House poem scavenger hunt ideas

To make this as short as possible, I was a bored teenager on the internet without many friends in real life, so at 16 I started talking to this 30 year old guy. Initially he told me he just wanted to practice his English, because he’s from Eastern Europe, but we started communicating daily. I viewed him as a friend, but after a few months he started to tell me that I was so beautiful, he wanted to be my boyfriend, and so on.
Around ~2 years ago he told me he moved to America, but he still lived pretty far from me, so we never met in person. At this point we only spoke every once in a while. When we did, he’d offer to buy a me plane ticket and hotel room to come visit him, but I always had some excuse as to why I couldn’t.
In the past few months, he’s showed up in my area (with no prior notice) asking if I could meet him. I’d say that I was out of town, or I had a family emergency, or something like that. Recently, he told me he’s coming again next month and he really, really wants to meet. And this time, I have mixed feelings.
I know it’s shallow, but I’m not physically attracted to him. Maybe he’s better in person, but he’s not really that interesting or funny either. There’s also the whole talking to teenage me on the internet thing.
On the other hand, I’ve tried to date before, but was always unsuccessful. I’d get ghosted when I made it clear I didn’t want to have sex yet. In contrast, he’s never mentioned anything sexual, even once. He also made it clear that his physical “type” is for girls who look like me, which isn’t very common.
I’m kind of a failure in life. I’m 23, I live with my parents, I can’t drive, I don’t have any friends, I’ve never had a real job. I had a few retail/food service sort of jobs, but I never lasted long because I got overwhelmed with being around people all day. I did go to college, but I wasn’t very good at what I majored in, and I don’t know what to with my life. I’m honestly not good at anything. In contrast, he has a house, a car, and a job.
He’s talked about me moving in with him, us getting married, having a family, and he’ll take care of everything. I never saw myself living that kind of life, but maybe I’m not suited for anything else. I’m awkward and don’t have any other skills.
Honestly, I think he’s probably the best I’ll ever get. Most people don’t get their perfect 10/10 person, and I should be happy that someone has been this persistent in their interest of me. The only hurdle is finding a way to go meet him when he comes, but I could figure something out. I’m not sure if it’s an ok idea or if I could possibly try to learn to love him? Should I meet him?

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

Did you buy any of the houses in game? I’m curious to know which ones were purchased vs skipped and also how would people have liked to improve upon them. I purchased all of them, with the exception of the home in the nobles district. I was vastly disappointed with the large home in Bakbattahl, it is very far out of the way and I almost never use it. I tried to reload to go back and save myself the 300k but it forced an auto save on me. In my opinion, the best improvement for at least the larger houses, would be to allow cooking in them. I really like the in game cooking at campsites and the buffs it provides and I think that having a larger home should have meant having a way to at least cook there instead of traveling to a campfire each time you want to buff for a boss fight. Another mechanic that could’ve been fun to make the larger houses more worth the high price is perhaps a “send to storage” option, instead of having to visit a home/inn or using the dismiss pawn workaround to send items back to your storage. What are your thoughts? Would love to hear ideas!

Obviously, MAJOR spoilers ahead.
Hi all! My group just finished playing through Spelljammer Academy and then straight into Light of Xaryxis, and while it was a great experience overall and my players had a lot of fun, I have some bones to pick with LoX specifically. Disclaimers: I'm not a super experienced DM (I've run a couple one shots and Tomb of Annihilation before this) and I tend to kind of fly by the seat of my pants and lean heavily on the Rule of Cool. Also, I know I'm not the first one to complain about LoX or rewrite portions of it, this is just what worked for me, maybe it will help someone else. Feel free to ask any questions.
So, my group and I decided on a spelljammer campaign- the vibes sounded cool and it was a big tone shift from the campaign we had just finished so I was excited to have some lighthearted fun in space. Fast forward to us getting a third of the way through Light of Xaryxis and me realizing that this adventure makes no fucking sense.
My issues with the story as written and how I fixed them:

1. Too many NPCs. My players couldn't keep them all straight and honestly a lot of them are not necessary to the plot. If they weren't necessary for the story, I just omitted them completely. It's easy enough to just use a couple main NPCs for most roles.
   
2. Most of the chapters end in cliffhangers, which sounds fun in theory, but in practice is just annoying, especially when it turns out to be a fake-out. I let go of the idea of these cliffhangers early on and just let the sessions end whenever felt natural.
   
3. I think this adventure leans a bit too heavily on whatever the writers think will be fun to put the players through, while not considering what players are most likely to actually do. One example of this is in Chapter 3, when players arrive at Aruun. The adventure wants your players to land on the planet and pick up Blastimoff, who is being chased by Artuuks a la Jack Sparrow and the cannibals. However, considering Aruun is a dangerous jungle planet home to rampaging Tarrasques, my players understandably refused to land there. Also, wtf was Blastimoff doing on this moon? "Peaceful entreaty" to the Artuuks? He's been attempting to form a coalition for how long and only just now got around to trying to talk to them?
   
