Does anyone else find themselves missing the discussions and banter that used to be so prevalent around here? I used to get a lot out of that and I’m certain I wasn’t the only one, a way of pooling knowledge, experience, finding new interests and discussing things thatve might otherwise gone unsaid.

Found myself inadvertently joining a kind of group like that on Facebook a few years ago and it really reminded me of what I’d been missing. I felt encouraged to think externally, to get creative and entertain people. Even being encouraged and admired for doing so.

It really reminded me of what initially brought me here and all of the things it taught me.

Although it really wasn’t of the same caliber this place once was and I found myself being more of a clown and a lecturer than a student, it really brought something out in me that hadn’t been around in a long while.

I feel like there’s a lotta lost potential for that seeing as how web forums are kind of an archaic form of communication yet quite a few of the folks that originally frequented this place still check in from time to time.

Would anyone be interested in something like that? Maybe an affiliate Facebook group leaning towards general discussion that we could eventually introduce other people of a certain likeminded thoughtfulness into and kind of try to carry that torch in a way?

I figured that if it’s on a more modern media outlet like Facebook that most people use anyways members might be more inclined towards being active.

Just a thought really. It’s honestly kind of depressing seeing a bunch of people who were once all a community of brilliant, creative, thoughtful folks who helped one another basically grow up, laugh, and learn things they most definitely never would’ve otherwise; all fall by the wayside and slowly die out when at least I think this community deserves better than that.

i do. i don't know what the answer is though.
 
recently another forum i was a 15 year member of closed without me noticing and i was really sad at what was lost, ephemera around game projects released and unreleased, discussions that lead to design decisions etc. i'm glad tigsource is still going, i was thinking recently i might make more of an effort. twitter can be tiring for these kinds of discussions, facebook is pretty much toxic these days imho.

thecatamites still actively participates in forums. Just not this one anymore.

The select button forums and insert credit forums (not sure why they're separate sites now) are where I get my nonpoisonous media discussion these days. Many propitious threads see regular updates. I sure wish our dump thread could be copied over there because then it would get attention from more than a handful of people.

Oh they love it when people have funny and articulate dissenting opinions. That post would go over great there. The userbase only appears unanimous if you look at the threads for a single game; everyone who doesn't like the game will just ignore the thread. And since we're on the subject I've even read SB people directly criticize Kojima and call him a hack, without anyone feeling attacked and sticking up for their beloved Kojima-sensei, as would doubtlessly happen in plenty of games discussion spaces.

BUT I know exactly what you mean about trying to find something interesting because a lot of the threads are just total mundanities. e.g. Star Wars talk. It was sort of unpleasant to reread my last post and realize that passively going over those mundanities is literally what I consider "nonpoisonous media discussion". That's how I get my entertainment news. I probably shouldn't recommend forums on the basis of my own total disconnection from reality.

To all those reading this, I think these threads are pretty fun afternoon reading:

https://selectbutton.net/t/games-nobody-learned-anything-from/1816
https://selectbutton.net/t/grotesque-videogames/1408
https://selectbutton.net/t/strangest-coolest-rpg-mechanics/3393
https://selectbutton.net/t/romm-comm-tuum/7568 - thecatamites reviews romantic comedies
https://selectbutton.net/t/dark-archie-timeline/5519 - thecatamites talks about the archie series
https://selectbutton.net/c/king-of-posters/go/12 - this entire subforum is good if you like collecting recurring images throughout the history of games
https://selectbutton.net/t/compelling-trash-action/9962
https://selectbutton.net/t/videogame-things-you-think-about-a-lot/8689

...but if they're not your kind of thing, I maintain no responsibility. You didn't even hear my name, got it?

Overall, they have a diverse enthusiastic userbase so they're at their best when they're working together to gather examples of interesting things from a wide array of games. If you ask them for recommendations, they're fantastic. They're at their worst when you read the threads about a single game, where everyone will agree circuitously. Or ask for help with a frustrating section.

While there is certainly no better home for d*mptop than this one, seeing as it's such a salt world thing through and through, I do wish I knew some way to bring eyes here... 300 pages of screenshots, text and video devoted to experiences that otherwise go unexplored - it's like a grand unexcavated mausoleum of the gaming artform.

