saying that per-se, I think they're saying: it's perfectly ok to both "have fun" AND "not build something meaningful" at the same time. I don't think you need to read in that having fun necessarily excludes doing something meaningful. While we're on the topic of assuming intent: that invented word "problematic" - problematic to whom? Something being a problem is almost always a subjective stance…

problematic to the maintenance of a good-faith social contract

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#70

Post by duskwuff »

philsnow wrote: post #22
dcre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better in what sense?

I love Factorio but the graphics look a bit like 1996 SVGA 256-color sprites (edit: by which I mean, I feel like there is noticeable dithering). I haven't played the new "Factorio in space" bits, maybe it gets out of the browns-and-beige color palette a bit more?

> by which I mean, I feel like there is noticeable dithering

Any chance you have the game set to use 16-bit color?

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