4. The whole second half of the adventure doesn't make any sense. The Xedalli vs Xeleth plot is boring. Why does it matter who gets the crown if the player's world is going to die either way? Why are the only outcomes of this adventure "save your planet and genocide an entire civilization" or "let the Xaryxians live and genocide your own planet"? Like, that sucks. And what the HELL is up with that Zodar battle? I got so annoyed, I just rewrote the entire plot to be as follows:
   

the Xaryxians plant astral seeds on Toril to harvest the planet’s energy in order to feed their own dying star. Up until now, they have only harvested uninhabited planets, but because Xeleth and Xedalli want more power for themselves, they have decided to target a living world.
The prince and princess want more than just a thriving star for their people, they want power for themselves. They create two starlight rings that divert a portion of the harvested energy into themselves, effectively making themselves immortal.
The twins were meant to rule together and share the power, but Xeleth betrays Xedalli. He frames her for treason and she is banished from xaryxispace, so that he may be crowned instead. Xeleth believes that he destroyed Xedalli’s ring, but it was only a clever copy. Xedalli still has her own starlight ring, which Xeleth will eventually realize.
When the characters find Xedalli aboard the Last Breath, she will play the victim and will use the party to get back to Xaryxis and hopefully kill her brother. She claims:

• The Xaryxian empire drew on their own star to supplement their magic, and it eventually started to dim. They harvest other planet’s energy to keep Xaryxis alive. (true)
• Her evil brother Xeleth orchestrated the attack on Toril even though the elves usually harvest uninhabited planets (true, kind of- they were in on it together)
• Xeleth commanded her to be dropped on Toril so that she would be destroyed by the astral blight but the ship was boarded by vampirates and she was captured (true)
• She wants vengeance (true) and will do her best to save toril if the characters help her become empress (false)
• the only way to stop the energy harvest is by destroying the energy harvesting device at the top of the temple of light on the Citadel, which orbits Xaryxis (false- the device is just a decoy at this point, the set of rings belonging to the twins are the real harvesting devices)

This sets up Xedalli as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ally to the party, and they agreed to help her, believing that she could set the Xaryxian Empire back on a peaceful path and save their planet. I also think there's nothing more fun than a good final act NPC betrayal, and this worked out pretty well.
This is how it ended up playing out:
characters arrive in doomspace to search for the coalition.
They find Warwyck Blastimoff, who has not been able to form a coalition. the factions in doomspace don’t see the empire as a threat.
Characters seek out Vocath to convince the factions to join together. He wants them to fight in an arena in exchange for an audience with all the factions.
At the end of the fight, three Xaryxian star moths attack and try to kidnap Xedalli. The factions must all fight together to survive and win the battle. Xedalli is not captured. With that, the factions can be convinced that the empire is a threat. Whatever factions can be convinced, will join the coalition and lend their ships to the fleet. Note- I did not have prince Xeleth present for this fight, only a representative of the Empire.
The players plan an attack on the Citadel. NPCs from earlier in the adventure travel out to join the fight if informed. The fleet takes on Xaryxis’ forces while PC’s ship infiltrates their defences using Gargenhale's invisibility spell and reaches the Temple of Light.
Xedalli and PCs battle Xeleth at the Temple of Light and attempt to destroy the harvesting device (which, unbeknownst to anyone, is pretty much inert and breaking it does nothing), while the coalition fleet battles the Xaryxian forces outside. In the temple, a projection of Toril shows the planet dying in real time, crystal vines choking the surface and motes of energy concentrating in a beam toward Xaryxis. The climactic moment: Xeleth lays dying, a final blow is dealt to the device, and… nothing happens. The vines still grow and energy motes still gather. PCs turn to see Xedalli taking the twin Ring of Shooting Stars from Xeleth’s finger, and she performs a fusion spell that turns two rings into one, concentrating the diverted energy into herself, healing herself to full, surrounding herself with motes of Toril’s energy. And then I wrote a whole evil monologue revealing that this was her plan all along.
Phase 2 boss fight with powered-up Xedalli! My players have a crazy ability to blow through 'deadly' combat encounters with ease, so I gave Xedalli some extra powers, including hp replenishing at the start of every turn from her ring. The party can only kill her and save their planet by destroying her fused ring. Once they do, the crystal vines on Toril wither and die.
This leaves the Xaryxian Empire intact but without leadership, and players can convince the priests or whoever else has some authority to go back to their more peaceful methods and never again try to harvest a living planet.
And that's the adventure! I won't pretend that this rewrite is perfect, I'm sure there are plenty of plot holes, but it was still a lot of fun for me and my players.
A note on the segue from Spelljammer Academy to Light of Xaryxis: as written, the adventures don't connect well. What I did was change the villain of Spelljammer Academy to be Hastain the reigar. While hiding behind his noble title on the Rock of Braal, Hastain had been working with the Xaryxian Empire to sabotage the Academy in preparation of the Empire's attack on Toril. I planted clues that led to Hastain being behind it all, and that way my party had someone to focus on chasing down in the first half of LoX. Of course, this did mean that we veered majorly off course and spent more than a couple sessions on Braal, as my party wanted to not only break into his house, but discredit him, embarrass him, and eventually kill him. It was worth it though, it was very funny and gave them a good way to uncover the Xaryxian Empire's plot.

