#i mostly use my pc to game if that makes a difference

[sunny-haven]

Libraries are amazing. My childhood would be very different if it weren’t for them. I was able to slowly get into PC gaming because of they’re free-to-use computers (I got a lot of kids to play Minecraft with me, and then Halo: Custom Edition). I also was able to borrow video games as well which was really cool (and if the library didn’t have any, I would order them from another library). I made so so many friends there and became good friends with the youth staff and security guards. I got to try a lot of cool board games there! And of course I read a loooot of books there, there was a certain delight in picking up an easy to read children’s book (sometimes a picture book, sometimes a chapter book) and just chill, or go through the comics section, or sometimes something bigger if I was feeling up for it.

I got to learn how to build a computer at a library (and we built new computers for the adult section with our names engraved onto them). They had an event where comic artists came over and had us make a little zine full of our comics, twice! They built a section for teenagers to hang out and chill in and it was (mostly) soundproof so we were able to play D&D or whatever and chill without worrying about being too loud. I had drawing pads and would draw there, a lot, and would show off my work to the staff and friends who loved it, even when my mom would sometimes find it disgusting.

I even volunteered at the library, helping put away books for the youth section, and some of my friends volunteered as well. The library was a very frequent hangout spot for my friends even as we eventually started going to other places as well. When I didn’t have internet for over a year, I almost always was at the library because of the free internet there. Hell, even my first fursona was a librarian, and I remember making art of him reading books to kids and I drew the background so it looked just like the library I grew up in. I even made a couple of (now private) YouTube videos there of me goofing around with friends. And a bunch of other awesome things happened there.

I also wanna say how big of an impact it had on my mental health as I was able to go away from my mom and her hoarder apartment. It was a safe haven for me. I still miss the friends I made there and visiting there in general (I live pretty far away now). Libraries are fucking awesome and we need to support them. I can’t imagine what my life would have turned out if I didn’t have access to libraries.

[raepritewrites]

Anyone have advice about moving your pc data files from one drive to another? I have a new ssd plugged in and a data migration software to go with it, but imma be real with you guys, i am not as tech savvy as i wish i was and im scared as hell to move stuff lmao help?

[tofupixel]

I recently started learning to use rpg maker (vx ace!) and as a result have become increasingly interested in pixel art. I hadn't really done pixel work since my teens - I do more digital painting and vector art - so while I'm a little familiar and can do passable editing, there's a lot I don't know.

One thing that's kind of perplexing for me is understanding the differences in style between two creators of pixel art. I studied art history and I'm used to the differences being things like brush stroke length or degree of realism... I feel like I'm lacking in lexicon in this new frontier lol

What nuances of an artist do you think are most important to style in pixel art?

This kind of stuff is not really officially studied (yet) so it's all a bit of opinion from me.

Usually in pixel art the biggest differences in styles are which limitations the artists choose to impose on themselves; colour count, resolution, palette... Or more stylistic choices like hue shifting, anti-aliasing style or no, dithering or no, etc.

I personally think there are a huge variety of styles in pixel art, as it's literally just a medium, and I hope you'll agree by the end 8)

Also (imo) there is some seperation between the styles of art for art's sake, and art for videogames, where things have to be clear and readable to be actually playable.

🎮 Old school games:

Sometimes referred to as something like '8-bit' or '16-bit' (relating to the NES era / SNES era consoles), these artstyles usually follow the rules and limitations of the hardware at the time.

This all falls under retro art, most popular styles include: NES, SNES, GB, GBC, C64

Notable artists: Nickwoz, Sandy Gordon, Franken, Cisco

📚 Old school art:

There were also events called Demoscene (still are), where developers would go to a big convention and share their demos. A lot of pixel art competitions were held here, where artists would draw live.

Generally they used to favour a high realism/semirealism style, with lots of texture/dithering, fairly high resolution (if the hardware allowed for it), and adjacent pixels mostly being different from one another.

There are even older styles than this but they are fairly niche and I'm not that well educated. If interested look into some of the old PCs/consoles.

⭐ Modern pixel art:

Usually using more colours and higher resolution, larger clusters of pixels instead of individual ones. Strong use of art fundamentals.

Artists to look at: Adam Ferguson (yes it is pixel art), Snake, Slym, 6VCR, Yes I do Pixels, Gijotto, SovanJedi, JoeCreates, Franek, @8pxl

the rest below are "modern" pixel artists too but I think they have other things in their style that are a bit different!

🎨 Painterly:

Some artists choose to emulate the natural brushstrokes digitally, and keep their clusters large and loose. Usually don't focus on the minute details as much.

@makrustic, @hexh-pixel, Umbohr, Gawrone

🟦 Dithering

These artists all use dithering / texture in ways that make their styles totally unique.

Deceiver, Night, Reo,

💥 Experimental

These artists are always trying new things and honing in on their unique style.

AJ, hby, @ilta222, Alphons

I could really go on for ever, there are so many different styles, cute pixel art, horror pixel art, 1bit (2 colours only), and then adding animation takes it even further, but I think you get the idea

If you want to learn more, the Masters of Pixel Art books have works /interviews from pixel artists of different eras, including demoscene and contemporary.

😊👍

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why I Dislike PbtA Games, and How Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Their Opposite

@tender-curiosities

It is no secret that I hate PbtA games.

Though due to a recent misunderstanding regarding another post, I’m going to preface this post by saying that this is going to be a very opinionated post and

I do not seriously think that PbtA games are inherently bad, though I may sometimes joke about this.

While I do often question the taste of people who make and play PbtA hacks, I do not think poorly of their moral character.

While I am going to call for PbtA to be used less as a base for games in the future, I’m not saying that the whole system and all games based on it should be destructified. It’s good for what it’s good for, but unless you’re doing that, I really think you should use something else.

Now that that is out of the way, here’s what I have to say about it.

My first experiences with PbtA games were pretty rough. Monster of the Week was not the first, but it was one of the first ‘indie’ TTRPGs I played after having previously played mostly only D&D3.5e and 5e. I really appreciated that the use of 2D6 over a D20 meant that the dice results would be more predictable, and I really liked the various “classes” I was seeing. (At this time, I didn’t really understand that they weren’t really “classes” at all, though I think I can be forgiven for this because many people, even people who like PbtA games, still talk like “classes” and “playbooks” are interchangeable.)

I was very enthusiastic to play, until it came time to start actually “making” a character, and found that I couldn’t “make” a character. I wanted to make a nuanced, three-dimensional PC who was simultaneously stereotype-affirming and stereotype-defying, with a unique backstory and dynamic with the other characters—but when I went to actually fill out the character sheet for basically any “class”, I found that most of the backstory and most of the personality for my character was being set for me by the playbook. It felt like the only thing about the character I really had a say in was their name, and that two PCs of the same playbook would actually turn out to be almost identical characters. At the time, I thought this was very restrictive and very bad design.

Later, now that I understand the design intent behind it, I still think of it as very restrictive, but I think of it as very bad design for me, not inherently bad.

When I play a TTRPG, I want more freedom in who my PC is. That doesn’t mean I want less rules, in fact having more rules can often increase freedom, but that’s a different post. I want to create original, unique characters, that I won’t see anywhere else. If it’s a class-based system, I want that class to barely touch the details of my character’s backstory or personality, so that I can come up with something original and engaging for why and how this “Fighter” fights. This means that two level-1 Fighters, despite having almost the same mechanical abilities, will potentially be very different people.

PbtA games don’t let you do that. In a lot of PbtA games, you’re not playing your own original character, you’re playing someone else’s character, that every other player that has picked up the same playbook before you has played. It’s more like “character select” than “character creation.” I think I could liken it to playing Mass Effect or The Witcher. Every player may pick a few different dialogue choices in those games that change the story, but we’re still all playing Shepherd or Geralt. No one is going to experience a new never-before-seen story in Mass Effect or The Witcher, which is very much a factor of them being video games and not TTRPGs, and therefore limited to the amount of code, writing, and voice-acting that can go into them.

This anonymous asker who sent a message to @thydungeongal seems to feel pretty similarly to me about PbtA games, and @thydungeongal's response is a very good response about how people find this appealing.

I have more respect for PbtA now than I did, but I still don't like it because to me it seems to play so much against what I consider to be the strengths of TTRPGs as a medium, much like how video games like The Last of Us and David Cage games play against the strengths of the medium of video games, and I will never like it. But other people clearly do, so to each their own.

