LadyCrimson

Oh you. :D I didn't notice it while taking the shot because I was just staring at the SOFT KITTY WARM KITTY. Hehe. But yeah. It's not something you're going to notice in normal gameplay - typical 3/4 top down 3rd person - outside of photo mode or full zoomed in and spinning the camera. There is a 1st person view in the game but I think you cannot fight/combat while in it - it'll knock you into the overhead 3rd person. I have maybe 8 hrs of total gameplay and so far it's a mix of 50% "wow, cool, totally rad" and 50% "F! How annoying, how unnecessary, balderdash!" I can also begin to see that while you can technically free-explore probably as much as you want, and there are some things you can discover/do on your own right away maybe, many of the mechanic features and/or larger things to do are going to be kinda gated by main questline progress steps, at least in the first several "chapters".

Crimson Desert: Taming a pet requires "100 appreciation points" - you can only get 25pts per day (petting it). Dogs generally stay in place so you can return to a spot each day to pet it. The cats, so far, because you have to pick them up and pet while cradling them in arms, then put them down again, do not stay in place (they tend to run off) and if I return to an area I can't ever seem to find it again to pet it again. Hadn't seen a cat I liked much anyway so I was eh. Then I saw --- a sleek black cat! It reminds me of Mr. Black! I must have it! So I picked it up. But if I set it down again, how would I find it again? So ... I never set it down again. Made Kliff stand in place, doing nothing, for 3 "days" while I did other IRL things, petting kitty each day. Until finally: Forget anything else, this game is now a 10/10. Yes.

I believe climate patterns are changing, and I believe the ice is melting. It's the predictions of when mega land/human inconvenience/forced changes - like the US East or Gult coast being totally flooded out or weather or farm/food potentials are so severely altered where heavily populated areas are completely abandoned - is still in the "who knows" category, yeah. Like trying to predict the "big one" earthquake wise. Could be 20 years. Could be 75. Or 200. Or maybe it won't hit the areas they think it will, first etc.

Another Legend gone. RIP Mr. Norris, thanks for all the fun action (and sometimes goofy) entertainment.

If you see reviews/gameplays of Crimson Desert and they go on a small rant about UI/interface control setup, it's true. It sucks. Can you get used to it and eventually "memorize" enough for it to work. Sure. But they suck, to the point where you wonder if the UI/interface designer should be fired. It's bad enough that the first few hours feels like learning how to not hate the Ui. I did try controller for a bit but it's not much better. And apparently you can't remap controller layout at all, unless some 3rd party app can force it. I got stuck on that arm wrestling bit (you have to do it re: main questline) because I couldn't do the QTE mash timing, even after 30 tries, no idea why I usually can do those things fine. I finally realized I could spam both the general key on KB and controller at the same time and that bypassed even needing the QTE press timing. Which seems like an oversight but whatever. The world outside is quite pretty even with lowered settings - but lower settings can turn candles/lights/fires into murky/artifact-y low res bloomy lighting making it hard to see in caves and/or at night occasionally. Camera inside tighter areas is annoying. Actual gameplay - it's fine. Exploration motivation is there. Early area combat is super easy (I'm sure it's not forever). The controls/UI is just klunky, time-wasteful/tons of extra clicks and button holds to do anything etc. Cats/dogs to pet everywhere. Little quests, random occasional bandit surprise in early/training area. Many early sidequests you may want to skip, you can't really, because rewards are often inventory increase bags. Early summation: seems like one of those games where if you can get past the bad UI, is one of those "it gets good after 15-20+ hours!" types.

OK, semi-scratch some of the above. For some reason, for me, it looks better on DLSS-Ultra-Performance vs. Balanced. >.> Post-Processing Quality seems to hit fps fairly hard and so far doesn't seem to lose much looks if you have it Low. I might even like it better, since stuff like chromatic aberration/other seems tied to it. Ray Tracing (global illumination) vs. non-RT global seems to have little fps effect on/off so I left it on. Anyway, I got it where it looks pretty good/better on the big TV at 50-55fps. I'll post a vista scenic SS in the pic thread. Don't judge graphics vs performance too much in the tutorial section, wait to you get to the first town/world proper (won't take too long). There's a simple PhotoMode. Kliff still feels like a brick. Flavor NPC's say the same things over and over and over. Voice acting is ok but nothing distinctive. Horse riding is fine. There seems to be an auto-loot chest available but you cannot (?) put anything into it, it's only for "rescuing" dropped loot that you missed/didn't see. I picked up a bird and Kliff just held it in his hand I've gone over refund time, so I guess I'm keeping it. :P

Crimson Desert -- initial setting/performance evaluation etc Spent 70 minutes trying to find performance that fits me. I will say that if you're a 1080/1440 type, the game looks decent, whether native or a bit of upscaling. You can have a lot of things on High/Ultra and it may still get you 60fps, which is good re: older systems. With 4k as the starting resolution, it's a bit tougher on my old rig. I can get the usual mostly 60 if I fiddle a lot, but the game has the usual modern day problem where dropping a lot of settings doesn't really do tons for FPS until you go so low it's awful - and if you go below High on lighting, post-processing, shadows etc it start to look like poo ( especially if using DLSS 4, Quality or Balanced), like more and more artifacting and blurriness. Motion Blur, btw, is under Accessibility. oh, if you have it don't use ray reconstructuring, it appears to dramatically tank fps at the moment. EDITEDIT: so for me it's not that I can't get ok FPS, it's that upscaling doesn't seem to work very well/doesn't look as good as DLSS usually does. Like the way they optimized graphics = less pixels for DLSS to work with and the result is kind of a mess. My main issue in this early time is that Kliff moves like a brick. I feel like if I'm walking and want to get him to turn, he's a 3ton brick. Stiff, slow to respond. It's driving me crazy, can't get used to it yet. This is using KB/Mouse, haven't tried a controller. KB/Mouse can be remapped - somewhat. But there are so many actions that require two or more button inputs, and many actions that use the same key, that it's difficult. I typically want to move anything tied to CNTRL and ALT elsewhere, to the right, and it's tough in this game. And I think WASD cannot be remapped, if you're left-handed or other preference. I am undecided. I guess I have 30-40 more minutes to figure out if refunding/trying later would be better. :P

Oh - so far this is video I liked best for some game info that felt a little less common to most videos. Like he shows off fishing, shows the horse/pet mechanics more vs. combat/boss showcasing Might be the first game in years where I actually like horse as a tool.

Early Crimson Desert reviews are in/trickling in over the day. As expected, seems fairly polarizing. Some love it (after 60-100hrs, no one has finished it), some think it's middling etc. Note: I do not "trust" any reviewers re: yays or nays, I only look for gameplay information re: bugz, mechanics, UI, and gameplay loops that may increase or decrease interest for me. For which, I gather, for myself, for this game: 1--world exploration/discovery is dense, vast, immersive and I would utterly love it 2--big boss combat is likely going to have multi-phases and be something where I want to toss my KB out the window, or pull out cheat engine, a lot, and for some progression areas cannot avoid. Perhaps if one explores oodles first it'd help mitigate some of that via over-preparedness but dunno. 3--you can have a cat or dog companion that ends up following and picks up loot, although not always and not always quickly. But still, YES. Also, you can do a slide while on horseback (the horse body-slides). Not sure when one would want to this, but ok, it's still cool. 4--general combat I could probably deal with fine 5--inventory management/space is a nightmare. They will supposedly add a "town/base" storage. Right now it's only chr. inventory/backpack. 6--devs seem quick to patch in/alter things like bugs, UI/QoL complaints (eg, waiting a week for a couple fast patches might be best) 7--no one is going to talk about the game's fantastic story or chrs, because (as expected) that's not what this game is 8--could be the best "wish this MMO was single-player" we're ever going to get Summary: Just like Enshrouded, I would love exploration/discovery/non-combat systems but everything else I'll be neutral to critical of. Except in Crimson Desert, it might be 200-300 hrs before exploration stops motivating me to keep pushing on beyond any criticism, vs. 60-80 hrs in Enshrouded. So - hmm. 🤔

Edit: what I meant, live-action and a storyline where they're simply older/the future, like original-cast Star Trek movies. But Wash died in Serenity while looking young. You cannot have him (canonically) back in a post-Serenity timeline looking way older without some Star Trek Khan-blood/alt-universe shennigans or something. Series is supposed to be set before Serenity, during the inbetween years I guess, so they'd all be "young". I dont' really care about the Whedon thing. I think he got burnt out after the Marvel phases and even if not, I wouldn't assume he's "the same creative force" as during his popular heyday to begin with. Time can change things for anyone.

TLDW: a new proposed animated Firefly series, most of the surviving original actors as VA's (including Adam Baldwin, who was not at the announcement panel). Set after Season1, before film Serenity. Fillion doing some writing. Whedon not involved. Still in development/does not yet have a distributor (they're shopping around for one now). I'd prefer live-action but animation is the only way to get Wash back I guess (actors got old, like me, after all). Can hope it doesn't turn into another pipe dream.

I have decided that these two need new pairs of glasses. I tried viewing this video both on my tablet and on the OLED. Ok, sometimes the close-up faces might look a bit better, in an overdone or Ai-uncanny valley fashion, depending on one's artistic POV, but the area/scene examples are awful, even taking into consideration they seem to be filming a screen vs. direct video captures. Most scenes just look like blown out brightness/contrast/color reshade-like filters, with too much forward light (like portrait lighting) and losing possible directional shadow. Not to mention, it adds wrinkles/details to faces, in one case alters upper lip shape of a chr (or at least the lipstick to a point it feels like it) etc. At least I assume it's an option/one doesn't have to use it. EDIT: also, the demo they got to look at was running on two 5090's. But don't worry, it'll scale downward in the end. >.>

^ Since I live in an extra warm place now - I'm not sure I'll notice much difference. Does make me wonder about droughts and floods tho. I keep telling hubby we should sell the Bay Area house semi-soon because it's so close to the Bay - with global warming, in 20-30 years it could be a problem, if you believe the global warming scientists. We had to get flood insurance for it recently (wasn't a req. before). eg, get rid it before no one wants it! Heheh. With the way hubby's work is restructuring (and his back), he may end up retiring a bit earlier than he expected. We've been working numbers a lot lately. Inflation is always a worry but we should be fine.

