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bateliteI just spent about an hour and fifteen minutes faffing around mostly meaninglessly in a Minecraft server since I apparently can't ask a sinple fucking question, which is whether or not I can help around the communal place at all. I don't know what needs doing there or what most of the things there do and I worry if I touch anything I will break stuff. Since I don't talk to people (even though I like it when I do) and I'm scared to interact with anything someone else made, I usually check in a few time and stumble around uselessly like this, maybe coming in with a question to ask (like this time) and never initiating conversation, and then eventually just...stop appearing. Waiting for something to give me a reason to come again, I guess.
---Now, part of it might be that I'm not used to playing with mods and thus, while I'm burned out on vanilla Minecraft after all these years, the rest is burned out on *modded* Minecraft after all these years. I think just now that honestly the problem I have with speaking up isn't just that I don't want to be a bother, but that the way chat works in the game messages disappear very quickly and I apparently don't handle that well. Part of it must be that I get on these servers because there's people to see and talk with, and most of them are inevitably online when I'm not thanks to timezones. If I get on in the morning I can hope at best for someone to still be on who's forgotten to go to bed. In the evening it's a bit better, but I don't think that's the main time people are on.
I've had this problem before. I think this must be the fourth or so Minecraft server where this happens. It's happened with Stardew valley a while back too it seems. I got the game for the first time, but thanks to friends' streams I knew sort of what to expect and some of the events that happened. I thought that the people I was with were going to be in a sort of similar boat, but instead they turned out to have both completed the game already. So they blazed on ahead while I was hoping we could discover stuff together. Sometime during the first session I quit, and I later told one of them why. After the second session I think we wanted to have a third but I've not heard of it since.
It's happened with Factorio. I got on at the start and went along happily (though usually letting people take control of stuff if they so much as started to fiddle with it). The second session I had trouble understanding where we were at at first. By the third session I found out that the others had gone on until the early morning for them, and had advanced past where I ever achieved. The others knew what to do better and more efficiently than I could. So I walked around and did some minor odds and ends, and I don't think I went back after that. People asked if I was coming. Then I think they did all there was to without me. Then they moved on to mods or some other game, I don't know. I'm not really in the habit of modding games for some reason.
I think something similar happens on the Minecraft servers though. I don't mind that people do stuff when I'm not there, but I come on to find that they've gotten way ahead and are doing things I can't hope to understand with each other and I don't even know where in the communal space they are, or how to access where they are, or if they want me there. I have built a Nice House, which is mostly empty, which seems to be around the point where I often stop having an idea of what to try and do next. Most of what I enjoy is honestly just building stuff.
That shouldn't be an issue. I just have to think of something else to build, but nothing else I could build is *useful* for anything. I've never gotten into mods, and at this point in Minecraft modding a "light" modded build (above "vanilla with Quality Of Life mods") means 30 mods at minimum. Some of those mods are huge additions on their own, and they also nowadays interact in a tangled web that's probably impenetrable. I am a terrible person to test this, because I don't know if I have the mindset or motivation to try much, but the entire modding community seem impenetrable for someone starting from scratch.
I tried to start a mod called Botanica in one of the servers, but I soon got stuck because I found out I had to set up an automated charcoal system and I didn't know how I could. I've never bothered with anything at scale. And even if I knew or looked it up that there was another gap in automation I didn't know how to solve after that. And then I found out at what scale the mod expected me to make charcoal to do much of anything. And then I just...stopped again. It's maybe not entirely fair on Botanica. It took I think about 16 pieces to use a table to craft a "rune" once. I can't remember exactly. I don't think it's a lot for vanilla standards either but it's a magnitude of sustained production above what I'm used to. Because I'm used to making stuff in batches or at least numbers to suit maybe a building that's larger than I have use for, with a garden that's half decorative.
