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beels-burger-babe · 3 years ago

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All is Fair in Dice and War

***Soooo, @bagelsinatoaster I love this request. However, you didn't specify which board game and as I am a huge nerd I decided to take some creative liberties and combine this with another idea I've been meaning to write which is: MC introducing the demon bros to Dungeons and Dragons. I certainly had fun with this and I hope you like it!*** Summary: Leviathan's world is flipped upside down when MC tells him there is a game that basically allows him to be the Lord of Shadows in real life!! He demands that his brothers join him as MC introduces them all to the chaotic shit show that is Dungeons & Dragons. For once, it was a peaceful day in the House of Lamentation. Lucifer was lounging in the living room with a cursed record playing softly in the background. For once, Satan had willingly joined him and was sitting by the fireplace, thumbing through a book on the human world. Belphie had been passed out on the couch when he arrived and was still laying there with an impressive puddle of drool collecting near his mouth. Even Asmodeus and Beel had joined in, with Asmodeus gently humming to himself as he painted his nails and Beelzebub happily munching on a snack as he enjoyed the sight of his family getting along. Yes. It was perfectly quiet and peaceful, and Lucifer didn't even have any traces of his regular migraine. But of course, nothing good lasts forever. Everyone jumped as the door slammed open and a wide-eyed Leviathan dragged you into the room. The two you very closely followed by Mammon loudly complaining. "Oi! You're gonna hurt them! Cut it out, Levi!" Lucifer sighed and closed his eyes, momentarily mourning the peace that he had just barely begun to enjoy, and closed his book. "Leviathan, let MC go. What are you freaking out about this time?" Lucifer regretted asking the moment the words left his mouth. Levi looked at it with the expression he only ever got when his limited edition Ruri-Chan merch arrived; his eyes were wide and glittering with excitement while his face bore a grin so large that Lucifer was surprised it didn't rip his skin. The third-born was practically vibrating as he let go of your wrist and pushed you forward. "Tell them! Tell them about the game!"

You laughed at Levi's excitement and casually rubbed your wrist. "I was just telling Leviathan about a game that we play in the human world called Dungeons and Dragons-" "You get to make a fantasy world that everyone plays in, and everyone makes characters. You can be a wizard and cast spells against a huge monster! Or a war hero fighter that has been betrayed by his brother! Or a noble knight who is looking for his lost kingdom! And the best part is that it's real!" Levi interrupted, nearly jumping in place as stars danced in his eyes. You put your hands out towards him to try and calm him a bit. "Well, not entirely real. It is played in person, but it's a role play tabletop game, meaning it mostly relies on the players' imagination. That is unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on 3D maps and figurines of your characters." Levi's eyes grew even wider, if possible, as he started shaking his hands up and down. "I CAN HAVE A FIGURINE OF A CHARACTER THAT I MADE?! GAAAAAAAAAHH!" A pillow flew across the room and hit Levi square in the face as a now awake Belphegor glared at him. "Will. You. Shut. Up?" the Avatar of Sloth hissed as a dark dangerous aura grew around him. Beel gently patted his twin's head in hopes of calming him. Leviathan pouted as he noticed no one else seemed to be getting excited about it. "C-Come on guys! This isn't even a video game! It's a thing that we can all do together and personalize it to be something that everyone will like. It'll be fun! Right MC?" You nodded as you gently tossed Belphie's pillow back over to him. "Yeah. I love D&D. I played it all the time in the human world. There's action, suspense, and even romance if you really wanted it," a couple of the brothers perked up at that. "I could put together a one-shot for you guys to try it out if you'd like? I'll help you make your characters, and we can all get together for an evening and play it sometime in a couple weeks." The room went quiet as everyone thought it over. Most of them had no interest in the game itself, but if it was organized by you... "I'm in," Beel decided with a nod. "I think it will be fun. All of us trying something new; it could be neat." Satan casually flipped a page in his book, "The creative aspect of it is definitely appealing. We'd be the masters of our own fate, and that most certainly piques my interest." Asmodeus smirked as he put the cap on his nail polish. "And you said it could be whatever we want? My, one might say that this game could help our wildest fantasies come true~" he made sure to wink at you as he giggled. Belphie, who had only just got back his pillow, scrunched up his face in disgust and launched it at Asmo. "Don't make this weird Asmo," he looked over at you and shrugged, "So long as you do all the work in putting together the character thing, sure. Why not?" Mammon looked over at you from the corner of his eye. "Ya mean to tell me, that you can make it so I'm some awesome, rich, and powerful prince?" Asmo scoffed as he pushed the pillow off his lap. "Please Mammon, even the world of make-believe has its limitations." Mammon blushed as he growled at his brother. You just chuckled and teasingly elbowed his side. "Don't listen to him, Mammon. There is a set amount of how much money you start out with depending on your class and background, but I'm sure we can find something that will make you happy." The second-born blushed even more as he grumbled quietly under his breath. Lucifer tilted his head in thought. "I suppose that if everyone else is playing, naturally I must as well," he stood and began to make his way to his office. "I look forward to seeing what you come up with MC." The next two weeks were spent planning and carefully figuring out the details of the one-shot and the characters that everyone was going to play. Levi was, of course, the first one who came to you to build his character. The two of you spent hours going through the Player's Handbook and sourcebooks to find the perfect build to recreate the Lord of Shadows. In the end, you put

together a human fighter that you gave a couple magic items to make Levi's vision really come to life. It seemed basic, but for the Lord of Shadows, it was perfect. The moment the two of you finished, Levi dove to his computer and ordered a custom-made mini that looked exactly like his character. Satan was genuinely interested in the game, especially after he learned about all the lore and rules behind the different classes and races. You had just been chilling in your room one day when the door burst open. Satan stood there with wide eyes holding a copy of Volo's Guide to Monsters. "MC, why didn't you tell me there are cat people?!" You chuckled, knowing exactly where this was going. "They're called tabaxi, but yeah, they're basically cat people. Would you like to play as one?" He scoffed and snapped the book shut. "Is that even a question? Of course, I'm playing as one." After some discussion and bouncing back and forth between classes a couple of times, Satan settled on a tabaxi druid; that way he not only looked like a cat, but he could speak to them as well. After a few days of you spending time with his brothers focusing on getting their characters ready, Mammon came to you wanting the coolest, most epic character ever. At first, it was clear that he wasn't fully invested in the process, but as he saw the customizable options and all the cool stuff that his character could have, you got his attention. You ended up designing a golden teifling rogue (you tried to tell Mammon that teifling usually wasn't yellow, but he gave you such a sad look that you couldn't say no) that was decked out with piercings and gems all over its horns and tail. He tried to act like he wasn't that excited about it, but one day during class you caught him doodling what looked like a stick figure version of the character on his sheet with a big smile on his face. Asmodeus came in shortly after Mammon finished,

insisting on having the most charming and beautiful character there was. You tapped your chin at the request. "I mean, stereotypically bards are extremely charming and...well seductive...almost too seductive. But that's only thei-" Asmo had hearts in his eyes before you could even finish. "That's what I want to be!" You sighed and made a mental note not to include any dragons in the session as you marked Asmo down to be an elven bard and helped him create his character sheet. You hadn't heard anything from Lucifer for nearly that entire first week, until one day as you were lounging in the living room, he walked in holding a stack of resource books. "Ah, MC. I've been looking for you. I wanted to inform you that I will be playing a half-elf multiclassing as a paladin and hex-blade warlock." You blinked at him as he put all the books down in front of you. "O-Oh. Would you like help putting together your character sheet?" He just grinned and began to make his way out of the room once more. "I've already done it. I must admit that this was quite a bit more interesting than I thought it would be," and with that he was gone, leaving you to try and figure out what had just happened. With only a few days left until the one-shot, you had to go find the twins and get them to make their characters. Beel apologized like crazy for you having to track him in down in order to get his character made. The poor guy was in the middle of peak Fangol season and had completely forgotten. Once the two of you sat down in the kitchen with an empty character sheet in one hand and snacks in the other, Beel gave you his full attention. He put a lot of thought in his character and wanted to make it really good since he appreciated that you were doing something that they could all do as a family. He bashfully decided to play a halfling. Not only did the little creatures share his love for food, but he thought it would be neat to try being small for once. His class was also a surprise. After carefully flipping through all of the class options, he had eventually settled on a cleric. "They're the healers, right? This way I can help the others if someone gets hurt." You gave him a huge hug then and there. Belphegore, on the other hand, was not so easy to work with. "Belphie, come on. Just flip through the book and choose something!" He groaned into his pillow and rolled onto his side to glare at you. "I told you I would play if you did all the work for me. Me flipping through a book is work. It's not happening." After an entire hour of trying to get him to cooperate, you gave up. In retaliation you made his character a goblin barbarian, just to drive in the fact of how much of a brat he was acting like.

Finally, the day came for you all to play the one-shot, and much like you expected, it was complete and utter chaos. You had tried to maintain some structure and keep everyone on track, but it was hopeless. Levi and Satan were taking the game seriously and, Diavolo bless them, were the only reason their party was making any progress. Mammon was trying to pick-pocket every non-player character that they met while Asmo distracted them by flirting. This worked great for them until Mammon got caught and would've died from the resulting injuries if it wasn't for Beel. Speaking of Beel, the poor fella was trying his best to do well in the game but kept getting confused by all the rules and different stats and modifiers. Belphegor spent most of his time, trying to explain it to his twin, but in the end, Beel accidentally ate his dice and Belphie passed out on his shoulder. And then there was Lucifer. He had been mostly quiet the entire game. Surprisingly, he let Levi and Satan take the charge in any investigations and puzzle-based interactions, but he did so with a smirk. You had a funny feeling in your stomach that he was up to something, and you were right. It was the final boss. Satan and Levi were on the edge of their seats, having worked so hard to get the party to this point. You smiled, knowing that one of the best parts of D&D was finally taking down the big bad. In this case, you had prepared a beholder for them to fight. It would be no easy task. The fight should have required them to work together in an epic battle of wits, magic and melee attacks. Only, when everyone rolled initiative, Lucifer went first. The eldest smiled as his eyes sparked menacingly. "For my bonus action, I'd like to use my hex blade's curse on it, which allows me to add my plus four proficiency bonus to all damage, and makes any rolls of nineteen or twenty critical hits. I will then use my long sword with divine smite at third level to attack him and attack him again using my extra attack," barely giving you time to process what he said, Lucifer rolled his dice twice. "And that would be a nineteen and a natural twenty, meaning they're both criticals due to the curse. That should hit, yes?" "Wha-" You could only watch as Lucifer, now with twice the amount of damage due to his critical rolls pulled out a disgusting number of dice and rolled them all. And of course, with his luck, they all rolled high. "So that's 90 points of damage plus the extra damage from the curse and the bonus from my duelist ability per attack, brings this 102 points," he smugly perched his chin on top of his hands as the table gaped at him. You gulped and looked down at the beholder's character sheet, "Y-You just took o-over half of his hit points in one round..." His grin widened at the information, "What, like it's hard?" You never got the chance to finish the game, as Satan burst into his demon form and pounced on Lucifer, the eldest laughing like a mad man, while Levi tore up his character sheet in a fit of jealous rage. Levi never asked to play with everyone again after that. ***This was just so self-indulgent and I just- I loved it. It combined two of my favourite things and I have never been happier. This was more crack than fluff, but either way, it was fun and I hope you nerds out there enjoyed it 🥰 Thanks again for the request @bagelsinatoaster!*** Taglist: @mimik248 @roseytoesy @ester-is-here

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thefirsttree · 3 years ago

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A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind… I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

#gamedev #indie games #the first tree

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newmusickarl · 3 years ago

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Album & EP Recommendations

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey

Halsey’s evolution across her career has been quite something to witness. Having begun her career in pure pop territory, her artistry has developed over time with each new record seeing the American singer-songwriter up the ambition and scope of her music. Now with this her fourth album, Halsey has gone bigger than ever, teaming up with Nine Inch Nails members and Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for her boldest work to date.

Produced entirely by Reznor and Ross, Halsey describes this new record as “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.” Naturally with any concept record there is going to be a cinematic feel, however Halsey has gone one step further and even delivered a full theatrical film to accompany the album, the trailer for which you can watch above. Although I am yet to see the film, there is no doubt that the musical portion is a mightily ambitious and accomplished project, with each song seamlessly segueing into the next despite the array of styles and genres across each track.

It may still be a pop record at the heart, but with the masterful touch of Reznor and Ross, Halsey also brings in some industrial rock elements, as well as a bit of pop punk in places too. However, it is not just sonically that Halsey pushes the boundaries but also thematically as well, using the album’s concept to press the issue of feminism and misogyny within the lyrics. Arguably what’s most striking about this record though is how tightly constructed everything is here – under the watchful eye of Reznor and Ross, the dramatic production is inch-perfect.

Most importantly, the songs here are just fantastic, from the religious imagery and glistening synths that lace the wonderful melody of Bells of Santa Fe, to the raw, grungy guitars of You asked for this. There’s also the atmospheric piano ballad 1121, where Halsey really flexes her impressive vocal cords. Pulsating, stylish electro-pop single I am not a woman, I’m a god is another standout. Once you have been amazed by all of this, the gentle plucking and raindrop like xylophone of stunning closer Ya’aburnee arrives to really blow things away.

In a year packed full of outstanding pop records, Halsey has delivered, for my money, one of the best of the lot. With Reznor and Ross holding the reigns, they help Halsey deliver on her epic vision with both style and control. It’s one thing to attempt a record like this, it’s another thing to pull it off as expertly and vibrantly as this – hats off for this one!

Listen here

Screen Violence by CHVRCHES

Also delivering their fourth album this week was Scottish synth-pop group CHVRCHES who, whilst predominantly maintaining their vintage sound, have lyrically pushed themselves into darker territory on this new record. Probably their finest work since their debut, frontwoman Lauren Mayberry takes no prisoners as she tackles sexism and misogyny, calling upon her own experiences within the industry to really illustrate the issues being put front and centre.

This is highlighted best on electric single Good Girls, a track Mayberry wrote “after listening to some friends arguing about the present-day implications of loving certain problematic male artists – I was struck by the lengths that people would go to in order to excuse their heroes and how that was so juxtaposed to my own experiences in the world.”

Other highlights include He Said She Said, a glistening synth-driven pop banger that’s contrasted against razor-sharp lyrics with a defiant message at its core – catchy, but also powerful and thought-provoking. There’s also the superb collaboration with The Cure legend Robert Smith, How Not to Drown, which is a moody, atmospheric, and synth-soaked belter of a track. Although it is incredible right the way through, the real spine-tingling moment comes during the song’s outro thanks to the ghostly vocals of Smith being cast over some hauntingly melodic guitars. Outside of the singles, the rawness of heartbreaking closer Better If You Don’t leaves the biggest impression.

All in all, this album ranks amongst their best work and although it may not be quite as dramatic or impressionable as Halsey’s album, there’s still plenty to which you’ll want to digest and ultimately keep returning.

Listen here

How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? By Big Red Machine

The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon have certainly kept themselves busy over lockdown. It seems they weren’t satisfied with just taking Taylor Swift’s music to incredible new heights on 2020’s folklore and evermore, as they have now also released their second album under their Big Red Machine guise. The most noticeable thing about this second record is that the duo have extended their collaboration further this time around, bringing in renowned artists such as Ben Howard, Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan and Fleet Foxes, as well as two more collaborations with Miss Swift herself.

Given the talent involved, it is no surprise that this makes for a really special and stunning collection of songs. There’s wonderful electro-folk track Mimi, which sees singer-songwriter Ilsey Juber join Justin Vernon on lead vocal duties. Phoenix sees Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Anaïs Mitchell join in for a wonderful, horn-backed number. This track in fact isn’t the only time Anaïs Mitchell steals the show, as her beautiful, soothing vocal performances on opener Latter Days and closer New Auburn arguably provide the two best moments of the entire album.

The two tracks with Taylor Swift are also fantastic, with Renegade offering a sweet, pop cut that wouldn’t be out of place on either of Swift’s last two records. The better of the two though is Birch, a piano-driven, string-tinged ballad which sees Swift simply providing back-up vocals to Vernon’s haunting folky croons. It’s stunning and possibly my new favourite collaboration between the three artists.

Ultimately this is just a superb album, with Dessner and Vernon thriving alongside their chosen collaborators for a collection of songs that will frequently both move and astound you.

Listen here

Donda by Kanye West

Easily the most talked about album of the week, after several launch events and many, many delays, Kanye West finally released his long-awaited tenth studio album, Donda. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of excessive, bloated albums, so with Donda clocking in at almost 2 hours long it was always going to struggle to win me over.

As expected, this is another West project that struggles with inconsistency, with moments of brilliance balanced out with plenty of moments that ultimately underwhelm. Although it has more high points than Ye and the production is more polished than Jesus Is King, there is no track as good as Ghost Town and sonically I found it less inspired than Jesus Is King in many ways. I’m not sure just yet if this is indeed the worst West album, but it is certainly down there in the bottom half for me.

