While this is true to an extent, from experience this line of thinking has its limits and is very easy to misapply. On the one hand, yes you can tell people their ideas do not gel with the vision of the project, and sometimes that’s the right call. And sometimes doing this a lot is best for the project.

On the other hand, even if a majority of the work is coming from one person, not only does your community learn your project, they also spend time contributing to it, fixing bugs, and helping other people. I feel it’s only to a project’s benefit to honor them and take difficult suggestions seriously, and get to the root of why those suggestions are coming up. Otherwise you risk pissing off your contributors, who I feel have the right to be annoyed at you and maybe post evangelion themed vent blog posts if you consistently shut down contributors’ needs and fail to adapt to what your users actually want out of your software. And forking, while freeing and playing to the idea of freedom of choice, also splits your userbase and contributors and makes both parties worse off. It really depends on the project, but it pays to maintain buy-in and trust from people who care enough to meaningfully contribute to your project.

I’ve attempted to do public-facing technical support for a game and dear Christ you’re spot on. I love people for wanting to engage with something I’ve spent a substantial part of my life putting together and trying to make it run okay, and am sympathetic to people feeling frustrated when technical issues prevent them from fully enjoying an early access game. Early on when the community was small I had a great time shitposting with the players, but once we hit release the environment turned toxic pretty much overnight as the community suddenly grew.

But like, none of them know how hard we crunched to get even a playable version of the game out, nevermind one that’s playable on the lowest of netbook specs. None of em know how complicated the system is that’s breaking preventing them from logging in, that that’s not actually my area of expertise and that I’m just feeding them information from the matchmaking team who are all freaking the fuck out because this is the first time we’ve tested this shit at scale. None of them know that we were getting squeezed by our publisher, who wanted us to do a progression wipe that we didn’t want ourselves, but like they control if the game gets shipped at all so… not really a choice there. And we can’t admit any of this because accusations of incompetence come out pretty early, tend to stick around, and leave devs very little room to make bad decisions (which happens a lot!)

And like, being trans now on top of that? Hell no, I’m never touching a public server again if I can help it. Slurs and mistrust were already flying before, I can’t throw myself in front of that bus again. I’m gonna miss it because I cared a lot about connecting with people playing the game and for a while found a lot of joy in responding to bugs and fixing individual system issues and integrating into the community. And there were some amazing people who were great to talk to that I really missed when I left. But the inherent abuse that comes with that gets so overwhelming and it drained my desire to even work on games at all for quite a while.

“As a child, I once considered such unknowns sinister. Now, though, I understand they bear no ill will. The universe is, and we are.” - Solanum, Outer Wilds

But I want red-red, not orange-red! It’s not the same thing!!

Yep absolutely!

For me, it felt like my life was quickly progressing away from a youth I was not ready to leave for inexplicable reasons. In the end I ended up taking a nuclear option once I realized how uncomfortable I was with my future, and while it’s not been easy it’s been absolutely worth it.

Even though you may be stuck in the same habits and mistakes, they can be rewritten and you’ll be surprised how quickly life changes once you find what makes you authentically happy. A lot can happen in 3 years and I guarantee you’ll still be young at 24. You can still be young at twice that. There’s a lot of life ahead of you, especially once you take calculated risks to improve your future and make the most of the youth you still have. You may not know what exactly will make you happy, but trust in yourself and your judgement to find it as you go.

While I do broadly agree, I feel it’s important to note generational trauma is a real and separate concept. It just refers to the idea that trauma can be passed down from parents to children by repeating the same behavior or perpetuating the same ideas that traumatized them. This can be especially apparent in children of immigrants, religious extremists, or survivors of abuse, all for completely different reasons. It’s very common and worth talking about.

I’ve heard this as a sticking point for some people, and I think it’s fair. Some don’t enjoy putting themselves in the shoes of a complete fuckup main character who’s already made a ton of terrible decisions before the game’s even started and will continue to do so despite your best efforts.

But, worth noting this is part of the appeal for a lot of other folks, and the game is going somewhere really special with it. It’s not bad writing, it’s a necessary component of the story being told.

Wasn’t really allowed to harbor or express anger as a kid. Now I can’t summon an ounce of rage, even when it’s appropriate and helpful. It’s not ideal, so I spend a lot of time meditating, dropping away other emotions in hopes of finding a spark of something in there. Nothing yet, but I’ve found a number of other useful things in the process.

Mindfulness is a great skill to build to debug issues like this. It’s slow, painful sometimes, and doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but it’s definitely worth taking the time to try meditating to get closer to your base emotions and how they appear.

Worth remembering too that what you’re looking for probably isn’t a huge shift in thinking, at least in the short term. Incremental progress over time is all it takes. Some people are shades of tightly wound and that’s okay. You’re who you are for a reason and it’s worth being kind to yourself when unhelpful thoughts appear. Not to excuse yourself of behavior you don’t want to maintain, but to care for and guide yourself toward a simple step in the right direction.

I’m partial to this one https://youtu.be/b1NEMNoXqc8?si=KFBowwRLNxmDLn-r

omfg as an engineer SAME! I’ve struggled with both sides of this somehow. Being a great problem solver gives you some very useful tools, but they’re not always the right tools for the job in interpersonal situations. It’s taken some time to remember in the moment that venting usually contains emotions greater than the specifics of what’s being discussed, and as a partner the emotions are generally the important part. Solutions come easy once everyone’s calm, if they’re even necessary or possible in the first place.

Oftentimes though, if I’m sharing frustration with something, I already have a solution. It’s just that it’s hard, or inconvenient, or stressful. If my partner comes in immediately with solutions, the discussion immediately turns to practical discussion of the solution I have in mind vs. what my partner thinks is best. If I already have a viable solution in mind, this is not what I need and puts me on the defensive when I’m already stressed and hurt. Especially if my partner doesn’t fully understand the problem yet. This has the capability to turn into arguing very fast because it presents the opportunity for disagreement without dealing with underlying emotional states.

However, if my partner instead listens, starts by supporting me emotionally, “I’m sorry, that’s tough”, and lets me get my piece out, I’m already going to feel a bit better, especially if I can trust my partner not to assume I just haven’t thought about it enough. Much of the time, all I need is reassurance and confidence-building in the solution I already have - mirroring on an emotional level without focusing on finding better practical solutions is a perfect way to do that. After I’m freaking out a little less and have laid out the full problem and it’s completely understood, I don’t mind some “have you tried X” or “what would you think of Y” conversation. But the emotional work and full understanding of the problem has to come first for that to be productive.

god, what a cool game. Never got around to playing the dlc though

Seems to me like a bearded axe does many of the same things while being easier to control and being more effective as a striking weapon, no?