LadyCrimson

The next goose/goat game? ...I don't think I'd have interest in it myself (never tried goose/goat game either), but the trailer made me giggle.

Hubby's been pretty depressed off and on. Goes up and down, he's trying to stay positive etc. But took a few long weekends, kinda mopes around the house or sits silent in my room on weekends, watching me PC for hours since he doesn't feel like doing anything else. >.> His sister will be moving back to the Bay Area soon - they plan to stay a while, then sell that house and retire in far south California. I really think we should go with them. It's sad tho, when 50% of why hubby doesn't want to retire is because ... his work's health insurance. Ours is currently so good (cost wise - pretty much zero for everything) that it feels like it'd be a mistake to not have it available as long as possible. Gotta look at things again, maybe there's ways around it.

While I'd agree (and that trailers give this feeling too often these days), one can also go too far into another direction. Like this one. It tells me so little I searched for a brief plot synopsis because I couldn't tell even the tiniest thing about what it would be about - not even what genre/s it might fall into. I guess it got me curious enough to look up the movie tho, so it worked in that sense.

HBO/Max - Tokyo Vice: white guy wants to be a news (print) reporter in 90's Japan. Gets involved in seedy underworld plots and stuff. I love Ken Watanabe, I'll try it. Episode 1: Ken is on-screen for about 10 seconds. The rest is largely setup/chr. building for the youthful main character. I found it well shot/done but kinda slow/boring. Main chr. initially not super likable/a tad annoying but earnest. It's just that most of the supporting/side chrs. come off as more interesting. >.> Episode 2: Ken is on-screen a little longer but not by much. >.> Still kinda boring, but the Yakuza turf war stuff may get more interesting. I don't mean in action way, it's not that kind of series. I think. I think Ken is supposed to become more important in the series/with the main chr, so going to watch more and hopefully Eps. 3 will be the one.

Yes.

Manor Lords - I don't profess to actually understand detailed mechanic workings, it's all too obscure/inconsistent/glitchy perhaps, but you do stuff enough times and you figure out what works. Hence, I have reached the point where I can restart, get to 600+ population, and then get bored. At least in terms of sandbox. On the one hand, I appreciate I can grow at my own pace. On the other hand, when there is no reason to keep growing (especially since the multiple-region stuff isn't it) outside of "town painting" a region, no risk or buildup left to do (I can literally walk away for hours and it runs itself with no problems) apparently for this game, 600 or so is the magic "I'm done" number. I've barely tried the combat. It sounds way too buggy with perhaps too dramatic a difference between too easy and irritatingly rushed.

Good to hear from you, @Guard Dog, and that things are going loverly.

Manor Lords: you thought Caesar 3's market ladies were bad? ----the market system isn't tuned properly, or is too confusing for many to understand, or it goes haywire/glitchy the more you grow. Markets do not have a physical distance radius (but it looks like it does, causing confusion).You could build a market on one side of the map and a village on the other side, doesn't matter. It's this process of villager-built market stalls - firewood, clothing and food stalls - vs. house checks on the stalls/market, vs. teleporting goods to houses. Each house "checks" the market in order from closest to farthest. Have enough goods in those stalls for every house check, within enough of each type of stalls, all houses get covered. Good in theory. Problem is it gets borked as your town grows and supply/AI calculations re: stalls/goods fluctuates (stalls start to be "empty" far too often). I think I have this bug where every time I build even 6-10 more houses, the market "coverage" and stall functions drops badly and stays there. I can build more market space areas (so more ppl build more stalls), rearrange things, manually delete individual market stalls hoping different ppl will build different stalls, build more granaries nearby to encourage supply chains etc, nothing works. Spent days trying to figure out how to stabilize the system. Finally I found it - delete market/s entire and rebuild - once they fill up again, coverage magically goes back to 100%. Until I build more houses. Which works (for me) every single time I want to expand a lot, so I now have 600+ population with 100% access, but this indicates AI glitching. Hopefully will be fixed.

I know this is the 'net and we could all simply "disappear" at any time, for whatever reasons etc. - I probably wouldn't have thought about it without that "forum software sucks" post. Just made me wonder, is all. I've been gone for months at time more than once myself ... I just eventually keep coming back. Re: Guard Dog - he's also crossed my mind now and again and I do remember the health issue posts. Hope he's doing fine/beat those/happy.

