At home I use a 1L glass bottle with straight sides and a wide opening, metal lid and a neoprene sleeve. It’s cheap, easy to clean and does its job.

The obvious downside is that it’s heavy and can break if you drop it but I don’t travel a lot so that’s fine for me.

Median productivity goes up yet median quality of life goes down.

I haven’t played much past creating characters and redesigning their home so if you want to know how the actual lifesim aspect feels, I would recommend the 45 minutes of gameplay video on the official channel.

That being said, the creative side is amazing. Even though you don’t have as many clothing items and objects as Sims 4 has accumulated over the years, what you have is extremely flexible. Everything (skin, hair, clothes, furniture, walls, floors, …) can be freely recolored, often with multiple color slots and patterns. Clothes can be layered so you can freely pick which jacket goes with which shirt - and of course you can color them separately. Furniture can be resized, often separately in different dimensions and they will procedurally adapt to those new dimensions. For example, two-seater and three-seater couches are the same item. Just make a two-seater a bit wider and a third seat appears.

I could go on but I guess you get the general idea.

There are a few bugs (most noticeably a broken animation when a Para gets up from sitting at a desk) but for an early access indie game it’s already more stable than I would have expected.

Pentecost Monday is a holiday where I live. I binged almost an entire season of Game Changer and created my first Paralives household.

It is not. See JuSchG § 9, section 2: “Section 1, number 1 does not apply to adolescents in company of a legal guardian”. Section 1, number 1 restricts beer, wine, cider and similar drinks under the age of 16 and an adolescent (“Jugendlicher”) is defined as 14+.

In total, that means that you are allowed to buy and drink the listed kinds of alcoholic beverages starting at 14, as long as a legal guardian is present and allows it. Even in public.

For other alcoholic beverages (e.g. liquor) or food that contains significant amounts of alcohol, there is a hard limit at 18+, no exceptions.

Keeping a respectfully low profile is never a bad idea.

I certainly hope that it goes without saying that you should be respectful towards others, just like everywhere else in the world. I just wanted to clarify that Germany is not some totalitarian dystopia where you immediately go to prison for insulting someone.

This thread gives me so many opportunities to go “well actually” with useless knowledge.

Pepper spray is kind of legal in Germany. You can freely buy it without age restrictions as a defense against wild animals. It is however illegal to deliberately use it against humans. But then again, German self-defense law allows you to use “whatever is necessary” to prevent an attack. So if you can make a compelling argument that your bare hands were not enough, you can totally use pepper spray, a knife, a baseball bat or even a gun to protect yourself, your property or others. Of course, for the gun you might be on the hook for illegal possession but that’s a different question.

On the other hand, CS gas (a form of tear gas) is fully legal for use on humans.

Insulting people can result in criminal prosecution in Germany.

Technically yes but realistically it only gets prosecuted in extreme cases. Like throwing feces at someone or distributing leaflets with your insults. If you just call someone an asshole, no police officer in the country will even bother with it. It’s hard to prove who said what and the maximum sentence is extremely low.

I think you’re confusing us with the British.

Germans are careful about anything that could be considered antisemitic because of history but unless you go straight to Nazi slogans, there is no law that forbids you from being critical of Israel. Insulting someone can be illegal but that can only be applied if you insult a specific person, not a country and it’s only enforced in extreme cases.

So unless OP plans to join a full-blown anti-Israel protest that risks getting violent, I don’t think they have to worry about that.

“Grüß Gott” exists in BW but it has become very rare. I would say only the generation 80+ uses it regularly. Edit: source

In Swiss German, “grüezi” (which comes from “Gott grüße euch”, so basically the same origin) is extremely common.

I have lived my whole life in the south of Germany.

People in the south are literally known for their friendliness. Or, in the case of Bayern, their fake friendliness.

