#you need to spend like an hour troubleshooting and modding just to get it to run somewhat stable and even then. it will crash very often

[mazovian]

Bethesda please I'm begging you do a fallout new vegas remake, or even just a modern re-release holy shit

[maxismatchccworld]

Hey you lovely Simmers! As you already know, every month I feature a new creator for the Sims 4.😊 Today I would like to introduce you to Renora and her blog Renorasims. I only knew her from the Sims 4 and was surprised to find out that she actually started as a builder. 👀

Hiya!

I’m Renora a CC creator for TS4 and if you told me 3 years ago I would be a creator, let a alone be featured in anything like this spotlight I would’ve not believed you. At all. Thank you Kerstin for this opportunity!

Like a lot of simmers I started playing from the very first installment ts1. Around the age of 8/9. I fell head over heals for such a colorful game with (back then) limitless ways to be creative. Building was my true love. I can still feel the feeling of anticipation I felt when ts2 was announced, sheer joy. To this date i still love most of the animations that came with that game so much. the subtle details are marvelous. With ts3 I became familiar with custom content/mods and simblr, as a downloader. I was dead set on making the game run as smoothly as possible which was kind of a big task with ts3. When Create a World (CAW) was released I only became more submerged into the game. Creating a world with all the stuff I would like to have in it was a dream come true for me (my tireless need to customize each detail hehe).

Then ts4 dropped, I definitely needed time to adjust (like… most people I guess XD) but after 1,5 year I started enjoying the game, I created a tumblr and started with stories and reblogging CC. The more I played the more I missed stuff I needed for my game and then s4s came around the corner… I spend days/weeks on their site trying to master the art of creating, starting with plain recolors and after that super simple mesh edits / frankenmeshes. Gradually I expanded my skills more and more and it became clear I mostly love creating CAS CC. Especially clothing. I have a Pinterest (duhh) where I get most of my inspo from + suggestions on Patreon, etc. Sometimes I run into someone with a cute top/outfit that i’ll try to remember once I get home. However I still enjoy doing BUY CC too!

One of the most important things imo is to remember when creating CC, as a beginner or expert, not to give up. I think I learned the most from just tirelessly trying to troubleshoot stuff myself but I’d also like to thank my dear dear friend Inga who’s my rock when i’m down or out of ideas on how to solve something myself.

From a young age I’ve battled anxiety/depression but this game (and creating CC) somehow gave me a sense of control/stress relief by being able to master most aspects of the game and being able to express my creativity. which sounds a bit like a control freak, I know, haha! XD. The franchise has lifted my spirit a lot of times when I was down.

When i’m creating CC I often(!) listen to the soundtracks of previous installments of the game and remember that warm feeling I had when I was playing for hours with a warm blanket, nice cup of tea on a rainy autumn day.

BUY CC favorite

Since I didn’t make as much BUY cc as CAS cc, this was a bit easier; that would be by far(!) the Revised BroHill Kitchen & Recolors! They took me foreverrrrrr and I still use them so much because they fit my game style very well. Kitchens are a nightmare to make imo but i’m super proud/glad I made them.

CAS CC favorite(s)

fav’s because I cannot decide… I just tried but I can’t decide which ones I love most. probably due to the 156 cas files/creations I’ve made so far XD I’m a disaster when it comes to choosing anything in life so haha. Here’s a few of them though.

Hope you guys liked reading it! <3 Feel free to drop by on my blog or website, As mentioned above there is sooo much more! All of it free and no malicious ads, etc.

Love,

Renora.

[kala-hira]

That Anon certainly has no business calling them selfish, but I’ve never understood pulling all your content as a reaction to these kinds of things. Future work, sure, I’m not going to miss anything I’ve never used. But with existing stuff that was previously publicly available, you feel rather helpless. A majority of users respect TOUs and appreciate the modders work, there is a positive relationship there and you’d hope that still counts. But all it takes is 1 asshole to ruin it. It’s a shame.

First off thanks for being civil and polite with your anon message it is much appreciated :)  All the below is stuff I have come across and in no way do I speak for all modders. I can barely speak for myself somedays lol. I am going to assume you are not a modder just from your post if this isn’t true then I apologize.