That said, there are still some great moments to be found here. Once you get passed the massively irritating Donda Chant opener (honestly, so painful!), the Jay-Z featuring Jail offers an anthemic rock-influenced gem to get the album started properly. From there The Weeknd featuring Hurricane, the Lauryn Hill sampling Believe What I Say, the heavenly melody of Kid Cudi feature Moon and the organ-backed closer No Child Left Behind provide some of the other highlights. However possibly the finest moment comes in the form of Jesus Lord, a 9-minute epic that sees West deliver some of his best bars in years, returning to the social-consciousness that made him a star in the first place.

If you are a fan of West’s recent gospel-influenced work, then this album will reward you for your patience if you stick with it. For me, although there are some moments I enjoyed, the length was just too much, with this album having the same inconsistency problem that The Life of Pablo had but without reaching the same heights as that album did when it was at its best. Disappointing, but still somewhat worthwhile.

Listen here

The Awesome Album by Mouse Rat

And finally on the albums front, if like me you are a big Parks & Recreation fan, you’ll be pleased to hear that Chris Pratt’s fictional band from the show, Mouse Rat, have finally released their debut album this week. Featuring classics such as 5,000 Candle In The Wind and The Pit, this one is a lot of fun for fans of the show.

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Tracks of the Week

Good Ones by Charli XCX

Coming off the back of the definitive lockdown album How I’m Feeling Now that earned her both a Mercury Prize nomination and a place in my Top 5 albums of 2020, Charli XCX has returned with a new synth-driven banger that packs in an insanely catchy hook and wonderful 80s vibes.

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Family Ties by Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar

Also making his return this week was King Kendrick who delivered a fantastic new collaboration with his cousin Baby Keem. Over a brilliant horn-driven beat, the two family members go toe-to-toe and bar-to-bar across this concise hip-hop banger.

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Alone by Rag N Bone Man & Nothing But Thieves

A remix of a track from Rory Graham’s latest album Life By Misadventure, this version sees Conor Mason of Nothing But Thieves join in on vocals, along with some triumphant rock production that replaces the stripped back nature of the album cut.

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Spirit Power & Soul by Johnny Marr

The brilliant first track from his forthcoming new EP, Spirit Power & Soul finds legendary guitarist Johnny Marr in fine form, sonically calling back to his days with Bernard Sumner in Electronic. Built on a masterful central riff, pulsating synths and a big anthemic chorus, it’s a belter!

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Nothing Else Matters by Chris Stapleton

And finally this week, we’ve had plenty of great, unique covers of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica already this year, with Miley Cyrus and Phoebe Bridgers already offering their own take on the classic song. However, I’ve always got time for another and this 8-minute epic from country singer Chris Stapleton is just as dazzling, thanks to some amazing bluesy guitars and his textured vocal performance.

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p1harmonyofficial · 3 years ago

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[📰] P1Harmony Gets Candid About Music, Bonds, and P1ece (INTERVIEW)

By Aedan Juvet

It’s only been a few months since the debut P1Harmony, however, the next-gen K-pop group radiates a wonderful sense of promise for the future of the industry. From their cinematic debut to their second veteran-like sound on the new EP DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT, P1Harmony has revealed major respect for bold concepts that fuels each step of their creative trajectory. The group has carefully presented some of the most in-your-face tracks in recent years, with “That’s It” (from their debut album) being a song that remains untouchable for its uninterrupted flow. The fast-paced verses, blended talent, and group unity introduced by P1Harmony helped manufacture their perceived work ethic, and the group now aims to expand on that with new and exciting content. While it might be the safe choice to keep music limited to pop-music constructs, P1Harmony has proven they aren’t in this for the lifestyle – but the six-member groups desires to leave an impression on the world through music. The group has openly stated they would ideally spotlight societal flaws and honesty through high-energy tracks, or softly delivered somber songs, because of an authentic penchant for narrative-building. The group’s newest release DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT polishes their trademark sound, still managing to begin an exploratory trek. On the new EP, there’s such a strong coalescence of rap, R&B, and pop music components in P1Harmony, that the group has grown in spades with just two releases in a matter of months. On tracks like “If You Call Me” the singers have a melancholy approach to a high-caliber R&B energy. Others on the EP like “Pyramid” or “Scared” play up the group’s self-assured state, offering a look at the confidence required to take on such a changing industry. The group’s vocal prowess plays a pivotal role in their new music, getting a chance to not only push their own limits as artists but to push the context in which their music is received. To attentively show such a dynamic range with their sound this early into their careers suggests that the group has taken an unflinching approach to their craft. With momentum like that, there’s reason to believe that P1Harmony will continuously push limits as they explore their potential legacy. With their new album out now, we were able to speak to P1Harmony about who particularly impressed the group this EP, their favorites tracks, their relationships with one another, and much more – because there’s a lot to break down.

We first met you through a film that leads into music, which was a first for a group. What was that transitional period like leading from a film to a debut album? KEEHO: We started preparing for our debut album right after the movie, so we just trained a lot. JIUNG: It was an exciting time because we were all very curious as to what the response would be like since it was a unique & interesting way to debut as a K-pop group with a full-length movie. INTAK: We spent a lot of time training and practicing for our debut album. It was probably one of our busiest times. SOUL: We did nothing but prepare for our album! JONGSEOB: I think it was an interesting way to introduce ourselves as a group and our worldviews. During the time in between, all we really did was prepare for the album You then dropped your EP and debuted in the top 5 on Gaon with over 35,000 albums sold. To debut so strong must have been an exciting kickstart to your careers! Did that add any pressure to you with this second album, or did it give you more comfort in knowing that you already had an audience who understood your music? KEEHO: It’d be a lie to say that we didn’t feel any pressure. We have full confidence in our music and work, but there were some concerns as to whether or not our fans would like our music. We also felt a bit pressured knowing that there may be a chance that more people would hear our music this time around, so we definitely worked harder to make sure we had high-quality music and visuals. THEO: I think our 2nd EP really shows how much effort we put in, and the quality of our music proves it, so I felt more confidence than pressure. JIUNG: I think it was both for me. I wanted to show how much we’ve improved since our first album, so there was definitely pressure while working on the album, but I was also excited to give our fans something they would like and find comfort in. INTAK: I was a bit pressured but confident at the same time! SOUL: I didn’t feel any pressure. I just wanted more people to hear our music, so I was only focused on training harder. JONGSEOB: To be honest, I felt less pressure for our 2nd EP than I did with our first. I was rather more calm and excited that more people were listening to our music and recognizing us.

This newest album was such a spectacular showing of what you can do and totally well-represented your group’s sound. However, if you each had to pick a single to represent your own individual DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT vibe, what would you choose? KEEHO: For me, it’s “If You Call Me.” I love the vibe and ambiance of this song very much. THEO: I would pick “Scared.” Not only is it our title track, but also because I think it’s a song that best represents the album. JIUNG: It’s “Scared” for me too. I think as a lead single it carries the all-around, general message of the album very well, and the vibe of the song is really addicting. INTAK: I would say it’s “Scared” too because it really delivers the message we want. SOUL: I would say it’s “Pyramid” and “Scared.”

JONGSEOB: I agree with Soul! I firmly believe that “If You Call Me” is one of the best tracks of 2021 so far, so is there any special memory about that track’s creation that stands out to you? KEEHO: Thank you! It’s a very meaningful song for us because it’s based on what we felt and heard while we were doing charity work. THEO: I agree with Keeho. We tried to convey exactly what we felt while we were doing charity work. JIUNG: Thank you! Honestly, the process of making this track wasn’t easy and there were a lot of edits, especially while we were making the chorus because we couldn’t really figure out the melody line. I remember being in the studio, and we just had the song on repeat while Keeho sang [impromptu] until we finally figured it all out. INTAK: I wanted to write something that would last in peoples’ hearts, so I looked up a lot of videos on people that are volunteers for all kinds of non-profit organizations. I was so inspired that I think I was able to write lyrics that were truly touching and meaningful. SOUL: For me, it’s special because it’s a song that we all worked on together as a team. JONGSEOB: First and foremost, thank you so much for selecting this song as the best track of 2021! I think the song turned out to be one of the more impressive songs, because we all worked on it together. What is really special about this song is the creative process; we all brought melody lines that we personally liked, and from there we as a team worked on what would be our individual parts and made edits together to complete the song. Was this EP something that had been worked on prior to debut, or was it right on the heels of your debut EP? KEEHO: There are songs that we worked on even before our debut, so I think we worked on it for quite some amount of time. THEO: We worked on it for a long time. JIUNG: We worked on our 2nd EP even before our official debut, so it took longer than we had anticipated because we wanted it to be flawless.

INTAK: It took some time because we also had to prepare and create performances for each track. SOUL: We spent a lot of time working on the album, but we also spent a lot of time learning the choreography for all the tracks. JONGSEOB: We started actually preparing for our 2nd album right after our debut promotions ended, and spent a lot of time editing [lyrics], and creating and training our dance performances. If you each had to name a member who surprised you most while working on the new album, who would you pick? KEEHO: I pick Soul! I think Soul really evolved during this album-making process and his efforts really stand out. His solo, freestyle performance for “Scared,” is so amazing and it’s a must watch! THEO: I’d say it’s Jongseob because the melody line he crafted for “If You Call Me,” is the best. JIUNG: I say Soul. His freestyle performance for “Scared,” is shocking, in a good way, because it’s so impactful [in a short period of time]. It’s hard to pull off a dance move that intense and impactful at the same time, but somehow, he always nails it. INTAK: I would say Soul, too! If you’re curious to why, then please watch our “Scared” performance and you will see! SOUL: I was surprised by Theo’s dance moves. JONGSEOB: I pick Soul as well! The solo freestyle performance for “Scared” is very short but has a lasting impact. You’re still so fresh in the industry that you have a lot of time to get to adapt and evolve! What are you most looking forward to discovering together as new artists? KEEHO: I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to perform in many different countries! It’d be awesome to be able to perform and have a lot of people listen to our voice. THEO: I really want to launch our own world tour and want to perform on a big stage. JIUNG: I am looking forward to doing our own tour. I want to be able to feel the energy of a live audience and feel what it’s like to be able to engage with our fans in real-time. INTAK: I am looking forward to doing our solo concert as well. I think it’d be an amazing experience to be able to engage with our fans in person. JONGSEOB: I am looking forward to every single one of our live performances! Because you debuted during the pandemic, you probably got to spend a lot more time together without the distraction of others, or day-to-day events that come with launching your careers. Did that time give you a chance to get closer in-between projects? KEEHO: I think we got closer because we spent so much time together. But even if we weren’t under social restrictions, I think we would have gotten closer no matter what, because we just get along so well. THEO: I think we are too close! [laughs] JIUNG: We were close even before the pandemic, so I don’t think we got closer. We do spend most of our time together, almost every day, so I think we get closer as we spend more days together. INTAK: We are family, so I don’t think there is a particular reason as to what made us close or a special occasion that made me feel like we got closer. SOUL: I agree with Intak, I think of my members as family. JONGSEOB: Because we work and live together, our bonds and friendships are inseparable. Your dance covers, teasers for the new video, every visual presentation you deliver is so precise that I can only imagine the rehearsals are rigorous! Is it safe to assume that studio time is an everyday occurrence for P1Harmony? KEEHO: We feel a lot of responsibility for our work and output. We really try to be as perfect as we can be, so we are always practicing and refining our skills. THEO: We do spend a lot of time practicing because we all want to improve.

JIUNG: Like Keeho said, it’s a profession that requires a lot of responsibility, so we try to focus and spend our free time practicing. INTAK: We are ALWAYS practicing. SOUL: Yes! JONGSEOB: I think our everyday routine includes practice. It’s our main focus. If you had to characterize what you’ve learned about your growing fandom so far, what would you say you’ve discovered? KEEHO: I think our fans are particularly funny and want to engage a lot, so we have so much fun connecting with our fans. Seriously, they’re so fun to talk to, and we get a lot of energy from P1ece. THEO: I think it’s beautiful how supportive they are! JIUNG: I think our fans are amazing because they love us just for who we are and always trying to be more supportive than they already are! I am so grateful for them. INTAK: I think P1ece finds us cute [laughs]. SOUL: I have so much fun talking to our fans! They really are the best. JONGSEOB: I am always grateful for our fans because not only do they love our music but also love us for exactly who we are.

P1Harmony’s new EP, DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT is officially available now!

#p1harmony #ot6 #t:news #era:disharmony : break out #210609

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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Dragon Ball 113

Now that Emperor Pilaf’s crew is out of the way, King Piccolo can finally get down to business, which is conquering the world.

Piano tries to brief Piccolo on the current geopolitical situation, but Piccolo just zaps his whole Powerpoint presentation. I really like Piano as a character, and I’m not entirely sure why, other than that he sort of reminds me of some of Jabba the Hutt’s entourage in Return of the Jedi. Functionally, he’s probably like Bib Fortuna, but he talks like C-3PO, and he sort of feels like a team mascot, like Salacious Crumb.

Also, the dynamic between Piano and Piccolo is kind of interesting. Piano speaks much more candidly to Piccolo than anyone else, indicating that he’s a close and trusted advisor. Presumably, Piccolo created him just like Tambourine and Cymbal, which means that Piano is exactly what Piccolo wanted him to be. And yet Piano doesn’t seem to quite fit Piccolo’s plans. He tries to act like he’s counseling a real king, but Piccolo’s military and domestic policies essentially boil down to “Break Stuff”.

I think this points to King Piccolo’s defining character trait. He’s a horrible, merciless villain, sure, but I think what sets him apart from the others is that he’s a bitter outsider who wants to punish everyone on the inside. That’s why he wants to topple the legitimate king and usurp his throne. The Red Ribbon Army was content to establish their own power base someplace else, but Piccolo wants the recognition. He wants people to know that he’s part of their society--the top part-- whether they like it or not.

So with that ambition comes this attitude that he has to make himself look and feel like a real king. That’s why he surrounds himself with advisors like Piano, that’s why he sits on a throne, and that’s why he wants to move into King Castle. I don’t think any of these things actually helps him accomplish his goals, but when your goal is basically “Break Stuff”, I guess it doesn’t matter. King Piccolo doesn’t isn’t really interested in the final outcome of his reign, just so long as he gets to have authority that he can abuse.

As the pair cruise into the city surrounding King Castle.... You know, I’m just gonna go back to calling it “King’s Castle”. Funimation added the possessive, and I’m starting to see why. It just sounds better that way.

Anyway, it’s the 20th anniversary of King Furry’s reign, so there’s a big celebration with fireworks and a parade and so on.

A lot of this episode is designed to set up King Furry as a counterpoint to Piccolo. He’s everything Piccolo isn’t: modest, peace-loving, a dedicated public servant.

The catch is that King Furry’s record sort of contradicts a lot of the lawlessness we’ve seen in Dragon Ball leading up to his introduction. Characters like the Ox King, the Red Ribbon Army, and Mercenary Tao seem to be able to do whatever they please. I’ve always interpreted this to man that KIng Furry may officially rule the entire world, but he has a hard time enforcing his policies in the periphery of his kingdom.

To be sure, I don’t expect King Furry to be perfect. It’s likely that the world was a lot worse off before he assumed power, and the peace and prosperity his subjects are celebrating is a relative thing. I just find it odd that the Red Ribbon Army was a Big Problem just three years ago, and everyone in this episode is acting like that never happened.

Meanwhile, in the Land of Korin, Goku’s planning to seek help from Korin at the top of Korin Tower. But he’s all beat up, so Bora suggests that he rest for a few days before making the climb. But Goku can’t wait, so he says Yajirobe will take him up. Yajirobe refuses, until Goku tells him that there’s Senzu at the top of the tower, and it’s “Wizard Food”.

This leads Yajirobe to imagine a cereal mascot making giant food items appear out of thin air. See, this right here is what all those Harry Potter movies should have looked like. How hot would that be? Dumbledore fights Voldemort, and they just keep trying to crush each other under giant pizzas and hot dogs.

Bora offers to help the boys out by doing a Fastball Special. Only it’s even cooler than a Fastball Special because he’s gonna throw two people straight up.

I can’t believe Dragon Ball topped Harry Potter AND the X-Men in this one episode. Well, actually, I can totally believe it. This show rules. Yajirobe grabs Goku’s butt, and Bora grabs Yajirobe’s butt, and we’re off to the races.

Of course, the animators sneak in plenty of upskirt shots of Yajirobe. Wotta buncha perverts.

Once they’re as high as they can get, Yajirobe starts climbin’, crying out ORAORAORA as he goes. Wow, a JoJo reference too. This episode has everything.

Back at King’s Castle... uh... City? Kingscastletown? Castle City? I think I’m gonna start calling it that.

Why are all these soldiers wearing pink? I mean, they look all right, but they have a real ice cream truck vibe to them. This makes me wonder if ice cream trucks in this town are Hum-vees driven by army guys in pixelated cookie-dough camo. That’d be pretty badass.

So Piccolo’s ready to start invadin’. First thing he does is T-Pose for dominance, and then he drops right on down on King’s Castle.

