Reddit search is way better. It even has operators for the search, and things like flairs that you can search by.

Its not so much the outright tolls I’m concerned about (voting alone filters most out), as the general toxicity in the culture. Things like increasingly widespread personal attacks, decreased etiquette and consideration for others, and just the general death of discourse.

Sounds like the issue was less intelligence-gathing issues, and more just complete and total incompetence, and a complete lack of leadership. This article makes it sound like military members were basically just paid to browse social media.

See the video, but not really.

Like if you had modules and plugins that can work like legos to make a very simple game. AI can help get your initial game wired up.

This is basically how modern development tools (I.E. the Unity Editor) work - they let you import all the resources then provide a framework for connecting it all together.

That said, this process of connecting everything is also one of the parts AI is actually worst at. As AI doesn’t understand context or logic, it can’t fit things together in a complex or meaningful way, nonetheless a unique way. Its for the same reason AI is bad at large/complex programming tasks (like game development). AI can make passable (albiet not great) individual art assets, but when you need to fit them together in logical ways, things start to fall apart. The same problem applies to testing. Tests where an agent effectively hits random buttons aren’t very useful, since they’re too inefficient. You need logical, structured and/directed testing, which AI can’t meaningfully do.

Basically, for easy, boilerplate stuff, its going to be largely done by the engine, or assets you import. Anything else is too complex or too important for AI.

As is, theres no sign things will go that way quickly. The increase in larger mods is more a product of increased funding and increased (legal) support from publishers. Things like Roblox’s microtransactions make it very profitable, even if a lot of time or money is spent in development. For more general game development, most of it hasn’t changed in about a decade, and I don’t see AI affecting much. AI can’t reliably create good results in any field, nonetheless combining them. Basically, making any large project just costs too much to give away for free.

So, basically you’re describing open source, public domain game development (rather than just an open source engine like Godot) by the sound of it. This does happen, games like Luanti or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but very rarely. Unlike mods, which tend to be small, quick-and-dirty projects, game development is usually much larger in scope and more difficult. It’s normal for the process to take years of work from a collective of skilled developers and artists. That amount of work is usually just too much for someone to willingly give away for free.

There are free engines available, and many of the paid ones have cheap or free tiers available for smaller projects. Also, if you want to actually publish your mod, there are likely to be a bunch of costs, like buying licences to use copyrighted characters, settings, ect. Even more so if you want to publish your mod as a standalone product, where you need to buy a licence to resell the entire original game.

That said, prehaps it would help to think of the game engine as a foundation, and the games as a completed house. If you want to make something, you can look at existing houses and imagine putting an extention on, or a new coat of paint. If the house is particularly well contructed, maybe its even easy to do. Still, at a certain point, theres no more you can add or change without it being easier to tear everything down and start from the foundation, or entirely from scratch. Its not a limitation of the design of the house, its just an intrinsic fact when you’re working by building off someone else’s completed work.

Now, if we start from the foundation (engine) instead we have less to start with, meaning its going to be a lot more work than doing minor changes, but the hardest part is still already done for us. This is what most people do when making games. Its far more flexable than modding, esspecially because you have a selection of engines available at different prices, with different strengths, weaknesses and specializations. GameMaker for simple 2D games, RPGMaker for making jrpgs, Unreal for 3D action games, ect.

Finally, you could skip both these options, and design and build everything from scatch. Its the option that gives you most freedom by far, but its generally not worth it unless you’re making something thats very small, that is so unique that nothing else will work, or that you’re dedicated and what a perfect fit for.

Company-made games and standalone games aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Its a different type of project than modding/creating for games like Half Life, Gmod, Minecraft, Roblox, or VRChat. Making games within other games limits what you can do, because you have no control over the engine, and said engine is normally focused on an specific “base” mechanics set. For example, in Gmod, this is an FPS game. Modders can change this gameplay, but the further you push away from it, the less work is done for you, and the more you’re fighting the existing game. At a certain point, you may as well just make a game rather than a mod.

Depends on the use case. If its just to be a piece to fill the spot and nothing else, yes. That said, assets impact tone and gameplay, and if you’re trying to judge how something will feel or play, then sometimes you need something closer to the given use case. For example, if you have a survival horror game and are trying to judge the ambiance and visibility of an in-progress level, using wildly out of place assets will mess with the tone, and may result in difficulty in judging factors like the visibility of gameplay elements. Like was said before, the same role as stock assets and programmer art.

Stock assets (at least if you need more than the absolutely basics) cost quite a bit. Programmer art can work, but if you want something close to the tone of the finished product, still takes time and thus money. Slop is quick and free.

Frankly, given the fact that placeholder assets are literally meant to be utilitarian, disposable, “just good enough” work, it’s actually not a terrible use case. Placeholders are meant to be slop either way, so not much is lost by automating it, so long as it is actually removed after.

Unfortunately, thats only true for the, “Please sign in to confirm you’re not a bot.” gate. The age gate is a separate system, that blocks on a per-video rather than per-user basis.

Unfortunately, thats only true for the, “Please sign in to confirm you’re not a bot.” gate. The age gate is a separate system, that blocks on a per-video rather than per-user basis.

The age restricted videos like what OP asked about are unfortunately pretty common with topics like history, or games - anything that may have any amount of violence. So far as I know, the only way to bypass them is by proxy.

That which reinforces bias from innapropriate confirmation or unduly limits discussion of counter views.

The problem is that if that toxicity is widespread enough, and accepted enough, it does interfere with any discussion of opposing viewpoints. When helpful comments that advance the discussion are consistently burried under dozens of unhelpful ones, it makes it difficult to have a meaningful discussion, and incentivses those whose opinions that go against the ingrained group-think to leave. Akin to the Nazi bar allegory, allowing that sort of toxicity to fester just chases off anyone who doesn’t want to join in, leading to a echo-chamber.

There do appear to be a couple services that use their own accounts (see here), but in general, that was my understanding too.

I’ve found that works with the “Are you a bot?” blocks, but never the age restrictions.

Unless I’m missing something, it doesn’t appear to work.

Unless I’m missing something, it doesn’t appear to: