#i'm not complaining i'm saving screenshots of this regardless

[noell0ss]

just found out there's a new update and COME ON, IT JUST LOOKS LIKE HE'S GETTING BACKSHOTS WHAT THE HELL

thought it couldn't get any hornier after that urinal scene but nuh man himaruya is at it again

[catinheadlights]

PSA: The pet game Sylestia uses AI generated "art".

Sylestia has been using AI generated assets for a long while now, and I decided to write this up because I'm not sure how well known this is among the remaining playerbase (not that I think many of them are gonna read this but I guess it's here now if they care to). Krinadon (site owner/admin) has explicitly said this in a mass PM before, screenshot and examples below context.

Context: This was a mass PM from late 2022 sent to a large section of the playerbase with a long list of allegations against different users. Some of the claims were blatantly petty and others were seemingly serious but in reality extremely shaky. Some players receiving the PM had no involvement in any of the perceived antagonism, and not everyone receiving it was in some kind of clique like the wording in the Glaselk section would suggest. Krin was largely complaining that people were criticizing him and Faiona (other owner/admin) in a private discord server, of which a handful of people sent him screenshots. For transparency, I committed two apparent crimes: one was assuming the AI assets were made by people, and in a private discord server, criticizing the decision to update them over focusing on more important parts of the site. The second was complaining about the shitty stereotypical "Pow Wow Costume" (since renamed but otherwise unaltered) and associated clothing items in its set, as well as the name of the "Wild Wendigo Morkko" theme. As far as Krin complaining that people think he was giving Glas special treatment... well, if you know, you know. No clue if they even play anymore, but you all know that harassment is bad already, so don't do that. I didn't edit that section out of the screenshot because idk if that'd be seen as suspicious or something.

[Image ID: A screenshot of a private message from Krinadon on Sylestia titled "Official Player Conduct Warning (1 of 2)". The last section of the message says the following: Experience Orb and Magical Pie Art: No, no artist time was spent nor wasted on these assets. No, we did not divert any site resources to the specific creation of these assets. We were learning and testing with artwork created by AI and these were our initial test projects. The end results actually ended up being pretty decent, so we decided to use them. No, we are not going to replace any artists with AI artwork. However, we most definitely are looking to supplement where we can so that our artists can continue working full time on more important projects. I think that we are aware of how to properly budget our time and resources. We have been doing this for a decade now. And yes, our artists are aware that we are using AI artwork. /.End ID]

Now, I think the first thing I should point out is that the artists knowing the site uses AI doesn't necessarily mean that they like the decision. I don't know the artists personally, but I do know that at least one of them has, unsurprisingly, posted about not liking AI art.

Secondly, it wouldn't be fine even if the site artists loved AI, because as it is, it's unethical to use regardless. The training data is artwork scraped from the internet without consent from the creators. No amount of promising that you won't replace human artists will erase that. Informing the site artists that you're using AI won't erase that.

Here are the confirmed AI official assets (descriptions in alt text):

(The orb pic is comically large because they kept it at >500x500 for a while and I saved it)

Additionally, there are background items that are almost definitely AI generated:

Some have glaring issues while others may be less obvious, but when comparing them to the art styles in other items, the difference is apparent, and is not explained by having multiple artists and the seeming lack of a style guide.

There were also several coloring contests with obviously AI generated lineart:

And also official threads where players were to design pets based off of AI generated images. These ones were from the faelora design raffle during the 2023 spring festival:

If you're not convinced they're AI, the images on the thread were hosted by Sylestia's server's and reverse image searching didn't turn up any matches. They would never commission these, and they didn't just take them from another site. They were generated for the raffle.

Do not support this site. The are so, so many games made by people that actually respect artists.

[lilredghost]

YT to MP3 downloader

Hi friends! A while back I was complaining about YT-downloading websites being slow, clunky, and full of ads (not to mention unsafe), so I decided to write a program to download songs more efficiently. I’ve been asked to share, so here it is!

This downloader provides 3 main features: single, batch, and playlist downloads.

It uses python, and should work regardless of OS. (All my commentary, however, will be tailored for Windows users. Sorry!)

You can examine and download the code here. Instructions, screenshots, and more details are under the cut

Single download: Pretty straightforward. Enter a video URL, and let it rip!

2. Batch download: Enter up to 15 links and the program will download them all at once. If it runs into an issue with a video that makes it un-downloadable (eg: age-restricted, private, etc.), then it will skip to the next one.

3. Playlist download: Enter the link to a playlist and the program will download all its videos at once; this has the same video-skipping capability as the batch download. You can also choose to start downloading from the middle of the playlist, which can be useful if the program crashes prematurely or if you've added more songs.

Setup: I'm going to assume you've got python already installed on your computer. If not, it should be pretty easy to find a simple tutorial suited to your OS. If you have multiple versions of python, then this might help you get the necessary modules installed to the right version.