If it's any consolation I can tell that sadness penetrating my emotional wall over this. I don't want it to happen again. I swear I can do multiplayer games alright, but when I do I have a role in the whole thing. I don't know if I can manage much about it though. Sorry.
---Now, part of it might be that I'm not used to playing with mods and thus, while I'm burned out on vanilla Minecraft after all these years, the rest is burned out on *modded* Minecraft after all these years. I think just now that honestly the problem I have with speaking up isn't just that I don't want to be a bother, but that the way chat works in the game messages disappear very quickly and I apparently don't handle that well. Part of it must be that I get on these servers because there's people to see and talk with, and most of them are inevitably online when I'm not thanks to timezones. If I get on in the morning I can hope at best for someone to still be on who's forgotten to go to bed. In the evening it's a bit better, but I don't think that's the main time people are on.
I've had this problem before. I think this must be the fourth or so Minecraft server where this happens. It's happened with Stardew valley a while back too it seems. I got the game for the first time, but thanks to friends' streams I knew sort of what to expect and some of the events that happened. I thought that the people I was with were going to be in a sort of similar boat, but instead they turned out to have both completed the game already. So they blazed on ahead while I was hoping we could discover stuff together. Sometime during the first session I quit, and I later told one of them why. After the second session I think we wanted to have a third but I've not heard of it since.
It's happened with Factorio. I got on at the start and went along happily (though usually letting people take control of stuff if they so much as started to fiddle with it). The second session I had trouble understanding where we were at at first. By the third session I found out that the others had gone on until the early morning for them, and had advanced past where I ever achieved. The others knew what to do better and more efficiently than I could. So I walked around and did some minor odds and ends, and I don't think I went back after that. People asked if I was coming. Then I think they did all there was to without me. Then they moved on to mods or some other game, I don't know. I'm not really in the habit of modding games for some reason.
I think something similar happens on the Minecraft servers though. I don't mind that people do stuff when I'm not there, but I come on to find that they've gotten way ahead and are doing things I can't hope to understand with each other and I don't even know where in the communal space they are, or how to access where they are, or if they want me there. I have built a Nice House, which is mostly empty, which seems to be around the point where I often stop having an idea of what to try and do next. Most of what I enjoy is honestly just building stuff.
That shouldn't be an issue. I just have to think of something else to build, but nothing else I could build is *useful* for anything. I've never gotten into mods, and at this point in Minecraft modding a "light" modded build (above "vanilla with Quality Of Life mods") means 30 mods at minimum. Some of those mods are huge additions on their own, and they also nowadays interact in a tangled web that's probably impenetrable. I am a terrible person to test this, because I don't know if I have the mindset or motivation to try much, but the entire modding community seem impenetrable for someone starting from scratch.
I tried to start a mod called Botanica in one of the servers, but I soon got stuck because I found out I had to set up an automated charcoal system and I didn't know how I could. I've never bothered with anything at scale. And even if I knew or looked it up that there was another gap in automation I didn't know how to solve after that. And then I found out at what scale the mod expected me to make charcoal to do much of anything. And then I just...stopped again. It's maybe not entirely fair on Botanica. It took I think about 16 pieces to use a table to craft a "rune" once. I can't remember exactly. I don't think it's a lot for vanilla standards either but it's a magnitude of sustained production above what I'm used to. Because I'm used to making stuff in batches or at least numbers to suit maybe a building that's larger than I have use for, with a garden that's half decorative.
If it's any consolation I can tell that sadness penetrating my emotional wall over this. I don't want it to happen again. I swear I can do multiplayer games alright, but when I do I have a role in the whole thing. I don't know if I can manage much about it though. Sorry.
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Date: 04/11/2019 21:48 (UTC)i feel the same way in some cases. i've played a few games like you mentioned, with someone who was way ahead, and you're left in the dark. things that other people take for granted are still completely unknown to you, and if the group you're with isn't interested in taking things slow, you end up feeling like a burden.
sorry. hope it gets better.