This guy at the gate tells him he can’t go in, and he has a gun, so Piccolo gives up and leaves. And that’s the end of the story! Kind of anticlimactic, but it’s a pretty daring way to wrap up a saga like this. I think the moral here is--

Just kidding, Piccolo stone cold murders all the guards and just wanders through the castle at will. Also, Piano finds a bag of chips next to some guy’s corpse and just picks it up like a crow. This show is amazing.

Meanwhile, Master Roshi and Chiaotzu are still dead.

I feel like Tien’s sort of wasting time here. I guess the last couple of episodes have taken place in roughly real-time, so it’s been maybe about twenty minutes since Piccolo made his wish? That’s kind of nuts when you think about it. But it feels like TIen’s been standing around all week.

The rest of Dragon Team finally arrives, and thank goodness Yamcha’s changed out of his blue tank top and short-shorts. That outfit looked terrible on him. Launch, of course, is still wearing her cool outfit from the Tien Saga, because you don’t want to mess with perfection.

So, just to be clear, Master Roshi is dead....

And Chiatozu is dead.

Yamcha tells Tien that they need to team up to beat Piccolo. Okay, time out, fantasy booking time. What if they really did team up, and somehow they found out about the fusion dance, and King Piccolo met his match in... Tiencha!?

Like, TIencha would just instantly master the Mafuba, because he has Tien’s firsthand knowledge of the technique, combined with Yamcha’s ability to improvise moves like the Kamehameha and Spirit Ball. But he’d be like, no. No, this King Piccolo dude needs to pay. So he’d wear him down with some Dodohamehas, and then polish him off with the Wolf Fang Volleyball Fist. Then he’d cross his arms and shout “The Power of Tiencha!”

Then Tiencha would be made the new king. Yamcha and Tien would rule jointly, but they’d use the fusion dance before making any important decisions.

But no, we can’t do anything super mega awesome like that. Instead, Tien wants to go off by himself and master the Mafuba on his own. Yamcha offers to learn it with him...

But Tien tells him it would be impossible for Yamcha, since he’s never seen the move performed. Well neither did Mutaito when he invented it, and so far he’s the only one who ever executed it successfully.

So Tien flies off on his own, leaving Launch to get all a-flutter over his stoic heroism. Look, I get what they’re going for here. This is Tien’s redemption arc, and Yamcha would just be in the way. But this is a really dumb play. Basically, Tien’s setting himself up to make the same mistake Master Roshi made. Even if Yamcha doesn’t stand a chance of learning the Mafuba, he could still help in other ways, and if nothing else, he could be there when Tien tries it, and then if things don’t work out, he’ll finally have firsthand knowledge of the technique, so he can learn it himself.

Back at the parade, King Furry receives flowers from little girls from different parts of the world. One of them is Suno from the Red Ribbon Army Saga. I think this is the first time her hometown is called “Jingle Village”, and I really wish they had used that name back when I needed it.

Unfortunately, Piccolo blows up a bunch of heavy artillery at the castle, and the explosions finally disrupt the celebration, spoiling Suno’s big moment.

In hindsight, it probably would have been better to call off the rest of the celebration, but this guy in white only got word that a lone intruder was a the castle, and he thought tanks would be enough to stop him, so he decided not to interrupt the ceremony. It was the wrong call, but I can’t blame the guy, since none of them had any idea what they were dealing with. Now that he does know, he suggests King Furry leave the area immediately.

Furry really doesn’t want to do that, although he’s wise enough to know that his security chief is right. Piccolo came her to get Furry, so if he can escape the city, there’s at least a chance Piccolo will follow him instead of hurting anyone else.

Meanwhile this huge dude tries to buy them some time. From the dialogue, I get the impression that he’s the guy on the security detail they call when conventional weapons don’t work. So at least King Furry’s staff recognizes that there are fighters in the world strong enough to resist tanks and guns. It sort of makes me wonder why anyone still bothers with tanks and guns, though.

Piccolo offers the guy a job, but he’s not interested. It says a lot about King Furry that these guys are willing to lay down their lives for him, even against a foe this powerful. This whole part of the saga feels like an inversion of Goku’s assault on Red Ribbon Headquarters, only now it’s a villain no-selling a bunch of good guys with guns. But unlike the Red Ribbon soldiers, these guys are motivated by honor and loyalty, rather than denial and fear.

To be sure, a couple of other guards see Piccolo kill this dude and they run away, but at this point, I’d say it’s the smart call. There’s nothing left to defend here but an empty castle, and they’re way out of their league. All they’d accomplish by staying is to die.

Unfortunately, Piano spots King Furry making his escape.

And it doesn’t take long for Piccolo to catch him.

Elsewhere, a kid asks his mom if there’s anyone who can stop Piccolo.

Suno knows someone.

Yeah, Goku’s gonna come back and tear Piccolo apart. You just wait and see.

He just needs a little time to get his shit together. Hang in there, world.

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victimofthemusic · 7 years ago

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Five Times Tony Stark Was a Good Dad (And One Time He Wasn’t) Pt. 3

Hello! No, you guys aren’t misreading this, it’s an actual update! It’s taken me a long time to get back into this story, my life has been very crazy and I’ll be honest, I haven’t written much in the last six to eight moths. However, I saw Infinity War and holy shit, did it place me back in this Universe. I’ve had the beginnings of this chapter to written out since the last update of this story and it took me this long to finish it. I’m not sure how happy I am with this chapter compared to the last two, but I think it fits. I know Peter has Super Spidey healing, but I’m such a sucker for these kinds of fics and I really wanted to write one. Thank you so much for the love and support of this series, Part 1 has well over 2,000 likes and Part 2 is working it’s way up to 700, that’s the most I’ve ever received on any of my stories and I’m completely blown away. I love each and every one of you. If you’re new to this series, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Also, I have one other Homecoming Fic, where you’re Tony Stark’s daughter and you get rescued by Spider-Man and that can be found here and a dating MJ Would Include request here. I hope you guys enjoy!! (:

P.S. If I missed anyone that wanted to be tagged in this, I’m so sorry! I’m posting this at 3 in the morning and trying to sort through all your kind messages and keep track who wants to be tagged is a bit of a challenge, I think I got all of you, but I apologize if I didn’t!

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It was an unusually quiet night around the Tower, Rhodey was upstate at the new Avengers facility for his weekend stint of physical therapy for his legs, Pepper was back in Malibu working on the new StarkPhone launch and Happy had followed her there for security, leaving Tony to his own devices.

When usually when left with nothing to do, he’d be down in the lab working on a project or tinkering with the Iron Man suit or rebuilding the transmission in one of the twenty cars that he owned. But, for some reason, he found himself in the living room, staring at an infomercial and occasionally replying to emails that he’d been neglecting over the week— choosing to spend time with Peter in the lab instead.

Ever since he invited Peter and his little friend into the lab a few weeks ago, Tony found that he didn’t really mind the kid’s company and what had originally started as a one time offer to appease his guilt, had turned into a three or four time a week thing. Sometimes the kid would come over and they’d screw around with upgrades to the Iron Man suit or they’d try to improve upon Peter’s web fluid—which, Tony admitted with no small amount of pride, was damn near impossible considering Peter’s original formula was damn near solid. That didn’t stop them from trying to make it stronger and last longer, but their attempts usually didn’t come out very successful, much to their collective frustration. And sometimes, when they were tired of messing with Iron Man or formula’s for new web fluid, Peter would wander off to a part of the lab table that had become his own little spot and catch up on his homework, occasionally asking for Tony’s input.

And Tony…didn’t really mind. He didn’t mind that Peter had slowly but surely became part of his daily routine and taking up a space in his life that Tony, once upon a time, didn’t really want to be fulfilled. He knew that Peter wasn't necessarily a child of his own biological making, but that didn’t stop him from feeling a sense of responsibility and dare he say it, an attachment to the kid that was more paternal than mentor like. He liked having the kid around him, in his lab, in this big Tower that got more lonely as the days went by without the other Avenger’s bustling around it—Sam teaching Vision and Wanda to cook in the kitchen, Natasha and Clint wrestling in the living room, Steve watching from the couch with exasperated amusement in between sketches, Thor polishing his hammer at the dinner table while Rhodey read the news paper and Bruce tinkering around in the lab with Tony.

Peter breathed life into this Tower that had been robbed of it when the Accords came into play and had divided the only family Tony had ever really been apart of. And damn if Tony didn’t love the kid for it.

So that’s why, sitting there, alone in his big and empty Tower, that Tony began to physically feel the kid’s absence.

He glanced down at his StarkWatch, biting his lip. It was 10:30, surely the kid wasn't that busy that if he were to, theoretically, call the kid and see if he wanted to come over tomorrow and work in the lab, maybe go to the new science exhibit at Museum of Natural History—he did, after all, have an in to the Research Library—grab a late lunch and come back and watch some movies with Vision and Rhodey, since it was still technically movie night even though the rest of the old team wasn't here and if it got too late, he could always crash in his room here and he could always take Peter to school Monday morning, as long as it was cool with Aunt Hottie—

“Sir, you have an incoming call from Ned Leeds,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, startling Tony out of his train of thought.

Curiosity piqued, Tony said with a wave of his hand, “Patch him through.”

A moment of silence and then the sound of loud music and laughter rang through the overhead speakers of the Tower, making Tony wince.

“Mr. Stark, sir, sorry to interrupt your evening, I’m sure you’re very busy, but may I just say that I think it’s totally awesome that your A.I. answers your phone calls—“

“Thanks, Guy In Chair, but—“

“Can she do like, a trace on the number and then like, a background check on the person—“

“—how’d you get my number? And, here’s the real question, how’d I get your number?”

“Oh, I got your number from Peter’s phone and I did a reverse phone hack and added myself into your contact list, in case of an emergency—“

“Lemme stop you there kid,” Tony said sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache, “you mean to tell me, you stole my number from Peter’s phone and managed to reverse hack into my phone, which, by the way, I don’t appreciate, and added your number to my phone on the off chance that I would need to call you? And why, may I ask, do you think that would ever be a possibility?”

The tell tale sign of a gulp could be heard over the line and Tony sighed in exasperation, “Was there a point to this conversation, Ned or—“

“Oh!” Ned exclaimed, “Yeah, sorry sir, um you see, it’s Peter—“

Tony’s heart most definitely didn’t stop working at that sentence and it didn’t seem like taking oxygen into his lungs suddenly became more difficult at the thought of Peter being in any sort of danger.

“Is he okay?” Tony demanded, sitting up straighter and summoning the suit.

“You see sir, I told everyone in our gym class that Peter knew Spiderman and then Liz—this really pretty senior that, like, half the school is in love with including Peter—mentioned she was having a party tonight at her house that basically the entire school was invited to and that we should stop by, which was so awesome because we’re only sophomore’s sir and not cool people—“

“If there’s a point here, Ned, I’m missing it, so you better get to it.” Tony demanded sharply.

“Right, anyway, we got invited and well, um, Peter was nervous and a senior handed us each a drink and Peter downed his and well, he’s really drunk and is about to swing through this house in his, you know, other identity and I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen to me and—“

“I’ll be there in five, try to stall him as best as you can.” Tony said quickly, ending the call.

He ensured that F.R.I.D.A.Y. had located the call before he summoned one of his cars to the location and he was off into the night, trying to quell the anger and shame that was boiling through his veins.

Anger, that the kid could be that stupid and utterly reckless, to risk his secret and the safety of his loved ones for kids he wouldn’t even waste another thought on after graduating high school.

And shame, because he knew what it was like to be Peter’s age and to want to be seen and seem cool by your peers. To want to fit in so desperately that you're willing to do almost anything to get it. Alcohol has cost Tony so many things in his life and he’d be damned if he let someone like Peter follow in his footsteps.

He made it to the party in three minutes, taking a moment to do the deep breathing exercises Bruce taught him, so he didn’t completely lose it on the kid and alert everyone to his sudden appearance at the party. He landed with a dull thud against the roof, alerting the intoxicated teenager that was attempting to don his suit a little too closely to edge of the roof for Tony’s heart to handle.

He really was quite the sight—he had the suit on backwards, well the half he had on, the other half was dangling pathetically in the evening breeze while Peter seemed to be trying to figure out how to get the rest of it on without jumping too far and falling off of the roof.

“Mr. Starkkkkk!” Peter slurred in greeting, eyes bright and blood shot with the alcohol, “What’re you doin’ here? Did you know there was go’na be a party here? Did Liz invite you—“

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tony demanded, completely ignoring Peter’s inquiry, lifting the faceplate of the Iron Man mask. He was doing everything in his power to keep his voice level and not shout like he so desperately wanted to, breathing exercises be damned.

Peter hiccuped, “”M trying to put my suit on because I told ev’ryone that ‘Piderman was go’na be here, but—hiccup—I got ‘istracted when I got here n’d now my head s’all—“ he made a waving gesture in the air, like that explained it all, which, to be fair, Tony did understand what he meant a little too well and it only added to the anger welling inside of him, “—weird, like it’s not part of my body n’d I was go’na swing through the house n’d be like ‘wasss up ev’rybody ‘m ‘Piderman’ and give Ned a fist bump so he looks like he’s cool too—“

“And how do you plan to do all of that when you can’t even get both legs in your suit, kid?”

Peter gazed dumbly back at him, before looking down and yeah, okay. Mr. Stark had a point.

He looked back up at Tony with unfocused eyes and with such a blatant uncaring shrug that only teenagers knew how to accomplish, that Tony snapped.

“Do you realize how stupid this is?” Tony said sharply, “Not only could you hurt yourself or someone else, you’re running the risk of outing yourself to your entire school! Who, I’m sure, have all their little smartphones with their little cameras and it’s only a matter of time before this would end up on YouTube, then the media would get a hold of it and then that’s it, kid, you’re no longer anonymous and you’ve put everyone you love in danger. Do you want that?”

Peter opened his mouth to reply but Tony couldn’t handle it, “Not uh, you don’t get to talk, the adult is talking,” he snapped, waving his hand as if he could physically swat the rebuttal on the kid’s tongue away, “Now, what you're going to do is get out of the suit, put your clothes back on and then you’re coming back to the Tower with me and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do it without any sort of complaint.”

Peter, thankfully, heeded Tony’s words and, after some struggling, managed to get the suit off and into his own clothes. He swayed slightly on the spot and Tony acted fast, tapping the center of Peter’s suit, summoning it back to the Tower and he scooped Peter up, cradling him like a baby against his chest. Peter rested his head gratefully against the cool armor, the world beginning to spin around him at an uncomfortable rate as he felt the repulsers of the suit ignite and Mr. Stark take off into the night.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., please send a text to Peter’s little friend and inform him there’s a car waiting for him outside and that it will escort him home and that if he doesn't leave that party in five minutes, it’ll be a phone call to his mother.” He heard Mr. Stark’s voice over the whooshing of the wind and Peter giggled. Who knew Mr. Drunken-Womanizing-Playboy-Tony Stark could be such a dad.

Iron Man, more like Iron Dad, Peter thought to himself, giggling.

His giggling came to an abrupt stop, however, when his stomach gave a uncomfortable lurch. Suddenly, the cool wind washing over his face felt suffocating and Peter could picture how high up they were, how small the buildings would be and how the only thing separating him from death was Mr. Stark’s gentle grip and his stomach gave another churn and then—

Oh no

“Uh, Tony, I—I—don’t feel so good—“

“Kid, I swear to god, if you toss your cookies all over this suit—“

He opened his mouth to reply, but instead of words, the tacos he and Ned split before the party came back up and he tried, he really tried to aim away from the suit, but there was only so much he could do when he was squished against Tony’s chest and suspended twenty-thousand feet into the air.

“Mr. Stark, I am so—“ Peter began, beyond mortified and feeling much more sober than he was five minutes ago, but Tony shook his head and Peter could feel the heat of his glare through the faceplate of the suit.