I'm actually playing in a campaign where my Pandaren is the team's cook. After speaking with my DM, he gave me the opportunity to prepare some special funny recipes to flavor up the downtime activities. Here are some of my ideas.
Look at me stew
This magic mushroom stew makes you get the best out of the shroom. After eating this glowing delicacy, you slowly start to glow, shedding dim light in a 20-foot radius and dim-light for an additional 20 feet. The effect lasts for 1 hour.
Divorce snail soup
When you eat this dish, you grow two snail antennas and are able to see through them. After 10 minute your skin starts to get slimy and wet. The effect lasts for 24 hours.
Aphrodite’s berries
These berries make you shine like the most good-looking being in the house! Most people want to flirt with you but you cannot understand their language while they’re flirting with you. It lasts 3 hours.
Hush Hush broth
This broth is made of chamomile and other herbs. It makes you relax and you cannot speak at a normal tone anymore, since you’re forced to whisper. It lasts 3 hours.
Punch that stuffed chili
This super spicy stuffed chili is the best for a tavern brawl. When you eat this chili, its spiciness makes you want to punch everybody and start a brawl. It last 30 minutes.
Plant-man
This soup is prepared with a special mixture of herbs from a very far and remote land. After eating it, your hairs becomes little leaves and you turn into a plant-like being. It lasts 24 hours.
Sleeping walnuts
These little walnuts are a must-use for everyone who’s suffering from Insomnia. Mixed with beef or other kind of meat, they’re a cure-all for your non-sleeping disorders. After eating them, you just want to sleep. It lasts 30 minutes.
Show me your inside
This multicolor soup reveals all your emotions. When you finish your last sip, your skin changes its color based on your current emotion, as shown in the table below. It lasts 24 hours.
Red: anger
Orange: excitment
Yellow: happiness
Green: boredom
Blue: sadness
Purple: anxiety
Polyglot tofu
Wanna learn new languages but got no time to learn? Here we are! When you finish this dish, you forget a language you know and must roll 2d6 to determine which new languages you learn. It lasts 24 hours.
1: Celestial
2: Draconic
3: Infernal
4: Deep Speech
5: Primordial
6: Sylvan
Dwarf me more
This hot stew lets you become a dwarf for an hour. After finishing this delicacy, you can speak dwarvish and grow a long black beard. Roll a d20, if it’s a 20, you mantain the beard for a month.
Smiley lime
Got a beef with a stranger? Got divorced recently? Got fired by your badass boss? No problem. After you finish this dish, you become happy, your mouth starts to bend upwards and you are forced to smile. It lasts 24 hours.
I just want to add some more recipes but I cannot think of anything else. Everything is welcomed. thank you in advance.

We are clearing our elderly family member who has moved into a nursing home’s house that has sold. We have this bedroom set that realtors and visitors have said is “worth something”. We have no idea what. Looking for a ballpark on what to list it at. Brand is Kilgour, and it includes a Queen headboard, 2 night tables, a dresser with mirror and an armoire. It would be more than 40 years old. Thanks for any help!

Hi everyone,
I hope you're all doing well. I wanted to share my game idea with you and get your thoughts on it. The concept is a realistic treasure hunt, similar to the films Uncharted or Indiana Jones, with a Co-Op feature and regular tournaments. Imagine a new treasure hunt starting every three months, where the first person to solve all the mysteries wins a real prize, such as $1,000.
My vision includes creating authentic treasure hunts with compelling stories, like the search for Montezuma's treasure or the Ark of the Covenant. The map would be expansive, filled with diverse obstacles and challenging mysteries. Players would have the freedom to explore the entire map with only one clue to start with.
To enhance the realism and complexity, the game will feature changing weather conditions and day-night cycles. Non-playable characters (NPCs) will provide hints, sell useful items, or present side quests that contribute to the main treasure hunt. Additionally, the stories and settings will be based on historical facts and legends, making the game more immersive and educational.
I plan to set the difficulty level quite high.
What do you think? Would you be interested in joining a treasure hunt and playing it in a Co-Op session with your friends? :)
Thank you in advance for your opinions.
Best regards