I have observed that since Keyrock's forum-software post, he has not been around. Did we lose him? Was that a farewell post? That would make me sad.. Although in truth I often wonder why I still keep coming here myself. Life twists and turns ... but some habits are hard to break.

Manor Lords: Ok, from a city-building/no combat perspective, you cannot expand your first town/area across-regions. The way it works is if you claim another map region, it becomes like a new-start town. Plop down a starter tent w/5 families there, and go thru the entire process of building up population/town buildings again. Although you can make it less advanced/large, of course, if you just want some outpost-like resources. But if you want to use/gain resources from that region, you don't just give it to yourself freely - you must build tradeposts and barter goods with that region - send firewood for wheat for example. Ppl/carts have to travel back and forth. The exchange rate is not 1-1 either, dunno the maths, different for different resources. Which works, is more "realistic" too (other regions are like your surfdoms?), but it is a cumbersome exchange system (as is, it could change). So that is a little deflating. Some of the regions are large enough to be fun to fill just "your" area as a playthru, some are much smaller. I suppose you could have a goal of getting every region stable (where you don't really have to manage it much anymore, which is totally doable) and just keep doing it in all regions, where the management would be the barter system to give some regions resources they lack - kind of like 8 maps in one save, ha. It totally makes sense in terms of the light RTS/combat/defeat AI to claim regions, aspect, tho. In that case you wouldn't be focused on building so much as claiming regions before the AI gets them all/you. I think many of those wishlisters are going to be disappointed that it's not either "Total War Killer" and not Banished/Ostriv. It's more like a combo of Banished and Stronghold. Maybe. I still like it tho. And I love restarting. We'll see what updates bring someday. Edit: it's Stronghold feeling in town-sandbox, I don't mean SH's combat or castle defense.

Help me! I can't stop restarting a new map! It's almost as bad a chr. creation windows in rpgs!

Manor Lords: short take: still like it. Slow pace. Per usual first year or three hardest but growth controllable so I don't feel rushed (in sandbox mode). Hours go by without a blink. But it's definitely an Alpha w/some balance issues and ofc features not made yet. A very polished Alpha tho. The main thing that I'm focused on personally is whether or not the game is "fun" re: expanding all over the map and raising population etc, since I like to do that. ============ ------currently zero good tutorial aspect. Example: when you place a housing plot you can dictate the size/shape. Different shapes/icons mean different things/results for what the house/s built can do. Took me a while to figure that out. One icon means you can have a house make a personal yard-garden, or chicken coop, or goats, but better make it a huge yard/plot if you want it to make much. Or one icon/shape concept means you can upgrade a house to house more than one family. It's kinda cool actually. ------start-game region and resource nodes/farm fertility quality seems random. So you could keep restarting until you get a favorable start region arrangement. ------both importing and exporting trade has a supply/demand mechanic where the price rises or decreases if you trade it repeatedly/too long without a break, so no getting super rich fast, selling off excess-whatever, and no constant buying of anything or it'll cost an arm and a leg before long. ------Farm mechanics seem not very rewarding re: how many families you have to have working them. You want them, but it drains your workers a lot vs. gain. Initially you're better off with lots of big house-veggie gardens vs. farming. ------there is town happiness, but in no-combat mode (so no combat morale issues) it's pretty easy to keep it at 70% or higher.Doesn't feel like much of a balancing act so far. It mostly dictates how many new families you get per month. Max is 2 per month currently. ------apparently you have to build the "Manor house" in order to get the options that would allow for expanding/taking over other region lands vs. being locked into your starter area. Which requires your town to be at a certain title (Small Village). Meaning I can't delay (or decide to avoid entirely) having to make (or trade for) certain resources/buildings, or upgrading at least houses to a certain level etc.

I don't know if they fixed something or it's just coincidence, but it felt better tonight when I was on. Still a bit of very brief "lag/pause" at times but nothing terrible or rage inducing.

Manor Lords: played an hour and a half or so. I like it enough I won't refund it. Probably play it for a while then shelve it for a year to see what happens etc. Anyway...in its current initial early-access form: ---the early pace of the city-build aspect is verrrrry slow. It seems that it's one house/family=one building/job. At least at the start? So you build house plots and wait, and wait, for new families arrive. All city builders do this to some extent but Manor Lords feels extra slow. Plus building times are extra long. I do like the methods for laying out house plots and buildings/roads ---there are work oxen (you start with 1) which basically are needed for many buildings to function. They can die. I recommend buying at least a 2nd with initial small start funds immediately. Because having zero ox with zero funds would be bad. ---the 1st person viewpoint is very nice for tourism. Although the visible avatar is always this red robed dude (not even a matching generic female version yet). ---Game performance is fine/great for me. ---haven't really looked at the progression/skill tree yet. There's an influence upgrade/points system and I'm not sure how hard it'll be to get it up quickly without any combat/bandits.