“Save it, kid. You’re lucky this is one of my older suits.”

~~~~~~~~~~

They made it back to the Tower without another incident and once Tony was out of the ruined suit, he sent it off with DUM-E to get it hosed off, he sent Peter up to his room and he sent himself to the bar for a drink.

He eyed the bottle of bourbon, but thoughts of a drunk and stumbling Peter on a roof top made him opt for a bottle of water instead.

He collapsed on the couch, suddenly feeling everyone of his years and rubbing his temples to ward off the migraine that he could feel blooming behind his eyelids, he wondered, not for the first time, how he could've done this to his mother. Tony had started drinking right around Peter’s age, and at first, it had started as something to piss his father off, but he soon came to realize that alcohol numbed the pain and help hide the scars his father’s words had left behind. Drinking had turned to experimenting with drugs and if it wasn't for Rhodey, who’d pulled him back from the brink of every bender, he would’ve been dead before his twenty-first birthday.

His drinking and partying had put a strain on his relationship with his mother and did nothing but serve to be a source of shame for his father with all the headlines his drunken shenanigans had earned him.

And while Peter wasn’t his kid, not biologically or legally, he felt responsible for the kid. A sense of duty to steer this kid in the right direction and Tony would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t love the kid and care about his wellbeing.

Peter reminded him a lot of himself at fifteen. Always the smartest kid in the room, always interested in things that weren’t cool and struggling to find a place amongst his peers who teased him for being who he was. The difference, however, was that Peter was good. He was so inherently good and all the harsh things that this world had done to him had yet to diminish the purity and resolute kindness that radiated off of the kid in waves. Peter used his powers because he wanted to help people, Tony did it because he hoped, that maybe, for every life he saved, every act of good he did, it would serve as a penance for all the bad he had done to the world.

Peter was too good of a kid to turn out like Tony and it scared him to think of Peter following in his footsteps. Of making his mistakes. He knew, logically, that Peter was still a teenager. That he was going to make mistakes, but Tony couldn't help but feel disappointed in the kid anyways. He wanted Peter to be better than him, damn it. He had to be.

It was only eleven, but Tony felt beyond exhausted, so he made his way to his room, passing Peter’s along the way and he couldn't help but stop and peak in the doorway. He wanted to make sure that the kid actually made it to his room in one piece and didn’t drown himself in the shower.

Peter did manage to make it in bed on his own—sprawled out on top of the sheets in the Iron Man pajamas that Tony had bought him as a joke, he never expected the kid to actually wear them—and if the snores coming out of the kid said anything, he’d been passed out for a while.

Tony smiled, shaking his head before padding softly across the fluffy carpeting of Peter’s room, grabbing a blanket that was thrown across the love seat in the corner and gently draped it over Peter. He snuggled into the warmth, seeming to relax a bit more in his sleep and Tony brushed his bangs back from his forehead.

“Oh, you’re going to be in a world of pain tomorrow, kid,” Tony muttered, “I wouldn’t wish a first time hangover on anybody.”

Peter snuffled in his sleep, eyebrows furrowing as if he heard what Tony said.

Tony chuckled softly, shaking his head once more, “Good night, kid.” he whispered to the quiet room.

Peter rolled over on his stomach, burying his head in the pillows, mumbling in his sleep and Tony paused, because there’s no way that kid said what he thought he said—

“G’night, Irondad.”

Tony blamed the warm feeling in his chest on the alcohol that was still sitting, untouched, in the bottle downstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunlight, Peter decided, was literally the worst thing that world had invented. It burned every time he opened his eyes, threatening to fry his corneas right from his skull and it was only made worse by his Spidey-senses, which usually made every one of his senses feel like it had been dialed to eleven, but today, it felt like they’d been dialed to one hundred.

And it was only made worse by the high voltage electric guitar that was blaring from downstairs and Peter recognized it as one of the songs on Tony’s I’m Trying To Be Productive playlist he’d played in the lab.

Wait—

Peter glanced around at his surroundings and he realized he was in his room. But not in Queens, where his Very Worried Aunt would expecting him to be sleeping, safe and sound.

Instead, he was in his room.

In Stark Tower.

Which was in Manhattan.

And he had no idea how he ended up here.

Cursing colorfully, Peter flew out of bed and immediately regretted it—the room started to spin and his stomach churned dangerously, bile rising in his throat and threatening to come up all over the dark grey carpeting.

He took a second to breathe, fighting back the nausea and praying he wouldn’t ruin Tony’s carpet. Eventually, the restless ocean in his stomach mellowed out, the nausea turning into more of a bleh feeling.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y?” Peter asked hesitantly, rubbing his eyes.

“Yes, Mr. Parker?” The A.I. responded dutifully.

“What happened last night?” Peter asked, toeing the carpet and wondering if he really wanted to know that answer. Now that he was awake, the night was coming back to him in flashes and he prayed that some of those flashes were wrong.

“Mr. Stark received a call from Mr. Leeds last night at around 10:35 pm, informing him of your whereabouts and possible levels of intoxication and he flew to the residence of Ms. Liz Allan’s, where he encountered you, on her roof, attempting to put on your suit. He flew you to the Tower and provided a car to escort Mr. Leeds home.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied.

Peter nodded—which, come to find out, makes splitting headaches worse—and thought over all the information the A.I. had provided for him and while all of it fit, there was one thing that was missing and he hoped, beyond all belief, that it wasn't true.

“Did I—,” Peter cleared his throat, wishing he hadn’t, which seemed to be the running theme of today, “—did I by chance, possibly, when Tony flew me back to the Tower, which I’m assuming was in the Ironman suit, did I uh, you know, um—“

“Mr. Stark is headed up in the elevator, Mr. Parker.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted him.

Shit

“On a scale of 1-10, how mad is he?” Peter asked meekly, glancing up at the ceiling.

“While my body scans show no outward signs of irritation, Sir’s heart rate is elevated and his blood pressure is higher than normal, so my estimate would be an 8.5.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. answered after a brief moment of hesitation and Peter couldn't decide if it was his imagination or if he just wanted someone on his team, but the A.I.’s voice sounded sympathetic and that was a bad sign when a computer felt bad for the wrath that was bound to rain upon him.

“On today’s episode of Peter Screw’s the Pooch, we talk about underage drinking and it’s adverse effects it has on young heroes and their abilities to think properly.”

The door to his room burst open and Peter winced at the noise of wood hitting dry wall, but that paled in comparison when he saw an angry Tony Stark standing in the doorway.

“And while we usually save questions from the audience for the end of the show, today, I think we can make an exception,” Tony continued, making his way into Peter’s room, a sarcastic smirk dancing on his lips and his usually kind eyes were on a low simmer, anger lurking in the shadows.

Peter gulped.

“To answer your question, Mr. Parker, yes, you did, in fact, regurgitate your tacos and cheap beer all over my Mark fifteen, after I kindly took time out of my night, to fly over to the suburbs of Queens, to a house full of your classmates, to save you, from possibly making one of the worst decisions of your teenage life.”

Peter winced at Tony’s steadily rising voice, one because it was making his headache worse and two, because, well, Tony was yelling at him.

“So, since I didn’t really get a coherent answer last night, what the HELL were you thinking?!” Tony demanded, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

Peter swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously, “I uh—“

But Tony cut him off, “Because I can tell you what you weren’t thinking. You weren’t thinking about the fact that if you flew into that house, drunk off your ass, might I add, you not only could’ve injured yourself, you could’ve hurt someone else. Or, more importantly, you could’ve exposed your secret to all your little classmates, who all have their little smartphones, with HD camera’s and access to the internet and you could’ve been the next viral sensation, which would blow your cover to the ENTIRE WORLD.”

Tony’s shout made Peter jump and shrink back from the rage in his voice, but he was so lost in his rant that he didn’t even notice, “Which, not only put you in danger, but all your little friends and your unusually attractive aunt.”

Peter’s eyes widened, “Oh god, aunt May, Tony—“

He waved him off, “Oh, now you’re thinking of someone besides yourself? Don’t worry, she thinks your sleeping over at Ned’s tonight because me, being the cool parent that I am, brought you here, instead of dropping you off at home last night and saved you from the verbal ass chewing of the century.”

Guilt swelled in Peter’s gut, eclipsing any nausea that had been lingering, and he dropped his eyes to the floor in shame.

“Seriously, Peter, what were you thinking?” Tony demanded and Peter could hear the exasperation and fatigue in his voice and his guilt increased ten fold.

If Peter was being honest with himself, he wasn't thinking. Not entirely, at least. He just wanted one night, one night, where he could be a normal teenager. Who went to parties and let loose and danced and didn’t have to worry about saving the city from weird thugs with Avenger’s masks and high tech weapons. Who didn’t have to worry about keeping up with homework and studying on top of late night patrols and keeping up a secret identity from his aunt who worked two jobs to supplement the lost income because her husband died in a robbery that Peter was too angry and bitter to stop. He wanted to fit in, to be cool and seen by the most beautiful girl in entire school.

He just wanted to be normal.

It all sounded so stupid, now that he thought it out.

Well.

“I just wanted to fit in.” Peter said softly, “The kids at school, they don’t see me, you know? I know it’s stupid, but I just wanted to know what it was like. To be cool. To be—“

“—normal.” Tony finished for him, voice unusually gentle and Peter glanced up at him hesitantly, nodding.

“Yeah.”

Tony sighed, rubbing his hand down his face, taking a seat next to Peter on the bed, “Kid, I get it. Maybe not the whole hero thing at fifteen, but when I was fifteen, I was in college, with kids that were older and cooler and I just wanted to fit in. But Pete,” Tony said softly, “drinking is never the answer.

For anything. Trust me kid, alcohol won’t solve any of your problems, they only create more problems. And they can lead to things that you’re not ready for.”

Tony glanced away from him, “Take it from someone who knows, it takes you down a path you’ll have a hell of a time getting off of. I know I have a hard time showing it, but kid…you mean a lot to me and I never want to get another phone call like the one I got last night, you hear me? I’m not kidding. If I ever hear about you doing something stupid that involves the suit, I’ll take it away from you and you won’t get it back.”

Peter’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to protest, but Tony shook his head, “No, I mean it. If you want to make it public that you’re Spiderman, you’ll do it when you’re older and on your own terms. It’s not going to be because you made a stupid choice when you were drunk and you exposed yourself to the entire world. This is for your safety as much as it is for mine and everyone else you care about.”

Peter sighed, “I understand. And I promise it won’t happen again. Especially if this is how I feel as a result.”

Tony chuckled, ruffling Peter’s hair, “Hangover’s are a bitch, kid, if that’s not enough to make you want to wait to drink until you’re older, I don’t know what will.”

Tony stood up, “Alright, I’m gonna go order breakfast—what are you doing?”

Peter, who thought that the lecture was over and it was safe to go back to bed, propped himself up on his elbow, “Um, going back to bed? I wasn’t kidding, I really don’t feel good and I’m tired—“

“Oh no no no,” Tony tutted in disapproval, backing his way out of Peter’s room, “You’ve got a suit with your puke all over it, waiting to be cleaned in the lab and then you have homework to do and web fluid to make—“

“But—“ Peter looked longingly at the California king with it’s soft sheets and fluffy pillows and his body physically ached at the thought of leaving it.

“Or I can always call your aunt and tell her what really happened last night—“

“Coming!”

Tony smirked.

Iron Dad indeed.

~~~~~~~

Thank you guys for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and I’m excited to hear your feedback! Suggestions and requests are much appreciated! (:

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kfdirector · 6 years ago

Text

What to Learn From Every RPG Campaign I’ve GMed* or Played In

(All campaigns that lasted more than three sessions that I’ve ever played in, in chronological order; marked by a * were me as GM. All others were me as player.)

Denver Arcana (0*) (d20 Modern, Urban Arcana, Extensive Supplements and Homebrew, Kitchen Sink Urban Fantasy)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Self-insert PCs are perfectly doable, but don’t include other real-life people as NPCs. Especially if any PC IRL has a thing for any of the NPCs. Double-especially if the GM kinda does too.

Clyde Lake (d20 Modern, pure, contemporary horror)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Before launching a horror game, have a pretty good idea what the source of the horror actually is.

Plaguelands (D&D 3.5e, classic fantasy with Oriental Adventures influences)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If you get a guy who ALWAYS TAKES THE BAIT, knowingly and gladly, great! Just…have a plan for when he takes the bait. A plan that lets the campaign keep going, maybe?

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: When using illusions to persuade people, consider the audience. Maybe consider very carefully whether your choice of illusion, while persuasive to your target, might also cause a wave of panic and mass suicide.

d20 Tropico* (d20 Modern, pure, action-adventure)

LESSON FOR THE GM: A little more research is needed for setting a campaign in a war-torn Caribbean island nation than just…playing Tropico.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: If you play an INT 5 bruiser and the campaign is not 100% combat, you’re going to be locked out of a lot of playing.

Thaumapunk* (d20 Modern, Extensive supplements and homebrew, kitchen sink sci-fi/magitech)

LESSON FOR MY PLAYERS: I am not afraid to TPK your asses.

LESSON FOR THE GM: A bad ending goes down so much smoother with a hastily-written sequel hook in the epilogue that makes the players think that at least everything they did didn’t amount to a complete waste of time.

Apocalypse Arcana* (D&D 3,5e, mostly official supplements, post-apocalyptic North America fantasy)

LESSON FOR THE GM: It’s okay to fudge things if you misestimate an encounter. But consider being more subtle than having all the henchdemons announce that it’s time for their union-mandated lunch break and quit the field, leaving only their boss to fight the party.

LESSON FOR EVERYONE: If someone accidentally plays a furry when they’re vehemently not a furry, never, ever, let them live it down. (Real actual furries get a pass in my book; y’all do you.)

Denver Arcana (I, II, III) (d20 Modern, Urban Arcana, few supplements, kitchen sink urban fantasy)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: Characters really are fun when they’re actually characters, not just self-inserts or piles of stats for launching fireballs! Make sure the campaign is going to last before commissioning artwork of them, though. Or else you’ll wonder if you’ve got your money’s worth.

LESSON FOR THE GM: If you continually reboot a campaign at low levels because you don’t know how to cope with your PCs once they reach high levels – don’t be surprised if they start finding level-independent ways to fuck with your shit.

Thaumapunk X* (d20 Modern, extensive supplements, a bit less homebrew, better-thought-out kitchen sink sci-fi/magitech)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: If the GM interrupts your convoluted attempts at planning with an alien invasion, that means he disapproved of something. Possibly that you were taking two hours to plan something unimportant.

LESSON FOR THE GM: It’s okay if the players know who the final boss is in advance (because he’s the guy who TPKed them last time), but they’ll understand if his stats aren’t identical to what they were centuries before. They’ll accept the change if it means you don’t feel compelled to spring the final boss on them 75% of the way through the apparent story because you realized that it wouldn’t be a challenge for their over-optimized builds if things ran their course.

Strangeworld (D&D 3.5e, mostly official supplements, weird primal-feeling fantasy that turned out to have huge space-fantasy elements just out of view for most of the game)

LESSON FOR THE GM: What would be awesome in twenty or thirty sessions will be a soul-sucking mess if it takes eighty.

Diaspora* (D&D 3.5e, mostly official supplements, rapidly escalating to fight mythological-class threats and thwart a multi-pantheon plot to unmake the world, which somehow entailed overthrowing a powerful dwarven nation to build a giant-ass steampunk cannon to launch yourself to the moon so you could fight the Chariot of All Evil before it could bring its terrible power too close to the world’s many doomsday cults)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If there’s a chance that one player will realize that he doesn’t like the epilogue that he’s on track for, give him a heads up in advance. So you’re not re-writing the ending at very moment that the ending is happening.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: If you gaining demigod status as your retirement plan depends on the cooperation of the rest of the party, clear everything with them 100% first. Explain any possible hang-ups to the satisfaction of the Paladin before the moment of truth.

Braveworld (D&D 3.5e, mostly official supplements, standard medieval western fantasy)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Players say they just want a normal campaign as a breather after a crazy one, but they lie. Boredom sets in fast, and that deprives you of the critical enthusiasm needed to overcome repeated scheduling problems or player conflicts.

Magnum Opus* (d20 Modern, massive supplements, a crossover involving every previous campaign on this list and others that never got off the drawing board, starting with the PCs on their first day of high school and culminating in them saving literally every universe)

LESSON FOR THE GM: You get to push a system to its maximum extent until it pretty much burns out everyone’s desire to play it because there’s nothing else to accomplish, once. Make it worth it!

OTHER LESSON FOR THE GM: If you set plot-critical rolls with a difficulty so high that they’re mathematically unachievable without extra measures, remember to hint at those other measures to the player in question. He might not be firing on all cylinders tonight and if he gets literally every party member killed (even if temporarily) because as far as he could tell you wanted him to roll a 22 on a 20-sided dice, you’re getting the blame for that.

OTHER, OTHER LESSON FOR THE GM: No player ever needs a ring of three wishes. Not even with a single wish left on it. If there’s any charges left on that sucker it will fuck up your epilogue right good.

Omoikane (D&D 3.5e, very Oriental-Adventures-themed, lots of demigod-tier enemies running around)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If a player seems to fundamentally misunderstand how a rule works, and seems to have built his character around that misunderstanding, correct him early. At a critical moment when he’s trying to save the entire party based on a heroic effort he thinks the rules let him do is a bit too late.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If the way you play a character is so effective that future GMs ban the entire class for the rest of time, you’ve mostly cheated yourself out of something cool.

The Low Road (D&D 3.5e, standard medieval western fantasy but the PCs are evil and in pursuit of cosmic power; culminating in one character [uh, mine] becoming the replacement source of all evil in the world after his original plan fell through due to his god not existing)

LESSON FOR THE GM: “An Evil campaign” means different things to different players. You’re not going to get a consistent vision of how to proceed with an evil scheme if your only criteria is “make an evil PC”.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Evil cultist PCs planning to betray their parties at the last moment to further their eldritch-horror-patron’s plans should probably first verify that their patron exists.

Swoboda (Early Pathfinder, campaign was supposed to be based on a fantasy version of WW2, with the PCs Fantasy!Polish volunteers in the Fantasy!Spanish Civil War with the meta-game expectation that we’d later be leading the resistance against the Fantasy!Nazi invasion of Fantasy!Poland).

LESSON FOR THE GM: Maybe don’t make the second session of the game a mission to commit atrocities against civilians, even if you are going for a “horrors of war” theme.

LESSON FOR THE GM: And maybe have a plan to continue the game if the PCs refuse orders.