Hello. This is my current load order. 165 mods, might add more. I'm not the best and don't entirely know what I'm doing yet but I followed the LLO2 and some other load orders I've seen and it seems pretty stable. If you have any suggestions, let me know
Mods ⏬️
Paraphernalia - Anti Flicker
USSEP
Simple Workaround Framework
Better Animals
Reforging - To The Masses
Sirenroot - Deluge of Deceit
Wrymstooth
Lanterns of Skyrim II 1K
Ars Metallica
Ars Metallica Smelting Fix
Kontrol - Updated
YOT
Hero - A Fort Takeover and Bounty Bundle
Unread Books Glow
Better Descriptions
TK Interface Overhaul
Skyrad Preset Plus - TK Edition
Skyhud - Dissonance Preset
Starlit Lakes Loading Screens
Undiscover Skyrim
Command Your FoV
Audio SFX: Weapons
Airgetlam - Modern Magic Sounds
More Painful NPC Death Sounds
Dragonborn Shouts Re-Voiced
Jayserpas Quest Expansion Bundle
Jayserpas Quest Expansion Bundle USSEP Patch
The Paarthurnax Dilemma
Improved College Entry
Thugs Not Assassins
Gildergreen Regrown
Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers
Jiub's Opus and Arvak's Skull Quest Markers
Dragonborn Delayed
Surplus Cooking Recipes
Bandolier
Face Masks of Skyrim
Katana Crafting
Wearable Lanterns
Spellsword Cuirass SSE
Tiny Houses
STAR: Triple Gold
Guild Leader Perks
50 PCT More Perk Points
Wintersun
Archery Tweaks: Aligned Crossbow + AE for Ordinator
Enhanced Atronachs
Ordinator Plus Bundle
Scaled One-Handed Attack Speed For Ordinator
Conduit
Mysticism (w/ Ordinator Patch)
Apocalypse (w/ Ordinator Patch)
Odin (w/ Ordinator Patch)
Andromeda
Weapons of the Third Era
Summermyst Plus
Armor Variants Expansion (w/ USSEP Patch & Summermyst Patch)
Left Hand Rings Complete
Rich Merchants of Skyrim
Detailed Loot Drops
Waterplants
FOS - Forests of Skyrim
Run For Your Lives
Realistic Conversations
Forgotten Dungeons
EasierRiders Dungeon Pack
Solstheim Dungeon Pack
Divine Cities
Ancient Roads, Lands, and Ruins
Ryn's Standing Stones
Haven Bag
Whiterun Horse Statue
Whimsical Texture Collection+
Fences That Fit
Tamriel Reloaded - Landscapes 1k
Tamriel Reloaded - Mountains & Rocks 1K
Hyperborean Snow
Northern Shores 1K
CleverCharff AIO
Updated - ELFX
ELFX Shadows
ELFX Shadows Hardcore
ELFX Shadows USSEP Patch
JK's Interiors AIO (w/ ELFX Patch & ELFX Shadows Patch)
A Thiefs Resolve
Bloodkin Bow
Dragon's Bane
Drow Bow
Oblivion Artifact Pack
Auto Harvest Ring
Just Blood - Dirt and Blood Lite
Enhanced Blood Textures Lite
Deadly Spell Impacts
Weapon Trails
Dynamic Impacts
Dynamic Impacts & Enhanced Blood Textures Lite Patch
SeeEnchantments
Immersive Spells Emit Light
Embers XD (w/ ELFX & JK's Interiors AIO Patches)
Immersive Follower Framework and Overhaul
Know Your Enemy AIO (w/ Forgotten Dungeons Patch)
OBIS No Face Gen
Immersive Movement
Wildcat
Immersive Movement Wildcat Patch
Serio's Enhanced Dragons
Toxicity: A Toxic Community Bundle
Pristine Vanilla Movement
Pristine Vanilla Movement No Camera Shake
Rebalanced Encounter Zones and Leveled Actors Lite
Rebalanced Leveled Lists
Extended Encounters
Radiance
SET For The Great Hunt
Hand Placed Enemies
Immersive Patrols (Large Battles)
Immersive Patrols Simplified
Inigo (w/ Bloodchill Manor Patch)
Freya Gray-Mane
Buck The Friendly Wolf (He'll use any wolf retextures you have as well)
Faction: Pit Fighter (w/ Travels Add On)
The Forgotten City
Moon and Star
Moonpath to Elsweyr
Ravengate - Riften Underground
Fluffworks Medium 1K
Wolves of Skyrim
Bella Beauty and The Beasts Bundle
Natural Eyes
Vanilla Hair Remake - Replacer
Beards
Imperious Supernatural Creatures Bundle
Xp32 Extended
Weapons on Back - Swords and Quivers
Visible Favorited Gear
Headtracking
Violens
Heart Breaker
Black Leather Sheath
The Original Sleeving Skyrim
KYE AIO + Sleeving Skyrim Patch
Xavbio's Vanilla & Creation Club Armor and Weapons Retexture AIO
Elsopa Quivers Redone
A Quality World Map - Classic with All Roads (w/ Clear Skies Add On)
Alternate Start - Live Another Life
DAWN Waters w/ Natural Waterfalls (w/ Embers XD Patch)
Insignificant Objects Remover
LODs for Nordic Ruins and The Ruins
Improved Terrain LOD Meshes Lite
FPS Boost
Uncap FPS