Then another reason I don’t like it is because I think it’s oversaturating the TTRPG space. I’ve referred to PbtA before as “indie D&D5e”, and i do think that’s a reasonable comparison, because in much the same way that you always hear “D&D5e is a system that can do everything”, I think a lot of people seem to be under the impression that the PbtA system is a system that can do anything. It’s kinda the système du jour for indie TTRPGs right now, and many iterations of it make it clear that many designers do not consider how PbtA differs from more traditional TTRPGs, and how it is specialized for different types of TTRPG gameplay. Just like how I feel PbtA isn’t playing to certain important strengths of TTRPGs, I think that many—maybe even most—PbtA hacks don’t play to the strengths of PbtA. But this isn’t really PbtA’s fault, that comes down to any individual indie TTRPG developer on a case-by-case basis. And the cure for that is something I’m always saying: If you are going to be a writer, you have got to read lots of books. If you are going to be a director, you have got to watch lots of movies. If you are going to be a video game developer, you have got to play lots of video games. And if you are going to be a TTRPG designer, you have got to read and play lots of TTRPGs. That and you have to understand that TTRPGs are specialized. Even "agnostic" systems like PbtA are somewhat specialized, and therefore might really not be a great fit for the game you’re trying to make.

That and, to get more subjective again, there’s like an ocean of them, and I don’t even like the ones that are actually good.

Now that I’ve talked about how I don’t like PbtA games, I’m gonna talk about a game I do like: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. Obviously, I like it because I’m the lead writer for it, but I would also like it even if I wasn’t the lead writer for it, because it’s just my kinda game. Eureka is the opposite of a PbtA game. I wrote it to play to what I feel are the strengths of the TTRPG medium.

Eureka’s character creation uses personality traits as a mechanical element of the character, but it does so in a deliberately freeform way. You build your character’s personality out of a list of traits, so who your character is is very much linked to what your character can do, but we aren’t just handing you a pre-made character.

Eureka is designed to incentivize organic decision-making by the PCs, most often by the mechanics of the game mirroring the world they live in. Every mechanic aims to create situations wherein “what will the PC do next?” is a question whose answer can be predicted - it doesn’t need to be ordained by a playbook.

One of my favorite examples of this is, rather than a “Fear Check” forcing the PC to run away if they fail, or “Run Away from Danger” being a “Move” on their character sheet, Eureka opts for the Composure mechanic. The really short version is that one of the main things that lowers a PC’s Composure is encountering scary stuff, and the lower a PC’s Composure, the more likely they are to fail skill checks, and the more likely they are to fail skill checks, well, the less brave they and their player probably feel about them standing up to this scary monster. So if the PC has low Composure, they are more likely to choose to run away. The lower their Composure, the better idea that will seem.

This system really really shines when it comes to monster PCs in Eureka. Most monsters benefit a lot more from having high Composure, but have fewer ways to restore Composure than mundane PCs. Their main way to restore their Composure is by eating people. The rulebook never says “your monster PC has to eat people”, but more likely than not, they’re going to be organically steered towards that by the game and world itself. Sure, they could decide to be “one of the good ones”, and just never eat people, just like you reading this could decide to stop eating food. You technically could, but when your body starts to fail, how long would you? (This is a big part of the themes of Eureka and what it has to say about crime, disability, mental illness, and evil. People don’t just arbitrarily do bad things, it is often their circumstances that leads them down that path until they see little choice for themselves in that matter, and “harmful” people are still just as deserving of life as people who “aren’t harmful”, but that really deserves its own post.)

It has been said that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually arrives at much the same end as the PbtA game Monsterhearts, and I actually don’t disagree, but it gets there from an entirely different starting point and direction. The monster PCs in Eureka are very likely to eat people and cause drama, but it won’t be because they have “Eat People and Cause Drama” as a “Move” on their character sheet.

Monsters in Eureka have a lot of abilities, which they can use to solve (and create) problems as the emergent story emerges organically.

(Oh and Eureka is about adult investigators investigating mysteries, and sometimes those investigators are monsters, not about monster kids in high school, to be clear. The same “end” that Eureka and Monsterhearts reach is that of the monsters being prone to cause problems and drama due to the fact that they are monsters, though this isn’t the sole point of Eureka, just one element of it.)

You can pick up the free shareware version of this game from the download link on our website, or the full version for $5 from our Patreon.

And don’t forget, Eureka is fundraising on Kickstarter starting on April 10th, 2024! We need your support there most of all, to make sure we hit our goals and can afford to make the best version of Eureka we can make!

Interested in branching out but can’t get your group to play anything but D&D5e? Join us at the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club, where we nominate, vote on, and play indie TTRPGs, all organized by our team with no strict schedule requirement! Here's the invite link! See you there!

We also have merchandise.

[allywthsr]

CHARITY STREAM | (l.norris)

summary: you and Lando stream 24h for charity! Lots of gaming and chatting

wordcount: 1.8k words

pairing: landonorris x fem!reader

warnings: none!

notes: tumblr wouldn’t let me post anything?? It’s late again!🥲

advent calendar

Lando and you started a new tradition this year.

This year you wanted to do a little charity stream during the holidays, where people could donate, and in the end, the money would go into different organizations. Shelters for homeless people, women’s shelters, and on your request, some animal shelters as well.

You two also donated twenty thousand pounds to kick things off, and you hoped people would give some of their money to a good cause, no matter how much money someone donates, every penny counts and is helping someone to survive. Especially during Christmas and the winter, it was harder for people that do not have a stable home to survive, eat, shower, or even go to the toilet. That was something, they didn’t always have access to, and that is why you and Lando decided to do this charity stream.

The stream is twenty-four hours long, a full day of streaming, mostly it will be Lando in front of the camera because the people want to see him, but you would join him. It’s going to start with some cookie baking, and then you go straight to the PC to play games, Fortnite, CoD, the Truck simulator, and the Santa simulator were already planned, just as a lot of talking to the chats and every hour you would explain and introduce one more shelter, you donate to.

And that’s where you were sitting right now, in front of the computer, next to Lando and the ring light behind his PC was providing you with light. Lando clicked on the start button, and the stream loaded, the first few hello’s and comments started rolling in.

”Hey guys, Y/N and I decided to do something new this year. Today we’re raising money for charity, not everyone is privileged enough to have a roof over their head, so we want to donate money to different organizations. Y/N and I are gonna stream for twenty-four hours, we’re playing different games, but first, we start with some cookie baking, I‘m going to switch you to the kitchen cam, and then we‘re going to cut out cookies.“

You prepared the cookie dough two hours ago and it sat in the fridge, waiting for you two to roll it out. Lando switched to the kitchen cam, and you two appeared behind the kitchen island, on the island there were many cookie cutters, flour, baking paper, and multiple rolling pins scattered. You opened the fridge and took the cookie dough on the counter, taking a piece of it and rolling it out with a rolling pin.

Lando started to press different cookie cutters into the dough.

”Chat, what do you think about my Santa?“

After a few seconds, comments came in complementing him, ”It’s not that hard baby, you used a cookie cutter.“

”She‘s always negative, chat, I don’t know why she’s even here.“

Obviously, he was joking, squeezing your hips shortly after he said that. The next half hour was spent cutting out the dough into small shapes with the cookie cutters and taking out baked cookies from the oven.

”Alright chat, we‘ll go over to the PC and play some games, maybe later we will go back to the kitchen and decorate them.“

You two sat at the PC and looked at the chat, reading some comments, donations were already coming in and Lando was thanking every single one of them. The count was already at two thousand of just viewer donations, some crazy people are out there and it astonished you. Now Lando sat in his gaming chair, while you sat in your chair and with your MacBook in front of you, Fortnite open and ready to play. You two were playing in duos and when the first game started, you two were freaking out. Lando wasn’t a pro, just like you aren’t, you were dying before you even picked up a gun and Lando wasn’t any better, stream snipers were making your life hard and you tried to play it for two hours but after not getting a win, it was time to stop playing that frustrating game.

You switched to just talking to the chat, by now twenty thousand people were watching, and they had a lot of questions. It wasn’t like you were in a new relationship with Lando, most of his fans only knew him with you on his side, you‘ve been with him since he started his Formula One career, but you retold your whole getting-to-know-each-other story. Ditching questions that had anything to do with marriage or kids, you both wanted to focus on life and your careers and touch that topic later in life, a lot of people didn’t get that, and had to spam the comments. So you decided to play the next game, the Santa simulator.