Sullapolis Survivor* (GURPS, zombie-horror but with extradimensional monsters rather than actual zombies, in a contemporary fictional city)

LESSON FOR MY PLAYERS: No, seriously, I will TPK you if you fuck around in the finale.

LESSON FOR THE GM: Keep your conspiratorial horror a little more straightforward. Too many elements just leaves the players unfocused and uninterested.

The Dark Lords Errand (D&D 3.5e, classic medieval fantasy)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: I’m not the only GM in the group willing to TPK us if we’re idiots.

LESSON FOR THE GM: It can be hard to communicate to players the difference between a situation where a heroic stand is demanded and where subterfuge and feigned acquiescence is called for. But it’s worth making the extra effort if you liked the campaign.

Orc Quest (D&D 3.5e, orcish tribes crusading against the law and the light)

SEE RECAP HERE.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If you can’t be useful, be entertaining.

LESSON FOR THE GM: If one of the players has cheesed the rules so effectively as to tame the Tarrasque at level 8, and you let this happen, it’s barely your campaign any more – you’re just as much along for the ride as everyone not playing a Tarrasque-tamer.

Saviors of Camden (GURPS; low-point value, basically playing the Boondock Saints)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Don’t build characters who have to be persuaded into the basic concept of the campaign.

LESSON FOR THE GM: If you planned a “kill ‘em all” epilogue, be prepared for the possibility of one PC cheating death. Surround the skyscraper with cops? Someone might critically succeed on a parasailing roll…

Living in Darkness (D&D 3.5e, mixed supplements, classic fantasy that seemed to take place in the centuries-later aftermath of The Low Road)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If your GM’s style is best described as “Homestuck narrator”, you’re gonna have a bad time.

LESSON FOR THE GM: “How to keep an enemy mage in custody” should be a solved problem on most worlds. Tell your players the accepted protocol. Don’t make them invent it on their own and then have NPCs criticize them for unnecessary abuse after the fact.

LESSON FOR THE GM: You’re running a tabletop campaign, not narrating a satirical text adventure game. Or if you are, you need to advertise that shit first.

Valos IV (d20 Modern, Future, and then GURPS, involuntary pioneers sent by a tyrannical Earth government to an alien planet)

LESSON FOR THE GM: It’s a rare campaign that can survive a change in game systems.

Adlera* (D&D 3.5e, Fantasy!Roman Republican PCs help Fantasy!Caesar invade Fantasy!India by killing any of the thousands of local demigods that get in the way of the Fantasy!Roman Legions, only to clash with an invading Fantasy!China, deal with backstabbing intrigue from home, and deal with the ancient techno-magical-biological prison for ten billion souls in a way that kept them from either reincarnating into an evil god or a horde of angry demons)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If when some PCs excel at what they do it’s regarded as heroic, and when others excel it’s regarded as a war crime, that leads to resentment. Just be aware of that.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Read the lore. If it says something only really weird could justify X in this setting, and you make X an explicit part of your character, don’t be surprised if you get dragged into some really weird shit. Like having Fantasy!Samuel L. Jackson be your reincarnated boss, throughout all eternity, and locking you out of the epilogue that all the other players get because get back to work, bitch!

Twenty Twenty Five* (GURPS, post-apocalypse based on an alternate history, like if Fallout was based on the late-80s/early-90s instead of the 50s, and also all the PCs were alive before the fall and woke up from a coma after the fall)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Do not allow any player to take Secret: Largely Responsible for the Apocalypse. The campaign then becomes About That Player, no matter who else was in the party or what else you had going.

The Sands of Mars (d20 Modern, Future, space opera with no psi or magic set on a Mars that has been cut off from Earth centuries after a robot rebellion or something)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Don’t pitch a sandbox game if you aren’t running a sandbox game. If there’s a main plot players are expected to participate in, don’t be coy about it in the pitch.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If your character hates lying and you as a player don’t grok the concept of lying by omission, maybe don’t be the only one to take ranks in Bluff.

Embracing Defeat (I, II)* (GURPS, martial arts/kinda-dieselpunk world where the PCs are the scions of nobility in a crushed and occupied country, trying to restore the honor of their defeated nation)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If someone keeps pitching character concepts that seem to really not quite fit the campaign, that means they probably don’t get what the campaign is going to be and you should explain it better so the character they eventually make doesn’t turn out completely useless.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Maybe don’t pick a fight with an entire regiment of retired combat veterans at once if only one of you knows which end of a sword goes in the other guy.

LESSON FOR THE GM: A promising concept can be revived with new players if you write things properly. But you still need a new plan for the story after nearly-TPKing the first set of characters and their associated stories.

The Wheel (D&D 3.5e, a sequel to The Dark Lord’s Errand, the Low Road, Living in Darkness – every ten sessions or so the campaign world would change dramatically as one world ended and another was born, the heroes reincarnated into new but similar forms in a mecha setting, a post-apoc setting, a dark low fantasy, etc.)

LESSON FOR THE GM: You may have been planning this one for eight years, but that’s no excuse to drag the game itself on for three years. PACING! No story worth telling requires 82 four-hour-average sessions.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Clearly communicate to the GM your expectations for the game. For instance, tell him politely, but firmly, which plot twists will result in you making a road trip across America to hang him with the strings of his own dice bag. When threats are credible, this improves the game for everyone.

The Firm* (GURPS, high-action, players are stylized GTA-type mafia guys taking over a fictional contemporary American city)

LESSON FOR THE GM: You make a game that calls for dick player characters, they’re going to do dick things. You give them a high point value, they’re going to be good at doing dick things. Be psychologically prepared for that.

Valdeer no Senshi (GURPS, Magical Girls in a frankly awesome alt-history city that goes miles to justify the San-Fransokyo blend of West Coast and Japanese culture)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Less time writing Japanese characters that don’t display on most people’s US-layout IRC clients, more time writing awesome set piece battles and hilarious anime-inspired scenes.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: A group of mostly twenty-something dudes is either going to barely bother to roleplay a teenage girl or way too good at it. Gaming is more productive when it’s the former; memories are made when it’s the latter. There is no such thing as a happy medium.

The Great Heathen Army* (Pathfinder; Fantasy!Vikings invade Fantasy!England, each PC having their own noble house and army, carving out their respective kingdoms as they conquer the land and fight both the natives and each other)

LESSON FOR THE GM: There is a maximum number of spreadsheets you can use to run a game after which there is no way it will be fun. Try to work out that number ahead of time.

LESSON FOR THE GM: If you have a hard time imagining what would cause an actual tabletop session to be needed to advance the game, you have not actually designed a D&D-style campaign but a play-by-post strategy with cobbled-together-rules. And if those rules kind of suck, wow you have wasted a lot of time.

Harbingers of Justice (Pathfinder with all kinds of homebrew, modern superheroes in a contemporary fictional setting)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Don’t run a superhero campaign if you actually hate superheroes.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Don’t build an Elvis-themed superhero if you have no interest and little knowledge of Elvis

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: The most effective way for a level 3 rogue to do damage in a battle on a city street is a Disable Device check to hotwire the nearest car and drive it into an enemy.

Knights of the Stag* (GURPS, Infinite Worlds world-hopping beginning with the wizard attendees at a magical college in England in the days of Richard the Lionheart)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Don’t base a campaign on cool alternate-history ideas if you’re the only one in your group who reads or cares about history. You’ll burn out long before you can get to the finish if you don’t have the positive feedback from people who get the references.

LESSON FOR THE GM: GURPS makes the better system when you need to learn new languages, know hundreds of utility spells, and solve problems in crazy creative ways. D&D makes the better system when you want to throw dragons at the party. Both are pretty doable when the opposition is Evil Time Nazis, though.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYER: Do the assigned reading. Don’t be the idiot claiming to be an English noble in 11th Century England who speaks only…English.

Resistance* (d20 Modern; entirely fictional setting; no science fiction or magic; ROTC students try to organize a resistance after a surprise coup and invasion of their country, Red Dawn style)

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If it’s an explicitly modern-military themed game, and absolutely every single enemy is going to have at least an assault rifle…this probably isn’t the game to run your expert boxer who specializes in doing unarmed nonlethal damage, especially given d20 Modern’s heavy nerfs to nonlethal damage.

Angels of Ashtabula (GURPS, sequel to Saviors of Camden, only set in the Rust Belt)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Don’t let someone take Anonymous as an 18-pt contact.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: Don’t take Anonymous as an 18-pt contact.

The New World (D&D 5e, standard medieval western fantasy kingdoms colonize fantasy!North America)

LESSON FOR THE GM: If the (white colonialist) sponsors are all assholes, and the indigenous peoples are all sympathetic, it should be expected that eventually the PCs are going to stop wanting to work for the colonialists.

LESSON FOR THE OTHER PLAYERS: If you didn’t want me negotiating with the lich, leading to efforts of mutual translation and me telling the lich how to take advantage of our own laws and the Paladin’s code of honor to get treated as a sovereign nation rather than a monster, maybe y’all should have just attacked instead of waiting for it to make the first move and then it waiting for us to make the first move and an awkward silence ensuing that I decided to insert myself into as the SOCIAL JUSTICE ROGUE.

Journey to Svalbard (GURPS; post-apocalypse; survivors from Edmonton, Canada, make their way across the ruins of Canada and then the Atlantic to the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault to restart agriculture, ongoing)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Eight players is probably more than comfortably fit into an RPG group at once. It’s definitely more than fit comfortably into the bush plane at once.

LESSON FOR THE GM: If the only NPCs who get physical descriptions are the ones who turn out to be the key to saving the world, it’s kind of hard to keep the mystery going.

LESSON FOR THE PLAYERS: If the GM keeps dropping hints, someone should probably take notes, yeah?

Journey from Everfree* (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy; class of modern high school students thrust into fantasy setting)

LESSON FOR THE GM: You should probably take some notes yourself, asshole.

Heroes of Applewood Heights* (Genesys, Superheroes, contemporary, ongoing)

LESSON FOR THE GM: Whatever it is, I haven’t learned it yet.

#rpg #blog #dungeons and dragons #campaign recap #d20 modern #gurps #pathfinder #genesys

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vanceencounter-blog · 6 years ago

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My Faves of E3:Part 1

Microsoft

Favorite Game: Cyberpunk 2077- I have been excited for this game based solely on the merits of the Witcher 3. CD Project Red left a great impression on me with that release (I have never played Witcher 1 or 2, don’t @ me). I am typically not willing to fully sign off on a game until I see actual gameplay footage. While the general public did not get footage, we did get an awesome cg trailer that did a great job building excitement for the game.

The world seems vibrant, colorful and unique. It also seems jam packed with many different locations, types of people and activities. We see the V(your customizable protagonist) riding a train, driving in a night rider esque car and while we didn’t see them flying, it seemed to heavily imply that was possible as well. People of various augmented varieties were seen throughout, allowing them to shoot hoops better, lay a beatdown on a sparring construct and even alter their facial appearance.

CDR did a great job with Witcher making a dark and interesting world while not making a game devoid of fun or humor. That tradition seems to carry on here, based on V’s exposition. He states that Night CIty is worst place to live in in America but everyone still wants to live there. More of a town of dreams where bad things happen, than a full on city of darkness a la Arkham City. This sets the tone of the game nicely, along with the pumping synth music, vibrant lights and even the font for the game itself.

I have learned that the game will be first person instead of third. This has caused backlash among the CDR faithful, hoping for a cyberpunk version of The Witcher. I am not at all shocked or appalled by this change. I like seeing developers be able to stretch their wings and make new types of games. If we kept devs locked into doing the same thing forever we would never get Horizon Zero Dawn or Child of Light. As an augmented human being in a futuristic setting, it makes much more sense from a gameplay perspective to be an fps. This allows you to have augmented vision and have better control over aiming your guns.

I can’t wait to hear more about this game. I fear that we won’t have a release date anytime soon but I appreciate CDR’s dedication to their craft. Witcher has bought them some well earned breathing room and freedom to take their time making a polished product. They have also promised to have continual post game free content, as is their tradition. For now I remain excited for the next glimpse they provide us.

Honorable mention: Gears of War 5- I have been a long time fan of the Gears series. I was unemployed and dropped out of school at the time of the first Gears, which meant I had a hell of a lot of time to myself. Time I spent playing a copious amount of GOW. My proudest achievement to this day is “Seriously”, which was presented to those who had 10,000 online ranked kills. It was one of the only online games I actually spent the time and energy learning the glitches to allow me to play on even footing. So you can understand how I may be interested in another entry to the series.

This Gears glimpse did not pick off right where the last game left off. Instead we see a JD with a messed up arm in some sort of incubator like device, with a shaved head and facial scar. Marcus and JD don’t seem to be getting along anymore. Even Kait and JD seem to be at odds. This leads to Kait and Del striking out on their own to find out the truth behind Kait’s newly acquired locust pendant. It was her grandmother’s which seems to lead us to believe Kait may be Queen Myrrah’s grand daughter.

I love the fact we are getting a game about Kait and Del. Marcus has had more than enough time in the spotlight and JD wasn’t terribly interesting. As a PR move, this is genius as well. The game’s main character has never been anyone but a burly white male marine. By following Kait as the main character, it helps silence the criticism the series carries for being too much of a “bro shooter”. This story seems personal and poised to offer many twist and turns. It seemed like there was some definite friction that was gonna happen between our two protagonists. I would be surprised if we didn’t at least play some of the campaign as JD and Marcus but would not be disappointed if that were the case.

From a gameplay perspective we didn’t get to see a tonne of new weapons yet. This is slightly disappointing given Gears’ track record of cool and unique weaponry. I do know a few people who would love to take up those bone sticks and bash people online. There were quite a few new enemies including the locust who gives up said bashing sticks, a leech like creature and some DBs, that seemingly have been taken over by a locust infection of some sort.

Cyberpunk gets the nod here for me, as it is a brand new property in the video game space.

Ubisoft

Favorite Game: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey- I have been a long time Assassins Creed Die hard. The series has been a real roller coaster ride, with the highs of ACII and ACIV Black Flag and the lows of AC III and AC Syndicate. I think Ubi made a smart choice putting the series on pause and reevaluating it’s direction after the general populace started to fatigue on yearly releases. AC Origins proved to be a triumphant return, albeit in a different form. A form which Odyssey seems to embrace and enhance.

Odyssey is even more of an RPG than Origins was. In addition to gear with levels and rarity distinctions, they have added dialogue trees and the the ability to choose your character at the start of the game. RPG elements have been blended into games for years now but I can not get enough of them. The ability to customize your character through their perks and your weapons of choice, lets the player fight in the manner that best suits their playstyle. Now the story can play out in a similar fashion by allowing you to direct character interactions however you please.

Another issue the franchise has had is the division between the life of the Assassins which is grounded in reality and history and the science fiction elements of their present/future story line. They seem to be leaning more into the scifi elements of the future in this entry. Rarely do we see any of the artifacts of the god like alien race. When we do, it tends to just be the apple and every now and then we catch snippets about the number or details of the remaining artifacts. Based on the abilities the spear of Leonidas grants you, it would appear that it is one such item.

I’m torn between the inclusion of this weapon. In terms of the modern day story it makes sense that the Assassin’s and Templars would come into contact with these items and use them to their benefit. The problem is the game is based in the real world so if these items were used frequently and openly in the past, surely we would know about their true power today. At this point I think it would behoove Ubi to either turn up the sci-fi in the past and finish out the story of the gods or drop the god storyline and make these period pieces solely. From a gameplay standpoint I like the idea of getting more interesting weapons. This would allow each Assassin to feel even more unique from game to game and the devs would have more game mechanics available to them.

Regardless of these concerns, I am excited by the freedom the gameplay and story provide. Being able to choose your gender and character without the loss of a defined character is great. Not saying Brodie was the best protagonist in Far Cry 3 but I prefer that over the silence of the Far Cry 5 hero. Any game where I can collect sweet loot and level up always has my attention and as such I remain hyped for AC.

Honorable Mention: The Division 2- The Division is back! Enough time has passed to be excited, especially because I never played any of the DLC. They are doing quite a few things that makes this look more than a rehash of the first game.

First off, the setting is summer time in D.C.. This gave us more variety in scenery, with a jungle environment shown off as well as the typical urban environments. The devs also had more freedom in the clothing options they provided to the player, as they now no longer have to worry about getting frost bitten.

Enemies look a little different this time out. There are now heavily armored enemies that signify they are going to be bullet sponges. This is a welcome change from the first game where a random high level enemy would be taking a hundred bullets to the toque before they would drop. Non-armored enemies do appear but are much easier to dispatch than in the first Division. The time to kill dropping I fully endorse and I appreciate them attempting to ground the game further in realism. Enemies had some new tricks up their sleeves, such as gooping a player to the ground causing them to need their team mate to release them. I hope this is indicative of an effort to have more unique challenges to face along the way.

The enemies aren’t the only ones with a few new tools in their belt though. There were some new gadgets like a device that split into little bee-like things and heat sought an enemy before exploding. The biggest and baddest additions to your armory come in the form of high level special weapons. Once you hit the end game you will be presented the option to wield a grenade launcher, a 50 cal sniper or a torque bowesque cross bow. I am always up for more differentiation between party members and players, so I think this is a great change.