Hi! I’m Meat, 22, and looking for ONE more roleplay partner to test out this idea I’ve just managed to write down. I’m very literate and try to be as detailed as possible in an attempt to really create the world we’re aiming to make. I enjoy a good romance but I prefer it to be slow-burned. I don’t want us jumping in and instantly having feelings, especially if we are rivals. Let it build, let us argue, and let it be great! I write in third person but can do first (it’s not preferred but I can work around a good partner). Onto the plot!
I was thinking we’re in a world where a portal was mysteriously opened up, mixing different time periods and giving us a fantasy spin. When that portal was opened, an old political figure stepped through and aimed to make this modern world his oyster. He succeeds and hushes many who don’t agree with his views. One of us may play as a family member or close advocate for this political figure and upon finding out he’s using violence to create his ideal world, we leave. As a man who’s already so emotionally motivated, he becomes angry and begins a hunt to find (Muse A). While on their escape, Muse A finds Muse B, who’s also on the run after being caught leading an opposing organization. Muse B was the head of riots and what the dictator would call terrorism and treason. After realizing we’d have a better shot at escaping the enemy together, we may embark on a slight side mission to find that portal and send Mr. Mean Guy back to when he came.
It might be absolutely terrible so forgive me! It’s just a shot in the dark.

Ok I know people post ghost ideas like all the time but Womp Womp I'm posting my own.
I was thinking of a ghost that Hunts at 50% average sanity, but only kills those who are below 50% sanity. Even if everyone in the house is above 50, (like, cursed hunt), then it would kill nobody. It would work the same on singleplayer, which means if you do a cursed hunt, it wouldn't kill you. Also, every time you get a paramic response from this ghost, it drains your sanity 15%.
I literally thought of this like 5 minutes ago, feel free to ask questions n give ideas :3c
oh also it gives D.O.T.S., Spirit Box, and Freezing.