Lando started off with collecting presents for different children, having to decide if they get something good or just a piece of coal. Lucas was not focusing on school but more on his hobby, no Lando had to decide what he would get, because of Lando’s own school history, Lucas got a big new bike like he wished. Marie was always a good girl, cleaning up behind herself, a good student, and always on her best behavior. Because Lando thought she needed to be more rebellious, she got some coal, but a new pair of slippers too, so she wouldn’t feel to... sad. Next, he had to take care of the reindeers, brushing their fur and feeding them before putting them in front of the sleigh, the last thing that needed to be done was to deliver the presents. Lando had to fly through the sky and ditch multiple obstacles, landing safely on houses without getting noticed by anyone. The sliding down the chimney and laying the presents underneath the tree was the hardest part, he had to do it as quietly as possible, so he wouldn’t wake up any of the kids. In the end, most of the kids weren’t happy with their presents and he wasn’t quiet enough, the mission was failed, but you two had fun.

Six hours in and eighteen more to go, next Lando wanted to play CoD, you had an important phone call, so you couldn’t join or watch him, but after two hours of discussing things with your and Lando’s management, Lando was still playing it.

”This is the last round, baby“, he said as you sat down next to him on your chair. You pulled out your phone to check some reactions to the stream, so far people were loving it. When the clock hit the next full hour, it was time to announce the next sponsor, this hour you talked about the Red Cross, what they did, and how people could help outside of the stream.

While chatting about that, Lando got touchy and placed his hand on your cross-legged thigh, caressing it gently. Immediately comments about that came in and people were swooning over Lando’s need of physical attention.

”Chat, what should we play?“

Comments were saying Fortnite or the truck simulator, so you two chose the truck simulator, Lando and you hadn’t played that game since lockdown ended and you even got a little excited. You linked your MacBook with Lando’s game and now you could play together, fulfilling quests and pushing each other off the street. The room was filled with laughter and screams, as the others always pushed the truck off or doing everything they weren’t supposed to do, like hitting different cars or turning the wrong way.

After Lando shut off the game, it was hour ten and you two got hungry, in between the games you‘d already prepared some snacks, but you needed an actual dinner, so quickly you boiled some pasta and made a quick sauce. You brought it to Lando and you two made an unplanned asmr session, most of the people loved how you weirdly slowly chewed your pasta and when Lando smushed around the sauce, you couldn’t contain your laughter in between bites.

Lando had a Lego piece he wanted to build for quite some time, but he never did, so he got the package out and poured out all the bags. What you thought would take an hour, turned out to take four hours, Lando got confused at some steps and had to redo them, as you were focused on a different step. But you never thought it would take you so long, stretching your knuckles and fingers after you finished.

After talking to the chat, you reminded Lando of the cookies that were still untouched in the kitchen and he quickly switched to the kitchen cam, where he sat and waited for you to prepare the chocolates and sprinkles. Lando wasn’t the most patient man, so mostly the cookies got dipped in the chocolate and maybe some sprinkles were put on the chocolate. But most of them were eaten before they could be decorated anyway.

Next, you did the gingerbread house challenge, if you were in the kitchen anyway.

With only six hours to go, and the struggle to stay awake, you drank multiple beverages with caffeine. You played another round of Fortnite, joined by Max F. and you even won one round, mostly because you got carried by someone, but the end result mattered.

Going in the last three hours, a lot of chatting and watching YouTube videos was done, compilations of Y/N and Lando being cute or the latest unboxed. In the end you raised over forty thousand pounds, saying goodbye to the chat when the twenty four hour mark was crossed. Lando ended the stream and you let out a big sigh, finally you didn’t have thousand of eyes on you anymore, with a stretch, you linked Lando’s and your hand together and pulled him to the bed, ready for a big nap.

[verdemoth]

And the last of my Flondon PCs, making her tumblr debut, my guy Dr. Narramore! Lucy to his friends. He's a freak and he sucks <3 she exists because I did want to experience the Seeking storyline but I'd never put Mel or Knoll through all that. So, Ulysses is designed to be locked in the torment nexus and experience the horrors and she can only get worse from here! But actually I'm yet to get to any of the Seeking stuff since I haven't been super focused on building up his account yet.

He's also an excuse to explore the Great Game content, and that gives me some direction to take his character. Speaking of characters, Darling Lark (mentioned on this sheet) belongs to my friend @skies-seas ! Also a character belonging to Sky is the one and only person in the world who Ulysses considers indispensable: childhood friend and mad scientist Rajendra Narod, also a Seeking PC who Sky made so we can do our favourite activity of making Fucked Up Guys together <3 <3 <3

Also yeah Horticulture Hell! I was brainstorming what my Seeking character should be like for months in advance, and I had the idea that instead of going through New-Newgate he'd start off in a different Menace location (fucking dying lol). Then Horticulture Hell happened and the idea of being new to the Neath while all that was going on was so funny to me, so that's when I made the account :]

i have some more notes on his character than I can share, but I'll do so in a reblog probably so this isn't TOO long. Transcripts to follow under the readmore

Text Transcripts:

In the top left are some quick details. Lucy's full name and title is Doctor Ulysses B. Narramore. In the style of other Fallen London characters, Lucy's epithet is 'the Mercurial Pawn'. Lucy uses both she/her and he/him pronouns interchangeably, he's 31 years old and 5 feet 8 inches tall. She resides in a handsome townhouse around Ladybones Road. Her profession is as a physician but she's also a spy in the making, and the faction she's closest to is The Great Game.

Next to these are some notable player attributes. Of the main attributes, Lucy has high Persuasive and Dangerous, but low Watchful. Of the quirks, she has high Ruthless, Heartless, Forceful, and Subtle, but low Magnanimous and Steadfast. He also has another notable quality: that he's Seeking the Name.

In the top right is this note: "Ulysses wasn't (knowingly) a Player in the Great Game before arriving in the Neath. He was inducted by a woman named Darling Lark, operator of a local speakeasy and go-between for spy and criminal activities."

Paired with the art of Lucy covered in blood are these notes: "Though lacking in training, discipline, and real practical experience, Lucy is a formidably aggressive foe. He doesn't fight gracefully and he doesn't fight fair. She won't shy away from blood, and isn't above kicking someone who's already down. ...He might be a bit too into bloodshed. The cane is also for stability, Ulysses has been having weak spells with a bit of a fall risk. But mostly it's a convenient, socially acceptable way to have a good bludgeoning weapon on hand."

With the last illustration of Lucy climbing from a well are these notes: "It is the case that many new residents of London come by way of New-Newgate, but Lucy's arrival was rather more dramatic. Amidst what is occasionally, by some individuals, still referred to as the London Horticultural Show, he found himself tumbling into the Neath through a weak bit of roof. She died, of course, and was in for quite the shock when she'd recovered."

End of text transcripts.

[blacktabbygames]

Hi, I admit I dont really know what the process for this looks like, but would you ever consider adding Slay the Princess to the Playstation Plus subscription service, or to Xbox GamePass? Even temporary, with a time limit?

This might be something we do towards the very end of Slay the Princess' life cycle, but subscription services are a pretty hard sell for us in general. I don't think they're sustainable for the games industry as a whole, and they're a contributor to some of the race-to-the-bottom mentality. (Absolutely zero judgment for folks who use these services, btw. *I* use these services, but then I also know that I never actually buy a game after getting it on Game Pass or PS+; this is really just about the corporate side of things)

A big news item in the industry over the past month was the closure of Tango Gameworks, the Microsoft-owned studio that made Hi-Fi Rush last year, a wonderful game that got a bunch of awards and scored an 87 on Metacritic.

There's been a lot of speculation around this closure, and to add to that speculation, I believe that at the end of the day, Hi Fi Rush lost a lot of money, at least on paper.

It was shadow-dropped as a day 1 gamepass exclusive, which meant that there was no marketing done in advance, and sales were immediately cannibalized. (Side note— Hi-Fi Rush is maybe the only game I've picked up on Game Pass that I turned around and bought a Steam copy of, mostly because I wanted to play it on my Steam Deck.)