The raids will be launching soon after the release of the game in order to give players a chance to gear up and get high enough level to participate. The raids are 8 players and will require good gear and high level play to conquer. Personally I find this sort of end game content much more interesting than grinding endlessly in the dark zone. We didn’t get much about the dark zone but this first look at the game was more than enough to sate me for now.

In this instance Assassin’s Creed wins based on the hooks it has had in me for years. Division I enjoyed but has a lot to prove. I am hoping they have heard the player’s feedback and are able to turn that into a game with a deep end game, diverse enemies and characters that feel like your own.

Sony

Favorite Game: The Last of Us 2- This is one of those games I think you could release nothing about and still have people lined up outside of their local game store on day one. I think they have done a good job so far giving us just enough information to tantalize without overloading though.

We started on a scene where Ellie is at a dance and life seems to be going a lot better for her these days. Joel isn’t seen but is eluded to by a fellow community member. This seemed like a very deliberate decision to leave him out of the spotlight and make Ellie the focus. In fact in the whole trailer he never showed up once. The developers have stated that this is her story but I would not be surprised if we had the inverse of The Last of Us and have one or two Joel levels. The trailer continues with Ellie dancing with another woman and ends up kissing her. People who never played the The Last of Us dlc may not know Ellie was a lesbian but the devs have stressed this is a part of who she is, making it important to display this. I am all for getting more diverse characters in games over having the 100th old grizzled army vet character. Unfortunately for her life isn’t all kissing girls and dances though.

We quickly cut from her at the dance to being out in the dark, shanking an enemy from behind. The cut scene looked great but in true Naughty Dog fashion the in-game graphics were just as impressive. The first thing that struck me was the visuals but as the trailer progressed it was the movement that stuck with me. Everything Ellie does seems realistic and once she engaged with a group of enemies it became clear the level of immersion we will be experiencing.

The melee combat seems much more refined and interesting in this game. Any weapon an enemy holds Ellie can pick up. Even if it’s a heavy one handed weapon it will just become a slow two handed weapon for her. The melee kills were so detailed and unique they seemed like pre-scripted quick time events. When she killed an enemy their arrows clattered to the ground and Ellie would physically pick them up rather than having them just pop into your inventory when stepping on them. This was a lot to take in before even factoring in the exploration.

There is a jump button now included in the game. This sounds like a game changer when it comes to traversal and the ability to sneak up on enemies. Speaking of sneaking they have significantly increased the nuance of hiding in tall grass. It is no longer a simple “I’m in the grass so I’m invisible” situation. Enemies can now spot you if they are close enough which makes things much more harrowing. You can now duck under cars as well but the enemies will search under them for you. In a section of a supermarket they also showed her squeeze in between shelves to flank her enemies. This breadth of options makes simple scenarios have many different ways to tackle them. In that super market section you will notice enemies tell one another to spread out and search for you. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their AI.

Each enemy knows that you are in a given space once alerted. This leads to them searching for you until they find you and not giving up like in other stealth games. They also have individual names, which their compatriots will call out. Changes like this make every grunt seem like a real person rather than a nameless thug. They also do not have patrol routes but move with a sense of purpose based on contextual clues they have. All in all it seems like Naughty Dog is poised to raise the bar for gaming yet again.

Honorable Mention: Ghost of Tsushima- This is a game we knew next to nothing about but it blew me away with its impressive showing. From the get go it was visually striking and unlike anything else we have seen. The use of color was striking with very muted tones at the start which easily drew the eye to the red tree matching the leaf that the main character, Jin, picked up. Apparently this is very much an open world game and the focus of the demo was a side quest. The fact that there was this level of detail in an open world game is impressive to say the least.

Once the titular ghost arrived on the scene of the crime he runs into three mongols terrorizing the locals. In typical Samurai fashion they square off before he one shots the opposition. The combat seems more involved than something like Arkham Asylum. It reminded me of For Honor where blocks and parries will be vital to survival.

Once Jin got closer to the temple it became a stealth section or so I thought. The devs confirmed he could have went in the front door swords blazing but he probably chose the smarter option. By using his grappling hook he was able to sneak in through the temple roof and dispatch of the enemies silently. The grappling hook is only one of many weapons that our protagonist will unlock throughout the game. It shows the necessary transformation he goes through from samurai to something more, in order to overcome the tremendous threat the mongol hordes pose. There was a section where he stabbed an enemy through a sliding screen door which was very cinematic but was not scripted. The end result would have been the same with backup being called but it would have come to fruition differently based on how you tackled the enemies. As I have mentioned time and time again, I value this level of player agency very much and can’t wait to see all the options available to the player.

In the end he had to confront his ally as she was threatening to kill the proprietor of the temple. Jin states that we should be fighting the mongols rather than out own country men. She chooses to rebutt with steel. Once again the swordplay seems very intense with slow mo dodges and sword clashes. Flaming arrows rained down around your battle and started a blaze as your duel waged on. The fact that this was not a main mission but had such a memorable set piece bodes very well and earned it my honorable mention.

#ghost of tsushima #the last of us 2 #sony #microsoft #ubisoft #gears 5 #cyberpunk 2077 #assassin's creed #The Division 2

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terribleco · 4 years ago

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SkaterXL Review

This is it, folks. We're entering a bold new era of fresh skateboarding games. There are several new titles on the way, and the first out of the door as what can be considered a full, complete product is SkaterXL. Buckle up for the official Terrible Company review.

SkaterXL launched on Xbox One and PS4 last week, on July 28th. The game's road to launch has been long, with an Early Access period on PC (where the game initially launched in December 2018). The game was put together by a very small team at Easy Day Studios, so given the complexity of this game, the long wait was to be expected. There were high expectations from the hungry community that surrounds skateboarding games, so it has a lot to live up to.

Reviewed on Xbox One and PC

youtube

First things first: we can't discuss SkaterXL without mentioning Session. There are so many similarities between both games. Both games claim to be skateboarding simulators. Both use the left and right sticks as left and right feet. Both use triggers to turn. Both aim to recreate a golden triangle of American spots from major cities (although from complete opposite coasts of the US). Both have drafted in real pros and brands to help bolster their authenticity. There is just no getting away from the comparisons here.

What I will say, is that my initial assessment of both games, which pegged Session as potentially being the better game, was wrong. I know it's too early to say, with Session still in early access and a far way off of Version 1.0 (which SkaterXL is obviously now at), but the directions of the two games, although similar, also offer many differences. SkaterXL's path, in context, plays, looks and feels better.

SkaterXL is a much more forgiving and accessible experience all up. Developers Easy Day Studios aren't slaves to the super realistic control scheme, in the same way Session developers Crea-ture Studios are. The ability to steer your board with the left and right stick as a safety net for anyone with muscle memory stuck on Skate3 mode is a really nice touch.

SkaterXL is missing many tricks like late flips (which Session does have), no complies, darkslides, footplants and handplants - but the tricks on offer are designed to look and feel different every time you do them, and in many cases everyone will do them differently. It's the first game where you can truly have and own your style, which is an impressive feat. Easy Day are clearly building a foundation for what may become the most sophisticated skating simulation the world has ever seen.

The game doesn't use canned animations, and relies more on real time physics, which is what makes every trick look unique to you. Grinds depend on the angle and position of your board, which means you can tweak and style certain grinds, or even accidentally land in tricks you didn't expect (which is realistic - you ever go for a Smith and end up in lipslide?). Compare this to Session, where you absolutely have to be doing the right combination of left and right stick movement to do a specific grind, and anything but perfect execution causes a slam.

SkaterXL's slightly more lenient approach is it's saving grace here - if the game was any more punishing it would just be completely frustrating. It balances difficulty perfectly with teaching you just enough to peel away at the surface. Spending time with the game, you begin to figure out tricks that seemed completely impossible to you mere hours earlier.

The game boasts an impressive amount of content, having roped in various talented developers from the game's modding community to bulk out the game with great replicas of real locations, amazing fantasy spots, and a robust replay editor. A large portion of LA can be explored and shredded alongside the smaller levels. The locales are a little dead, with no traffic cars or NPC's walking around, and in a way I understand that this is intentional so you don't get hit by a bus or mess up a line because of a random person - but the levels just feel lifeless without them.

You can play as a custom character, using boards and clothes from some rad, real life brands like Santa Cruz, Element, Lakai and Dickies. The character customisation isn't as expansive as I would like: you only have 4 preset characters to pick from for male and female body types, you can't add facial hair, and the boards and hardware are all the same size. Compared to Session, which has various board widths and board shapes (pool boards are so hot right now) as well as varied sizes of wheels, SkaterXL falls short in this department, and I hope they improve it post launch.

You can play as one of 4 pro skaters - Evan Smith, Tom Asta, Tiago Lemos and Brandon Westgate. The skaters all look kinda dead and robotic when you're watching replays of them. Again, it would be great to see some improvements with facial animations here so the characters feel a little less like action figures. There is a distinct lack of transition rippers, which is kinda weird considering there is a whole map dedicated to transition skating.

youtube

One of my major concerns playing the Early Access build was that the transition skating was kinda borked. It just didn't feel right in the first pass version I played. Everything felt way too difficult and odd, and the controls just didn't gel with how I feel skating transition should be in real life - it was frustrating just feeling like I had to put so much effort in for a simple scratch on the coping, and more often than not it didn't look or behave how it did in real life.

I'm glad to say Easy Day really went all in on trying to get this part of skateboarding right for the full release. Although it could do with some more tutorialisation: The transition skating looks and feels better than Skate 3 when you know exactly what you are doing. The game is missing some footplant and handplant tricks, but it is a ton of fun: Transitions feel like transitions, rather than ledges disguised as ramps.

They even added controls to drop in appropriately from basically any lip trick you can land in, which is a massive improvement over Skate3. Whilst they get lip tricks mostly right, the grabs are kinda difficult: Indy and melon grabs are easy, but you have to contort your hands around the controller in bizarre formations to do other grabs, which is baffling and disappointing.

The other area of transition skating that feels a little poor is bowl skating. There's one proper bowl in the California Skatepark level, and it's a pretty standard clover bowl with pool coping. The pumping in this game is super hard to get right, and it's clear that (for the time being) it mostly works with mini ramps in mind, and not much else. Carving corners slows you down, pumping seems overly difficult to get right in this context, and once you roll in and do one lip trick you never seem able to hit the coping again. I hope they continue to improve this, as well as add more awesome transition parks and spots post launch, and maybe some footplant variants too (fingers crossed for the first video game Sweeper).

Past just skating around, there is a distinct lack of goals or objectives. The game has loose trick and line challenges for every level that you can burn through: frustratingly the game forces you to do these in Regular, so I had to do these in switch! A lot of this mode can be cheated by just doing the tricks required on the spot, rather than skating the obstacles the game wants you to, which is a shame.

Other than this, there is very little else in terms of campaign or progression. I know skateboarding is about finding your own fun, but in a video game, this lack of real goals can just feel like there is nothing to do. A video game where you "find your own fun" should give you more tools for hours of fun (e.g. Minecraft allows you to build practically thousands of things, hunt monsters, etc) - for SkaterXL to be the same kind of game, it would need a robust park editor, or allow you to modify in game spots. As it is the 8 levels are great, but lack any real substance other than "go skate".

Skate, as a franchise, worked because it had these short, medium and long term goals to work toward, and a loose story to pull you through the game, and SkaterXL could benefit from something like this. The achievements offer a little something to work toward - for example there are cumulative goals such as total distance in grinds, as well as big, cool one off challenges like ollie a drop of 5 metres or more.

It just isn't enough though: I would've liked more crafted challenges that make you think a bit more and allow you to get creative. Giving the player access to all levels, all gear, and all clothing from the outset, with no structure to what it is you're meant to do, might sit well with some hardcore skateboarders, but it doesn't make a great "video game".

But still, even with this complaint, the gameplay is fun, accessible and a worthy successor to Skate 3. The best way to describe SkaterXL's approach is that it's a happy medium between Skate3 and Session - it's trying something new and maybe a little bit difficult to understand like Session, but it's doing so in combination with the best lessons learnt from Skate.

As a simulator of technical street skateboarding, it excels expectation. As a video game, it doesn't yet quite hit the mark that will make it the cult classic Skate3 was, and suffers from some polish and User Experience issues you would never get in a similar game made by EA. My hope is in time they'll update and make this thing even better. Overall, though, at this moment it's an impressive package for anyone looking for a decent game about skateboarding.

#skateboard guff

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ges-sa · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://ges-sa.com/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-breakpoint-review/

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint Review

Imagine Jurassic Park but with drones. The island of Auroa, owned by Jace Skell (The owner of Skell Tech) is an island overrun by the arms and corruption of a corporate gone evil. The island was supposed to be a world of innovation and coined “World 2.0” by Jace Skell, this was not the case though. Skell Tech is a major tech weapon producer of the US Government and comes under major investigation and public eyes turn to them when they are thought to have their hands in some corruption and dealings. The Wolves, an ex-US military Spec-ops, take over the island and take hostage employees of Skell Tech. When the island goes offline, the CIA launch a Ghost Recon operation to find out exactly what is going on and take down the Wolves. A throwback to Wildlands sees Anthony “Tony” Perryman aka Nomad, come back into the light as the Military helicopters sent into Auroa are taken down by a mysterious projectile. And so it begins…

BEAUTIFULLY OVERBOARD

Breakpoint reminds me of those intellectuals that overexplain something and go into so much detail that everyone leaves saying “HUH”. The game brings a beautiful island into our views with different environments to concur as well as enemies, giving it that extra touch of change and difference from mission to mission. Here is the thing though, as much variant as there is; it is too much, sometimes taking you a good 10 minutes to reach your objective to actually start the mission. The problem does not lie with the travelling because they put fast travel to points on the map; the problem lies in the “too much of a good thing”. Personally, on open world games I like to roam and take full advantage of the game’s offering, however, I felt myself going mindlessly through missions just because I did not want to trek across the entire map just to go through an entire mission to find 1 blue print. The story became mechanical and I lost that entire “oh look a butterfly” side mission journey that makes playing the game worth the time.

WORTH THE TIME THOUGH?

When it came to the actual gameplay, I was extremely surprised at how much fun I had running through missions due to the playstyles of each mission. Playing at a higher difficulty turned up the importance of each encounter with the Wolves. Strategically planning an entry point and who to take down first, how to stay out of sight of automated turrets and watch-drones made for exciting time spent during the missions. The ease of the controls with the keyboard is something you don’t see very often on PC, easy to learn and quick to engage. The efforts put into the objectives made it an amazing experience, with the thinking factor of the game turned up to max I felt myself engrossed in missions.

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT

If you played Wildlands, you’ll know the general foundation of Breakpoint. In fairness, it’s a follow up title with links between the two. However, the same way wildlands felt and came across when it came out is the same way Breakpoint feels at this point. The title feels unfinished and not polished enough to call itself a AAA title. Wildlands did eventually see major updates some out that made it a lot smoother and more fun for the masses, which saw it draw a large fan base. The issue I faced with Breakpoint was the great number of issues I came across and the raw interactions I seemed to bump into. Visually I did not encounter many glitches or bugs but boy did I struggle with simple things like the camera getting stuck between taking cover or the character model clipped when I transition from cover to cover indoors. There was one point where I was laying on a rock to snipe into a camp and every time I went ADS the character model went full scorpion fit mode and start convulsing. A lot of these issues made me feel like the game was rushed and was not played through enough during the BETA phase. Perhaps the vast space and interactions makes it near impossible to get these kinds of things right and UBISOFT is relying on us to report back these issues, but then again I ask, why was the BETA not lengthened for this?

INTRIGUING AND PLANKED

In a world where Jon Bernthal is your antagonist, you would think “boring” would be the last thing someone says about this story. Well, you think right. The story is somewhat exciting and a little predictable on my end but that might be me. Learning your link to the now leader of the “bad guys” is an awesome experience in itself, but figuring out why and what is happening takes a backseat to this (Which I think was a smart move). Creating that personal character development and interaction creates a broken bind that is difficult to explain. The story is told well and characters are portrayed with great voice work and some awesome amazing writing. The main issue is the NOC side of the game; I felt like I was shooting walking scarecrows, mindless sacks of meat that were nothing but targets to slow down your mission. It was so bad at one point I restarted the game and turned up the difficulty to maximum so that I could get the best experience! Getting one shot by a screaming sack of meat was better than being stealthy just to shoot a mindless goof in the back of the head.

FUN WITH THE MASSES

The title seems thrive in the co-op function and cannot be stopped when you and your mates are sneaking around communicating your movements and actions in discord. The fun can be had with this, especially when you play like a spec ops team, making calls out and distracting the enemies together (like Wildlands before). Jumping into the PVP side of games usually comes to me quite naturally but I found myself not really worrying about that side of the game quite yet and only jumped in for a few rounds just to unlock my items and achievements from this. The PVP section is quite fast paced compared to the main game and the play styles needs to switch drastically if you’re a stealthier play like myself. I did have lots of fun but I would not say that this is even the 3rd or 4th strongest point about this game.

