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Genie, Make A Wish (kdrama, Netflix) First two episodes: well that was not quite what I was expecting (dark fantasy). Very OTP - beyond the usual kdrama silly bits that are typically in such series, I mean. Where I felt like almost every chr. was an extra exaggerated persona. Which isn't always a bad thing imo (the original Strong Girl Bong Soon was rather like that), but here I'm not yet sold on it. That said, I love the two leads, there were cute/amusing moments and a few more "serious" moments that were intriguing. I've heard it gets better by episode three so I'll give it another two episodes. If nothing else, I get to stare at Woo-bin, I guess. And Kim Mi-kyung (grandma) is always a fine supporting actress.

No, the nVidia driver turns off rebar anyway, except for whitelisted games. If you had an AMD card, then yes, definitely.

Greetings Friends! We released the 0.2.0.1 Hotfix for Grounded 2 on all available platforms. If you don't see the update right away, please try restarting your console or verifying your game files. General Fixes: Further Improvements so that resources should not regrow through bases in certain scenarios This is not retroactive to your save file - Please chop down these resources and they should not return Fixed multiple crashes Fixed multiple crashes retaining to Foliage Fixed a crash when navigating through creature cards Fixed a bug where players could have an infinite load on save files with vast amounts of playtime Player should now be able to customize buildings on controller Resolved an issue with Unity that caused the Artbook to be temporarily unavailable

I am fairly terrible and getting mods to work, so those collections seemed like a good idea. But yeah I probably wouldn't do that again.

Tomahawks as the latest wunderwaffe is pretty bizarre. Are they going to be given submarines or destroyers as well? Because that's how the vast majority of tomahawks are launched. OK, there are some Typhon's. But it's new and the US itself isn't close to filling its own orders for that system yet.

What a great blog! As a gamer with a disability (I have a serious hearing impairment), I am so very glad people in the industry (and within Obsidian) are taking accessibility seriously. I require captioning for everything voice-related. But even with captioning pretty common these days, some games leave out crucial bits of the game from their captioning system, such as backgound chatter/banter. It's so very frustrating to hear the sound of someone saying something, but then not be able to know what they said. Keep up the good work! And thanks!!

Great blog @Fishtick Really interesting and not something I have often considered

New community blog is live by @Fishtick The Unintentional Gatekeeping of Video Games

The celebration over Tomahawks (apparently invincible weapons) seems premature given Trump's waffling statement (before senile rambles)

Silent Hill f has been added to GOG as a last anniversary deal today. After Crysis Remastered Trilogy yesterday. https://www.gog.com/en/game/silent_hill_f As always no new MS titles like Awoved or Pentiment