I have utterly no clue what I'm doing, but apparently it'll still look kinda pretty. Also, this is just the loading screen, but I rather liked it.

I hadn't even noticed the influx of guests - my bookmark (or my general "click first" after login) is the Community section, not Home, so I don't often see the stats line of users-online. Too much traffic can definitely be a bugbear for various reasons. I'm still getting the slow page loading response just to say, both page loading and when trying to login/logout. Sometimes it's not too long a wait, sometimes it's quite long (as Bart. mentioned).

Was up late for other reasons, so when time came, went to buy Manor Lords (on Steam, for the moment): --- "Too many people want to buy this game, so you can't right now, try again later." --- "But not too many times in a row or you'll hit our attempts limit and be frozen out for a while." I guess millions of wishlisters is too much for Steam's purchase software. Bought it, it started fine, spent 15 minutes with settings and such (will be doing EZ no-combat mode while learning town mechanics, then try normal mode). Game loaded me into a spot with baskets of bread, 1 ox, and some peasants. Looks nice. But I save and exit. Sadly too tired from staying up all night to test-play within "2 hr time limit" window. Later. But I did make an angry squirrel, purple-white coat of arms to match my purple dress/white hat wearing, grumpy old fart female avatar. Color/mood matching is important after all.

After switching out one of my large power strips, my PC (or the PS4) has not done any spontaneous reboots for a long time. This week, it's done it twice. Pffft. Not the PS4 (yet) tho. Is the 5090 (or whatever, just "next gen" mega gpu) out yet so I have an excuse to just build a new rig instead of troubleshooting one? Yes I'm that lazy. Edit: my next PC, considering my age/interest level changes etc. I am going to attempt to build a crazy level PC that may end up being the last one I ever build. Maybe it won't work, but I envision after age 65+ not caring anymore and just buying a SteamDeck or console or mini-pc (just for very old games) or something else that hasn't been invented yet, instead.

I've noticed a lot of weirdness and intermittent ... page loading issues? recently. It is a bit tiresome. I haven't liked the forum software for ages. I mean most of the time it functions, but yeah...it's kind of a mess from a user and QoL standpoint. I still miss the code/uucode/bbcode or whatever it was called manual typing reply box mode.

Patron: Got to 3800 population. Was down to 25-30fps overall but still playable. Then I hit Year 65, or 67, or thereabouts. Annnnnd.....apparently there's a mechanic where houses start to fall apart - they get this red icon over each house. You have to click to repair. The problem is there is NO warning they are in need of repair so when your "town" covers the map you may not notice individual houses entering this stage until the "HOUSE HAS COLLAPSED" message (which does not give you any way to "zoom" to area in question, so you are hunting for it). If you are on 10x speed this will all occur very rapidly. I think houses need repair in the order that you initially placed them (time based?) because it started in the first area, so then I felt I had to hover there constantly to catch the icons and repair. But it took 60+ game years for it start, no warning, sandbox mode with "events and disasters" off, I had no idea this was a thing. How stupid. I'm not repairing hundreds maybe more than a thousand houses a few at a time every few minutes, or playing at 1x speed. Back to Caesar 3.

7 Days to Die is going to leave Early Access this summer after 10 years. Version 1.0! ... and coming to console again! With a higher pricetag ($45)! But they still have a roadmap. And haven't put in those promised bandits yet. Or other stuff like weather and (PC) optimizations. Coming in updates thru and to maybe late 2025. Maybe with some costume DLC. So basically, it's a "gold" Alpha 1.0 release so it can be labeled as a not-early access release to console. I still personally like the game as a goof-around time, but, all I gotta say is: "Bwahahahahaaaaaa!"

^ Love the slo mo glory walk to that specific song. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is #1 (even if/when I don't care much about the movie overall). I thought he'd retired playing him? Dunno if I'll watch the movie (I still haven't watched Deadpool 2, either) but the trailer is fun.