Since Tango was owned by MS, this was almost certainly a deliberate choice to make Game Pass seem more appealing, and even then, the studio behind a *hit* game was closed for financial reasons. So we're not sure that's a part of the industry we want to dance with.

I know this probably seems at odds with our stance on piracy, but at the end of the day, I think they're different beasts, and it's the scale, perceived legitimacy, and corporatization of subscription services that gives me a lot of pause, especially with Game Pass, which tends to double-release for PC and console. And on the flipside, I legitimately don't think piracy hurts developers.

So again, I think if we were to do something like this, it would be towards the end of the game's life, or it would be something tied more to an isolated ecosystem (i.e. if we do mobile, something like Apple Arcade, since people don't really *buy* mobile games, and the overlap with console + PC is very small.)

[simtleman]

The Venice Express (Download Tray Files & CC)

So I've been receiving a few DMs asking me whether my lots are up on The Gallery or somewhere else to be downloaded. To be more specific, my Grand Express (Columbia Station) Lot seems to be getting a lot of attention (which I'm so, so glad!).

As you may already know if you follow my Tumblr, my game and therefore my save file is kinda messed up ever since the last update (mostly my UI), so unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to share that lot with you guys. However, I've decided to create a brand new train from scratch and finally contribute somehow to this thriving historical Sims 4 community I'm loving so much. I may not have the talent to create CC myself, but as a former stylist I sure can put things others have created together to make 'em look nice lol. Without further delay, allow me to introduce you to The Venice Express!

Clearly inspired by the legendary and breathtaking Venice Simplon Orient-Express, the lot consists of a three wagon train (two of them with private cabins, the third one featuring a lounge bar and a small kitchen), a log cabin and a recreation area with a wooden arbor. Here are some screenshots:

Private cabins (they're all practically equal):

Lounge bar wagon/kitchen:

Log cabin:

Before you go ahead and download it into your game, a few IMPORTANT disclaimers:

The lot is a 50x50. If you want the enviroment to look just like my screenshots, make sure to place it in the big lot on top of the hill on Mount Komorebi.

I use ReShade in all my screenshots, so lighting/colors may vary from what it looks like on your game.

I used items from a few expansions and packs (listed in picture below), so if you don't own them those items might be replaced with others.

Like all my builds, this is a heavily CC based lot. If you don't have a powerful PC, it might get laggy while trying to play with it.

Regarding the CC, I do not own nor take credit from any item included within this lot. All credit goes to their amazing creators.

The .ZIP file (3.19 GB) includes two folders: one for the Tray Files and another one with all the CC. I'm 100% sure all the CC I used is already public for everyone; if it's not, it's been definitely longer than three weeks since it has all been in my game and you (the CC creator) shouldn't be putting content behind permanent paywalls to begin with ;)

I did use bb.moveobjects on while building and have NOT playtested it, so you might have to move some items for them to be functional.

The lot is currently set as a Residential, but you can certainly change it to anything else... including a Residential Rental and perhaps making each cabin a different apartment.

That's all for me! This is the very first piece of content I share for others to download, so if you run into any kind of issues do not hesitate to let me know and I'll try to help best I can :)

If you do like it, please make sure to like this post (maybe even comment on it if you feel kind enough!) and please, please, PLEASE do tag me on your screenshots if you share them here on Tumblr. I'd love to see what you guys make with it!

Download: Mediafire

Enjoy ♡

[canmom]

how much power does tech really use, compared to other shit?

my dash has been full of arguing about AI power consumption recently. so I decided to investigate a bit.

it's true, as the Ars Technica article argues, that AI is still only one fairly small part of the overall tech sector power consumption, potentially comparable to things like PC gaming. what's notable is how quickly it's grown in just a few years, and this is likely to be a limit to how much more it can scale.

I think it is reasonable to say that adding generative AI at large scale to systems that did not previously have generative AI (phones, Windows operating system etc.) will increase the energy cost. it's hard to estimate by how much. however, the bulk of AI energy use is in training, not querying. in some cases 'AI' might lead to less energy use, e.g. using an AI denoiser will reduce the energy needed to render an animated film.

the real problem being exposed is that most of us don't really have any intuition for how much energy is used for what. you can draw comparisons all sorts of ways. compare it to the total energy consumption of humanity and it may sound fairly niche; compare it to the energy used by a small country (I've seen Ireland as one example, which used about 170TWh in 2022) and it can sound huge.

but if we want to reduce the overall energy demand of our species (to slow our CO2 emissions in the short term, and accomodate the limitations of renewables in a hypothetical future), we should look at the full stack. how does AI, crypto and tech compare to other uses of energy?

here's how physicist David McKay broke down energy use per person in the UK way back in 2008 in Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air, and his estimate of a viable renewable mix for the UK.

('Stuff' represents the embedded energy of manufactured goods not covered by the other boxes. 'Gadgets' represents the energy used by electronic devices including passive consumption by devices left on standby, and datacentres supporting them - I believe the embodied energy cost of building them falls under 'stuff' instead.)

today those numbers would probably look different - populations change, tech evolves, etc. etc., and this notably predates the massive rise in network infrastructure and computing tech that the Ars article describes. I'm sure someone's come up with a more up-to-date SEWTHA-style estimate of how energy consumption breaks down since then, but I don't have it to hand.

that said, the relative sizes of the blocks won't have changed that much. we still eat, heat our homes and fly about as much as ever; electric cars have become more popular but the fleet is still mostly petrol-powered. nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of the efficiency of most of this stuff. depending where you live, things might look a bit different - less energy on heating/cooling or more on cars for example.

how big a block would AI and crypto make on a chart like this?

per the IEA, crypto used 100-150TWh of electricity worldwide in 2022. in McKay's preferred unit of kWh/day/person, that would come to a worldwide average of just 0.04kWh/day/person. that is of course imagining that all eight billion of us use crypto, which is not true. if you looked at the total crypto-owning population, estimated to be 560 million in 2024, that comes to about 0.6kWh/day/crypto-owning person for cryptocurrency mining [2022/2024 data]. I'm sure that applies to a lot of people who just used crypto once to buy drugs or something, so the footprint of 'heavier' crypto users would be higher.

I'm actually a little surpised by this - I thought crypto was way worse. it's still orders of magnitude more demanding than other transaction systems but I'm rather relieved to see we haven't spent that much energy on the red queen race of cryptomining.

the projected energy use of AI is a bit more vague - depending on your estimate it could be higher or lower - but it would be a similar order of magnitude (around 100TWh).

SEWTHA calculated that in 2007, data centres in the USA added up to 0.4kWh/day/person. the ars article shows worldwide total data centre energy use increasing by a factor of about 7 since then; the world population has increased from just under 7 billion to nearly 8 billion. so the amount per person is probably about a sixfold increase to around 2.4kWh/day/person for data centres in the USA [extrapolated estimate based on 2007 data] - for Americans, anyway.

however, this is complicated because the proportion of people using network infrastructure worldwide has probably grown a lot since 2007, so a lot of that data centre expansion might be taking place outside the States.

as an alternative calculation, the IEA reports that in 2022, data centres accounted for 240-340 TWh, and transmitting data across the network, 260-360 TWh; in total 500-700TWh. averaged across the whole world, that comes to just 0.2 kWh/day/person for data centres and network infrastructure worldwide [2022 data] - though it probably breaks down very unequally across countries, which might account for the huge discrepancy in our estimates here! e.g. if you live in a country with fast, reliable internet where you can easily stream 4k video, you will probably account for much higher internet traffic than someone in a country where most people connect to the internet using phones over data.

overall, however we calculate it, it's still pretty small compared to the rest of the stack. AI is growing fast but worldwide energy use is around 180,000 TWh. humans use a lot of fucking energy. of course, reducing this is a multi-front battle, so we can still definitely stand to gain in tech. it's just not the main front here.

instead, the four biggest blocks by far are transportation, heating/cooling and manufacturing. if we want to make a real dent we'd need to collectively travel by car and plane a lot less, insulate our houses better, and reduce the turnover of material objects.