Don’t get me wrong, people are friendly. But the way they show it is different from other cultures. They are more likely to tell you what’s on their mind instead of meaningless small talk and polite phrases. To some cultures that seems to appear rude even if it isn’t meant to be.

They do not speak English.

The assumption that nobody speaks English is outdated by decades. Some may have a thick accent or mix German and English grammar when speaking but they will definitely understand you. I’ve met many foreigners who came here to practice their German and got frustrated when everyone immediately switched to English when they noticed a foreign accent.

General culture:

• In a big city like Munich, most people under 60 will understand English pretty well. Some might be hesitant to reply in English because they are not used to speaking it out loud but they will certainly know what you need from them. Younger people who are chronically online might have more contact with English than with German in their everyday life.
• Many Germans, especially in the south can appear grumpy and not very talkative towards strangers. They are not angry at you, just direct. “Not complaining is enough praise” is a fairly common saying. If you ask someone how their day was, don’t expect empty pleasantries but facts. On the other hand, once you get to know someone you can become their new best friend within half a day.
• This goes for anywhere in the world but if you value your sanity, don’t talk about politics.
• We may be of a different culture than you but we are not aliens. If you are unsure about something, just ask and if you do something inappropriate, someone will tell you.
• If you need a snack during the day, I recommend looking for a bakery. Most will have a selection of sandwiches and bottled beverages.
• Most stores are closed on Sundays while restaurants may have their own days off (often Monday). Opening times may vary but don’t expect 24/7 supermarkets like in the US and Asia. If you urgently need something, try a gas station or near a train station.

Laws:

• The EU and Germany specifically is big on privacy. It is technically illegal to take a photo of an individual without their consent. Photographing crowds is fine and nobody will complain about being in the background of your selfie but don’t go around shoving a camera in someone’s face without asking.
• As others have said, beer is legal from 16, liquor from 18, even in public. Even if you don’t drink, be prepared to encounter a couple of drunk teenagers if you’re out in the evening. Just be polite and ignore them and it will be fine.
• Other than that, expect a pretty standard western legal system. Unless you’re planning to actively commit a crime, the details won’t be important to you.

Terms and phrases:

• Bahnhof => train station
• U-Bahn => subway / metro
• Flughafen => airport
• Bitte => please / you’re welcome (yes, it can mean both)
• Danke => thank you

Well, if someone can’t handle losing as a result of their own skill level, chess probably isn’t the right game for them. Unless you pick opponents below your own level, you will realistically lose about half of your games and you can’t blame it on bad luck. That’s part of the game.

For me, chess is one of the least frustrating games to lose in because it’s entirely based on the difference between my skill and my opponent’s skill. There is no luck involved, so losing is entirely my own fault. And even if I lose, I might have learned something.

What’s way more frustrating is games that drag on for hours and then get decided by something that I can’t control like an unlucky dice roll or card draw.

Sorry to disappoint but alligators are not closely related to dinosaurs even though they have existed for a long time. Birds on the other hand are dinosaurs.

I would say that‘s an entirely different point. If someone likes to literally watch paint dry, who am I to invade their discussions tell them they shouldn’t? Let people like what they like even if you personally think it’s neither good nor fun.

Care to explain what you mean by that?

“I don’t like it so it must be bad” in relation to all kinds of media. So many people can’t accept that something just isn’t meant for them. There are literally thousands of games, movies and albums getting released every year so if you don’t like something, just don’t buy it and move on instead of complaining to (and sometimes about) those of us who are looking forward to it.

Edit: this might not strictly be the most toxic behavior but it makes social interactions super annoying, even in small groups and it seems to coincide with people who are overall fond of forcing their personal views and beliefs on others.

Many western social media sites are banned in China.

Not really. As the devs themselves have stated, one of the reasons was that Chinese players don’t have access to most of the established feedback channels like the official discord server and social media accounts so their only option to reliably get the devs‘ attention is through Steam reviews. If I remember correctly, they are (have been?) working on improving communication, for example through an ingame feedback form.