QUALITY TO COME

In all honesty, I believe in this game and the Ghost Recon titles has a whole, I trust in the developers and the studio to add more to this game like they did to Wildlands. With character customization and the level of skill tree progression, insane objective boards and crafting mechanics the game sure has potential to become one the other greatest objective based looter shooter out there in my opinion, if they devs choose to lead it that route. I say grab it if you’re a Recon fan, try it and if you don’t like it follow the patches until you see the changes you want because trust me they will come.

PRICE (ZAR)

AVAILABLE ON

RELEASE DATE

DEVELOPERS

R799 – R1069

PS4, XBOX, PC And Stadia (Soon)

05 October

Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft

youtube

#TomClancy #GhostRecon #Breakpoint # Ubisoft #Review

#AnvilNext #Breakpoint #PS4 #Tom Clancy #Ubisoft #Ubisoft Paris #Xbox One #Gaming #Reviews

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mixtapesessionsradioshow-blog · 7 years ago

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Brunt Poet: “ I try to capture as many aspects of my experiences in my music and use it as a true form of expression as possible.”

We had a chance to sit down and speak to Marcus Mandible aka Brunt poet, a Hip Hop artist from Brighton UK, and frontman of the Rap / Rock band Brunt Poetry. 2017 has been a big year - having performed solo and with Brunt Poetry across the country and releasing new music for both projects.The debut self released solo album "Don't Worry About It" has been featured online & on radio stations in the UK, US and the rest of EU and has received positive reception as did the Brunt Poetry project "Dirty South / Green Fish".

Some hail him as a combination of Joe Strummer, Mike Skinner, John Cooper Clark which just shows the flair and potential of Brunt Poet and his projects!

Following is our “conversation by email” about his work, his story, and his creative process.

Nodef: Who is Marcus Mandible aka the Brunt Poet?

Brunt Poetry: I'm a hip hop artist & promoter from Brighton, UK and I have worked with several producers on different projects that are out now including my debut solo EP - "Don't Worry About It".

"DWAI" was produced by Mike Wilson, Sam Winter, Harry Fulls & Joy Isernia at Mike & Sams studio in Brighton and fuses Hip Hop, EDM & Spoken Word.

I also front a rap/rock band called "Brunt Poetry" which is where that name came from.The Brunt Poetry line up is - John Townsend on drums, Ed Lamb on Bass and Charlie Welfare on guitar. We are all from Brighton!

Nodef: What sound suits you best? Do you change your approach according to the genres?

Brunt Poetry: I had been performing Spoken Word regularly in Brighton for a year or so before Brunt Poetry formed and I enjoyed the change from a 100% free verse to fitting lyrics between bars of music. Nothing quite compares to performing with live drums and bass hammering down whilst you spit bars.

At the time Brunt formed I was also working on solo material and the band went under many line up changes which made gigging difficult - until it became what it is today with a solid line-up - and so things took a natural course.

2017 has been big for my solo work - In January I released "Don't Worry About It” (EP) & "Stash Tin” (EP) and most recently I released "VOD N ICE (EP)" produced by Cloud 9 of Yogocop Records.

The style of each EP is different and I enjoyed switching it up on each one.

There are also two brand new Brunt Poetry songs available through Bandcamp, which once again totally switch up the style.

To be honest I enjoyed making all of them equally and only hope each one finds the right ears.

Nodef: How did Brighton shaped your expression?

Brunt Poetry: My life has been full of events that have inspired my writing. From success to loss. I try to capture as many aspects of my experiences in my music and use it as a true form of expression as possible. Although I love a good punchline and boldness.

My lyricism started off as a politically driven spoken word act years ago but the introduction of instrumentals and the full band projects allowed me to expand my wordplay and work within a different context.

Brighton is a small, transient and incredibly busy city full of intricate and complex relationships. I don't think I would be quite who I am today if it wasn't for this city.

youtube

Brunt Poet - Potential

Nodef: How did Bill Hicks influenced you? Who else?

Brunt Poetry: Bill Hicks is a legend ! His brutally honest comedy has always rung home with me and I have to thank my dad for getting me into his work.

Other great (musical) influences on me have been Rage Against The Machine , Linkin Park , Aesop Rock, Plan B, Skinnyman, Taskforce, Bob Dylan, Wyley ... to name a handful. I’ve always listened to an eclectic mix of genres but also always been drawn to lyricism.

I’m very sad to hear about Chester's (Linkin Park) death. They were very influential to me and I always respected his honesty surrounding his troubles.

Nodef: Take me through your creative process.

Brunt Poetry: Often my creative process starts from freestyling to myself at home whilst making a cuppa or something. I wrote "Open Mic Knight" entirely from freestyle whilst my mate beatboxed on the sofa at our house. It was only later with the band that we polished it and fine tuned it. It still stands as the most popular Brunt Poetry song!

Actually the whole of the "Stash Tin" EP produced by Joy Isernia (a long term collaborator and friend) was written from freestyle audio recordings from a gig the night before in Bristol. That's why the EP has such a natural and sometimes imperfect flow to it.

The art of the one take vocal recording is a hip hop classic! I’d also like to take this opportunity to big up "Immigrant Swing" for having us at their album launch, which is where the lyrics for Stash Tin were originally freestyled. Awesome band. Awesome night. Nodef: What kind of stories are you trying to tell? Do you channel your frustration with the world into your lyrics directly or do you take more subtle approach?

Brunt Poetry: I try and tell stories without making my music too linear. I like people to take their own story from my lyricism so hopefully my tracks make different people feel differently. I definitely channel my emotions into the lyrics but I also try not to let my personal opinion or bias take control. I also only like to release things that make me laugh or smile. Everything I do has a dry British wit about it and retains a tongue in cheek nature.

youtube

Brunt Poet - VOD N ICE Full EP

Nodef: You are an indie artist in the UK, can you live just from your music or...?

Brunt Poetry: My money from music comes in from various sources BUT that's not what its all about and definitely not what I got into music for. But yeah getting paid is great. I still work part time to keep things ticking. For me the most important thing is continued support for the scene and building the network. Who knows where it will go. We are all in it together. I love sharing my work and promoting others! Nodef: What’s your approach to making things happen today?

Brunt Poetry: When a project is right, you can feel that from the start. Keep pushing forward with the people who push with you. Energy!

Nodef: What are your plans for the future?

Brunt Poetry: More live shows! Next catch me at New Cross Inn, London, October 12 playing with "The Fremen". More live shows! Next catch me at New Cross Inn, London, October 12 playing with "The Fremen".

Nodef: What's on your playlist right now?

Brunt Poetry: I'm currently listening to the new KRS ONE album on repeat! The World Is Mind! Dope. He's still got it.

You can check his newest videos on:

www.youtube.com/marcusmandible And download his music via: www.marcusmandible.bandcamp.com Follow Brunt Poet on:

www.facebook.com/bruntpoet

www.twitter.com/bruntpoet

www.instagram.com/bruntpoet

#artist #interview #indiemusic #spoken word #spoken poetry #poetry #poets on tumblr #hip hop #uk

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deadly-vuu · 8 years ago

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January Faves:

Nyx Cosmetics Strawberry Milk Jumbo Pencil - This really only makes an excellent base under my sheen or super light eyeshadows to make them pop, it’s really only why I wear it atm. $4.50. Is it worth it? Yes.

Milk Makeup Blur Stick - Um. Ok, so lets talk. This is awesome. When it was first announced it wasny /really/ clear wtf this was/is and I got it solely because of Jkissa before it’s official launch through her link. And well, I love it. It wears VERY well, holds all day, doesnt budge and is v soft. It goes on easy which is great, as well as clear despite its skin tone color. Freakin’ love it. $36. Is it worth it? Yes

Milk Makeup Dry Shampoo - It was time (albeit late) that I start taking better care of my hair that I frequently color. Washing every day is bad for your hair and scalp esp since I have very dry skin normally (not just in winter) and I always need moisture. While I dont mind the natural oils, it doesnt always make my hair look....uh clean. This is actually quite helpful and I’m grateful. Plus, the white tea scent is lovely. I only use this when I am going to work or out with friends (as to not gross them out compeletely) since I only hair wash (I still shower normally, derp) about once every 7-8 days right now. $14. Is it worth it? Yes

Promise Polish Cold Eyes Warm Heart Thermal Polish - This does work. I actually bought more because of how well it works. Its only down fall is its chunky and idk a good way to put it on where it doesnt look clumpy. I need to find a way to put it on where it looks like the etsy pics lmao. $6 - $12. Is it worth it? Yes

Coloured Raine Cosmetics Queen of Hearts Palette - I was REALLY super on the fence about this and I really had to have it so I bit the bullet and lemme just say - that was the best gd bullet I ever bit. LOVE the colors and the pigmentation. I’m reaching for this palette very often which is great since its so versatile and blendable. $50. Is it worth it? Yes.

Lush Cosmetics Aquamarina - Look, I got redness that is stubborn as all heckie heck. My color correctors werent doing dick (Stila 1-step...which is quite pricey and I had no idea I could return/swap but since I’m 3/4 way through it...its too late. What a waste tbh). A lot of folks dont seem to dig the scent or texture and idk why. I think its quite lovely and refreshing scent-wise. I also really dont mind the texture at all either. I put this one on in the mornings when I wake up, it’s soooo nice. $12.95 - $31.95. Is it worth it? Yes

Lush Cosmetics Let The Good Times Roll - I originally got this one as a sample from Lush and turns out, I love it. Tried not to, it got me, I love it, went back and got the biggest one I could lmao. I wear this one after makeup to just make sure my face is hella super clean, matte and soft. $12.95 - $31.95. Is it worth it? Yes

Lush Cosmetics Magical Morninga - This is an excellent primer and I massage/melt this one into my skin after I wash with Aquamarina or LTGTR (depending on the day and time of day, yes it matters for me) It mattifies, keeps redness down, softens skin and still keeps my stubborn redness at bay. Also, it smells nice and fresh as well. $24.95. Is it worth it? Yes

Lush Cosmetics Grease Lightning - YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO this clear is goop is the best clear goop lol. Doenst have the best scent but I dont really mind since I’m generally going to put something else on top of it. I generally only put this on after I wash my face or the redness is really being a bitch ass. $14.95. Is it worth it? Yes

Additional notes on the Lush products: For the pricing, I’m really quite glad that a little goes a long way AND I know I could have opted for Cupcake or Dont Look At Me and Rosy Cheeks but I’m trying to stay away from products that need to be refrigerated between uses. Our fridge is...they’d get lost and go bad before I ever found them again. It’s not ideal atm so I’m super glad these alternatives work just as good/

Oh No’s!:

Too Faces Cosmetics Peachsicle Lip Oil - Well, I’ll be honest. I got this because “why not” and, it...is streaky? It smells absolutely delicious, yes but it does not apply well and its unfortunate. I didnt have it in long enough to decide how it wears. It was too streaky and I could not get another layer down. I will attempt to try this one again at a later date. It could be that my lips are just too dry for this product or something. $19. Is it worth it?

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nolimbz-blog · 7 years ago

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Destiny 2 - Week One

Destiny 2 is here and it’s everything I wanted it to be... with one potentially scarring blemish.

I want to start by saying that Destiny 2 is polished, beautiful, intriguing, and better than it’s predecessor. I can only speak to my experience on console, as I do not have a PC that could run the beta, but boy is it something special. If you enjoyed Destiny, Destiny 2 will give you a little tinge in the pants area.

I feel like I learned more about Destiny-lore in the first 5 minutes of Destiny 2 than what was ever trickled out to me in my time with the first game. The cut-scenes that focus on the main antagonist are the shining example of how focused Bungie is on telling a story this time around. I’ve all but stopped listening to podcasts and music while playing, as to not miss any details. I remember starting the original Destiny trying to do the same thing but realized there wasn’t much to grasp onto in-game, so I pressed play on the podcasts. This time around, I wouldn’t dare. I don’t think we’ll walk away from the game in awe of it’s narrative but a decent story in-addition to it’s solid game-play is more than welcome, in my eyes.

The new-and-improved Crucible is refreshing. I’ve only played two Competitive matches and about the same in the game’s Casual matchmaking. In both, I have experienced lengthy wait-times while searching for other players but once in the match, things ran smoothly.

It feels like the balancing in the Crucible is far better this time around. Maybe it’s too soon to tell but it’s seems like the meta has yet to be established. No one-gun seems to be dominating. I know during the beta there were complaints that Fusion rifles were OP (over-powered) but they seem to have been dialed back. I can’t wait to spend some more time with the Crucible once I’ve hit level 20 and can start fooling around with the “post-game” weapons and gear.

I think it’s safe to say that Destiny 2 is - and will continue to be - a success but a lot of players, including myself, have a bone to pick with Bungie over one particular change to player customization.

Shaders, which allow you to change the color of your gear and now the color of your weapons, have been made into a one-time use consumable. In the original Destiny, Shaders could be used at the players discretion and you could keep them forever.

My guess is that because you can now use Shaders to change the color of your guns, Bungie wanted to make them more plentiful. Which after awhile, you’d build-up quite a collection of Shaders. Making them consumable balances that out. But the change has been the main complaint of players. Mostly because of one more layer that makes the change to Shaders seem more nefarious.

Shaders are now the premier consumable in Destiny 2′s Eververse (in-game store) which must be purchased with Silver, the in-game currency that is purchased with real-life money. Silver came to the original Destiny approximately half-way through the game’s life cycle but it was mostly used to purchase emotes which was a lot less problematic.

Players are frustrated because - especially in the early-game - weapons and gear are swapped constantly. Destiny revolves around hunting for better loot. With the new Shader system, if you have a load-out and you apply Shaders to your weapons and gear to be an all-black hunter but soon after unlock a new exotic Auto-Rifle, you won’t be able to remove the Shader from your old Kinetic weapon to apply it to your new Auto-Rifle. You’ll have to hope you have another one of those shaders OR YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEND MONEY ON A SERIES OF LOOT BOXES HOPING YOU’LL ACTUALLY GET IT BACK. WHICH MAY NOT HAPPEN.

Bungie’s director, Luke Smith, released a statement on Twitter: “Shaders are earned through gameplay: leveling, chests, engrams, vendors. We expect you’ll be flush w/ Shaders as you continue to play. When you reach level 20, Shaders will drop more often: vendor rewards, destination play and endgame activities. Shaders are now an ongoing reward for playing. Customization will inspire gameplay. Each planet has unique armor and Shader rewards. With D2, we want statements like “I want to run the Raid, Trials, or go back to Titan to get more of its Shader” to be possible.”

Hopefully this means we’ll have a plethora of Shaders after we reach the level cap. Otherwise, I’m sure players will continue to complain until something has to be done. I’m sure Bungie doesn’t want to have such an awesome game on their hands that also has a startling skid-mark on it’s underpants from jump-street. We’ll just have to wait and see...

Despite the original Destiny’s rough launch, it redeemed itself with time. I think we’ll either grow to see Bungie’s vision or they’ll make the right changes to get things back on track. I also want to reiterate that Destiny 2 is miles better than the original Destiny, even in it’s... final form *hates myself*. Plus, who are we kidding? We’re gonna continue to play Destiny for it’s game-play no matter what but the players with the fortitude to avoid the micro-transactions will be the shining champions of 2017 gaming. It’s the people that will spend $50 on Silver to get a virtual U-Haul full of Shaders that will exacerbate this issue. This could be the crack in the door for consumable skins in games. Consumable skins are not fun and it comes across as gross corporate greed. Creative alternatives need to be found because balancing means less money and I find it hard to believe Activision will give the thumbs-up on less money. But bad-will with your consumers also means less money as well. These things aren’t easy.

Developers deserve to make money and with the $60 price-point gamers have grown accustomed to despite inflation, games are technically cheaper than they’ve ever been. Developers have to look for other ways to pull-in money, so things like micro-transactions are introduced. This is just an unsavory, although likely WAY more profitable than emotes, way of pulling in money to continue to make improvements to the game. Bungie took what was a player’s favorite way of customizing their Guardians and put a price tag on it but shrouded it in a veil of RNG(random number generator) under the guise of encouraging game-play. What was once simple, is now complicated... because of money. Go figure.

-Ben Scott

#destiny 2 #destiny #bungie #playstation #ps4 #xbox #xbox one #gaming #video games

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dreamharvestgames · 7 years ago

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Dev Blog - June 2017

Justin - Creative Director

Hi lovely readers, I hope you've been enjoying the summer weather we've been having.

This month I've been working on wire-framing our menu and game systems. This is everything that happens outside of matches including our contract system.

What's the Contract system you say? Well, this is something that's very much still in the concept stage, but in theory, it’s a mission system that allows us to deliver both narrative-driven objectives for each of the levels we'll be launching with, training missions for each of the scripts, daily/monthly events and more. It’ll be wrapped up in a cool narrative package that will hopefully envelope you in the world of Failure: NeuroSlicers and your role as an unstoppable Slicer in the NeuroNet.

With this system, we'll be able to give you a constant flow of evolving narrative, cool progression based rewards for completing contracts that allow you to customize your avatar and scripts and allow you to grow your character as you spend more time in the network, but most importantly will allow us to expand on the game even after full release in super interesting ways.