Probably not the thread for it, but what did you think was the dumbest part of Death Stranding? I haven't played it, but I like to read about it, because whatever it does seems to make people feel pretty strongly.

Well yeah, that’s true. I always liked the forum outline of this community much more than the other forms of social media. And I always wondered if maybe what this community was in it’s heyday could be kind of brought back in a different way if the forum had a more active caretaker and was geared towards general discussion and other media in general.

I got stuck in kind of a weird position in being here in the first place. I was never into rm2k or gamemaking whatsoever. I had a couple highschool friends who were and they would show me these discussions or running joke/gag topics that I got enamored with and just thought were hilarious.

I originally just signed up here so I could read more of it and laugh but the more I read the more engaged I got.

I found a level of intelligence and the kind of humor/discussions I was severely lacking in life. Most of the people I knew from highs school or just in life in general we’re far less thoughtful, far less articulate and I got that out of this place.

And I learned a lot, so much. I think that in a way this place saved me or at least gave me what I was sorely missing.

Ever since this place kind of died I’ve just been roaming around Facebook. Sometimes I’ll get caught in a debate or a discussion or just crack jokes to make myself laugh but yes it is very toxic or at least people on a media outlet like tinder aren’t the kind up for thoughtful discourse.

I even thought about offering to invest in turning this space around into something active if that’s even possible.

I’ve read through Reddit forums and things like that too but they just seem so massive and overwhelming.

What I liked about this forum is it’s a bit smaller of a community. If I’m reading through a topic on something I can read it all in it’s entirety. You can get to know the members on a more personal level so it’s a lot easier to get a feel for who someone is and who you’re talking to. A certain level of trust in that because these members build up a repertoire over time.


I think a personality like steel could probably do that and have the aspiration to do it. Figure out a new way to repackage the community and make it more active and less than a kind of outdated niche/fringe group.


Not that I find anything wrong with indie game development or things like Ragnars dump topic. I like that too and think it’s charming and has it’s own appeal in itself but at the same time this place is stagnant. I think it deserves better and IDK if it just had a more general kind of focus and that special bland of thoughtful discussion and articulate humor, with a little advertising it could see some new life and be better (for people like us at least) than places like Reddit or Twitter.

Dude I don’t give a shit if this turns into a 15 page death stranding discussion either. That’s what I really like about this place, you start a topic talking about one thing and then someone else bumps in about something wholly off topic and it just goes on and on.

It’s the discussion and thought that entertains me.

I personally never even bothered giving that noxious pile of shit a ten minute Redbox rental because to me it just looked like a high def version of an “another life’s” player’s bizarre dystopian baby/S&M fetish role play run than an actual narratively engaging hideo kojima game worth playing

As far as I’m concerned that dude fell off the wagon after the 3rd or 4th metal gear game and everything else has just been manifestations of his fucking schizophrenia

those do seem like good threads baby. maybe I'll have SB breakthrough one of these days.

Quote from: Mope on June 23, 2021, 04:22:23 am

Well yeah, that’s true. I always liked the forum outline of this community much more than the other forms of social media. And I always wondered if maybe what this community was in it’s heyday could be kind of brought back in a different way if the forum had a more active caretaker and was geared towards general discussion and other media in general.

I got stuck in kind of a weird position in being here in the first place. I was never into rm2k or gamemaking whatsoever. I had a couple highschool friends who were and they would show me these discussions or running joke/gag topics that I got enamored with and just thought were hilarious.

I originally just signed up here so I could read more of it and laugh but the more I read the more engaged I got.

I found a level of intelligence and the kind of humor/discussions I was severely lacking in life. Most of the people I knew from highs school or just in life in general we’re far less thoughtful, far less articulate and I got that out of this place.

And I learned a lot, so much. I think that in a way this place saved me or at least gave me what I was sorely missing.

Ever since this place kind of died I’ve just been roaming around Facebook. Sometimes I’ll get caught in a debate or a discussion or just crack jokes to make myself laugh but yes it is very toxic or at least people on a media outlet like tinder aren’t the kind up for thoughtful discourse.