[talizoraa]

Some early game Baldur’s Gate 3 tips

- Once you’ve rescued Shadowheart from her pod on the Nautiloid, you can press K on pc (idk about controller) to see her spell list and change her prepared spells. Swap out one of her spells for Command. Now you can use command to make the devil drop his sword and easily go and pick it up. Even if you can’t use it, this is a very strong early game sword even for your party members and there’s no reason not to do this. Once he’s dropped his weapon it’s easier to kill him, but still very tough. He gives a lot of xp though, so it’s your choice. (Thanks to my gf for this she’s a genius)

- Long rest as often as possible. Especially if you care about your companions personal stories and your relationships with them. As you progress the story and recruit your party members, camp events get added to a queue with different urgency attached to them. If you don’t long rest enough, you will miss a lot of these. Some of them are important for quests, some are just for learning more about your companions, but you can get a lot of approval if you do them, if that’s something you care about. The majority of the time there is no downside to long resting frequently, with camp supplies being very easy to come by. There are a small number of quests that will change after you long rest, but by far fewer than I thought there would be. If you’re worried, you can f5 to quick save before long rest. On my earlier saves, I used long rest very sparingly and missed a lot of events I would’ve liked to have seen. (Also obviously restoring spell slots and hp and stuff)

- If you are not playing a cleric or a druid, and don’t feel like constantly having Shadowheart in your party, you can go here to loot a necklace with Guidance on it. Guidance is extremely good for dice rolls and I absolutely recommend picking this up.

- This last ones mostly just for fun, once you reach the Emerald Grove, head up the path to the east from the entrance and you can meet Alfira the tiefling bard. Talk to her and offer to play with her, pass all the difficulty checks and you’ll learn to play musical instruments. There’s also a chest here with an item for bards inside. Head north east from her to fight some harpies and rescue a tiefling boy, who will give you access to the kids hideout. Again these aren’t super important, just helpful, and the instrument proficiency is fun. These will NOT be available after you complete the main quest for the zone. (Image is from google, don’t know what the other markers are)

- Oh also, these are pretty well known but just in case. As I said, F5 to quicksave, F8 to quickload. Hold ALT to see almost all lootable objects. Hold SHIFT to see enemy’s cones of vision.

These are just a few tips that would have helped me out had I known them sooner, that I’ve hardly seen mentioned anywhere else. There’s more obvious ones, like making sure you recruit Wyll and Karlach before moving on to act 2, as they’re easily missable, and fully exploring the crash site to find all the available companions. Feel free to let me know if there’s any more I should add or reblog with your own!

[satansapostle6]

X

Josh Futturman has always had a crush on his beautiful coworker, the sharp, sexy scientist he thought he could only dream of talking to.

Warnings: Mature themes/language. Sexual content.

Part One: Purple Orchids, Indian Food, and Chocolate

Josh Futturman always noticed her, every time she walked into a room. He knew that it was because he’d had a crush on her for as long as he’d worked at Kronish Labs, but he also felt that, regardless of how he, or anyone saw her, she was just inherently noticeable.

Her name, from what he knew, was Dr. Johansson, and although Josh hardly knew anything about her and had only spoken to her on a few occasions, never more than a couple of sentences, he still thought she was a total goddess.

Dr. Johansson was a scientist at Kronish Labs, the head of the research department. She worked right below Dr. Camillo, Elias Kronish’s right hand man, although, if you were to ask Josh, he could’ve sworn she herself should’ve been Kronish’s right hand man.

Every time Josh saw her, he wished he could’ve spoken to her; struck up a conversation, or paid her a compliment; anything. But Josh was more than aware that he was nothing more than a janitor at Kronish Labs; his job wasn’t even to cure herpes; it was to clean up after the people curing herpes.

That morning, not too long after his shift at the lab had started, Josh Futturman was gradually making his way up the building, emptying every garbage can in sight and cleaning up whatever needed to be cleaned. Truthfully, Josh couldn’t wait to get home and return to his video games. It was all he really thought about throughout his day at work.

He was only thinking of his PC at home as he entered Dr. Kronish’s office, where he and Dr. Camillo, along with one of the lower level scientists, were all deliberating. It was certainly a lot to take in.

“Dr. Camilo,” Elias Kronish said as calmly as he could. “I have told you, many times now, we will be going public with the research as planned.”

“But why?! Going public with that information is just going to cost us! We could make a fortune off of all of it!”

“As I have told you many times before, we are in the business of helping people, not just ourselves,” Kronish reminded him.

Josh awkwardly entered the room, cart behind him. “Sorry, Dr. Kronish, should I come back?”

He received two different answers.

“Yes, you idiot!” Stu Camillo shouted angrily.

“No, it’s quite alright,” Kronish smiled, speaking over his associate. “Thank you.”

“‘Course,” Josh nodded, cautiously entering the room to take out the garbage.

“Dr. Camillo. Need I remind you that… I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Kronish asked apologetically, seeming genuinely guilty.

“Futturman,” Josh replied, practically shocked that the founder of the company cared about his name.

“Thank you. Need I remind you that Mr. Futturman here works for me, just as you do. You do not have the right to address my employees on my behalf, and you most certainly do not have the right to berate them completely unprovoked!”

Josh silently gave the older man a thankful glance just as he left the room. As he tossed the small bag of garbage into the bin he carried around, he noticed a tall woman about to enter Kronish’s office.

“Hachi machi,” he blurted out, unable to stop himself.

“Oh. Sorry,” she said simply, backing up to allow Josh to pull the cart out.

He felt himself nearly choke on his words. It was Dr. Johansson, arguably the most beautiful woman in the building.

“I-It’s okay,” Josh stammered, barely pulling the cart out as he looked at her.

She looked perfect, as she always did. Her long, strawberry blonde hair was flawless, falling in soft ringlets that perfectly framed her face. And it was a beautiful face. It was striking how little makeup she actually wore; she had the features of a model.

It was no wonder she was constantly allowed to violate the office and lab dress codes. Mostly because of her talents and performance as head of the research department, Kronish hardly even noticed what she wore under her white lab coat. She could get away with a clubbing dress and a pair of stilettos if she felt like it.

Today, Josh noticed that she was wearing a nice black and purple dress with tall dark heels, the dark purple tone complimenting her strawberry blonde hair surprisingly well.

“Might not wanna go in there just yet,” Josh warned her shyly as she held in her hands a folder most likely meant for Kronish.

“Really?”

“Yeah… Dr. Camillo’s having one of his days,” he informed her.

“Is he? Well, I can handle Dr. Camillo,” she sighed unenthusiastically as she walked into the office.

Josh saw as Dr. Camillo’s head turned automatically, seeming much more excited about Dr. Johansson’s interruption than Josh’s.

“Sorry, Dr. Kronish, I just need you to sign off on these two,” she said politely as she held out the open folder.

“Yes, that’s right, of course. Thank you,” Kronish nodded as he quickly signed the forms.

Dr. Johansson nodded as she closed the folder and turned to leave.

“Hey, Brynne,” Camillo said, grinning like a child about to open a Christmas present.

“Dr. Camillo,” Brynne Johansson said curtly.

“You never responded to my invite, for my Christmas party next weekend,” he spoke up.

“That’s because I asked around and there is no Christmas party, Stu. If you ask me, the most realistic part of that plan is you throwing a party and no one showing up.”

Dr. Johansson left the office, and turned to find Josh, still looking in. He was mortified, realizing he’d been caught staring. But she didn’t seem to think anything of it.

“Does Dr. Camillo really hit on you like that?” he asked nervously, trying to salvage the interaction

“He tries to,” she nodded.

“Wow. My condolences,” he remarked humorously, still extremely nervous.

“Thanks,” she smiled dryly. “You have a good one… Futturman,” she said, reading off of his shirt before walking back to her own office.

Josh watched in disbelief as she walked away, shocked that she cared enough to learn his name. He was then interrupted by an angry Dr. Camillo, who practically pushed past him.

“Watch where you’re standing, janitor! If you were half as good at cleaning as you are lurking, you’d have a fucking award!”

Josh sighed in defeat as the man furiously pushed the janitorial cart away, creating even more work for him. He pulled it back towards him, just as Kronish also emerged from the office.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to ignore him,” he apologized to Josh, who was surprised by the man’s kindness. “He’s a very angry man.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Josh smiled lightly.

Dr. Kronish just chuckled.

“So. Dr. Johansson’s caught your eye, hmm?” he noted.

“Uh…” Josh had no idea how to respond. “She’s nice.”

“She is nice,” Elias Kronish nodded, hearing the subtext. “And also, very fond of orchids. Specifically the purple ones.”

“Oh,” Josh remarked, considering the idea.