I guess that beaver city builder has left Early Access, and is currently on sale. Too bad I don't feel like playing it at this point. Maybe next sale. I think Crimson Desert is going to be the March purchase-try. Then DS2 on sale after that. Still waiting for Light No Fire news. Any news.

No one but well-known twitch/review/game influencer people are (and they're still under non-disclosure), since it doesn't release until the 19th. :D Not sure when the ND for those folks review video, will be lifted. I'd guess the 17th or 18th, assuming it'll be pre-release at all.

I noticed DS2 has a Win10 version requirement. 1909+ I remember a game some while back that had me upgrade Win10 once (vs. my purchase version). My System Information says ---Version - 10.0.19045 Build 19045. No ##H2 included in the byline. Not surprising, it was a long while ago (could've been 3-4 years ago, might have been 4++ years, sorry I can't recall). Does 1909+ include Build 19045? Is my 19045 actually 1909/19H2 or 22H2 but mine's an early/not updated version which is why that byline doesn't mention any ##H2? (dangit, web search+version naming jumbo is too confusing)/

The Pitt/HBO, ssn2, eps 8-9 Finally starting to get more interesting/compelling. Both in terms of hospital staff chrs, some patients, and a "tech/digital vs. analog" situation. Robby's arc (lead/Noah Wyle) this season is seeming fairly dark. Not in an over-dramatic way, it's more of a continuation of his 1st season state. Boyfriend on Demand/Netflix/k-drama --I only tried this one because of the cast list. A rom-com, where lead gal goes through usual IRL trials while testing this virtual-reality-bf tech (you wear a skinny eyepiece, maybe it connects to your brain, not sure). Apparently the best VR ever. The first episode was IRL setup, then the VR boyfriend stuff takes stage for a couple episodes. Those scenarios are big visuals and sometimes funny for ppl familiar with kdrama or k-romance webtoon tropes - more often it just feels like retread cheese. Beyond the stacked/pretty cast list, not even really guilty-pleasure/lulz binge worthy. I won't continue.

I definitely am picturing all the hype is going to = tons of people buying a game that ends up nothing like they were picturing. That's often the end case for hype. For one thing, it seems to be mashing together many styles and loops. It could feel too unfocused/messy, even re: discovery/exploration (my thing).

Crimson Desert's Steam store page now says Denuvo included. Which doesn't bother me personally. But it always feels a bit sneaky (or something) when a game adds such after it's already been available for pre-order for a bit etc. vs. just doing it/saying they will from the get-go, even if those that do mind can simply cancel their pre-orders. I'm still going to be waiting for those initial reviews re: gameplay/mechanics. Like, I'd like to know more about this settlement feature etc. I have high interest/hopes - the no chr-xp-levels aspect also interests me - but it's not quite a "must buy" for me yet. Almost, but not quite.

"Do you want to know more? (about this character)" Yes. (takes place after Once Upon A time in Hollywood) Tarantino/script, Fincher/director. DiCaprio, not involved. I read it'll have a limited theater release/Netflix.

A nice, quiet change of pace to see him in. Although of course it's hard for my brain to not immediately move towards certain meme-jokes. Ahem. But it was nice mellow vid - several of them at this point. Not sure how he got latched onto this project, but, cool.

There are five films I currently have more than a passing interest in renting/seeing. ( No Other Choice, Choral, Dust Bunny, Rental Family, Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy ) Plus a few others that are "well, small maybe" So far I have turned on streaming services, stared at them, then turned them off and went to do something else. If I don't watch them, I can't be disappointed. Plus maybe I'm tired of staring at screens. I think tonight I'll reread some Pip and Flinx shorter length novels - so I can stare at paper, instead. 😼 I never did buy/read all of them - stopped at Mid-Flinx (1995) - but I did like the early ones. Maybe I should look for the other half.

Yeah, pretty much me.

Luke Stephens video mentioned a person in the room that got stuck on a puzzle for like 30 minutes. I guess we know who it was, now. The four preview vids I've seen, my takeaway is: no "yellow paint"/hints on puzzles/you have to use your brain or (non-puzzles) try several things before you figure out something (I say yay, some will hate it), massive amount of controls (combat)/large learning curve for that, but combat is still kinda simple, don't expect sweeping/expansive or multi-options RPG story (I wasn't), good performance is real (relatively speaking for the era), non-main quest stuff is more expansive than MC and varied/discovery-cool or fun. So basically, one of those games where one is probably going to like it a lot, or one is going to find learning/control curves too much/not guided enough etc. The preview I liked the most was the one below - or Luke Stephen's (he claims he got the farthest in the MC/chapt 3), but his yapping style can be a bit annoying and it was extra long. My main concern as always is frustrating (to me) comabt, but eh. I'll risk it this time. I mean, at least I can steal a goat, toss it over my shoulder, and run away with it. Cute. There's apparently eventually some kind of small npc-settlement/animal husbandry stuff.