Engines cost money for a reason. It means you get the tools while someone else spends the significant resources to develop and maintain it. There are FOSS engines available, but those aren’t as developed or widespread.

Notice how one says milk chocolate and the other says milk chocolate flavored. For something to be called “milk chocolate” in the USA, it must have at least 10% by weight of chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor is the result of grinding cacao, and must be 50-60% cacao fat.

What you see, especially around Easter, is a lot of cheaper candies labeled chocolate flavored or chocolatey or similar, instead of chocolate, because they don’t meet the minimum cacao requirement. You can see this with other processed foods, as well. The companies aren’t trying to be trendy or cute, they’re complying with regulations.

long game - for the first 3 hits, you weren’t allowed to cherry bomb

long game forevermore - can’t cherry bomb this round

no bobbling - bobbling is where you would repeatedly “juggle” the ball with one hand since holding the ball wasn’t allowed

nice and easy - nothing resembling a hard hit allowed

I’m sure there was more that I’m not remembering. It was up to the king to declare which special rules they wanted to play with that round before they served. “Long game forevermore and all that crap” was used to declare a standard set of special rules most of us would use, but you had to pay attention since it wasn’t always declared. Rule breaking was a regular thing, but would slide if it was done in a funny way or if the other 3 didn’t like the person who got out.

Sure, but these same companies will drag you to court and rake you over the coals if you infringe on their copyrights.

Babymetal

I avoided them for quite a while because I’m not a fan of Jpop and the fusion with metal did not sound like a good mix. I eventually listened to Kingslayer, and my attitude on them a hard 180 before the song was over. They have done quite a few great collabs, but their one with Electric Callboy is just chef’s kiss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDnIEWyVIlE

Some of these groups have dozens or hundreds of people on them, no way I’ll get even a fraction of them to. I don’t have the time or desire to start a new community from scratch.

As much as I hate it, people join Discord because that’s where all the communities are and they stay because all their other communities are there.

A lot of communities only exist on Discord. And no, you can’t just find alternatives if they’re locally based or similar.

Apparently there are quite a few art majors who turn their “useless” art degree into a living by making hentai, especially furry stuff.

OP already mentioned the .hack games, but someone else may be interested.

Most of these don’t fit “offline MMO” super closely, but are games I’ve played that share various aspects that I enjoyed in MMOs:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Minecraft with mods

Hytale

Various Bethesda games with mods

Sword Art Online games

V Rising

Big screen. Watching something on my phone in bed is not comfortable in the slightest. If I want comfort, I’ll go sit on my reclining sofa and cuddle with my pup.

I typically don’t do early access games either, but added to the watch list.

Check out the Youtube channel Let’s Game It Out. Josh is very creative in finding ways to torment the NPCs of various simulator and tycoon games.

I like to buy the regular hummus and add my own spice powders to it. Just stir them in and give it some time for the spices to hydrate. You may need to add a teaspoon of water if the mixture dries out from too many spices added.

I don’t care, I’ll be dead. Whatever is cheapest and simplest.

I quit the game more than once during the slog that is the post-ARR questline. I got to the point where I was just skipping all dialogue, then started paying attention again when I noticed new characters being introduced. Getting to Heavensward was great, both storywise and just to be in new areas.

I heard later that they pruned that section of the questline down, and it really needed it.

Land a career in a STEM field and don’t have any kids. That’s what worked for me, at least.

Sure, rich people own the companies that employ the poor, but many of those same companies are investing heavily into AI and other automation so they no longer have to.

Call yourself part of the “3 Comma Club”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzMUrB-Um1Y

Popcorn

carrots & hummus

plain greek yogurt & fruit of choice