How much time do you spend gaming compared to 10 years ago?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 29 comments
But does... (Score:3)
solitaire count as a game?
mark "I can quit any time I want"
Re: BUT DOES (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it'd be a strange game if the only winning move is not to play.
like 52 card pick up? (Score:2)
that's a strange game.
Now and then.. (Score:5, Insightful)
10 Years ago:
Single
Living alone
Expendable income
Now:
Married
House
Dog
Kid
Budget
Lets just say I am glad the days of all night Molten Core runs are over..But I do miss it sometimes.
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What happened to all the interesting ideas they had 10 or 20 years ago?
I would play more if we had new games similar to:
Planescape Torment
Morrowind
Wizardy 8
Re:Now and then.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Planescape Torment
There is a kickstarter claiming to be inspired by Plancescape: Torment, but nothing on the page made me believe they were going to end up with anything worth playing.
Morrowind
Bethesda is still making Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind has more memory potential than most because the devs actually looked at the idea of making a mildly alien ecosystem. It's quite a shame that Cyrodil and Skyrim have familiar European ecosystems with a little splash of European fantasy aspects and daedra.
Wizardy 8
Not sure about this one, can't remember if I played it.
Other games that have had attempted followers but still outshine them: ... can't remember if it was 3 or 4
...and I know I'll think of another 15 when I get home tonight. That doesn't mean all games were better a decade ago, just that there were enough good games to be worth rebuying off gog.com because I don't know where my discs are. The modern philosophy of "release now, finish next year" also doesn't help. I don't want to pay $60 for a beta release and then another $40 for the rest of the content (also released in public beta levels of quality).
Alpha Centauri
Master of Magic
Master of Orion 2
Heroes of Might and Magic
All Command and Conquer games before that worthless mess that was C&C4 (the changes in the 3s made the gameplay awkwardly similar to the Blizzard *craft games, but they still felt more like Command and Conquer than Scrincraft/Bearcraft) [yes, I include Renegade in this list]
Re:Now and then.. (Score:4, Informative)
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At least you didn't try MOO3 - seems just the opposite happened with that one. I logged about 6 hours on it after launch, uninstalled it, and never played it again. Heard they patched it extensively, but the thing practically needed Extreme Makeover, Game Edition for me to ever like it. Incidentally, I still play MOO2 occasionally in DOSBox.
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MOO2 was one of the best games ever. I think Civ V is the only game of comparable quality.
You need to play Alpha Centauri (an old game from Firaxis), it improved on almost every aspect of the original Civ games.
Re:Now and then.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the tip. I just bought Alpha Centauri on GOG for $5.99. They also had MOO 1+2 for $5.99, so I grabbed that too.
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Star Control 2
Nothing has ever been made quite like it since, including, and especially sequels that use that name.
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Konami Magical Tree, Yie Ar Kung Fu II and Namco's Bosconian, is all I have to say.
Maybe King's Valley II and Boulderdash too.
If you infer that this post has a get-off-my-lawn type of feel to it, you're right. Point is that the games I grew up with were all at least 10-15 years before 20 years ago. ;)
Since then, from my perspective, the largest two "Good Ideas" were packed in Leisure Suit Larry / Space Quest I and potentially Wolfenstein 3D.
I must admit I think Masters of Orion is one seriously underrated g
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Heroes of Might and Magic ... can't remember if it was 3 or 4
It was 3
still play it every now and then
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What I wouldn't mind is a game similar to Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2. (Not Neverwinter -- that is a MMO, but the old NWN games.) Granted that the OC for NWN1 was fairly weak, but HotU more than made up for that, not to mention the very well written stuff made by players.
These let one run their own persistant worlds, where if you wanted to design something cool, you could make a HAK pack for your custom stuff, then allow people to connect. There were some really creative worlds with very interesting plots,
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What happened to all the interesting ideas they had 10 or 20 years ago?
There are still interesting ideas -- the Mass Effect and Witcher series, for instance. I do wish developers would stop looking to MMOs for inspiration for single-player RPGs. It's just insulting when a $60 SP-only RPG hits me with a "kill 10 of monster X" quest. But I also hate crafting, so maybe there's just something wrong with me.
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Well, maybe you should look?
I heard there was some new relatively unknowns game in the Elder Scrolls serious called Skyrim.