One thing that nobody warns you about when you get a job in the gaming industry is just how many meetings there are. There’re daily standups, gate reviews, sprint meetings, post-mortems, sign-offs, bridge meetings, war rooms, and the list goes on and on. But one of the most important meetings is called Triage. It generally occurs on a daily or weekly cadence, depending on what part of the dev cycle you are in. This is where Production, Design, Engineering, and QA get together and discuss the latest bugs. We go over each bug written since the last Triage and decide as a group how important the bug is, who is going to fix it, and when they need to fix it by. There are three main ways that this is measured. Severity: How bad the bug is, in the eyes of the user. Priority: How soon a bug should be fixed. Repro Rate: How hard, or easy, is it to run into the bug? How likely are players to see it? This is usually measured in attempts. For example, a crash bug could happen 100% of the time, or it could only happen under very specific conditions. And one thing that is easy to forget when you’re lost in a sea of bugs, is the scale of the audience. Sure, only 10% of the testers may experience a specific issue. But 8% of the modern AAA audience is hundreds of thousands of players. You would think, with that in mind, anything that affects at least 5% of players would be treated as a serious concern. But what if I told you that while only 0.5% of women are color-blind, 8% of men are? And how many modern games have color-blind filters? The answer is not nearly enough. Accessibility features are about giving players the tools they need to enjoy the game in whichever way works best for them. If you can add color-blind filters (https://colorblindgames.com/2021/03/29/colorblind-gaming-101-the-basics/) that’s roughly 5% more potential sales. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 85% of Americans under 18 play video games at least once a week. That comes out to 205 million players in the US alone. Five percent of which, comes to 8,000,000 people. Multiple that by $60 and we’re talking serious money. So why, in a world where the dollar drives everything, are accessibility features not standard? Why are so many developers leaving so many potential players behind? It would be easy for me to blame big bad CEO’s or shareholders for the problem. But the reality is, it’s not malicious. Like most issues in life, it’s more ignorance than anything else. People just aren’t as informed on the subject as they could be. But that is starting to change. The industry is starting to come around and they are making serious investments in multiple ways. (alt text: Ishihara test was invented to measure color blindness. The image above uses different shades to create the image of Toadstool from Super Mario Bros) source: Obsidian has been leading the way for longer than most. Well before it was “cool” to make accessible games, titles like Pillars of Eternity (2013) were giving players multiple color-blind filters, detailed difficulty options, and a large suite of audio/video settings to let players decide what “good” looks like. Back in 2020 Grounded introduced the Arachnophobia filter. A setting that is now becoming default in many horror/survivor games. Hogwarts Legacy added it, but only after NorskPL released a community mod for the setting. My favorite is actually from the most recent version, Grounded 2. Can you detect the feature? It’s one of the first things you see when you start the game. (alt text: Screenshot of Grounded 2 main menu showing custom face button graphics used to inform the player where on the face the button is located.) Many of you probably pointed to the Accessibility shortcut. And that is a great example of mindful design. How do you expect people to turn on the accessibility features if they need the accessibility features enabled to get to the accessibility features? But that’s not my favorite. My new favorite is the A and Y buttons. Notice what’s different? I bet you Xbox Certification noticed that these are not authorized representations of the face buttons on an Xbox controller. But I love that they saw through the rule to find the intent. Instead of confusing players, these actually provide more information. It’s a tiny change that can have a big impact. Heck, I’m not even color-blind and these helped me after I spent the previous few weeks playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where the A and B buttons are swapped. And that’s the key to accessibility features. Not telling players how to play, but providing the options for them to play how they want to play. And they are not alone. The industry as a whole has finally seen the benefits of expanding their games and tearing down walls. For example: the Entertainment Software Association (a trade association representing the major video game developers and publishers across the industry) recently rolled out their Accessible Games Initiative. They are leading by example and starting with updating their storefronts to include Accessibility Tags. Much like you can browse by genre or feature, now you can filter games by which ones support the accessibility features you care the most about. (alt text: A black background with brightly colored stickers in the shapes of Xbox icons and accessibility products like prosthetic legs, wheelchairs, and seeing eye dogs.) And they are not alone. A whole market is forming around consulting, reviewing, and teaching about accessibility. People are getting together and demanding “Never about us, without us.” From Accessibility Labs, a startup in Tempe, AZ of former QA professionals passionate about Accessibility testing. To Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines, requirements that titles they publish must meet. But Tommy, I’m a developer and I want to do better. How can I make sure everyone is able to enjoy my hard work? Well, I’m glad you asked, imaginary developer person. Because while I’m passionate about the subject, I also acknowledge I’m just as ignorant as most. But together, we can work towards fighting that ignorance, in our own minds, and in others. Even the smallest changes, like the button prompts above, can have a huge impact. Bring on Accessibility experts during your design phase, don’t wait until you’re about to launch. Don’t be like so many others before you that designed fully fleshed out UI’s that rely on a cursor to navigate. Only to find out down the road this is not very accessible for people with fine motor issues. Making these changes during the design phase will save you thousands, if not millions, of dollars down the line. Embrace your lack of knowledge and seek out the experts. There are resources available to developers of all shapes and sizes. Are you a small developer that wants to do better, but just doesn’t know where to start? Support other independent gamers like Accessibility Labs. Have a good idea of what you want to do, but want to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything? Check out Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. Want to support the effort in other ways? Reach out to AbleGamers, who have been fighting this fight for over 20 years. Enjoy this article and want to know more? Check out Derek Gruber on Seattle Indie’s Accessibility Awareness Month episode. The last thing I want to do is trivialize game and UX design. Accessibility is just one of countless aspects that must be considered when designing a game and it’s UI. What’s most important is that you are making the effort. Instead of asking why you should add an option, ask why you shouldn’t. When in doubt, trust the player to decide what is best for themselves. Not every feature is going to be a home run. But as long as we, as a community, are working towards improving, the rising tide will raise all ships. Sources & Resources Game Developer - Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and others unite to make accessibility messaging a priority Washington Post - Accessibility option in survival game ‘Grounded’ turns my arachnophobia into a thrill Colorblind Games - Colorblind Gaming 101: The Basics Mashable - Video games taught me I was colorblind but it's not always a friendly lesson Nexus Mods - Arachnophobia mode Seattle Indies - Accessibility Awareness Month Interview Series: Steve Saylor and Derek Gruber Able Gamers - Combating Social Isolation Through Play Accessibility Labs Microsoft - Xbox Accessibility Guidelines Entertainment Software Association (ESA) - Entertainment Software Association Introduces the Accessible Games Initiative to Provide Players with Information About Accessibility Features in Video Games