I even thought about offering to invest in turning this space around into something active if that’s even possible.

I’ve read through Reddit forums and things like that too but they just seem so massive and overwhelming.

What I liked about this forum is it’s a bit smaller of a community. If I’m reading through a topic on something I can read it all in it’s entirety. You can get to know the members on a more personal level so it’s a lot easier to get a feel for who someone is and who you’re talking to. A certain level of trust in that because these members build up a repertoire over time.


I think a personality like steel could probably do that and have the aspiration to do it. Figure out a new way to repackage the community and make it more active and less than a kind of outdated niche/fringe group.


Not that I find anything wrong with indie game development or things like Ragnars dump topic. I like that too and think it’s charming and has it’s own appeal in itself but at the same time this place is stagnant. I think it deserves better and IDK if it just had a more general kind of focus and that special bland of thoughtful discussion and articulate humor, with a little advertising it could see some new life and be better (for people like us at least) than places like Reddit or Twitter.

I agree with a lot of that, I think saltw did a lot to shape me as a person and made me feel more like a sustainably cool outsider rather than just isolated and weird in all the wrong ways.

reddit isn't good at all, it's exactly the kind of place ppl are talking about when they say how bad social media is and how it poisons your brain. if ur not depressed or anxious, spend a morning going thru reddit and you will be. I use it to follow a few comedy subs which makes it a lot more palatable, but even that is a bit much and I should probably delete it.

I had a relationship with a girl who was really into astrophysics/quantum physics/astronomy/nature of reality and SPACE STUFF in general.

We’d have these long winded conversations about the nature of reality; things like the simulation theory, parallel realities, the Big Bang and advancements in science studying things like these ancient little particles that physicists collect in a bunker deep deep underground within a cave or mineshaft that were produced supposedly at the birth of our universe. They recently collected some of them in the arctic that had an opposing charge to the ones that you find floating throughout earth using some hypersensitive machine. Neutrinos are what they’re called I think…something like that. Anyways they figured out that the ones in the arctic had a negative charge as opposed to the positive ones that you’d find in the earth’s atmosphere. But these opposing charges don’t last long because they fundamentally mirror our own laws of physics so it’s been theorized that they’re coming from a parallel universe.

Which is some bullshit but it’s very very interesting to think about.

She used to scour Reddit reading articles about these things and various different scientific theories on the nature of reality then feed em to me to hear what I thought.

One of em was I think focused on time crystals and how all of the mass within the universe has a numerical value equal to the sum of all the mass in the universe, it’s really mathematically confusing and advanced but it’s these units or measurements of space that kind of prove the theory that you can fold space and move from one place to another based on the principle that all of this mass is built up of an equivalent of itself.

That’s a pretty shitty explanation of what I read but someone else might know exactly what I’m talking about.

I really like things like that off of Reddit or the whole Robinhood investor saga. That shit was incredibly interesting and very inspiring. Probably my favorite thing to happen within the past 5 years.

I don’t think most people really understand or appreciate what exactly happened with it and how powerful a thing like that is. Which really sucks for me because I was ranting about it and celebrating for a solid week between me and a handful of friends over social media and everyone else just thought I was some crazy nerd flipping shit over GameStop stock.

I think that’s a thing I really miss and find myself feeling bored and unchallenged or uninspired with.

I can’t find intelligent people to talk to. I just can’t. Even relatively intelligent people I’ve found can’t really keep up. Friends I grew up with who were gifted or had majors and were graduates in college just seem to be getting “old” I guess? Mentally? Just slower and less inspired, creative, thoughtful, intelligent.

But I don’t really think that’s it either I think it’s just the way my mind works. I’m still basically learning at the rate of a child if I really want to and retain/relay information very quickly but I just don’t flex it or use it nearly as often as I probably should. Mostly I end up teaching or entertaining/inspiring others.

