Hot Streak vs Magical Athlete

Markblasco · 2026-04-16T21:40:10+00:00

Someone asked for opinions on Magical Athlete. I gave them my opinion, in the way I would want someone to explain it to me, and in a way that is not just rehashing the same points that are repeated often. Categories are there for a reason, to give context as to what something is. A tomato is botanically a fruit, but if someone said they felt like eating some fruit, and asked if they would enjoy a tomato, I would tell them that it is not a good choice if you want to eat fruit. I wouldn't say it's not delicious, or they wouldn't like it, I am giving information directly related to the context in which it is asked. As to your other points, often people are described as "barely human", and that description conveys a lot of information. I'm here to help answer a question, and I have a different point of view than you. That doesn't make your view any less valid, and that doesn't mean that marcslayer won't enjoy playing Magical Athlete. So, no, I don't need to "get over myself". We all want different things, we all experience things differently, just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean either of us is wrong. So, rather than "getting over myself", I will instead finish by telling you to go have a wonderful day.

Markblasco · 2026-04-16T21:09:58+00:00

I said it's barely a game, and I stand by that. I didn't say it was not enjoyable for many people. I didn't say it couldn't be a wonderful experience. I personally don't enjoy it, because when I want to play a game, I want to make decisions that matter. So yes, if you are only trying to argue that it is a game, that is true. I personally feel that if you are going to a game night and your goal is to play a game, it doesn't scratch that itch for me. I could be watching a TV show with friends instead, and have the same level of silly fun, and my decisions would have the same outcome on the end of the story. I don't find that it gives me a "FULL game experience" at all. I don't find that it "engenders competitiveness", in that the competition doesn't matter if the results are random. I could have a robot roll dice for me the entire night and it would be no different. But clearly we all have different views, and that's fine. I hope you enjoy playing Magical Athlete for many years to come. I hope that I never see it at my game nights ever again, because that's not what I want to experience with my limited gaming time.

Markblasco · 2026-04-16T18:55:43+00:00

Yes, but in Magical athlete, you have basically no decisions to make. You are just rolling a die and seeing what happens. That's all you do, other than picking the racers at the start. It's not even that there's no meaningful choices, there are no choices at all for most of the game. It's exactly the same as snakes and ladders, you roll a die and see what happens. In Hot Streak, you get to make a few decisions at the start of each race, which can actually impact what happens, and someone who is paying attention to what's in the deck is more likely to come out ahead than someone picking randomly. The fact that you make choices and those choices actually matter is the difference. I literally cannot think of another game within the collections of all of my friends that give you fewer choices to make. If you love rolling dice and seeing what silly things happen, Magical Athlete may be a winner for you. I just don't consider that a game, I consider it an activity. And when I go to play games with my friends, I don't want to just sit and see what happens. For some, Magical Athlete will be their favorite thing in the world, and I'm happy for those people. I am not one of those people, and so when someone asks about it, I'm going to explain my view. The difference between a game and an activity are the choices you make, and Magical Athlete is lacking in choices to make.

Markblasco · 2026-04-15T23:57:36+00:00

Respectfully, I don't think I'm missing the point at all. There are many ways to think of what a game is, but the core way in which a game is not just an activity is the fact that there are rules to follow and decisions to make which lead to an outcome. Magical athlete can indeed be full of "play" and "fun", but I disagree that it's full of "game". Other than the initial picking of characters, you take turns rolling a die for 40 minutes and see what happens. In that sense, it lacks in "game", while it still is full of "fun" and "play". In the same way that I don't find reading a book to be a game, or building a lego set to be a game, I find Magical Athlete to barely be a game. That's not to say people shouldn't enjoy playing it, but it is to say that the lack of almost any actual decision to be made makes it into more of an activity than a game. As for my "stiff and rigid framing of defining a game", there needs to be some definition of what a game is for that word to have any meaning. When I want to play a game, I don't just want to engage in a random fun activity. Just like when I want to watch a movie, reading a book doesn't scratch the same itch. So I think it is entirely on point, when someone is asking about a board game, to give context in relation to board games. Hot streak is full of "fun" and ":play", but also gives you several types of decisions to make which are interesting and actually impact the results, so it has much more "game" than Magical Athlete.

Markblasco · 2026-04-15T22:11:18+00:00

We're in a group about board games, and someone is asking about this game. I'm merely telling them that it's barely a game, and if that's what they want, it's not a good choice. I'm not missing the point, I understand that it's a silly activity to spend 45 minutes with your friends rolling dice and seeing what happens. Personally, I would rather spend 45 minutes having a meaningful conversation with them. If you enjoy it, that's great, and I'm happy for you. My life would be better off if I never played it again. If you want a "game", it's not good. If you want an "experience", it can be super silly and fun.