“She also likes Indian food, and Ethiopian food, and raspberry iced tea, and chocolate, specifically those little Ferrero Rochers, if that’s an easier introduction,” his employer considered thoughtfully.

“Thank you, Dr. Kronish,” Josh smiled.

“Please. Call me ‘Elias’.”

“Thank you, Elias,” Josh corrected himself.

The older man smile had a strange twinkle to it, as if he just radiated kindness.

“What was your first name, again?”

“Josh,” he told him. “You seem to know a lot about her.”

“I’m the only one she likes enough to talk to,” he explained. “Brynne’s a lovely woman. Private, and snarky, but lovely.”

“I know,” Josh Futturman nodded, fully aware of how funny she could be.

“Good luck, Josh,” Elias Kronish smiled, leaving him to his own thoughts

-

Part Two

[lillotte17]

Okay, I’ve done 2 play throughs and I’m well into my 3rd, so I feel like my review of the game can be (mostly) fair and not as emotionally driven as it was when I finished the first time. (this is very long >_>)

I want to start with the good things!

The game is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I was not crazy about the stylistic change of the graphics from DAI at first, but once I started playing, I really loved it. The maps are huge and unique. I find something new every time. I love all the little puzzles and sneaky little side quests you can find. I the little sneaky cameos of items and songs from other games.

I love the mechanics of being able to use companions’ special abilities when they are not in your party. I still wish we got 3 people in our party instead of just 2 for balance reasons, but otherwise I find the fighting really engaging and dynamic.

I love that they brought back specific banter spots, shortened the time between when the next banter triggers AND allowed for recovery of the conversation if it got interrupted by something. Thank you for my LIFE. Waiting for certain banters to trigger in DAI was awful lmao.

I really appreciated the effort they put into the CC, allowing for greater body type differences and the various gender options. Long hair, curly hair, please and thank! The CC took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, it’s fun just to build characters, lol.

I really liked the easy upgrades and enchantments for your armors, and I LOVED being able to wear whatever the best armor was, but have a different armor visible. Great call, team! Do that for always and ever. The only qualm I had was that I would have liked to be able to change the colors on some of the outfits, but really, there was such a good variety, this is a very minor complaint.

In terms of storyline, my favorite quest was the Blood of Arlathan, and I also liked the final push at the end through Minrathous. Big surprise that the things I liked best was actually getting to fight with Solas on my team again, lol. But those where also the times where it really felt like everything was on the table, you know? Weisshaupt was a strong contender, too. That quest was so fasted paced, it made it a little hard to appreciate just how much was going on around you. But asking your local assassin to stab a god-cloud is never not funny, so that one gets good points, too.

Overall, the gameplay is really strong. The rollout was really smooth. I didn’t really encounter any bugs, except for one time I managed to change all the subtitles to French? But I think that might have been a user error. If I was just here for a generic fantasy game, this would get 10/10. It’s fun to play and it’s pretty. You can stab stuff, and throw magic around, and there are dragons.

However…

The storyline and the pacing was a mess. Which is honestly baffling from a BioWare game. I am not saying this with spite or hatred, because I know that EA tried to kill this game repeatedly, so it’s kind of amazing that we got anything at all, BUT it’s still frustrating, because…I can SEE IT. I can SEE all the pieces of a REALLY good story. An AMAZING story. The story I WANTED to play!!! And it’s like…it all got put together wrong.

The nearly nonexistent romances are honestly the worst offenders here. Even if they wanted to keep the rating down to make it more accessible to a wider audience, there is no reason why I should only have ONE opportunity to kiss my love interest over the course of an 80+ hour game. SOLAVELLAN had more unique romance scenes and kisses than you get with Lucanis and he DUMPS your character before coming back to steal your hand. Not to mention the fact that it is possible for your LI to die before you ever get to actually say you love them or anything. Davrin was my first romance. At the end of Tearstone Island like…I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t feeling my PCs grief that her boyfriend whom she had kissed exactly one time was dead. I was PISSED. I don’t think I have ever been so mad about a writing choice, and I am a certified Tragedy Enjoyer. It didn’t even feel like a good tragic blow, because they didn’t take the time to build up the romance before killing him. And Rook hardly gets a second to mourn afterwards, so it was just kind of a nothingburger that made me feel like I wasted all the time I had spent playing for it. (I went back and changed it so he lived but jfc)

Speaking of killing characters: Varric. It was a mistake. I know what they were going for. I see what they were trying to do. But it was a mistake. First of all, they relied way too much on the idea that the player has played the other games, in the sense that the story just opens with Rook already with Varric, who they have known for over a year, and then they turn around and nerf him in the first act. There’s no time to establish how Rook feels about Varric, or how they feel about this quest they’ve been on for so long, you just get thrown into it without preamble. And then, Varric is just kind of… there. He’s Rook’s cheerleader, but he almost never has any real advice, and you almost never get to have a discussion with him. Which means, when you find out what happened to him later, the emotional blow is relying almost entirely on your attachment to Varric from previous games instead of the game you are currently playing.

Also, I figured out he was dead pretty early on, so the reveal had almost no impact, and felt a bit ham-fisted, if I’m being honest.

The second reason it was a mistake is that…it just felt like an excuse to make the player hate Solas. Like, it honestly feels like that is the only reason they did it. Which seems so unnecessary? The man is responsible for the fucking blight and the death of the titans and is currently trying to tear the Veil down, and you think that’s not ENOUGH motivation for the PC to want to give him the middle finger???

Which brings us to: Solas. I love this man. I love Solavellan. I love his story. I love THEIR story. But…if I had played this game first, I don’t think I would have cared about redeeming him. All of the companions tell stories about second chances and redemption and being able to change your nature, and I KNOW that was supposed to be in reference to Solas, I know it was but… It just felt like they did almost nothing to SHOW you how much he was trying to do the right thing every time he fucked up. How badly he wanted to be a hero and a protector, and someone giving wisdom instead of orders. When we saw his regrets and talked about them with the team, I really thought it was going to be relevant later. I thought it would come up in conversation with Solas, and depending on how you talked to him about the things you saw, you could slowly guide him towards choosing a better path at the end. I thought it would all be on Rook, and their choice to take a chance to try and redeem him or not. But in the end, it didn’t matter. It only unlocked Mythal. She was the only thing that made a difference. Not Rook. Not your Inquisitor. Not any of the other choices you made in the entire game or the one that preceded it. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO grateful they squeezed a Solavellan ending in there for us, really and truly. But the fact that he was so in love with her during DAI that he was about to give up everything without her even asking, and he’s so torn up about her during Trespasser that he can hardly let her close to him because just being in proximity to her makes him want to stop everything and stay with her, and then when she shows up at the end of Veilguard and asks him to stop…he pauses for even less time to consider the option than when ROOK asks. And then Mythal holds more sway with him by like 1000%. Just. Felt very much like a downgrade. (Also I wanted a hug. He needed a fucking hug and my Lavellan would have hugged the Bad Choices right out of him)

There are other things. Dwarves getting sidelined again. Slavery in Tevinter barely being touched on. The weird idea of the Crows being a good option for orphans with nowhere to go. The SUPER uncomfortable end of Bellara’s quest where a non-elf Rook can have an opinion on what she should do with the history of her people. But those are kind of like…small potatoes. Typical BioWare story flubs tbh.

I know, my complaints are much longer than my praises, but I really do like playing the game. Really and truly. It is a good game, and I am eternally grateful that they got it to us at all. I just…wish we could have gotten the story I think they wanted to tell us, instead of what we ended up with. But as they say: That’s what Fanfic is for. <3

[ms-demeanor]

Hey! I appreciate your perspective on computer-based things. I think I need to get a laptop and would love your opinion on decent brands. If you don't have an opinion or want to answer please disregard the q.

Context: I'm often on the move and really want something small, light, and that will last a long time. I'm bad about buying new things or taking things to be fixed so ideally it's not something that dies quickly or needs frequent repairs. For a while I used an iPad for this but I need more of a keyboard than tablets have and the shelf life of an iPad is shorter than it should be for the cost. Mine is 7 years old and only works while plugged in... I liked my Macbook Pro I got for college but it's almost 15 years old and given I haven't needed a new one since I don't think spending all that on a Mac makes sense either. I use a gaming PC mostly but I'm going to need to travel a lot more in the upcoming year. I'm ok to spend up a bit since I want it to last.

