Bay 12 Games Forum

When I lived in Central America irradiated milk was fairly common. Or, some sort of boxed milk with a really long shelf life. I don't do much shopping anymore, but is that a thing in the States?

Once you get over being able to draw in a different area than you're looking, it becomes second nature to use a tablet. It just takes a while to get used to it.

Quote from: i2amroy on March 06, 2014, 06:23:02 pm

I'm not so sure about that, just because you are up in my face doesn't mean I can't blow you away with a pistol, and in fact it will make it much easier for me to hit you (not accounting for things like nervousness or panic, which would be best accounted for in a separate system).

Actually, if you have a gun, you shouldn't go closer than three to five meters to someone you are threatening. Closer than that and he has a good chance of grabbing your gun and turning it aside. (This is what they constantly do wrong in movies/TV.) So I guess in this game, could you make it so shooting at the square next to you allows using Melee/Dodge against the shot? I'm not sure if zombies should be able to do it though, I mean, are they smart enough to defend against firearms?

As someone passingly familiar with self-defense with firearms, being in close quarters with a pistol isn't going to affect your chance to hit too much. Sure, you'd rather have the target be far away, the better to not be killed by them, but you're not going to be taking a shooter's stance if they're close to you. That's just inviting them to swat the gun out of the way. You'll be drawing your gun back to your side, holding it with one hand, shooting from the hip. Shooting from the hip is usually a bad thing, but within ~15 feet they're so close it's almost as simple as point-and-shoot if you're familiar with your gun.

I could see making a penalty for untrained weapon handlers and with guns that aren't ideal for CQC (Such as long rifles), but it should quickly degrade as you've gained skills in the weapon you're using (Except where it makes sense that the gun would be harder to use in CQC, where your idea makes sense).


Building off of that, if the game should recognize when you've missed several times in a row and warn you about any penalties that may be screwing with your aim. This would solve the problem that people have been running into with unskilled characters by giving them feedback as to why they're not hitting, rather than leaving them to guess.

For example:

"You miss. Your clothing is getting in the way..."
"You miss. Your lack of skill makes using this weapon in close quarters difficult..."
"You miss. Your lack of skill makes using this weapon at long ranges difficult..."
"You miss. Chemicals are hampering your performance..."
"You miss. Your target is particularly hard to hit..."
"You miss. Nothing seems wrong... Maybe you're just unlucky?"

Wait, I've been finding hemp seeds, blueberry seeds, and even some wheat seeds, but can you actually garden now?

Oh! I completely misread what you wrote, Vector. Sorry.

Vector's right, though. Questioning yourself is a healthy part of being a good person. A lot of being confident, if taken too far, can make you look like a bit of a douche. Maybe even a lot of a douche. It's a difficult line to straddle, but if you're not sure, err on the better side of humility. Try to develop an honest, open relationship with your friends (And girlfriends). Good friends will tell you honestly if you're coming across as a douche if you ask them.

The bright side is that if you do venture into douche territory it's pretty easy to come back. The hard part is actually realizing that you're in Doucheville. One big sign is if your knee jerk reaction is to say, "No, I'm not a douche!" without a hint of introspection. If someone calls you out on it, take a second and ask yourself, "Wait, are they right?"

It may sound counter intuitive, but a big part of being confident is simply not caring what other people think of you. You are you. You think certain things, you feel a certain way. If there's something you don't like in your life, you're working on getting it out of there. If someone else doesn't like something you do, well, who cares? What's important is how you feel about you.

Like, as long as you aren't hurting or killing people or anything.

Don't get me wrong, having other people's support is important for being happy emotionally, it just shouldn't be the end-all be-all of what makes you confident.

You don't have to drop bull crap to appear confident. Heck, you don't even have to know the answer all the time, or know what to do all the time. You're human, and as a result you're occasionally wrong. You may even make really bad decisions once in a blue moon. The difference between you and a poser is that you, as a confident person, own your mistakes. You accept them, and you may even regret them, but they aren't what make you. When you make a mistake, you analyze how you could have done better without beating yourself up about it or giving yourself unrealistic expectations. When you don't know how to handle a question that comes up, you do everything in your power to find the answer out for the person asking the question and be ready for next time.