I think you have changed more so then the industry has changed.
Re:Now and then.. (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of people lament the dearth of innovation in gaming. When asked what they want? They ask for sequels to games they already played.
But that's ok. Because people aren't looking for new ideas in games, they want "good" games. New ideas that are poorly executed are still going to result in a bad game. Old ideas with great execution are going to result in a good game (assuming the idea hasn't been worn to death like WW2 shooters). People just want good games.
So here's a few in line with the games you've called out.
1) Planescape torment - One might reference Neverwinter Nights games (specifically with the expansion stories) to get the isometric D&D style gameplay. But the gameplay in Planescape was not important at all, it was all about the protagonist's existential dilemma and top-quality writing, that's the element that people remember so fondly. With that in mind, The relatively recent game I'd recommend that you try is Walking Dead Season 1. If you don't watch the show, or read the comics, that's fine, because this game is both totally unconnected to, and is much better than the source material. Unless you're the kind of person that likes to jump on the bandwagon of hating things that are popular? This "game" has hardly any game mechanics to speak of because this is an RPG in the purest sense. You play a role, and the entire focus of this game is on making you really feel like you're IN the role. You make weighty decisions that result in significant consequences.
2) Morrowind - Play Skyrim. The mod community for Skyrim is just as lively as Morrowwind's.
3) Wizardry 8 - They just released the 10th Might and Magic game in January 2014, M&M X. It's still a party of 4 adventurers you customize and take through the world on a turn-by-turn basis. Don't know how good that game is, but Legend of Grimrock which is also using the same formula, is definitely a good game.
As for new ideas, look towards the indie space on Steam. There's still plenty. I don't play games as often as I used to, and I too have fond memories of games going back to Dos prompts and Nintendo cartridge-blowing days, but I still see great things happening in the games industry and I don't believe that all the highwater marks had already been reached in the past.
But going back on topic, I definitely play games a lot less than I used to. I won't have much free time until the kids are older. In the meantime, I find I experience most of the new things happening in gaming through "Let's Play" video channels on youtube or Twitch where I watch someone else play games while I'm doing dishes, folding laundry, etc.
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Now:
Married
House
Dog
Kid
Budget
So ... you're a full-time Sims play-tester?
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Yeah, except the stakes are real, and he's the bottom most priority of that shitpile.
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I think he means Sims cos-play
"Business casual" cos-play.
Re:Now and then.. (Score:4, Funny)
You listed "House" and "Dog" before "Kid".
Good luck with the "Married" part.
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I was going to suggest the same - I had my house long before I had others to occupy it (er, about a year before I started dating my wife-to-be, but 2 1/2 years [total] before we were engaged and she moved in), and I'd probably list these things chronologically, myself. No kid though, we're DINKs [investopedia.com].
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AH yes, DINKs. Showing the two people can waste most of there lives working.
It seems so wasteful to me that one of you doesn't spend there time enjoying life as a whole.
My wife and I decided early one the the person with the most lucrative career should work, and the other should enjoy life.
I see this time line. on the left as all the time you didn't exist, on the right, is all the time that you will no longer exist. In the center, if you zoom in real close, there is a tiny dot that is the time you exist.
Wh
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Kids are easy to replace compared to a house or a dog.
Even if you don't have a woman to fuck you can just buy a kid in russia or afrika.
Thailand has so many babies that they find them in the trash and in landfills.
Also I think that if you married the right person they will love you more than the kids.
Also this is not sarcasm. I just don't give a fuck about kids. In fact I actively dislike most of them.
Don't worry; I have no plans (or even prospects) of having kids.
Re:Now and then.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I think that if you married the right person they will love you more than the kids.
Such women only flourish in societies that aren't working to turn both genders feral for the sake of ego-driven identity politics/ideology or profit motive. I wish you luck if you live in the west. You'll need it.
play more because I have a wife and kid (Score:2)
Well, I have a wife and kid now, and I would say I play games more than I did when I was single. It's just an easy way to relax for half an hour here or an hour there, when I can't really leave the house or I'm stuck at home on a Saturday evening. Plus, I brought an xbox 360 to my office so I play during lunch with my colleagues as well. But in total, I probably game for 10hr/wk.
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It is in order! /. she would look at me funny :)
But you are right the wife might not take it that well.
But if I said
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You assume his wife thinks more like you and not more like him.