We just need 2 modules for the downloader to work. (If you're attempting to run it and it's just flashing a black box and closing, these guys being installed incorrectly is the most likely culprit). Open your command prompt and enter pip install pytube. Once it's done installing, enter pip install moviepy. These are both open-source libraries, and you can find their documentation here: pytube moviepy

Save the code from here. You'll have to paste it into a notepad and save it as yt_downloader.py (or something. Any name is fine as long as it has the .py extension). Music will be downloaded to the same location as the script, so you may want to set it up in a specific music folder.

And that's it! I may leave some comments about bugs in the replies, but I haven't run into any major issues so far. Hope this helps someone else as much as me 💕

[ottspot]

The Wait Is Over: Bayonetta 3 Review (SPOILER-FREE)

It's been a long time coming, but Bayonetta 3 is here... and so is my review. That has also been a long time coming.

From the announcement in December of 2017, to the first gameplay in September of 2021, to the final release on October 28, 2022... it has been nearly five years in between all of that. Was it worth the wait? Is everyone that was complaining online correct?

I dunno, this is just what I think. LET'S BEGIN!

So, yes, this review has taken a while to get to for me. Work and college has gotten in the way, but I've also just been slacking and talking to friends every night instead. But now I'm gonna do this!! Finally!!

Don't worry, as the title shows, this is going to be a spoiler-free review. Only minor mentions of the story will be included, this will mostly focus on the combat and other mechanics of the game. And with that, let's actually begin.

And don't worry, I won't make any dumb 'slay' jokes.

Bayonetta 3 starts off like any other game in the series, with the titular witch doing her thing, when all of a sudden a supernatural enemy ruins her day! She has to fight them, shoot them, stomp them, all of that. After all the fighting and shooting, she meets up with her good friends and a new character, Umbra witch-in-training Viola, to learn that her universe is being threatened with extinction by an other-worldly entity. It's up to her and Viola to stop it.

Throughout the game you go to different universes in different locations, like Tokyo or China. From there you will be fighting enemies in all different kinds of ways, with weapons you obtain as you play through the chapters.

I do have to give praise to the environment design throughout the different worlds. Each one was stunning to look at, even if I had such a short time in them!! It's something you can only experience when playing, I don't think screenshots can do it all justice.

Something else I should give praise to is the combat. This is just as snappy as the previous two games, with more features than ever before. You are now able to control demons with the new Demon Slave feature, and unleash a powerful attack with the Demon Masquerade ability. There are more weapons than ever, with new ways to upgrade them to get better attacks.

Another thing that was in the previous two games is the shop, the Gates of Hell. This is where you can purchase healing and power-up items, as well as bonus items like costume colors and decorations for the chapter menu. It can be accessed in certain areas of chapters, with a floating gramophone. You can also go there any time when not in a chapter, allowing access to a practice arena to try out some combos.

But with all that out of the way, do I think Bayonetta 3 a good game? Was it worth the wait ever since that announcement in 2017? Well, despite all the talk online, I think so!

First off, it was another Bayonetta game. Another high-octane action game from PlatinumGames that I loved. I love replaying Bayonetta 1 and 2, and it's great to replay something new now. I also love the new quality of life improvements in this entry, like being able to replay sections of a chapter and being able to save your best scores, instead of overwriting every score regardless if it's better or not.

The variety of the weapons was also great too, and I had fun trying them out. The story gives you sections in some chapters to try the new weapons out, just as a way to see if you'll want to play with it again. I appreciated that a lot.

Some story decisions made me very confused, and I also did not like playing as Viola all that much (mostly because her method of Witch Time activation SUCKS). There are also times where you play as the big demons and it feels like the game speed metaphorically comes to a crawl. Speaking of speed, though, the performance was a bit iffy in a number of areas as well.

Those were my only complaints with the game, though. This was another Bayonetta game and that's all I was wanting all these years. Even if this wasn't the best story-wise and had some slowdown in more ways than one, I can confidently say that this is what I was waiting for. I'm happy with the game and the money I spent on it. Should you spend money on it, though?

I suppose that depends. If you played the other Bayonetta games, I think you should give this a shot. It would probably be a tad jarring going straight from 2 to 3, with all the differences and additions in the gameplay, but its core is pretty much identical. If you haven't played the other games, then... please just go play the first game before anything else, it's $5 on PC sometimes LMAO

But... yeah! That's all my thoughts on Bayonetta 3 finally. I'm glad I could play a game in this series again, and I hope that there will be more games in the series. As long as I don't play as Viola.

Thanks for reading!!

Next up: I Bought An Almost 10 Year Old Nintendo 3DS Game And Loved It - My Thoughts on Fire Emblem Awakening