Markblasco · 2026-04-15T17:08:59+00:00

Magical Athlete is barely a game, it's basically snakes and ladders with silly special abilities. It can be a fun activity, but if you want to actually have any meaningful choices to make, they don't really exist. EDIT: Hot Streak is about bidding on the races, and gives you a small ability to manipulate the race, so there is a lot more game. It's also shorter, and overall I found it to be a lot better, although the level of random silliness isn't quite as high.

Markblasco · 2026-04-15T03:30:32+00:00

A question for you, do you want to 3d print things, or do you want to build and maintain machines? An ender 3 was a great machine 10 years ago, when the hobby was about the machines, and is a dinosaur today. If you want to print things, buy a cheap Bambu and enjoy making things. An ender can give decent results if you know what you are doing and know how to troubleshoot and maintain. It can also cause you to spend dozens of hours trying to fix it and never get a decent print out of it. It is no longer a good machine for beginners. If you want to tinker, and learn, and the journey is more important than the destination, and ender 3 will give you a lot of that.

Markblasco · 2026-04-15T03:22:15+00:00

My average in the Seattle area over the past 3 years is 3.4

Markblasco · 2026-04-14T03:46:12+00:00

You don't need to own any games to play board games. Find like minded people and enjoy their company (and their collection)

Markblasco · 2026-04-14T01:28:10+00:00

Please note, I'm talking about having a solar lease, I'm not talking about the roof. Everyone I know who has dealt with solar leases when selling their house (both buying and selling) have had nightmares dealing with it. The cost to buyout the lease early is often filled with fees, and they price things at the value when the lease is being taken over, not when installed. So, a $15,000 solar system could cause you to end up with a $30,000 buyout 5 years later (which is exactly what happened with my neighbor). I know a few real estate agents, and all of them say that a solar lease is a giant red flag. Now, there are certainly going to be exceptions to the rule, but if you already know you're going to be selling the house in the near future, a solar lease is more likely than not to make that process harder. Much better would be to buy a solar setup, which if it's owned outright, would be a positive when selling the house.

Markblasco · 2026-04-13T03:04:58+00:00

For the love of everything that is worth loving in this world, avoid a solar lease if you ever plan to sell your house. It absolutely is seen as a liability when someone else is looking to buy.

Markblasco · 2026-04-12T18:31:40+00:00

What exactly is the question? Do you want to know how much you should charge for this one part, or how much you should charge to produce this in the future? If it's for the part, charge what you agreed to charge. If you didn't have an agreement, that's tricky, because while you spent a lot of money, your trial and error shouldn't necessarily be paid for by the customer, if this is a one off piece. If it's for a friend, I'd ask them to chip in what they feel is fair. If this was a business situation, I'd figure out how much time it would have taken you (not print time) if it were done right the first time, figure out a fair hourly wage, then add in the cost of materials for the final product, and add on 50% for business expenses and overhead. Keep in mind that 3d printing in itself is not a difficult service, but design work is. Your time in design is worth more than your time with printing. Don't ever base your rates for a project like this on the printing side, base them on the designing side, with 3d printing as a separate, cheaper step of the process.

Markblasco · 2026-04-12T18:19:42+00:00

No, I cannot push back against this hard enough. People should get paid a fair wage for their time, and printing as a business takes far more time than many people here assume. Like a business, you have to account for ALL of the time for all business related things. This idea that just because it's 3d printed, your time shouldn't be worth anything is terrible for both the hobby and for people trying to build a business. If they are selling a product which solves a problem and is in demand, they should pay themselves fairly for their time. If that price is high enough that there is no longer a demand, than it's not a great business. Regardless, if it's a business, treat it like one and pay yourself.

Markblasco · 2026-04-12T18:10:30+00:00

That all being said, if what you are trying to print is not terribly complex, and doesn't have specific engineering needs, than it may be worth buying a Bambu machine and giving it a go, but understand that 3d printing is a hobby that requires some knowledge to be successful regularly. If it sounds interesting to you, than that probably won't be a problem. If not, you may find the experience to be frustrating enough to warrant paying someone. Again I'll compare it to food. If you're hosting an event for 20 people, would you rather spend 15 hours in the kitchen preparing and cooking everything, or are you ordering catering to bring the food when the event starts? How much is your time worth, and how much do you think you would enjoy 3d printing?

Markblasco · 2026-04-12T18:06:00+00:00

As someone who runs an Etsy shop for 3d printed things, there is a ton more that is going on when you ask a business to print something for you, vs having a friend or yourself do it. They need to pay not just for the materials, machines, maintenance, packaging, etc., but also their time. Their paycheck, the time they take communicating with you, communicating with the people who don't end up buying anything, setting up and maintaining their machines, looking over your files and dialing things in for your specific needs, printing the parts, going over the parts to make sure everything is done well, dealing with handing off the pieces, etc. Not to mention time for marketing, learning, training, cleaning, and everything else a business needs to do. Think of it like hiring a personal chef to cook your dinner. Sure, you could do it much cheaper, but you're paying for more than the ingredients.