Which I do like doing and I get the same kinda thrill out of it but it’s not the same as when you find someone on your level who knows shit you don’t. I get excited and infatuated over it. Even if someone is just insufferable and ignorant if I can squeeze a little bit of cleverness or thoughtfulness out of them or if someone can surprise me I’m like: YES! YEEEES! FINALLY!


Which is why I fell stupid for that girl, she was like that. Brilliant and beautiful. She’s the only one that I can even really remember making me feel stupid as I talked to her. Of course I wasn’t, she thought I made her feel stupid. But I saw that spark in her and I spent YEARS nurturing it just because it was there. Haven’t found it in 99% of the thousands of people I’ve met.

But basically my point is I think that’s a thing we could do and I’d at least like to do with saltw and this community if enough people agreed.

Now I’m not a coder or web designer for shit but I could definitely help promote content and discussion and help front any finances needed to do it.

I think that’s be an awesome way to revive the community.

Turn it into a more optimistic and personal form of the more positive aspects of social media and things like Reddit

Bring in a new generation of younger folks and just others seeking that kind of thing. Pair intelligence and learning with our off brand of humor and penchant for open ended communal discussions.

Think it could be a big deal because as far as I know you don’t really see too much content or many groups like that.

Ragnar/Atari/couch fiends musical expertise, hundleys nihilistic brilliantly written philosophical narrative, you me and a few others who can basically talk about a little bit of everything, the game making and critical analysis community

Could be good shit

Least a lot better than months of non posting intermittently interrupted by an army of shitposting bots

Anyways I know that’s a big problem we had to deal with in the early days. Hosting, web design, paying to update or work on the website. We were a bunch of kids and young adults living on a fixed income.

IDK, for me droppin a stack here and there to help fund/reinvent the forum whenever I can afford it seems totally worth it to me.

While I’m working I basically live like a homeless vagabond anyways with more money than I know what to do with and to me it’s worth it to make something contributive that helps people grow and express themselves.

Man, I find that the internet these days seems so much more segregated or divisive. It’s like wandering alone within a desert of inane bullshit. People don’t even really think or engage anymore.

Dunno, maybe it’s just me.

Found myself ostracizing myself from most social media platforms the past year or so. Just got so tired of it. But I think waaaaay too much when I don’t have a place to direct it.

I ended up writing an entire book as a fucking joke. I think it might’ve come out pretty good now I’m trying to figure out what to do with it and see if I can hire an artist to turn it into a graphic novel.

I got an amateur editor to read it for me, she really really liked it. Read it 3 times and didn’t even need to edit it. She gave it to a friend who works for a publisher, see what he says.

I really just wanna “see” it like it unfolds in my head. Because I dunno, I dunno if it’s just my madness or if it’s what I think it is.

tl;dr that type of thing sounds neat, if it resembled how we saw ourselves rather than how we were.

uh

it's hard (i.e., impossible) to tell who used to be who but I was around in the Old Days, I think from 2003 onwards? in any event, I remember the period you're talking about.

this place was also formative for me; I joined when I was like 17 and stayed for years. I used to think that was a good thing, and it took me a long time to consider that being here might have done more harm than good. I also thought it was a space for outsiders and weirdos to have intelligent conversations about intellectual matters -- possibly more that than the actual development and release of games -- but in hindsight I think a lot of us were probably huge scumbags. I sometimes talk to people I know about how I used to be an Internet Person and when I explain what that meant, it makes me sound like a gamergater.

like, was that cerebral conversation? arguing with the truth about neocon bullshit and hand-outs? listening to bled yell inarticulately about imperialism? or like any number of bath faith Debates? idk man, it's fine if you do, but I eventually realized that being here taught me how to be kind of an internet piece of shit and it took me years to decide that no, maybe I learned how to be a bad person on the internet.

remember how we doxxed people and called it net-sleuthing? or how we were constantly trying to trick people into having cyber sex so we could post the logs?  and how that worked with... masterdarkninja? and pitchwhite I think? and fatty, who was literally 12, and treesock? or how we just indiscriminately called everybody faggots?  or how we swarmed every woman that posted here that wasn't an oddball like owlstorm and 4dsheep and then literally called them attention whores for posting suggestive photos, which is to say, photos? remember how mekesss kept images of a naked 13 year old girl on his hard drive for an extended period of time and the primary defense from other people was that he eventually deleted them? i can only vaguely remember people like rpggoddess or fuckin'... sammie or whatever, that girl who I think was kind of baited into a semi-abusive real-life meeting with some other dude here, but in all cases shit was rough. I can't remember but there was a girl that everybody vocally agreed looked like a mongoloid.