You just have to accept that things are a certain way, and if something comes up and decisions must be made you'll do everything in your power to do what's right. You do everything in your power right now to prepare for the future. I'm not just talking about preparing for the end of the world or a medical emergency, but preparing yourself for life in the same way that you prepare for a hot date. Work on yourself until you're happy with what you see and do your best.

Something important to remember is that most people are the same as you: They're caught up in their heads with doubts, questions, and insecurities. The key to being confident is realizing that if you put yourself out there, the world won't explode. Heck, even if you blunder and fall on your face the people who laughed won't remember a week from now, doubly so if you laugh with them.

Don't be proud. Don't brag. Just be you, and don't be afraid to show others who you are.


How's this play into asking for a date? Realize that the girl (Or whatever) you're going to ask is a person. Know that between cultural expectations and their own shyness most folks won't ask you, and try to see things from their point of view. This person could very well be interested in you. Then again, they could be open to becoming interested in you through the course of a courtship.

What if she says no? you ask.

Well, who cares if she says no? Like I said, she's a person. She may be focusing on school, and dating would distract her from achieving her dreams. She may be dating someone else right now, which means that she's loyal and may even be open to it some day in the future*. She may even have zero interest in you, in which case it wouldn't work out anyways.

* Just don't suggest that you date if things don't work out between her and her boyfriend. That's a douche bag move right there.

Of course, it's just as likely that she'd love to date someone. She'd love to spend time socializing rather than sitting at home browsing Facebook. Maybe she's even been having a hard time and she needed someone to show interest in her. This skips a lot of guys' minds because of rejection anxiety, but being asked out is a huge ego booster. It shows that people are interested in you, and it's nice because, culturally, girls are discouraged from being the one to ask the guy out.

So even if she says no, you'll go on with the knowledge that you lifted her day and made her feel better about herself. So asking chicks out on dates is kind of like doing your good deed for the day, and if it works out then it's even better for both you!

If she acts all offended that you asked her, well, she's a bitch and you dodged a bullet by getting that one out of the way fast. This is a whole 'nother topic, though. Just avoid crazy, and look for signs of rocky waters ASAP. If things don't look like they're going to work out it's best to bring it up honestly and quickly.


If you want some further reading material on confidence and asking girls to date, I highly recommend Doctor Nerdlove. He talks about almost everything shy guys like us need to know about dating and stuff.

While the village does grow and evolve to some degree, I think the major complaint is that there isn't anything interesting after the mid-game (~200 - 300 people). You have a couple churches, a couple breweries, and after that it's mostly making sure your food bank is balanced. Heck, churches and breweries aren't particularly interesting and had no noticeable effect on my villages. It would have been nice to have something slightly more complex to aim for after that, even if it was just a monument of some kind - And, like churches, markets, and breweries, the only barrier to creating them is how many resources you have. There doesn't have to be an unlock system to make things interesting.

Having played Tropico quite a bit, I can say that even though your statement is true, people in that game are still pretty one dimensional. They have political beliefs that they might act on sometimes, but really it just comes down to a faction percentage you have to keep up and that isn't really very difficult to do. I can see their parents and which faction they belong to, but it doesn't really add anything to the game play.

The thing is, Tropicans could be attributed a personality despite the little information you're given of them. They have families, skills, jobs, beliefs, and they do stuff independent of what you may want them to do. You can imagine that a person would act a certain way depending on all of this stuff. Sure, they become slightly more faceless as the game progresses, but in the back of your mind you'll know that these people are at least simulated to a higher degree than a bunch of robots. Banished doesn't have that feeling, even though the number of people between the two games are almost the same.


Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Banished quite a bit, but those two things would have added a lot, doubly so if there were interesting mechanics behind them.

Wow, thanks for the fuzzy feelings! I'm glad everything's picking up. You seriously made my day.

And as long as you put yourself out and make an effort to meet people you'll always find good people to hang out with. If an introvert like me can meet people and convince them to hang out with me, I'm sure you'll have no problem doing the same.

We'll always be around if you ever need more advice or encouragement. Feel free to message me, too.

(And "not even 30"? Bro, im not even 20 D:)

I was aiming more towards "It's never too late to start", don't take it the wrong way!