Maybe the ordering is in order of acquiring it, not in order of priority? Or maybe it is in order of priority and they both agree on it?
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For the record, Molten Core can be run in under 10 minutes with one person today. It is the only raid that married parents on a budget can afford.
Re:Now and then.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Pretty Much.
I have a wife and 2 little girls. Sleeping in has become a distant memory so staying up to 2 playing games becomes self-destructive FAST!
I still get dragged into games every now and then but tend to find it is art imitating life as I seem to be drawn to games about managing multiple aspects and money. Last thing that sucked up hours of my life was X3. Gnomoria and Prison Architect have had a pretty good attempt as well.
The biggest thing is I used to play A LOT of counter strike. I really was
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I'm going to go out on a limb her and ask. Why aren't you playing games with your daughters?
I played, and still play, all kinds of games with my kids. both are now teens.
Sad story about your cordintation. I'm nearly 50, And stll hold my own against my kids and their friends...much to there announce.
Me: "I'm going to shoot you in the head now."
Them: "Haha, you can't hit me"
me: *Headshot*
There friends: BWahahahha
me: "what are you laughing at, your next."
Great times, have them.
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"announce"? sigh, I mean "annoyance"
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Approx. 10 Years ago:
Everquest
Asheron's Call
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
Now:
(tumbleweeds blow through the space where enjoyable MMORPGs used to be)
Yeah. I'm still playing games, but much less than before.
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How do you get Quake 3 to run on Linux, anyway?
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10 years ago (almost) I was just being introduced to WoW - I played obsessively most nights and sometimes before work in the mornings.
We also had regular boardgame games days at our house, I regularly wrote and ran games at the local RPG tournaments and played in 1 or 2 home campaigns.
These days I raid twice per week, play silly iPhone games most days several times per day, and still play a fair few board games - probably most weeks play something.
For the change in intensity I put slightly less.
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Alfa romeo repair bills?
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We all know that ALFA stands for Always Leave Finance Available. :)
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Alfa romeo repair bills?
If you own an Italian car it's best to have a live-in mechanic.
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Does Solitaire count? (Score:2)
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I'm sorry, only complex big-budget AAA games count (10GB minimum size).
The irony is, it takes longer to play a hand of solitaire than it does to complete a modern AAA crapfest these days... And I'm pretty sure solitaire hasn't changed much over the years.
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If it takes you more then 15 minutes to play solitaire, something is wrong.
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(My lawn, get off it, and all that.)
Played the arcade version of pong at the Bayswater Hotel circa 1970. It was a new pub and the game was used to generate interest, as a kid you had to have a parent with you to play. The pub quickly got a bad reputation for violent brawls but I don't think that had anything to do with the game....
Gave it up (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What do you do for fun now? :P
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It appears he now spams slashdot ..
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Ah, for mod points right now... :D
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So you... game.
Well done with the not gaming.
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I gave it up about 2005. I had a start up at the time that was 70 - 80 hours a week. I sold it in 2010 and made out pretty well. After a few months of "going out" all the time I and seeing how much I was spending I actually got back into gaming. But I was never one to buy a lot of games. I just tended to play the ones I liked a lot. For instance I bought an Xbox 360 in 2010. Bought the Halo Reach edition. Between then and now the list of 360 titles I own: Halo Reach and Battlefield 3 Premium. In f
Re: (Score:2)
Then I spent $40 on a pledge for this Star Citizen, which I suspect I'll spend a lot of time playing over these next few years.
Just read up on Star Citizen and I've become interested as well. Have you ever played or heard about Escape Velocity Nova [ambrosiasw.com]? It sounds somewhat similar to Star Citizen, though EV Nova is single-player only.
I found EV Nova to be highly engrossing and fun; it's a free roaming space trader / space combat game with RPG elements. It's shareware, so you can download the full game and play about the first 50% of it for free, with the option to $30 for a license that unlocks the full game, with all the special
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Still have a copy of it kicking around, too. :)
Yeah, I loaded up my old copy a few months ago and played through it a couple times. I was glad to see there are plug-ins to help the game run on widescreen displays and at higher resolutions than the default 1024x768. It looked great on my 1680x1050 screen.
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I have a hard enough time staying away from LBreakout and MyBrute when I should be working. And occasionally bowling or pinball on my phone or tablet.