I think maybe this place was a cesspool. I remember us explicitly maintaining that we were better than some 4chan board, but in hindsight this place was essentially 4chan lite (with lime.....). it's not even like I don't remember what it meant to me either. I'm vaguely embarrassed at how excited I was when I became a mod, and at the undue sense of control or whatever when I was admin.  I still have the posthumously published book steel was working on that we all raised the funds for -- Breaking the System.  it's a terrible book.  it reads like bad neo-noir Bukowski without any real faculty or self-awareness.  maybe it would've been kind of okay someday but I think it would really have needed a deep reconsideration of just, like, women in general.  still, I've moved like six times and for whatever reason I always make sure I don't lose it. it's funny because the fact that I apparently remember all this shit I haven't thought about in years in detail speaks to how much this place meant to me.

I actually just remembered this place existed and after several years typed the url in, half expecting it to not work, and then stumbled on this thread and thought, lol, what are the odds. I know it sounds a lil like I'm coming after you, but this for me is also a chance to verbalize all of the things that have been swirling around in my mind for years and only resurface when I have to explain to a girlfriend why no, actually, she would've hated me when I was 20. I think most of what you're saying is valid and I can relate, but in hindsight I kinda regret a lot of the growing I did while I was here.

buuuuuuut I'm also in academia and aside from that have a circle of friends that I am frequently certain are smarter than me.  I remember what it felt like before when it was nearly impossible to find anyone that gave enough of a shit about things on my wavelength to talk to me about shit and genuinely share and connect. and I remember how much worse than was when I was in 11th grade. I also think this place gave me a safe haven when I was a judgmental alienated nerd who didn't know how to talk to people, and I've still got kind of a warm feeling about reading trash head's posts, or arguing with Hundley about whether the ending of final fantasy 7 was good, or being told to go watch mind game, or trying too hard to make certain people to like me, or trying to figure out what the fuck xenogears was even talking about, or hotly anticipating a blurred line 2. so that was nice, at least after i unlearned how to be a dude on the internet.

Nah, not so much the terrible kind of trolling shit or prevalent ignorance of some members but the other things; at least for me the most profound things.

I think a lot of it was steel, but I can remember various other members who kind of got caught up in discussions that were pretty informative and interesting.

Fuck I’ll try to name a few off of the top of my head.

One was during the walk on wall street housing market and bailout crises where some members were adherent libertarians and some folks just came right through and bulldozed that shit.

Explained any rand’s pathology and the faults of libertarian ideology. How the crash was initially caused by early era reaganomics that escalated throughput time until it bottomed out.

I mean there was a lot more to it, ALOT more but it was the topic that really got me into studying political ideology.

I remember there were quite a few causes steel took up, one of them being amnesty international and the execution of Nathaniel Woods. I think it was him anyways, he was on death row in Alabama on circumstantial evidence. This spawned this whole discussion about the prison industrial complex. The nature of capital punishment and the moral ambiguity of the death penalty.

I remember once he started a discussion about sexuality, about him kind of open ended questioning his own sexuality, the sex industry, the mistreatment of women  and then just being like “fuck it in only going to watch lesbian soft core porn from now on so I don’t feel like a terrible person”.



I mean FOR ME there were lots and lots of instances like this; dragonslayer talking about mandatory military service in Sweden or Dada talking about Rotterdam or Amsterdam

Lots of conversations like that.

I think once I started a topic about the influence of insanity or mental illness in art and I got some illustrator with fuckin schizophrenia that drew cats. Just a shitload of pictures of his cat as he let the illness progress and the cat went through these phases of looking like a cat, then a psychedelic inspired cat, then an inter dimensional cat demon from hell.

