this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
86 points (96.7% liked)
Games
32746 readers
1132 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Consider this scenario: I ask you how long it would take you to go to the shops and buy a carton of milk.
You could probably give me a good estimate based on your previous experience going to the shop and buying a carton of milk, but to actually tell me how long it would take would need you to go do the thing then come back and tell me.
Even with your estimation, something could always go wrong and cause your trip to take longer than expected. Maybe there was a traffic jam, maybe the shops are sold out of milk, maybe you get mugged along the way.
Loading bars are the same thing. There’s no way to definitively say how long something will take without doing the thing and seeing how long it DID take. The best you can do it an estimation based on known factors (eg. how long does this thing usually take). So in that sense loading bars are fake
Even worse, the person who has to make the estimate doesn't know anything about the person who has to make the trip. He could live in the store and be done in a single loop, or he could be 90 km out with nothing but a rusty bike for transport.