Used to be big into some of the MechWarrior series, but then got a real job, switched to Linux shortly thereafter, and decided not long after this that I'd prefer to invest most of my time and energy into pursuits having possible real-world benefits.
Actually, the game I play the most is this [trainchinese.com]. I hold the high score for HSK Level 1, BTW: 1,519,010. Guess it's ti
Less but doing grad PhD prereqs (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a LOT of stuff I'm not doing, and gaming is just one of them.
Missing option (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't waste time gaming 10 years ago, and I do not now -- so all that I could select was 'About the same'
Re:Missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
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There is no rule that says you have to answer the poll, the poll had nothing to do with you, but you just needed to comment anyways.
You are a pretentious douche bag.
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It certainly is if you're going to take that kind of a loser attitude towards it. Seriously!
As a former hardcore computer gamer... (Score:2)
... a lot of less to almost none. I just have no time, motivation/energy, annoyed, etc. to play them. Very rarely, I play them (did play The Witcher 2's free weekend for a few hours). I still do play turned based games in IRC with friends with rbot [ruby-rbot.org]'s games (Junkyard, Uno, etc.). At least, they can be played slowly (the longest game was over a week!). :)
Ok, maybe more like 11 years, but .... (Score:3)
going back to around that time-frame, I was still married to my ex-wife, who also enjoyed video games. We had a pretty regular ritual of battling each other in a RTS game like Age of Empires or Warcraft in the evening. Neither one of us were too big on watching television so that kind of took the place of it for us.
These days, I still play the occasional online first person shooter, just to unwind or kill some time. But it's not as big a deal anymore. I've actually received coupon codes to download new games and didn't even bother for months, because that's how little I'm enthused by them. If I get bored enough some Sunday afternoon, that's when I might look at one of those, and give it an hour or two of my time.
But truthfully, I get a lot more out of reading things on message forums or informative web sites than just gaming, these days. Maybe that's all part of "getting old"? Or maybe I just feel like most games I see are rehashes of stuff I've played before, so I just don't care?
Slashdot readership is aging (Score:2)
Obvious conclusion.
(-- not an exception)
Not supprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Games theses days are too casual.
All you need to "win" is either purchase unlocks, or, spend 8 hours watching cut-scenes and the game is completed.
I played Quake 3 Arena for 4 years, not because it was easy, but because it was a challenge to master. A pure game of skill and rewarded you with excellent gameplay, instead of childish achievements. :)
The whole point of the game was to master it, play online and show everyone what your capable of. It was like chess in overdrive.
Now you can just buy your way into unlocks instead of mastering the game. We've been conned and profits yet again cause people to make shit games
Nothing current will replace that experience and joy i had with Quake3, and the way games are going, nothing in my lifetime.
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"All you need to "win" is either purchase unlocks"
I am not aware of any games where that is true.
"spend 8 hours watching cut-scenes and the game is completed."
or that.
"I played Quake 3 Arena for 4 years, not because it was easy, but because it was a challenge to master."
the more you could pay for your internet connect, and the more you could pay for your computer, the more likely you where to win. Seriously,latency was a real issue with quake. More so then most games. so, pay to win.
" instead of childish ac
More actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
10 years ago my son was two. All diapers and chasing kids around... no time for anything. When he was about six I showed up with a PS2 and a copy of lego star wars 'for the family'. Not to mention an undisclosed Star Wars Battlefront game for me (though he and I were playing two player on it before long. I told my wife 'they guys in the white are robots, so it's OK. He's not shooting people' ).
Now he's got an xbox and I play it when he's gone or in bed. I grab a used game for $10 every now and then and get obsessed with it for awhile. I find it's a good way to unwind without killing brain/liver cells.
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Also, ok, I know this isn't the best decision, but she's been wanting to play left-for-dead, and I can only say no so many times, so I say if her grades keep up, then ok. And similar to you, I'll tell her mom "they're zombies, so it's ok".
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Yet most of us were causing death and destruction on human beings in games when we were 6. Unless you have a history of murder, all these "it's ok if they're zombies/robots/fantasy" posts are kind of silly and propagating a concept I wish would just die already.
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" and I can only say no so many times"
no, you are a dad, you can say "no" every time.
They aren't zombies. i.e. raised from the dead. They are sick humans. well, really they are just pixels; which is the important bit.