I will agree for the most part there is a positive relationship between modders and users but you would be amazed by the amount of people I see using my mods who have never taken the time to comment or endorse my mods. I spent hours making that mod that they will enjoy for hours and they didn’t even take a few seconds to say thanks and endorse it. I try to respond to every comment I get on the Nexus (sometimes notifications do not always work) as it is one of the few times we get to interact with the users. It can feel like a very one sided relationship and how are we to know that they appreciate it when they don’t take the time to say it? (for an example one of my older mods has 11,920 downloads, but only 24 comments from users and 396 endorsements) Even a simple thanks for sharing! Awesome work :) Love it! can go a long way in making a modder know you appreciate their work I am not asking you to kiss my butt to the sun and back. 

Until you put yourself into that modder’s shoes I do not think you can understand what this really feels like. In the past I have hidden mods as it is a knee jerk reaction to everything that is going on. It is the quickest and easiest way for a modder to control their mods. Which is completely fair as a creator it is our right to control our creations. 

You have to remember that modders are real people with real feelings. They put their time, heart and soul into these mods and when someone disrespects their decision or their mods it is like a knife to the heart. I know that seems dramatic but we spend hours working on and tweaking these mods they become important to us especially if we make them with a specific character in mind that is special to us.  

You have no idea what that modder is dealing with in their real life, life has a tendency of kicking you down and then continuing to kick you when you are still down. If hiding their mods allows them a bit of respite from all the crap and stress in their life then it is a smart decision otherwise you get burnt out really quick. I have been there and it isn’t pretty. A person’s mental health is much more important then any mod every made. This is supposed to be a fun hobby not a crappy part time job but with time it starts to feel like work and instead of being a stress relief it becomes a source of stress.

You are just seeing this one instance but it isn’t just 1 asshole a modder is dealing with. You haven’t had to deal with getting rude, disrespectful comments from users. You haven’t had to deal with people being nice/friendly to you just to get them to make you a specific mod, then ditch you or say rude shit about you in the future. You haven’t had your work stolen or reused in other mods without permission. You haven’t had anon hate sent to you just because they don’t agree with a mod you made or have people talk behind your back about a mod you made. You haven’t had to deal with people comparing your work to others and telling you that the other modder’s work is far superior to yours. You haven’t spent hours troubleshooting something that has nothing to do with your mod but you are getting blamed for it. You haven’t had to deal with people harassing you over if you are going to share a mod and if you are when is it going to be released. You haven’t had to deal with people requesting changes to make it fit their character. You haven’t had people complain that your images are not good enough to show off your mod and that they won’t try it until you post more images. You haven’t had youtubers steal your images and use them as click bait for their videos. You haven’t had your free work stolen then “edited” a bit then put behind a paywall by another modder. All these things add up and you become tired, jaded and hesitant to release anything. We are just human we can only take so much. So to you it looks like 1 asshole but it’s much more then that, it is a bunch of little things add up until we get to a tipping point and we can’t take anymore. Everyone always says you need to grow a thicker skin on the internet but sometimes it feels like you have to become bulletproof in order to come out unscathed. 

If you love a mod that much and feel helpless when it is removed then treat it like a limited collector’s edition when you download it and keep a backup or multiple backups. I myself tend to hoard mods, I buy external HDD’s and store tons of mods on them. I have them on multiple drives now as I had a shelf incident (my cat broke the shelf and all my hdd’s fall off and died, RIP). Some of my all time fav’s I have even saved digital copies of just to be safe. Or you can try your hand at modding I can point you to some free programs and some great tutorials to get you started. Many modders myself included are willing to help and share their knowledge. 

I agree it is a shame when a modder feels like their only choice is to hide a mod. It is not an easy decision to make as you can see you face backlash and hate for doing it. This is a huge reason why modders just disappear and I don’t blame them. I feel like doing it all the time, the older I get the less time & patience I have to put up with it all.

Hope this helps explain a bit more from a modder’s perspective. I do get your point of views and before I started modding myself I felt the same but now that I am on the other side of the fence I understand. 

I appreciate you taking the time to send this message and then talking the time to read my novel of answer.