Hail, fellow Helldivers!
I’m a game dev with over 20 years experience, half of that on live service games or MMOs, all of it on core combat for action games, on game teams ranging from 10 people to over 600.
I play a ton of hard co-op action games, and I was a huge fan of Helldivers 1. I’m honestly in awe of how good Helldivers 2 is, even after the hundreds of hours I’ve put into it, and how they’ve sustained the pace of updates for so long after launch.
Yes, this is a throwaway Reddit account, I wanted to share some of my thoughts without inviting death threats.
Development
This game must have been in development since shortly after Arrowhead’s last released game, Helldivers 1 (plus whatever DLC and maintenance), so, 8 years give or take (I sent Pilestedt a congratulatory email, but presumably he’s drowning in them, haha).
I ran into the devs at GDC 2019, shared a few drinks and we talked shop about our similar games. They were super cagey but very excited about what they were working on, even moreso when they found out I was a huge fan of HD1. They were clearly already deep in development of HD2 at that point.
This has been discussed elsewhere, but it adds to how impressive this game is: this is the same engine (Autodesk Stingray) as Helldivers 1, a top-down game with 2D gameplay and much lower visual fidelity. Stingray is no longer supported by Autodesk as of sometime after 2018, so most of the features HD2 required would have been built in-house by Arrowhead. To my knowledge there’s only one other studio actively using the engine, and that’s Fat Shark, the developers of (most recently) Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
The AH team has grown massively in size over the past 8 years. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s a 5x to 10x increase in size. Scaling up that fast and not ruining your company culture is super hard, and you can see plenty of other studios that have tried to grow so they can build bigger games and have fallen apart doing it.
Helldivers 2 easily has a AAA level of polish. I’ve gone back to HD1 recently, which at the time looked and played super well, and the improvements are night and day. HD2’s production values compare favorably to any random AAA game released in the last few years
Weapons
Building first or third person weapons to this level of quality is extremely expensive. A unique gun for a AAA first person shooter might take 4-6 weeks of artist time and the same (or more) of designer time to set up and tune the gameplay. For any completely new type of weapon, factor in around 6 months of animator time, and a few weeks for a variant that has a different reload animation or similar. E.g. all rifle-sized shotguns might use the same base shotgun animation set, but the continuous reload shotguns would have a different reload animation than the Breaker family. Then you need VFX and audio too.
Vehicles are even moreso, taking months for each, more if they can seat multiple players or have points that contact the ground (e.g. wheels).
Environments
Building environments that look this good is expensive even if you know what you want, having built a prototype version, you then have to iterate on it while you refine the gameplay and then build the final art. Building environments that look this good and are procedurally generated in as freeform a way as in HD2 is mind-boggling. Let alone doing that in a way that runs fast enough. Sure once it’s all up and running you have a ton of variety for relatively cheap, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the proc gen create a serious gameplay problem, and that indicates very clever design and thorough testing.
AI
AI that works as well as this is expensive to build, and typically computationally expensive at runtime too. In games like Call of Duty or whatever, you have a static environment, with maybe 10-20 active AI at a time, prebuilt navmesh (which is a hand-drawn or generated map that allows AI to move around the environment without having to calculate valid geometry constantly at runtime), and level or encounter designers have hand scripted a lot of what looks like emergent AI behavior. HD2 can’t do any of that; there can be hundreds of enemies active at once, the environments are procedurally generated, AND terrain can be deformed, buildings can be destroyed etc. The AI can’t be scripted to the same degree as on a static map, probably the devs have hints that are procedurally added to the world and not much more. It helps that all of the enemies we’ve seen so far are the “implacably advancing” kind, typically they don’t have any complex behaviors, and instead the design of the character themselves and their attacks carries the gameplay. Smart design. The Illuminate in HD1 were much sneakier, it’ll be interesting to see how that faction translates to a full 3D game with a lot more enemies active at once.
UI
This game has a lot of quality of life features that it’s easy to take for granted, but are hard to build, and hard to retrofit to an existing game, for example:
· A zoomable, pingable minimap (IMO this is a best-in-class minimap implementation)
· A ping system
· Battlepass implementation allowing for not expiring old battle passes.
And all of this is UI-heavy, where UI is one of the most expensive things to make in AAA games. Every project I’ve shipped, UI has been a bottleneck. It doesn’t help that every company basically builds a UI system from scratch, since engines rarely have something shippable built in, and Scaleform (the most prominent UI middleware) went away. And then it takes a ton of iteration to get to a point where a feature is powerful and intuitive to players.
Gamefeel
If you play much of the most highly-regarded AAA shooters, you might not like the feel of some of the weapons in Helldivers 2 by comparison. They often feel slow to use, hard to aim, and punishing of misses, bad timing or bad positioning. Some of this is a polish thing and probably isn’t intended, e.g. scopes that look janky in first person, misaligned reticles and similar stuff. Most of it though looks deliberate, and supports the gameplay they’re laser-focused on building. The weapons are largely useful in very specific situations, and are not power fantasy moments for the player. There are serious tradeoffs, including “if I’m caught by a melee enemy with a Recoilless Rifle out, I’m in trouble”, the most powerful support weapons preventing you from bringing a shield, the snappiest weapons typically only being useful against weak enemies, etc. Most mass-market shooters sacrifice this extreme level of tradeoff in service of making the game feel better to play, and can lack gameplay variety as a result.
Given all of the above, most of the content that Arrowhead has released post ship must have been built alongside the rest of the game. It’s unlikely that they’re able to turn around 3 new weapons, new giant enemies, new mission types etc every month for several months in a row building them from scratch since ship. And yet, the game at launch still felt complete. This is a hard balance to strike. I wonder how much near-shippable content they have in their war-chest, and whether they’ll be able to generate more quickly enough to satisfy the appetite of the community on an ongoing basis.
Balance
Typically on a live game, the same designers build gameplay, ship it, and then balance it in patches post-ship. Sometimes a studio will have a separate “live team”, either dedicated, or rotating members of the dev team through it, but this isn’t common and it doesn’t look like Arrowhead splits the team up like this.
In any case, players always ask why developers ever nerf anything, and it’s for three reasons:
· Typically only a small number of things (weapons, abilities, heroes) are dominant, and a very large number are OK or weak in the current meta – buffing everything else would be extremely expensive, and since it’s the same people doing this work and building new content, it’d reduce the amount of new content the team could make. So it’s much more efficient to tamp down the overpowered things as a priority, and buff some other options at the same time.
· “No nerf, only buff” results in player power creep over time, which makes the game easier, and eventually will require a correction either in the form of a large scale nerf pass or buffs to enemies – both of these are bad: players hate widespread nerfs, and buffing enemies can put the game in a degenerate state where lethality is skewed, or only the best players can compete because they have all the best gear, or you end up in an arms race between player design and enemy design as both teams try to react to player feedback or overall game difficulty.
· Having a small number of overpowered things is much more destructive to a varied meta than a small number of weak things. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are overpowered. Well, now everyone’s only using 3% of the possible content. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are too weak.The other 97% is viable. Overly simplistic, clearly there’s a gradient, but you get the idea.
BTW the pace at which Arrowhead has updated balance is extremely fast for a large PvE game. Some small PvP-only games can react this quickly to a developing meta, but on large-scale games it takes weeks or months of testing and platform certification to ship balance updates on consoles. And “hotfixes”, i.e. very quick responses to critical issues, have a high level of scrutiny on them, i.e. lots of justifiable red tape, and often require crunch.
Community Interaction
It’s extremely rare for developers from large studios at any level to talk directly to the community, mostly because the gaming community burned those bridges long ago, by doxing devs they don’t agree with, sending them death threats, or just generally abusing them publicly and anonymously. No way in hell would I be public facing, and no one at any studio should be required to unless it’s explicitly part of their job. And even then, I feel for community managers. Direct communication from devs is a precious thing, and not one that should be taken for granted or used as an avenue for abuse.
*Salutes* to Arrowhead
Huge, huge kudos to Arrowhead. This game is an absolute triumph. To go from a small team making top-down games, to a medium-sized AAA team that shipped a game that catapulted right to the top of the most-played charts and game of the year lists and has stayed there is a massive accomplishment. I hope you’re all seeing a big payday from this success!