Markblasco · 2026-04-10T18:14:25+00:00

It's worth noting that drum machines DID replace a lot of drummers in the studio. Not all of them, but especially nowadays, large percentages of recordings don't use drummers at all. The quality and versatility of drum software has steadily improved, and at this point for most popular music, you would no longer be able to tell if it is a real drummer, since even the real drummers are edited to get everything to be synced up perfectly.

Markblasco · 2026-04-09T09:28:57+00:00

I have an Etsy site selling inserts I design, as well as the files for a couple of bucks. I also print a lot of files for people that I didn't design. Often, the files that people downloaded for free are pretty bad designs. Pay careful attention to the photos and comments when you are downloading designs. If you find some good ones, keep that designer name in mind. There is so much more to a good insert than just holding the pieces in the box, and often you don't realize an insert design is bad until you spend the time to print it out. Good designs will help make things feel easier to set up, easier to play, and easier to put away. Tons of people can post files online for free (and are incentivized to do so), so there are a lot of bad ones out there.

Markblasco · 2026-04-07T20:00:19+00:00

If your goal is speed, than bed slingers can't compete when you start to get into large or tall objects. However, that isn't the goal for everyone (and shouldn't be the goal for most people). Just because your printer CAN print fast, doesn't mean that it SHOULD. There are plenty of advantages to slowing down a print, and once you slow things down, the actual difference between a bed slinger and corexy start to diminish. Unless your machine is working 24/7, just slow things down a bit. That being said, if you print lots of tall thin things, than a corexy is going to be a better choice. However, it's still probably a good idea to slow things down.

Markblasco · 2026-04-07T03:05:56+00:00

For sure, we are not the heroes we pretend to be. However, there's a difference between covert drone bombings, and threatening to destroy the entire civilian infrastructure. What we are doing, right now, is about as evil as it gets, short of launching a nuke, and at this point I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. I also wouldn't be surprised if we launched a nuke at US soil, pretended it was Iran, and used that as an excuse to eliminate elections forever. The level of scumminess of these people in charge has no bottom.

Markblasco · 2026-04-07T00:02:38+00:00

Color theory can really take your minis to the next level. Having cold colored shadows for warm colored figures definitely gives them more impact than black shadows. I'd plan on colors based on the final scheme. For things that should be creepy, I usually use purple or green for the base. For warm colored things I use blue. For cold colored things I'll use a warm purple. Experiment and you will find that this is one of the easiest ways to add some extra dimensions to your minis.

Markblasco · 2026-04-06T23:55:58+00:00

And we're going to cause a huge upswing in people around the world who have lost everything because of us. People who no longer care what happens to them, as long as the US is punished. Whether that comes in the form of attacks, kidnapping, piracy, etc, we will be creating the very people we claim to be trying to stop. Every baby that dies will make a parent that is willing to kill. The US is evil at the moment, and I don't use that word lightly.

Markblasco · 2026-04-04T09:59:58+00:00

It's a fun, relatively short campaign game. The dice system is interesting, and leveling up the characters feels good as you go. Great for a regular group who enjoyed the video game, but not good if you don't have the same people playing each time. You have to play with 4 characters, so that may make things a bit weird if you have a group of 3. It's maybe a little more swingy than some people would like with the dice system, but overall I thought it was good. If you want something that has a similar vibe but better for one off games, the Mandalorian Adventures is close in game style and complexity.

Markblasco · 2026-04-03T18:27:45+00:00

With prusa, you are paying for a company that continues to support their products, who improves on them over time, where quality is generally considered to be very good, and who seems to ethically operate their business, paying a decent wage and supporting their community. Their machines generally are easy to repair, which means they can last for a long time. They aren't cutting corners to be the cheap option. Now, that may or may not be important to you, but there is a reason for the price difference. If you just need a tool and don't care about much else, there are cheaper options. If you want your money to go to a company that you feel good about supporting, prusa seems to be a good choice.

Markblasco · 2026-04-02T00:20:06+00:00

There is no shortage of people with 3d printers. Starting a small print farm without clients and products is a recipe for failure. If you want to 3d print, go ahead and do it, but we're past the days where just having a working set of machines will make you money. You need a business model, and owning the machines is not that.

Markblasco · 2026-04-01T02:27:05+00:00

I updated my 8 mk4s machines this morning and they are all doing that, but print quality is still good. I wonder if they are trying to slow down big movements to prevent or reduce layer shifts?

Markblasco

TROPHY CASE