We'll have lots more to share in regard to this system and more down the line, but for the time being, here are some amazing fun to look at wireframes (I promise, they're fun to look at 😊)

Until next month…

PS. Don’t forget to join our Discord Channel if you want to discuss anything about the game with us; we'd love your input.

Sven - CTO / Lead Programmer

Yay, another time to forget what I did last month.

From what I can remember, I mostly focused on porting our game server from C# to Java. In case that seems like a stupid idea to you (because you think C# is much nicer, which I agree) let me elaborate a bit why this was necessary.

First, the original server was never really intended for production use and was mostly a prototype to test the network functionality, so it had to be redone. This open question is why do it in Java instead of C#. There were a few reasons for this:

The rest of the backend systems are already written in Java which was mostly done because a lot of frameworks only exist for Java.

After doing some benchmarks comparing Netty and DotNetty I concluded that Netty was performing a lot better than DotNetty (with the same load Netty used 10% CPU vs. DotNetty which used 25% CPU and quite a bit more ram). While this would, in many cases, this doesn’t really matter that much in most server applications, our game server is meant to handle a lot of concurrent games, therefore, network performance was really important.

<bias> I assume it’s easier to run Java than .net on servers. I should mention here that I worked as a sysadmin for a long time and I’m used to running Java applications. So, I’ve got a lot experience doing that but very little running .net applications. </bias>

To annoy Milcho.

Slightly off-topic: does anyone know a good Raspberry Pi alternative (or some other cheap computer) with a lot more ram (something like 4GB+)? I was trying to find something simple/cheap where I could install the whole server backend + game server for testing and having something we can easily take with us when going to events. If you have any good suggestion contact me on Twitter: @i_gamedev

Milcho - Lead Designer / Gameplay Programmer

Salutations, “I am here, ready to enlighten you, but are you ready to be enlightened?”

I don’t know why you thought this might be an actual quote, but it definitely isn’t. I make up things all the time. In any case, let’s go over what’s been happening in the gameplay department of Failure for the last month.

First, we’ve always been planning this massive meta-game on top of the RTS that’s we’re making to add a whole different layer on which you can focus on. The first few weeks of the month involved figuring exactly how that system might work and how it would integrate with our other systems. We got pretty far, but as game development often goes, we’ve put that on holds since it was too awestriking and dangerous for the rest of the team. We’re going to revisit it in a few months and prototype a few versions to get the best out of it.

The rest of the time I spent thinking about how much I like doughnuts and how to get them in my diet without my dentist going after me with a stick. During that time, I also started prototyping a new and improved resource systems for the game, which was a huge task. We’re talking about changing something that has been fundamental for a game that has been around for almost 3 years and making sure that everything works in the aftermath. The main reasons for this redesign is to reduce the effect of snowballing, making sure that players that are losing a match have a chance to come back from possible defeat, though we also want to make sure that our matches stay within the 5 - 10-minute length. So far, it’s going great though and we’re definitely on the right track. I’ll update you on its progress next month.

Speaking of next month, I guess that’s when I’ll be talking to you again. Until then, make sure to keep your doughnut intake healthy (whatever that means for you).

Loïc - Art Director / Designer

This month I’ve been focusing on polishing our UI and feedback, along with work on the new deck system.

In term of preproduction, I wrote and sketched concepts for all our nine environments and subsequent levels, tying the specific objectives of each level to the themes of the environment it takes place in.

These are just quick prototypes of possible levels and are in no way the final look, layout or colour/theme scheme, but this is all part of our process.

Kelvin - VFX Artist / UI Artist

Yo! More UI going on this month! We really had to figure out a type of UI frame/theme to use. We wanted it to be modern, stylized, and minimal. Both Loic and I had to work together, throwing sketches back and forth, to get to the iteration that we are at now.

There were tons of iterations beforehand but we got to this. We've designed a pattern for the background of the frames also that connected organically but with strong and strict lines.

Another exciting thing we added is the notification system! There are times you're focusing on a part of the map and you don't notice your buildings being attacked. DO NOT FRET! I worked with Milcho on this system that will notify you when something is being attacked and which direction it's in! It's extremely helpful and will really help you on your game.

Adding to the notification system, we added a very, very simple change that shows feedback on your units being attacked. When a unit is attacked, it should flash white now. Simple, but awesome 😊

I also worked on an FX this month! Woo! It took a bit to get it right, but once you spend tech, the tech fragment will shatter in this cool flash of glitchiness! It's a very small part of the screen, but it turned out very nice.

Amelie - UX Researcher / Writer

So, what happened on my side since the last time, well, mostly to be honest holidays 😊 I drafted some wireframes for the deck builder and some other menus before leaving and while I was gone Justin polished those and the guys discussed it, made some improvements and I came back only to have to say "Wow that's awesome! Let's put this all in and test it!" So, Georgia was really cool, I encourage everybody who likes mountaineering and good wine to visit, trust the French girl even just the wine is worth it!

In Georgia every time you drink, someone makes a toast, it's tradition and if it may seem a little funny to us (especially because the toasts can be really long) they take it really seriously. And then, if you drink often I mean, you get used to it and you learn to enjoy it, you know to learn to be grateful for something in your life every day (or 4 times a day depending how much you like their wine...) so here is my toast, despite Creative England really not getting how video games work and putting us in a really shitty position, and our boss being really rather britishly cross you know... the team is still there 😊

Everybody is still super motivated to make a good game, we're not here for the money we're here for the passion of creating an experience that we really hope you will enjoy and remember. So, to passion and to the sleepless nerds in this team who make this game come to life! Cheers bros!

Writing wise I had made a good start on the faction’s motivations and identity, I also worked on our main character background, started to imagine what brought him to become a slicer...

So now that I'm back I have loads of testing to do, and my objective for the next week will be to take the time to read the mountain of level design the team has produced, see how the maps objectives can fit into mission stories and last but not least nail the first version of our intro narrative!

Daniel - Composer

Coffee shops. Who would have thought that the music of Failure NeuroSlicers would sound like coffee shops?

Now, re-read that first sentence in the voice of Christopher Walken and you begin to enter the rabbit hole of strange that I've entered since the last newsletter. While 'the rabbit hole of strange' sounds like a particularly psychedelic category of pornography, I'm in fact referring to a world of sound that surrounds most of us each and every day: the inner workings of our electrical goods.

By using an induction coil pick up (a device similar to the pick-ups on an electric guitar), I've been able to record the electronic signals of just about the entire contents of my house and — to the concern of some patrons — most of my local shops. It transpires that many of our electrical goods are host to wonderful, bizarre and, sometimes, frightening sounds; many of these sounds can be very rhythmical and full of unusual accents and musical phrases. By 'frightening' I don't mean that our devices are low-key telling us to worship Satan, but that they create sounds you wouldn't expect (particularly the payment terminal at my local coffee shop). If you happen to have an induction coil mic and nothing better to do, try recording a PS4 while you turn it off from the system menu — it really is hours of fun for all the family.

By recording all of this information with the coil pick up, I've been able to transcribe the rhythms of some electrical items and assign those rhythms to different musical instruments to create sonic fragments that cross the boundary between natural and man-made — much like the Neuro Net. For some of the less rhythmical recordings, I've been able to alter, distort and pitch the electronic sounds in Pro Tools and create some interesting instruments (my favourite so far is the synth I've created from my beard trimmer). It is this blend of natural and un-natural, of 'above the line' and 'below the line', that will form the music of Failure NeuroSlicers and, sometimes, that will even include the sounds of my local coffee shop.

Until next time.

Bobby - Communications Manager

I'm used to being the behind the scenes guy for Justin and the team and, on occasion, the doting fanboy of Failure: NeuroSlicers as it evolves. Watching the team work, extremely, hard makes you want to try and do more and one of my tasks is to try and identify community opportunities, specific to the game, and connect with a wider audience; not just from game genre perspective, like RTS, but think about the style and story of the world that will pull fans from all areas of the gaming community to keep them up to date with what's going on within the game.

I'm hoping those already reading this will be subscribed to all our various communication channels, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our newsletter but sometimes these can be dependent on, you, the community to scroll by it in your news feed, which, if you're like me subscribe to a lot of feeds, and will sometimes miss content as it becomes, what I like to dub, a complacent channel we go into autopilot when using.

How to prioritise communication channels? It's a daily thought for me. How many users are subscribed to each channel, what to publish to first can be difficult as it's a changing landscape but recently Discord is becoming more and more popular with the gaming community because of its real-time forum nature. The younger generation these days, the millennials, are used to instant messaging, they don't want to wait for emails or a post reply, they want to know someone is on the other end of the window ready to engage and that's why we're going to start pushing a ton of content there on a daily basis.

It's a great platform with so much control, not only with chat but voice too. We get asked about Alpha testing all the time and one of our recent meetings play testing came up. As you can imagine we're a small team and everyone getting time together across multiple time zones can be tricky so if it's something you'd love to get involved with please come and join our Discord group. We'll be approaching active users who really want to get their hands on an early alpha build, help playtest and provide valuable feedback to continue to evolve the game leading up to its release.

Also, share, it's so important to us we get the game out there and you're all instrumental in helping us do that.

#video games #gamedev #games #cyberpunk #rts #real-time strategy (media genre)#real-time strategy

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hammerraptor · 4 years ago

Text

Have less than one year before Microsoft cuts off Windows 7

When Windows 10 launched in 2015, PC users were confronted with a dilemma. Microsoft had in many enthusiasts eyes been making blunder after blunder in their efforts to turn what we all thought was a perfectly functional operating system into some kind of idiot, friendly, touchscreen fisher-price. Looking nonsense and on top of trying to fix what ain't broke, Microsoft wanted unprecedented access to their users, data and resolved to just force system updates when you're right in the middle of something and all for what DirectX 12. So many power users ended up sticking with Windows 7 and are still using it today, but they have a problem. If you're one of these individuals, you now have less than one year before Microsoft, cuts off Windows 7.

You may not want to risk an upgrade, but, as Aragorn said, to fit in in the Great Hall of EDS upgrading is upon you whether you would risk it or not. Wait. I don't think that's quite what he said. You know what else is close. I can almost smell it. So close, that's our sponsor! It won't help you with your Windows, 7 problem, but they still G skills. Trident II royal series, ddr4 memory, features a polished, aluminium heat spreader, that's available in both gold or silver and a crystalline light bar that radiates beautiful RGB check it out at the link below [ Music ].

Now you might not realize this, but in spite of Microsoft, practically giving away Windows 10 even to those with pirated installations, most users stuck with Windows 7, rather than upgrading, either to eight or ten something that only finally changed late last year in December, net market share Reported that Windows 10 installations rose above Windows 7 for the first time and now account for nearly 41 percent of the user base compared to Windows 7 37 percent. Now, hopefully, that number is going to continue to go down as we get closer to January 14. 2020.

The day that Windows 7 dies because otherwise we are gon na - have some serious problems because, yes, yes, ok, Windows, 7, it's not gon na die. It'S not like you just turn on your computer and it doesn't turn on anymore. It'S just going to stop receiving feature, updates, bug, fixes and, most importantly, security updates, which are very important if you want to, I don't know, continue Oh safe using the Internet. Now, as it did for previous versions of Windows, Microsoft is offering extended security updates, or, yes, you, ECU for Windows, 7 enterprise and pro additions up until January 2023. But this extended the update service won't come cheap and adding insult to injury. The price will double each year, so three years of support is gon na cost.

A hundred and seventy-five bucks for enterprise licenses and three hundred and fifty for windows 7 pro og, also, if you're a mega ball or PC gamer thinking, yeah no problem. 350 bucks looks like what mid tier graphics card. Sorry, I've got some bad news for you, too. Esu is only available for volume license subscriptions which are usually held by companies or schools. So business is running Windows, 7 machines on Microsoft's, Azure cloud as part of the Windows virtual desktop program, those folks get ESU for free, but again baller gamers. I would imagine that scenario doesn't apply to you. So then, if you're just a regular Windows, 7 user with a personal license, what can you do well before we get too deep into your options?

Let'S take a look at why people want to hold on to Windows 7, like that grudge against their brother for stealing the last piece of their birthday cake, even though they told them that they were saving it for later and hid it away way in the back Of the fridge - so you wouldn't know it was there Windows 7 was, is kind of fantastic. It'S mature, stable and reliable and offers a great amount of control over the way it behaves. Its interface is functional, familiar and extremely customizable, and it's got all your settings just the way that you like them. I mean. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone upgrading now has a program or two that would either require a new, not to mention costly license to run on Windows 10 or that isn't available for it at all and there's other little creature comforts typing in the search bar Retrieves results that make sense instead of a Windows setting you weren't, looking for or a web result from big windows, 7.

Doesn'T incessantly ask you to send more of your personal information to Microsoft or decide on its own when it's time to update whether you like it or not, updates are available? Sorry, you know what I'm actually kind of in the middle of something kind of Roger that updating now, but as awesome as Windows 7 is. There are quite a few cons to staying with it past the end date for extended support. Besides lacking the latest antivirus protections, Windows 7 won't have Windows, 10 features like device guard, UEFI, secure boot and Windows, hello, which offer higher overall security for your system, and while gaming performance is about the same, some things like system boot times are slower in Windows 7.

Compared to Windows 10, so it turns out Microsoft, software engineers weren't sitting around playing beer pong for the last 78 years. Also, if you're worried about future proofing at all, which you should be at least a little bit. Windows, 7 is not a great bet, as software and even hardware makers eventually do stop providing support for legacy operating systems. So, even if you pay for es, you support only lasts for three years and costs more than a Windows 10 license and you might be able to upgrade for free anyway, yep, even though Microsoft officially ended their offer for a free upgrade to Windows. 10 from Windows. 7 or 8 many users have reported successful, fully activated upgrades by using Microsoft's official upgrade utility, and even if you have to pay bare with me for a moment here, Windows 10 might not be as bad as you think. There are a lot of happy users out there who appreciate its combination of the efficiency and customization of Windows 7 and the modern design of Windows 8 and despite Microsoft's best efforts.

There is actually a fair bit that you can do to minimize their data collection and postpone system updates until absolutely necessary, or at least until it's convenient, so we're gon na have some resources for you guys for this linked in the video description. But let's say you drop a line at Windows: 10. Fine, you say I'll! Stop using Windows 7, but hashtag, never Windows, 10 whoo tell you guys are serious cuz that hashtag there well, for you guys. There are other options. First up, there's Windows. 8.1. I mean I doubt that you guys have stuck with Windows 7 for this long, just to get into the OS that Gabe Newell called a catastrophe, and it's data, collection and update system are kind of similar to Windows 10, but at least it'll be getting security updates,

Though, realistically now that Microsoft has learned from their mistake of supporting Windows, XP for like ever that'll, probably only buy you a couple of years. So maybe that's not a great option. So then, what how about Oh Mac OS, while Apple's desktop OS, has come a long way and is obviously used by many tech enthusiasts? The thing is, I don't see many windows, 7 diehards willingly affecting to apples Camp Plus. You would need to either buy a totally new computer or begin the long, arduous process of trying to turn your existing PC into a hackintosh. Now it might be doable, but even most hackintosh enthusiasts are pretty open about what a finicky experience that is leaving Linux. Now, a couple of years ago,

I would have said that that's madness, but Linux is a more viable option than ever before, even for gamers. Now we're planning another follow-up, video on Valve's proton compatibility software, but for now the main thing you need to know about it is that it makes an ever growing list of Windows. Games run flawlessly on Linux and community reports indicate that thousands more run pretty well. As for the non-gamers popular Linux, distros like Ubuntu work great for productivity, focused views, especially if the majority of your work is done on the web, and there are even distros that borrow heavily from Windows for their interface, like Linux Mint. So your homesickness will at least be saved a little and then, of course, there's the last option. Stick with Windows 7 hold fast as your destruction edges ever closer.

So you goodbye to hardware or software upgrades and just well just don't browse the internet after January 14th. 2012, with regards to that option, I mean you know what Godspeed you brave bastard, but, needless to say, we don't actually recommend doing that. What we do recommend, though, if you need to build a beautiful website without the hassle, is Squarespace with Squarespace is all in one platform, you just pick a template and turn your text throw in your pictures, design a logo they've got all kinds of amazing tools and Boom, you have a website, it might not be a very good website. It might not have a lot of important information on it, but that's on you, sir or ma'am. It'S not on Squarespace, because they have tons of amazing help that you can leverage they offer webinars. Full series of help guides and you can contact their 24/7 customer support via live chat and email.

If you're ever having trouble, and if you already have a third party domain, you don't have to give it up, you can just transfer it to Squarespace plus with Squarespace. You get tons of e-commerce features to help you sell merch or services online and easily manage your inventory and orders so head over to Squarespace comm /l tt and get 10 % off your first purchase. We'Re gon na have that linked below. So thanks for watching guys, we just like this video. You can hit that button. I'M sorry! It'S a really bad news. I get it, but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff, we featured Windows 10. I guess at the link in the video description also down, there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you should totally join. We should have where you can now buy it, a bunch of CD canonical we'll ship. You one if you pay like a couple bucks, I think you can yeah but and don't pay for Linux either way. It'S free. It'S kind of the point.

#windows error #windows

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