I think you're going to have to adjust your expectations about the average functional lifespan of electronics. Seven years is a lot to get out of any tablet and fifteen years is way way way above average for a computer.

At work we estimate that the functional lifespan of a laptop will be around five years and the functional life of a desktop will be around seven years; we include upgrades in that lifespan, like adding RAM and storage.

It is not *unusual* to get more than five years out of a laptop or seven years out of a desktop, but if you are a heavy user of anything other than a browser and a word processor, that's about the time when you'll find that the computer feels slow enough to be frustrating. This isn't a hard limit, and it's not something that everyone experiences because people use computers differently, but if you're an artist and you use a drawing program that program will start to feel slow after a while because as updates and patches and drivers have been tweaked for newer devices they've slowly left your device in the dust.

This isn't planned obsolescence, by the way. Computer manufacturers try to "future proof" their devices to a certain extent, but you just can't anticipate certain kinds of changes. Maybe your laptop was manufactured before there were consumer SSDs available so its operating system doesn't take the advantages and limitations of SSDs into account. Maybe your desktop was built for DDR3 RAM and we're now on DDR5 and people aren't writing programs to the standard of the old technology, they're taking advantage of the standards of the new technology.

Since you were able to use your devices comfortably for such a long time, it sounds like you're not a very heavy user and don't need to worry too much about beefing up your specs. However it does sound like you want to keep your computer and use it as long as possible while paying a reasonable price for it (which is good! I think we should all try to extend the lives of our electronic devices as much as possible!).

I actually think you sound like a good match for a Framework laptop.

Framework is a company that makes laptops that are a lot more modular than what's on the market these days. They're mean to be easy to open up for upgrades and sturdy for heavy use. Most of the parts of the laptop are easily replaceable - including the screen - so you can use them for a long time and easily make upgrades that will help the computer feel fresher.

They're a bit more expensive than comparable PCs but much easier to repair if you aren't comfortable opening up your own computer (framework is intentionally built to be easy for people who are non-technical to work on their computers), and they are a LOT less expensive than comparable macs.

I still think you're probably looking at around 7 years of regular use out of a Framework and it won't *break* at that point, it will just. Probably be a bit slow and frustrating. You might not be able to get parts for it after a certain point. You eventually won't be able to upgrade the OS. But that's true of all computers.

I've still got my 2005 macbook. It still turns on, I can still use garage band on it. But it doesn't connect to the internet and uses such an old USB standard that it is extremely slow to transfer data on or off of and it cries and freezes if i try to use photoshop. It's not broken, it's just no longer useful as a daily computer.

What I'm defining as functional here is "Is able to run multiple programs (including at least one browser with 50+ tabs open and two office suites) at the same time for 8-10 hours a day without crashing, freezing, or losing data and restarting is not a major inconvenience."

In those terms, it does sound like you're probably in need of an upgrade (I can't imagine that your current machine is particularly quick) and I think that a framework laptop would suit your needs well.

If you're looking for something somewhat less expensive, you can generally find a decent thinkbook with a 12th or 13th gen i5 processor, 16GB RAM, and a 500GB SSD for around $700-ish, which is the low end of what I think you're going to pay for a decent laptop. I'm reccing lenovo here because I personally like them and have found them to be very easy to crack open for repairs and upgrades. Stick to the thinkbook over the thinkpad because that's the business line and is a bit sturdier and they are designed to be easier to upgrade over time.

Actually, here's a thinkbook with a 12th gen i5, 40GB RAM, and a 1tb SSD for under $700. That's a shockingly good price for that laptop; the reseller OEMGenuine is one I've purchased from many times before for work and I've found them to be reliable, though the reason those specs are so good is because they've added aftermarket parts, so your RAM and SSD won't be under warranty from Lenovo.

For Framework you're looking at at least $1000, but it's easy to plug and play with upgrades so you can start out with lower specs (except processor, don't cheap out on the processor) and upgrade later. The framework is a bit smaller and easier to travel with, but I have a laptop quite similar to the lenovo and it's not a huge pain to move around - it's very light but the 15" screen might be bigger than you're looking for.

If you're willing to spend a little bit more and you're very uninterested in doing your own upgrades and would prefer the most computer you can get for your money right out of the gate, this is a 12th gen i7 thinkpad with 40GB RAM and a 2TB SSD for $1150. (I've not ordered from this reseller before, so maybe check over their terms if you're considering purchasing from them.)

[anim-ttrpgs]

I recently ran an oneshot for my friends in Eureka.

It was a lot of fun and went mostly smoothly! The charakter creation was very easy. It still took more time than I expected, but that was simply because the players needed it to decide on which traits etc. to pick.

The central resolution mechanic with 2d6 is of course tried and true (I assume. Never played one of the many other 2d6 games.) but especially the Eureka system felt really good.

I think I read in a recent post of your's, that you are overhauling the chapter on combat. That seems very important to me. Even though I read the whole book once before running the game, I had immense problems finding out how small details of the combat worked during play. The musings on game design (eg, "yes, the combat is deadly, thats on purpose heres why" and such) where really enlightening to read, but got in the way when searching for concrete stats.

I will run the same oneshot again for different friends. The game seems really promising to me.

My mystery took place on a single in game evening, and none of the players were monsters. Having therefore only scratched at the surface of Eureka, I am looking forward to running it more.

Woo! We LOVE hearing about this kinda stuff!

And yeah everything about how the combat-related rules are structured is getting overhauled. All of that was written like 2 years ago when I was a slightly worse game designer and MUCH worse at writing coherent paragraphs and hasn’t been touched since until now. Instead of being split across like four paragraphs (what was I thinking), there will be just two chapters on it: “Instruments of Violence”, which is mostly just a giant list of references for the stats and special rules of weapons and armor, and “Dangerous Situations”, which covers every rule related to how your investigators can get killed. Some of these clean-ups are already available in the latest patreon release, and the rest are coming soon to both patreon and the itchio beta.

Combat is a very rare thing in Eureka, but when it does come up, we want it to be tight and granular, but without wasting the players’ time, which I think we’ve done pretty well at.

Like the book says, combat is deadly and there’s a reason why: so it doesn’t waste the players’ time.

This is a twofold problem to solve. The first layer of it, we solved by making sure the numbers are low. Most weapons can take a character down in 2 to 3 hits, so a single instance of two guys smacking each other will never take too many rounds.

Secondly, well, combat is dangerous and deadly, and if the PCs approach it without a plan, they’re gonna die, or at least get their asses kicked fast. Otherwise, well, I consider that a waste of the players’ time. If it was predetermined that the PCs would win otherwise the story can’t continue, well, what did we roll all those die, look up all those stats, and track all that HP for? Why didn’t we just describe the PCs winning and move on? Combat matters because it can change the outcome of the adventure, and if it can’t change the outcome, why are you rolling dice? Of course with death being so possible, to keep it fun, we gotta include lots of “tools” like cover, positioning, different weapons, special melee attacks, etc. that the PCs can use cleverly to give themselves an edge, and *earn* their survival.

Oh and also yeah can’t wait to hear what you think about the monsters. Funny thing about that, everyone who has read the rulebook knows that monsters and other supernatural creatures are supposed to be really rare, like one supernatural person for every 3,000,000 normal people kinda rare, but, monsters are super cool and fun to play, and are one of the big draws of the system, so we were kinda worried that that rarity wouldn’t come through in play, everyone would just be monsters. We considered setting a limit on how many monsters can be in a party? But quickly decided against it, because then players would have to compete for the limited monster slots, and people might even feel like if they’re not filling in that slot every single adventure, they’re missing an opportunity, and so every party would max out their monster limit every time and there’d, again, be way too many monsters.

In practice, though, most parties in Eureka seem to be comprised of all normal people, or all normal people and 1 monster at most, even without the limit. And I suspect this is both because monsters are kinda difficult to play despite their immense power, and, just to brag, because we made the normal PCs fun has hell to play too. :)

[deedee-sims]

Tutorial - extracting stuff from Disco Elysium (+ viewing the models in blender)

Due to... recent events, I decided to finally get myself to write a tutorial about this, because all I found was some half-assed reddit comments when I was trying to figure out how to do it sometime last year.

I'll show you how to extract... pretty much everything (including voice lines) from the game.

This is a beginner tutorial, so you don't have to know shit about any of these programs, I'll try to explain everything.

I promise it's pretty easy! I extracted stuff from various games, and this is one of the easiest I ever did, so yeah.

