I was in the same boat as OP, so thanks for the clarification. Your post was enlightening.

My captor must have had experience working help desk. I've endured people eating chips and sandwiches, chewing gum, and sniffling with stopped up sinuses right in my ear, while trying to focus on fixing their computer.

You can be masculine and also play female characters in games.

I uninstalled Epic Online Services right after installing the game, and the only difference now is I get a warning screen that it's not installed whenever I start the game up. It's still BS that I should have to manually uninstall something I never wanted, though.

Gambled and lost

I started with World, and put hundreds of hours into that and Rise, plus their expansions. I tried the GU demo on Switch, but it felt too clunky.

The thing that hooked me was the first large monster you hunt, Great Jagras. He's a pushover for any hunter with even a slight amount of experience, but for me as a new player, it was an epic battle and I certainly didn't expect that much intensity that early in the game. I also liked how even after you had a monster on "farm status" a hunt could still easily go from good to bad if you weren't careful. It emphasized that these monsters were incredibly dangerous, and even seasoned hunters could be in trouble if they get too cocky. It also helped keep farming more interesting as you needed to pay attention if you wanted to be successful.

Overall, I like the... world, in World more, but the gameplay mechanics and combat more in Rise. In World, the maps were larger, with more detail and felt more alive. I also liked the tracking aspect, and was disappointed that aspect didn't make it to Rise. It felt like you were actually hunting your target, instead of just sprinting to their location on your doggo friend and beating them up like in Rise.

I'm definitely looking forward to Wilds releasing next year.

My parents' divorce. I was 20 when it started, but still living at home. I was dragged through the middle of the very messy and drawn-out divorce proceedings, and unfortunately, my dad did not survive to hear the final judgement. The silver lining I guess was these two events gave me a solid kick in the pants to start acting like an adult. I went to counseling, then college, then an actual professional career.

While I am now in the best position in my life that I've ever been in, the catalyst to me getting here was terrible. 0/10, would strongly advise alternate means.

I'm a millennial, so I guess I grew up with the internet, but wasn't something I really used myself until high school. I remember the "information superhighway" term pushed a lot in grade and middle school. My family only had dial-up until after I graduated high school, mainly because my parents were concerned I would spend too much time on the internet (they were 100% right lol). I wasn't allowed on the internet at home unless I had to do research for a school project. I ended up having a do a lot of "research" for a while.

In high school, I got my hands on a second-hand laptop, so I would take it to friends houses or wherever I could get a wifi connection and screw around on the web. I spent a lot of time on Newgrounds and AIM before Youtube was a thing. I learned how to find the .swf files in the browser cache so I could rewatch flash videos when I was offline. I also learned some things about my family while browsing the browser cache, but I'll be keeping those secrets.

I never used Napster, but did use Kazaa and similar to download music and such.

I didn't quite understand how insane it is to have access to that much knowledge until later. To me, the internet was a convenient place to do research, play games, watch funny videos, and chat with friends.

It's mostly noticeable in the menus for BL2. Navigating with a mouse is kinda jank, where it is much snappier when using keys.

Minecraft or any number of the farming/life sim games out there. I've dug countless tunnels in Minecraft while listening to various things.

The smaller population overall isn't a bad thing, but it can really be felt in smaller or niche communities. Reddit's huge size is a plus in this regard, because chances you can find at least a semi-active community for just about any hobby or niche interest.

Steam's storefront and various gaming communities on Lemmy.