I started this current campaign with a small group near the beginning of covid - just me and three players, meeting once a week in my house. One player entered and one player exited, otherwise it's been the same people throughout.
Fool that I am, I expected it to fizzle out from schedules etc before it went too long. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to practice worldbuilding! So for the first time I did a fully homebrew setting, lore, pantheon, all of it. I had a seer give them a cryptically-worded prophecy with five different plot hooks so they could walk in any direction and find a villain. I also threw a couple off-the-wall sessions like "during a shared dream, you Mad Max across Avernus to deliver a pizza" because we're just screwing around! Why not have fun with it!
Fool.
The party is super into it. They take way better notes than I do. They remember the melon vendor in that one town they visited months ago, and by golly they want to know how his kids are doing. Some flavor text I threw in about "the war between dwarves and duergar has been going for a century" became a full story arc where they carefully established diplomatic relations with both sides and brokered a peace. They broke into the vault of D&D-Jeff-Bezos. They've gone hunting for moon rocks. The Avernus pizza run is established canon that they discuss in-character. They decided to observe traditional funeral rites for a dragonborn dignitary they recovered the remains of, which meant that I had to make up what that looked like!
They're excitedly asking me what I have planned to throw at them at level 20, and I'm outwardly smiling and inwardly panicking, because at level 14 they're already at the highest level I've ever DMed for. One of the players even started DMing for the first time to give me more session prep time and to let me recharge my batteries by playing.
(This post is about real anxiety that I'm having, but also I'm 90% sure that at least one of my players lurks on this subreddit and I wanted to give a shoutout for this absolute unicorn of a game group that I lucked into.)
Tl;dr: my party is way cooler than me and keeping up with their interest is a big anxiety.

So my husband and I are about to buy a house next door to my parents because we're expecting our first child.
Man who owns the house bought it to flip it. He has it valued waaaayyyy over what we think it's worth but we're entertaining the idea because of the special location. We are just biting our fingernails waiting for the appraisal. We do however have a lock on our rate that expires 6/23 and the house is still being finished and should be done 5/22. So there is a time element involved. So would us keeping the three days help us if we have to renegotiate price? What do we actually get time to do in that 3 days? Thanks for you help and advice!

My love, the mother of my child, left abruptly 5 days ago now. We have been together and living together for 4 years and our daughter is 3. I got home from work Monday and she moved out everything while I was at work. I got home to a mostly empty house and endlessly broken heart. I was lied to so that I would give consent for my daughter to go away with her parents for the week. I was led to believe this was a date night. She asked when I would be home from work so that way she could have everything gone by The time I got home. Her parents thought I knew this was going to happen. That's why they took my little girl. No one will answer my phone calls or texts or tell me when my daughter is coming home. I cant get more than, "I'm leaving", "we will talk later", "I'm not yours anymore", And many other hurtful things as a response from her. I have given everything. Everything I do and provide is for my girls. I have worked so hard to get my girls in a space where they can have room to grow and be independent. I don't know how I could ever look into my daughter's eyes and tell her mommy isn't coming home, and I don't know why. My abandonment wound is ripped wide open again and my soul is scarred for life... Im trying desperately to make it through the pain of waking up every day and realizing this isn't a bad dream.. I can't wake up because this is really happening to me.
I had such a crazy panic attack yesterday when I woke up I almost had to call 911 because I couldn't breathe. I woke up with an incredible weight on my chest and a pounding heart and no matter what I did I couldn't catch my breath. I assume it was a panic or anxiety attack but it lasted for several hours and I was scared out of my mind. I don't have a single person I can call here to get so much as a hug, talk to me, or Even take me to the hospital. My entire life is completely upside down and I have absolutely no idea what I did to deserve this.
And even worse is that nobody will answer my calls or texts. None of her friends or her mother who literally has my child. I just want to know when my little girls coming home. I provide day-in and day-out for my girls. I pay all the bills I provide the place to live I've worked and given and sacrificed so much for this family and I am utterly destroyed and cannot comprehend how someone can do this.
Of course, there are more details because there always are. I'm a very reasonable understanding emotionally intelligent person and there's no circumstance in which this should be handled like this.
Any advice on what I can do or how to make it through the days and the pain would be helpful. I have ceased communications with her, despite how incredibly hurt, angry and in disbelief I'm in. What can should my next steps be?
I will post a link to some messages to give maybe a little more understanding on the situation.
💔🙏