Oh, and if she like 'zombie' story, have her read 'The Dead' by Charlie Higson. The whole series is good.
In fact I consider the Dead one of the best 'Zombie' book written. It was recommend to me by my 13 year old daughter.
Once. Only once. (Score:2)
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Condolences on your father... turning you into an emotionless chum.
But hey, Alpha Centauri is a pretty awesome game. (It's in a top three for hours spent with Diablo 2 and Smash Bros Melee)
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Wow, how..boring. FYI You can play Chess on a computer.
Free from the life-suck that is Diablo II (Score:2)
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The proposed changes for D3:Reaper of Souls actually look pretty good and seem to address most of the issues people complained about with the exception of LAN play.
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Path of Exile is pretty good. It's certianly better then Diablo III; although Diablo III is prettier.
I'm making video games over playing them (Score:2)
significantly more (Score:2)
Gaming? (Score:2)
I'm guessing this poll means video games, but I play board games and sports, you insensitive clod. I find it a little weird that "game" has been narrowed to mean specifically video games to the "gaming" subculture.
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I know when I answered I took video gaming to be a subset of the gaming I do. I also do puzzles, word games, card games, board games and PnP games.
Most 'true gamers'[1] play a broad range of stuff.
[1] Where 'true' gamers are like 'true' Scotsmen. :)
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I find it weird that with no prompting you shoved you're own narrative on the poll and the people who answered it.
Since more people video game, and more hours are spent by people playing video games then sports or boards games, is it really a subculture?
Depends (Score:2)
Has it really been ten years? WTF!
About the same... (Score:2)
I grew up (Score:2)
And as I grew older, I grew slower, at the same time that the video games I loved became more focused on twitch response time than strategy, tactics, and stealth.
Plus I got tired of having to invest so much money in perpetual hardware upgrades every time a new game came out.
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If anything, FPS has gotten easier and less twitchy so that it it could be grafted onto joypads. Too bad.
about the same (Score:2)
monthly fees vs. old fashioned whole game purchases, it works out about the same.Hardware costs have decreased, I don't want(cough) high end graphics now and so a PC is cheaper than 10years ago, and the screens are bigger.
About the same... (Score:2)
...which is not at all. Thankfully I was never bitten by the gaming bug, and I have a computer in front of me about eight hours a day.
I think I made it through 10 minutes of Zork one day in the 80s. All those damned twisty little passages.
About the same (Score:2)
Slightly less 35 vs 25 (Score:2)
I used to play a lot of FPS games (Counter Strike, Unreal, etc) I was single and living with other gamers.
Now I am married, and my video game has been slightly reduced. The time I used to spend playing games I now spend with the wife, running, and both training and teaching martial arts (kung fu and tai chi). I have been mostly playing GTA:V (over it thanks to the hackers who ruined it), BF4 (over it due to Dice / EA sucking), HearthStone (great, free game that is challenging but not too mentally taxing)
Nethack (Score:2)
Does Nethack count? Because I still play the shit out of Nethack. As in, at least 3 - 4 hours a week, dungeon-hacking away.
Someday, I might actually beat it...
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About 10 years ago I was coming down from computer gaming. Too many fast twitch kids out on the 'net and the vs AI was either crazy hard or non-existent.
8 years ago my wife was bugging me to do something about the 6 or 8 moving boxes full of paper games. So I started pulling out my old gear. Shadowrun 1st and 2nd, Paranoia, D&D and AD&Dr1/r2, Talisman 2nd Edition, Cosmic Encounters, and a bunch of misc gear.
I'd gotten out of person to person gaming in part because there just weren't any to be found.
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"... Gurps,..."
It's rare that someone comes right out and admits they're abusing their children...
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if I was unemployed I would be playing games 16 hours a day again.
Nah you wouldn't. You'd be looking for a job and stressing over it. Life moves on. The onyl way you could return to your youth is if you had tons of cash and could quit for aw hile.
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Sounds like gambling to me.
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Um. I was a working adult 10 years ago too.
Playing around the same amount now, about the same amount as when I was a child, rather less than when I was a student - 100 hours/week gaming doesn't fit around working for a living..
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No, it did not say video games, you are just using that as an excuse to be a douche.
" are usually antisocial."
really? please tell me how gaming with 4 to 40 of my friends is antisocial?