Happy Modding! 

Kala

[componentplanet]

Best Games for Laptops and Low-End PCs in 2020

We used to view the idea of gaming on a laptop as a virtual contradiction in terms, at least for anyone who didn’t want to invest in a so-called ‘desktop replacement.’ Over the last decade, we’ve seen a lot more laptops shipping with integrated graphics that are capable of at least some light gaming and a proliferation of indie titles with less aggressive requirements. Put the two together, and you’ve got a lot more options for low-end gaming today than 10-20 years ago.

In this list of our favorites, we’ve tried to blend a mixture of modern titles and a handful of older classics. If you’ve been gaming for a number of years, we strongly suggest Googling “best games of X,” to remind yourself what hidden gems you might have missed the first time around. A game that required a midrange PC to play in 2011 likely runs just fine on an integrated GPU in 2019, especially if you’ve got an Ice Lake-based notebook or Ryzen APU-based laptop.

Since the last time we refreshed the list, we’ve trimmed a few titles off, kept a few, and added some new games. The PC gaming news cycle often doesn’t serve the interests of the larger PC gaming community when it comes to game discovery. This is particularly and sadly true for low-end gamers. Lost in the endless churn of new titles is the fact that there are literally thousands of amazing PC titles released long before you bought your system. Don’t be afraid to go digging for gems you might have missed in previous generations.

One way to express a love of PC gaming is certainly by investing lots of money in gaming hardware, but it’s certainly not the only one. What matters isn’t the amount of money you can plow into the hobby. It’s how much you enjoy it in the process.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

This XCOM-meets-Fallout title is based on the tabletop Mutant Year Zero game. If you’ve played the modern XCOM games, you’ll be familiar with most of the gameplay elements, though Mutant Year Zero gives you direct control of your squad outside of combat and fuses XCOM’s gameplay with some light RPG elements.

The worst thing we can say about Mutant Year Zero is that you’ll have to do some Googling to figure out which buttons are tied to which keyboard functions. The game’s plot and post-apocalyptic setting recall the best parts of Fallout, and while the game isn’t as deep as one of those sprawling titles, it still feels like a spiritual sequel. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden feels a bit like a “AA” game, for lack of a better phrase. Reasonably well-polished with solid aspirations, but you won’t mistake it for a 400-hour dungeon crawler.

World of Warcraft Classic

I had long since intended to have my WoW Classic reviews done by now, but the reality of leveling and my own crazy schedule have kept me working on my Classic Paladin and the slow climb to Lvl 40. Christmas is coming, which makes this a perfect time to revisit the best-loved MMO of Christmas, 2004.

Lakeshire, Redridge Mountains. Left is Retail, right is Classic.

It’s World of Warcraft: Classic, which is to say, #NoChanges (except for a few of the changes, but really, there aren’t that many). I might be leveling at the speed of grass growing, but by God, I am leveling. There’s a lot to love in the original version of Blizzard’s MMO classic, especially if you like games of this era in the first place. It may use the modern WoW engine, but Blizzard re-used original WoW’s textures and assets. The result is a game that runs just fine on a low-end PC, including Carrizo-powered AMD ultrabooks and Intel integrated graphics.

Untitled Goose Game

Untitled Goose Game challenges you to find the Canadian goose inside yourself. Yup. This is a game about being an unrepentant asshole. Since the joys of honking and flapping don’t require a high-end PC, Untitled Goose Game is another game that’ll run on just about any toaster you can drag out of storage or cajole into running.

Honk. Flap. Steal objects, trick humans, annoy pets, wash, rinse, and repeat if necessary. It’s a brilliant game for people turned off by “typical” titles looking for a silly, funny, low-key experience.

Arkham City

I’ve decided to switch my low-end PC recommendation from Arkham Asylum to the later Arkham City. Arkham Asylum is, to be sure, still an excellent game, and it runs on an even lower-spec system than Arkham City. But between the two of them, Arkham City is the better overall Batman game. Batman’s overall bag of tricks gets polished and AC offers you playing time as characters like Catwoman, with her own distinct moveset and animation style.