Hello, I'm not sure if I'm in the right sub as I am a totally nascent entrant in world of IEMs, so please excuse me if I sound ignorant or like a noob. I'm seeking assistance to select the right set for my first ever IEM purchase. I tried doing a bunch of research with various brand websites, scoured youtube, through product review videos by audiophile content creators and tried to learn how to read the graph with the sound curve, but the more I discover, the more confused, and frankly overwhelmed I'm getting, so please bear patience with me. Unfortunately, where I'm based (in Mumbai, India), even though lots of ChiFi IEMs seem to be available, I see no option to be able to try them out to check the sound out myself at a brick & mortar store.
I'm no audiophile, but I do enjoy listening to music. I listen to a lot of electronic music; breaks/drum&bass/house/triphop, hiphop and easy going & dancy live music. I wouldn't say I'm a basshead, but i do enjoy the oomph. I currently have a pair of Sony WH-1000XM5 & a pair of Galaxy Buds2 Pro, both of which I use wirelessly, with my android device, a Galaxy S24 Ultra, my tablet & my laptop, a MacBook Air M2. While I do enjoy both these devices in varied situations (headphones during transit & earbuds during workouts), I do love the idea of going back to wired earphones, and I hear IEMs are all the rage now. I would love to purchase a pair for regular use with my phone & tablet.
Problem is, there's always some reviewer beaming about pretty much every IEM I have come across. I also struggle to imagine the sound they're implying by certain similar key adjectives they use to describe the audio profiles in all the videos. I also don't entirely grasp the DAC dongle aspect, the difference from a standard 3.5 mm adapter, and if I should be getting one to connect the IEMs to my phone/tablet/laptop. I also don't understand the difference between dynamic drivers and planar drivers. Please help a chap out with your opinions & experiential suggestions? My budget is about 150-200 USD. These are the IEMs I've short listed and they're available out here for the following prices-

• Moondrop May DSP with USB C 78$
  
• Simgot EA500 LM 91$
  
• Kiwi Ears Forteza 61$
  
• Truthear Hexa 90$
  
• Moondrop Aria2 96$
  
• KZ Acoustics AS24 144$
  
• Pula PA01 66$
  
• Truthear x Crinacle Zero RED 66$
  
• Kiwi Ears X Crinacle - Singolo 90 USD
  
• Kinera - Celest Phoenixcall 132$
  
• LETSHUOER - x GIZAUDIO Galileo 144$
  
• TANGZU - Zetian Wu Planar 144$
  
• Letshuoer - DZ4 96$
  
• Tangzu - Wan'er S.G 21$
  
• QKZ x HBB - Hades 54$
  
• Kiwi Ears - Cadenza 39$
  
• 7HZ x Crinacle - Zero: 2 25$
  
• Pula PA02 191$
  
• MOONDROP CHU II DSP Type-C 27$
  

Do I also need a type C to DAC dongle or shall I go with one of the USB C wired IEM options? I was looking at one of the Audiocular dongles, which are under 15$, but then there's D10 & a D07, D05, CXPro and a CSPro and I have no idea what the difference is. Your help and opinion is appreciated, thanks!

My love, the mother of my child, left abruptly 5 days ago now. We have been together and living together for 4 years and our daughter is 3. I got home from work Monday and she moved out everything while I was at work. I got home to a mostly empty house and endlessly broken heart. I was lied to so that I would give consent for my daughter to go away with her parents for the week. I was led to believe this was a date night. She asked when I would be home from work so that way she could have everything gone by The time I got home. Her parents thought I knew this was going to happen. That's why they took my little girl. No one will answer my phone calls or texts or tell me when my daughter is coming home. I cant get more than, "I'm leaving", "we will talk later", "I'm not yours anymore", And many other hurtful things as a response from her. I have given everything. Everything I do and provide is for my girls. I have worked so hard to get my girls in a space where they can have room to grow and be independent. I don't know how I could ever look into my daughter's eyes and tell her mommy isn't coming home, and I don't know why. My abandonment wound is ripped wide open again and my soul is scarred for life... Im trying desperately to make it through the pain of waking up every day and realizing this isn't a bad dream.. I can't wake up because this is really happening to me.
I had such a crazy panic attack yesterday when I woke up I almost had to call 911 because I couldn't breathe. I woke up with an incredible weight on my chest and a pounding heart and no matter what I did I couldn't catch my breath. I assume it was a panic or anxiety attack but it lasted for several hours and I was scared out of my mind. I don't have a single person I can call here to get so much as a hug, talk to me, or Even take me to the hospital. My entire life is completely upside down and I have absolutely no idea what I did to deserve this.
And even worse is that nobody will answer my calls or texts. None of her friends or her mother who literally has my child. I just want to know when my little girls coming home. I provide day-in and day-out for my girls. I pay all the bills I provide the place to live I've worked and given and sacrificed so much for this family and I am utterly destroyed and cannot comprehend how someone can do this.
Of course, there are more details because there always are. I'm a very reasonable understanding emotionally intelligent person and there's no circumstance in which this should be handled like this.
Any advice on what I can do or how to make it through the days and the pain would be helpful. I have ceased communications with her, despite how incredibly hurt, angry and in disbelief I'm in. What can should my next steps be?
I will post a link to some messages to give maybe a little more understanding on the situation.
💔🙏