JayEchoRay

I also feel very anxious if I don't constantly check around myself, always get a reality check the moment I get complacent - always the "ninja" zomboids out to assassinate me.

My solution is for my anxiety is to have that pier with the door so I can at least give myself some time to respond. It is an extra precaution once I clear the area and to make sure that one zomboid does not end me.

Off the top of my head and not at that level yet with carving( I think carving 6), but you can make short baseball bats although carving is useful for making handles and such which can be combined with other stuff to make weapons and with the foraging I have picked up skill books, fruits and vegetables, seeds and even a plushy (was an aphid plushy)

Edit:

Had a quick look at carving, can carve various bone implements that can work like stone like a bone axe head, Other than that one can carve needles, spoons, forks, tobacco pipes or jewelry, etc. Can also carve buckets, spades and various other smaller tools used in the new crafting added.

With foraging you can find a lot of random stuff besides fruits and vegetables, was very disappointed when I found a rotten donut, but I also found sacks and even washing liquid too.

I enjoy it, cannot use spears anymore but with carving and some foraging you can make a fishing rod (and a nail), I think you can also use nets but haven't worked with it yet.

It is relaxing, looking for water ripples to cast a line and spend some down time waiting for lunch to bite. Something I learnt about fishing is always try to keep your line in the black for as long as possible and that the bigger fish put up a fight.

One can more easily catch big fish though - biggest I caught was like 260 hunger at 34.32 encumbrance and that was a medium fish. I personally like to build a safety platform (like a pier) with a door as a extra precaution as I have in past lives been killed by a sneaky zomboid when I am not paying attention in more dangerous areas - especially when you are reeling in a fighter, so it is something like a habit I have formed.

I think this is where the nuance is and where the things can go off the rails. Your example is that you want to more easily be connected with people that you enjoy engaging with but find it hard to find - which you did attempt to find a work around for, which I do commend.

I think because of the volume of scale of the internet it has been fine-tuned and engineered towards benefiting the major players more as they have taken convenience features and frankenstein'd it into a tool of "increased engagement".

It is like a market square and everyone is shouting out their wares at the same time and the major players (and others) have done their research on how to be the "loudest and most attention-grabbing hawker at the square"

Here the algorithm approach is useful to help "silence the sea of voices" and find "hawkers" that sell "products" that are of interest to you. It does require some discipline on the users part to curate their "hawkers", but overall the experience is improved as one deals with "products" that is aligned with one's interests.

I feel, in general, however that the intent has been twisted into something that has become a slippery slope that slides down towards "how can I get eyes on my thing and keep people coming back" for as long as possible. One's attention gets bombarded with as many ideas as possible and, from this, one's scope starts to bloat and becomes muddy as one processes too many different ideas and viewpoints in a short time frame and as a result one spends less time forming a individual opinion. I believe this does contribute to shorter attention spans as we attempt to "offload" our thinking onto something else as we try to make sense of all the information we take in.

The easiest thing I can think of is TikTok and how quickly the short video format was incorporated into the big platforms.

It is a human shortcoming I feel that gets taken advantage of (and I feel like it is being cultivated) and as humans we do have a side to us that tries to optimise the shit out of a things - often to our detriment.

I was served the channel by the algorithm and was concerned with the length so I attempted to share in a neutral manner unsure on reception.

I found it interesting and wanted to share the opinion

Yeah, there is a lot of evolving information, yet for now one can still have some measure of control over the content one can engage with

Yes, that is a good idea around what I am thinking in regards to the "magic addictive formula"

They have a system in play that optimises the play experience in a way that is rewarding to "addictive habits" and attempts to "encourage" a habit that leans towards an addiction.

Thank you, it seems the scope of the thought was a lot more open-ended than I imagined.

Was thinking in the line of the how the big game companies seem to try to hook people onto their game experiences and when one hits it big, how they attempt to moderate that experience around trying to keep it at a level that is akin to selling cigarettes.

It is like they are trying to find that "magic addictive formula" and try to be the sole provider of that experience to keep a person coming back to them.

That sounds depressing, it is like they commoditised cheat codes. Sad to see it fall into the trappings that the game makes fun of. I can almost imagine what the GTA 6 version might become if they decide to intergrate that level of "hooks" into its shiny game environment.

I think that was the 2K launcher, if I recall, I remember they were doing something with their games (was playing XCOM 2 at the time) and promptly made use of a workaround

Didn't like the extra steps just to get into a game - like they were reminding you that you only pay for the license to play the game and the property is theirs to do with as they please. I mean, it is, but still doesn't help feeling like I am being constantly reminded.

That is probably one of the more famous examples, yeah. They pivoted resources from the single player experience once they saw how much money they were making with their shark cards (I believe it was called). Developed an ecosystem that encouraged spending money to enjoy the game (but not forced) and I guess it was an equivalent experience of getting players to "micro-dose" with a payment to bypass elements of grind to get the best stuff and have an overall smoother experience.

Yeah, they are more apt comparisons where the target market is built upon consistent small (or large) payments that are in a business' best interests - like in-game currencies (chips in gambling sense) are used to obfuscate the value of what a player is spending money on (which falls into one of the many psychological tricks you mentioned)

Streaming platforms and movies are similar - yes but for them it is a one time recurring cost for the service or in a movie's case it is a pay per experience.

With game pass, for example, you can play games like streaming, but it won't be the full experience for some games (i.e the dlc and additional content) - and to be fair, it does usually come at a discount but there in lies additional costs per experience

It is like the equivalent of paying for a streaming service and then it asks and double dips, saying "hey, we see you really liked that show - want to pay us 5 more bucks to enjoy more of it" or a movie and where they ask you to spend more to see the extra deleted scenes

Games are in an area where one can both pay per experience and pay for the service and it is understandable in some cases why that can be - however there are games now that are intended for pay for experience (single player for example) that have additional costs attached to them to draw more "easy" money (this can be the case of developing something worse on purpose to offer a simpler way out of it) or you have games that are nearly the same every year (with them chopping and changing features to make it seem "fresh and new") and then leverage on a FOMO (mobile games are far worse in this regard) to "encourage" one to spend more on the original purchase.

The effort to manipulate and try to make more with less, feels more erroneous in the gaming sphere

They are trying to get people to become "addicted" to an experience and they wish to target either those that can afford it (and for them - power to them) and/or those that cannot but are unable to control their desire for more (worst case scenario - they hook a proverbial "junkie")