at least the art style is good wonder if they will use pf2e item since there are not many for sf2e yet

You have to do research on any mod collection that interests you so you avoid that type of unexpected change I use YT because if a review of any mod collection is not on YT then its not very popular and then not worth the risk of installing it Almost all these mod collections have readme files and Discord links which I use but I still consider the YT reviews more credible and informative

Nanotech ‘switch’ reverses Alzheimer’s in mice by restoring brain’s protective barrier If this works in humans, it would be a revolutionary medical treatment.

Decided to finally get Warhammer 40K Space Marines 2, since it was 50% off in Steam sale. So far I like it. The graphics are very crips and sharp. Can't really remember much of the first game, tbh, but I think they added lots of new stuff like combos, parry, dodge, etc? Anyways. So far not bad, but I can't play for more than an hour or so, then it starts to get a bit much for me.

Looking in to flashing a modded bios with rebar enabled. Is it worth the hassle?

Only seen S1 of RoP, and it was OK, unless you care deeply about the established lore as that it absolutely butchers. It did have some of the modern writing issues (shoehorning mysteries, including set piece spectaculars even if they made no sense, nobody talks like the dialogue in reality/ no one ever seems to directly answer a question) Personally, I'd compare it to Star Trek Discovery in many ways- and I did end up watching all but one season (S4, and never watched the last ep of S3) of that, despite my reservations. It's mostly... frustrating in that it ought to be better than it is. If it were a choice between that and experiencing WoT, RoP wins out by a country mile though. Then again, getting injected with 2mL of 5 in 1 sheep vaccine under the kneecap was a better experience than watching WoT. I haven't died of pulpy kidney or an other clostridial disease (er, yet, so as not to tempt fate) after all.

Correct. Main or offhand hand makes no difference for Pukestabber.

I seemed to have successfully used the console commands to add a talent to my main character as well as adding a few skill points however upon reloading the game after saving it the skill points were reset back to the baseline yet the talent seems to have remained. Is this normal behavior for both of these things and is there any way to use the console commands to permanently add skill points?

The next Community blog will land tomorrow. Until then, (re)visit some of the contributions that have been submitted thus far ...

Thanks for that, I needed that push to give it a try.

It's decent; more story than combat, IIRC. Some likeable characters. I enjoyed the concept of the hobbits as migrating eco-tribes.

Rings of Power is great, so you should give it a try.

I keep hovering over the play button for Rings of Power and then noping out. I thought about giving WoT a try because I never read the books but it just looks so bad.