There was also that specific form of humor they developed on here, I forgot what they used to call it but it was this kind of ambiguous art form in that you’re trying to say something in an idiotic way that almost seems fucking brilliant. It’s kind of like vapor wave but with jokes.

I think you’re absolutely right about the immaturity, I really don’t miss that very much at all. But we were all a bunch of kids basically so I don’t think I’m quite as self conscious about it but I definitely get that.

That’s why I kind of like the idea of making something newer, for our older selves. It just seems a shame to let this place kinda coast into spambot hell.

Also I keep thinking about a bunch of shit that people look at me like I’m a fucking alien when I talk about it.

Like the nature of altruism….and…fuckin dogs.


How even wild animals seem to form these bonded symbiotic relationships with humans. For instance I think it’s chickens that are more attracted to humans than other chickens or ostriches that are endeared to human faces (they’re still assholes though). And yeah, most of these things can be explained away by basic instinct such as feeding, comfort of living and security but then there are other things that just aren’t. Like the path of the domesticated dog, even more recently discovered the behavioral tendencies of cats. It goes much further than those most basic connotations.

So I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about the evolutionary path of the dog.

And I got to thinking that even I’m animals, in animal and human behavior that altruistic behavior is the higher evolutionary path.

I mean this makes total sense in terms of forming and maintaining a civilization, social bonds, etc…

But then I got to thinking about artificial intelligence. How that’s now becoming a thing, or it will rather soon. And how if you were going to make an AI if you based it’s behavioral algorithms around altruistic behavior. I reckon “taught” it morality, responsibility, cultivation, growth then maybe the whole idea wouldn’t be such a horrible thing? Like, it’s in human nature to experience trauma and develop a response, it’s in human nature to lie, cheat, steal, motherfuck to preserve oneself over everything else. But maybe not THAT kind of AI? Self preservation isn’t really an issue, a parental kind of relationship to it breeds responsibility and bonding, altruism a means to an end.

And then I read an article about how theoretically time travel is a possibility but also rather pointless because it’s more linear. That time itself isn’t a multiverse in the sense of these branching realities all unfolding if you change one event in time. More like if you change something time accommodates what you’ve changed to make it either insignificant or events still unfolding in the manner of which they were predetermined.

Like if you went back in time and killed baby hitler hitlers fam would just shit out another hitler, you get back to the present and there’s still a Holocaust museum I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THESE THINGS!

Also, fuck Richard Branson and fuck that bald headed dude look like a penis and his dick shaped rocket

i think maybe those are for me, in hindsight, fake profundities. i feel like we had a lot of “whoa” convos. i have genuinely spent a majority of my adult life slowly realizing how fundamentally ridiculous this place was, w/ relatively few exceptions, e.g., dietcoke kind of condescendingly talking about leftism, but like, pre-continental leftism.

also, like, who are you? this is panda, and i was sufficiently close with steelpaladine that i think i agree with you about the propulsion he provided but would caution against romanticizing that. once, years ago, i found an image on my hdd of him and some nerd friend posing next to avril lavigne, and i remember the plan was to punk her but instead they just awkwardly posed there, and like… why? jesus, why? looking at the photo is genuinely uncomfortable, but i remember the thrill of reading his narration of it. like i said, it’s warm. but i can still see us for who we were.

the place just drifted leftwards, right? libertarianism bad is like… just a generically left-leaning position to take. even then, it was a common position for college students to take. i learned from it too, but i don’t know that it was exceptional. i remember the porn thing and thinking back on it it was vaguely misogynistic. and in any event, a corollary of all of this was a deep intolerance for fairly mundane sexual kinks. i think we were probably just a bunch of nice guys, at best.

also, it was targ. #targlikecupcakes, too. i'm not sure that it's aged well, and there was in hindsight no consistent definition but it veered towards surrealist humor, unless i’m a dummy and didn’t get it. it also entailed saying niggar a lot, which, cool. i’m honestly ambivalent about the fact that i remember this.

maybe you’re right. idk how to miss my dumb college friends and self, though. they made me who i was, but a lot of that was poisonous and i just couldn’t tell.