Arkham City feels as though it genuinely captures what it would be like to “be” Batman, with a clever twist on why you face a never-ending army of thugs. If you want to find out if you’re going to like the Arkham game series, I’d say this is the best one to try. If you need something even gentler on system specs, try the original Arkham Asylum.

Into the Breach

Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game that takes place on small maps of 8×8 grids. From the makers of FTL, Into the Breach challenges you to beat back waves of attackers in turn-based combat. There are no XCOM-style probability fields to deal with here — you get full transparency into what actions will be taken by both your own characters and the enemies you engage with.

Into the Breach launched in 2018, but it’s still winning recognition for its unique approach to turn-based combat today. Definitely worth checking out, if you’re looking for some turn-based combat options.

West of Loathing

West of Loathing is a “graphical” adventure game that could run on a Lite-Brite. Don’t let the black-and-white stick-based graphics fool you — under the hood is a classic adventure game with RPG elements, killer clowns, demon cows, snake oil salesman, and a heap of spittoons to dig through in search of loot. The dialog is laugh-out-loud funny and the game’s irreverent humor recalls the best adventure game writing of earlier eras.

West of Loathing came out at the end of 2017, but it’s still a top pick if you need a game that runs on anything and offers some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley was heavily inspired by the Harvest Moon series of video games but adds its own spin on the concept. Explore Pelican Town, make friends, fall in love, and restore your grandfather’s farm to health in a gentle, open-ended title that will tease your curiosity as opposed to yanking you hither and yon with frantic quest demands.

Stardew Valley recently received a major endgame update in Patch 1.4, with new monsters, fish ponds, a new mystery to solve, various bug-fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and similar updates. Multiplayer support is also now available.

Cuphead

Cuphead’s visual aesthetic is truly unique — it’s the only game we’ve ever seen that mimics the “rubber hose” animation style of the early 1930s in a frenetic run-and-gun shooter. You’ll need sharp reflexes to beat the game, but not much in the way of PC horsepower.

Cuphead is a great game for someone looking for a game you might fairly call “Nintendo hard,” particularly if they enjoy its animation.

Minecraft

The open-world sandbox of Minecraft has been used to create everything from 1:1 scale models of the starship Enterprise to functional (if simple) CPUs. In between, there’s an easily accessible game with a rich crafting system, dangerous mobs, and huge worlds to explore. If your ideas of gameplay run more towards “give me a big space and lots of tools,” and less towards coherent narrative and story-driven play, you may find Minecraft much to your liking.

That doesn’t actually tell you nearly enough about Minecraft, a game that’s inspired millions of people to spend billions of hours stacking blocks on top of each other to build everything from an exact replica of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek to actual working computers. Minecraft is a phenomenal crafting and building game.

Orcs Must Die, Orcs Must Die 2

Orcs Must Die and Orcs Must Die 2 are some of our favorite titles for mindless slaughtery goodness and have a permanent space on my hard drive. This hybrid tower-defense/action game tasks you with burning, blasting, freezing, smashing, dissolving, shooting, and generally wreaking mayhem against wave after wave of orcs, trolls, ogres, and other various bad guys as they seek to invade your home. It’s easy to learn and sometimes surprisingly difficult to master.

I recommend both, but OMD2 is definitely the better game.

Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is a 2D, side-scrolling dungeon crawler with a side helping of Lovecraftian horror and a mental health management simulator. As your heroes wind their way through the stygian abyss, they’ll face the dripping claws and rasping moans of the eons-damned creatures that dwell beyond the stars. Safeguard them carefully, or you’ll find the abyss staring back at you when you least expect it…

Darkest Dungeon can be legitimately annoying, but if you love mods like “Longest War” for XCOM, this series is a treasure. DD doesn’t pull punches, and if you think you’ve figured the game out, that probably means there’s a DLC or difficulty level waiting to kneecap you around the corner.

So that’s our list. Feel free to chime in with your own. What older games or titles still have a cherished spot on your hard drive, and what games do you find yourself returning to, long after they’ve supposedly been surpassed by more recent releases?

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from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/269774-best-games-you-can-play-on-laptops-and-low-end-pcs from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/12/best-games-for-laptops-and-low-end-pcs.html