You'll need:

Disco Elysium on PC

AssetStudio

Blender

+1 Interfacing

+2 Endurance (mostly to survive my bad jokes)

First of all, open AssetStudio. You don't have to install it or anything, just unzip the file you downloaded and open the program inside (AssetStudioGUI).

This is how the bad boy looks like, we'll be able to see the asset list on the left and the preview on the right.

Click on File../Load Folder.

Select the folder where the game is installed. For me it's Steam\steamapps\common\Disco Elysium\disco_Data. You can load individual files too, but it's easier to just list everything and then filter them imo.

Wait... for a while. It's a lot of assets. Make a tea or something (hydration is important).

After everything loaded up, click on the Asset List tab. You can see all the stuff! Well, it's rather confusing. Let's see what is what!

If you click on Filter Type, you can see the types of the assets. These are:

AnimationClip: I think these are supposed to be the animations, you can export them if you select an animator asset alongside and right click Export Animator + selected Animation Clips (couldn't get the animation to play but that's probably on me).

Animator: These are the rigged models, you can export them to .fbx format, but I couldn't figure out what to do with them in Blender because they were kinda distorted (funnily enough, when I imported it to the shitty Milkshape program it showed up just fine... and people wonder why I prefer shitty Milkshape XD) Anyway, I hope someone can figure this out that actually knows something about Blender lol.

Audio Clip: Sounds, voice lines, background music. (.wav format)

Font: Well, fonts. Can be exported and installed to your device like any fonts.

Mesh: 3D models of the characters, objects, scenes. (.obj format)

MonoBehaviour: No fucking clue.

Shader: Shaders for the game. Not interesting in our case.

Sprite: Images that the game uses: portraits, object thumbnails, user interface elements.

Texture 2D: The textures that belong to the 3D models. (.png format)

TextAsset: ??

VideoClip: The stuff that plays when you open the game.

You can preview any assets (well, the ones that you can preview), if you click on them. You can view them in the right panel.

You can extract by left click on the asset in the list -> Export selected assets. You can select multiple assets and export them at the same time.

The program will ask you to select a folder where you want to export the stuff. It'll export them into separate folders, by assets.

Well, yeah, now you know what is what, and how to extract them, but there are still a lot of assets. Good news, you can filter them with the little search bar too, if you type in some gibberish! Some stuff are a little tricky to find.

Voice lines are grouped by task / place, so if you know where the particular thing takes place, you can try to filter for those. The assets are named with the speaker's name - either a character or a skill. I think the numbers mean some kind of order, but I couldn't really figure it out. If you click on one of them, you can preview, and listen to it in the right panel! Super easy! (if you want your own daba-doop-doop-dead it's Kim Kitsuragi-YARD  HANGED MAN-556. Just saying)

For objects and characters, you can find them by name, although some characters are named differently. Like, Harry is referred as Tequila in the game files.

Basically if you want to have a character or an object extracted, you’ll need to extract a mesh and a texture that belongs to it. You can quite literally play dress-up game with Harry, because all of his clothes are separate files (and named with kinda the clothing item name). The Kineema has multiple parts (exterior - interior - door - whatever else).

Anyway, let's move on to the Blender part before I forget how to do it (I learned it this morning lol). (Disclaimer: I don't know jack shit about Blender, I use it for extracting stuff and creating the simplest shapes in existence. I use the godforsaken program Milkshape on a daily basis.)

Open Blender.

Hit delete to get rid of this beautiful default cube.

File.../Import.../Wavefront (.obj)

Select the thing you want to import (I'll import the gremlin child).

There he is! And he doesn't fucking care!

Btw, you can zoom with the middle mouse button scroll or middle mouse button + Ctrl, rotate with middle mouse button, move the view with middle mouse button + Shift. So you can see his itty-witty mischievous face from very close!

Now, that's great, but he doesn't have textures still. First of all, change the Viewport Shading to Material Preview.

Select him (just click on him, you'll see an orange outline). And go to the Material Properties tab on the side.

Click on the little dot next to Base Color, and select Image Texture.

Click on the Open button that appeared out of nowhere, and search for the Cuno texture.

Tada! He looks beautiful now! (and he still doesn’t fucking care)

You can do the same with any 3D models, objects from the game, really.

Well, that's it lol. I hope it made sense! And I really hope someone runs away with extracting the animators + animations, because I'm pretty sure it's doable, I just have no clue how.

[astralynx]

I figured out how to rip DOTDD Models and now I'm teaching you! (plus uploading mine)

^ download these things onto your computer devices anytime!

Last summer I spiraled into insanity trying to figure out and eventually gave up so now that I know I'm saving you the trouble! I've also put all of my rips into a drive folder here that contains most of the notable npcs + playable characters but I'm planning on submitting them to modeler's resource when I have the time.

Final disclaimer: i also don't know much about ripping / romhacking / blender / computers in general but I thought it would be nice to put up what I've figured out anyway. I've also never actually written a guide to anything before so uh. i hope this is clear enough. Now finally onto the tutorial itself!

You'll need: tinke / apicula / a dotdd rom (not important if its in english or not but if you want like some of the translated ui elements / fonts you might wanna use a ver w the fantranslation patch) / and (optionally) blender or whatever other 3d modeling software that can read .dae files so you can actually do stuff with these.

First is to launch Tinke and load in your dotdd rom, you'll then be met with this menu. the models are contained under the "mdl" tab

each of these have different things but you'll probably care about mb (major npcs) and pc (player characters) and also mn (familiars). also using this to say that tinke is a. very finnicky program so sometimes stuff will just Not Work. sorry about that. anyway.

Once you're in you can start looking for whatever model (.n3d file) you want, unfortunately the models aren't named clearly so you'll have to open them to see what they are. You can do this by selecting the .n3d file and clicking "unpack" which will open a .bmd0 file with a yellow box icon, you'll need to unpack that file one more time to actually be able to open the file it gives you after that in the viewer / export it

When you get the second unpacking (which should be a .bmd0 file with a mostly green drawing for the icon), you can open it in the viewer and it'll look like this!

sorry any file you open that has a skeleton will look like that. I have been informed that sometimes ds games just store their models like this and it has no affect on the model when its exported so. lets just move on. Also sometimes tinke will give you an error that will stop you from opening the viewer properly but it will (most of the time) let you see the textures fine so you can double check (and even if it doesn't we have a workaround coming up soon)

Next big step is to set up apicula! When you download it, the program can't run by itself. You will need to create two text files, one named "apicula view nsbxx_files" and "apicula convert nsbxx_files -o dae_files" (no quotation marks) to put in the same folder as the apicula exe. You will then rename these .txt files into .bat files and you'll use these to actually "run" the program. You'll also make a folder alongisde those called nsbxx_files. It should look like this at the end

Back to tinke, you'll take the viewable .bmd0 model you want to export and click "extract" and I usually put mine directly into the nsbxx folder in my apicula folder for convenience sake. double clicking the "view" .bat will put the models into a viewer that I like to use as a final double check (and also what you can use if tinke's preview is giving you trouble). Its WASD to move and Q and E to lower / raise the camera

to actually convert the file, double click the "convert" .bat file and it will create a new folder named "dae_files" and inside will be your model and its textures in a .dae folder that you can read in blender and contains its skeleton!

PLEASE NOTE!!!! that apicula can only read / convert one file at a time! this means that it will just use the topmost file in the nsbxx folder and if you'll have to delete the dae folder every time once your done with it so it can run properly again. so just make sure you move your converted files somewhere else before you do. but now you'll have a model to put into blender!

the tutorial is technically "done" now but I'm gonna share how to set up these models in blender (which for the sake of explaining i'm gonna assume you don't know much about). When you first load in the models you'll have to "turn on" their textures using the drop down arrow in the menu on the top right corner of the 3d viewport and turn on these settings (while still selecting the solid circle tab)

Secondly, Many of them use transparent elements in their textures that blender doesn't like to load without some help

you can fix this by expanding the menu on the bottom of the screen and clicking the clock icon to turn it into the "shader editor" tab

Then, you'll select your model and go to the "base color" node in the shader editor, go down to the "alpha" tab and set it to "pre-mutliply" and it should remove the white lines around the transparent elements!

That's all from me! if you have any questions you can reply to this post / send me an ask or dm or whatever and I'll try my best to help! happy ripping!