LadyCrimson

Hubby took the whole holiday week off. Me: "What cha gonna do/what do you wanna do? Day trips? Anything?" (his back thing limits activities a lot now) Him: "Kinda, maybe, dunno. It's winter. And I'm cold." ...he's currently watching TV lying on the couch, cocooned like a burrito in giant fluffy blankets. So cute.

This was my husband for ... 12+ years? Mostly the coffee. Now, he wasn't the only talent there, mind, and at the end he also had managerial duties, and it was a small company, but when he finally burnt out (60+ hour weeks) and quit, his boss sold/closed the company. eg, boss didn't want to continue without him.

Maybe half the time I click on (any) link in the forum (subform link, thread link, home page link etc) it'll take quite a while to go there/load. Again, for me not as bad as in the past and I haven't had any actual time-outs, but that could possibly be from me being impatient and not waiting longer, when it happens. The other half of the time it's ok/fairly "normal". And I still get the "post new post" eaten, or sometimes long "saving" loop delays when I hit "submit post" - sometimes if I refresh after trying to post/seems stuck, the post was apparently actually posted but the page was stuck showing me the "saving" loop visually so I couldn't tell, etc. Log-in and Sign-Out menu weirdness occasionally. Little stuff that is a bit annoying but marginally tolerable since it doesn't happen too often (for me).

It hasn't been as terrible for me in the past, but it's definitely rougher. I don't know what the "official forum" state of Avowed is going to be (here or a MS site), but this forum isn't ready for a giant influx of game release proportions. 😛

7 Days has this rule where zombies can spawn on anything but player crafted blocks, which does not include player crafted terrain-voxel blocks (vs. building blocks). This makes sense since out in the world you need zombies to spawn, well, out in the world. Not to mention, all terrain voxels have, like, 100-200HP, which is useless. A bear could fart in your yard and damage them. But this means your "backyard" and any surrounding perimeter is always going to look like a cobblestone or concrete parking lot. Fences won't keep them from spawning if your yard is any kind of terrain/asphalt. I got fed up/bored with that and copied/created new terrain blocks ("topsoil2, gravel2" etc)/made craft recipes for them, defined that zombies can't spawn on them, and gave them 10K hit points. I seem to have done it correctly and it works just fine - I can finally have a yard that looks like ... a freaking yard. I guess I am happy. But now I'm bored again.

Force Gaming's yak about their preview play had me also thinking "seems better than I thought." A lot of secrets to be found (exploration focus), the zone thing seems ok, combat seems ok. The UI and combat UI still is kinda ick. Things like "too easy" could be because it's the prologue/first area of the game, hard to judge when it's just a first area type preview. EDIT: he mentioned a lot of fps fluctuation, performance wise. But the map seems large enough, indicating there will be plenty of "zones" to visit/explore. "Dawnshore" is the zone they were allowed to play in. Still not sure if my brain currently wants this type of game, but it does look more promising now. EDIT: I may still wait for at least a 30% sale tho. 😛 EDITEDIT: thought maybe some might find a world map spoilery, spoiler tag added.

I remember those shrimp on the barbie ads. They were all the (US) rage back then, when people used to chatter and giggle about tv ad campaigns vs. adblock everything. Funny how that was such a culture norm once. It was back in the mid-80's, there was a whole series of them, but I think this is the one most think of. Not sure if it was the first one or not, maybe.

1st reaction: "No, no, no, NO, no." 2nd reaction: "Have an open mind, have an open mind, it might be good/fun." 3rd reaction: "No, no, no, NO, no." The director is the same. Gerald's playing the dad. Director said there will be some differences vs. a straight 1-1 copy, things that weren't put in the animated originals, although for this teaser it's pretty much showing the 1-1 iconic bits side. And to me Toothless looks weird. I mean it looks like Toothless, but with some super bumpy texture map. Certainly doesn't look like a "live" dragon, even if the actors are humans. And ... it's not NEEDED. Sigh. Hollywood. "Have an open mind, have an open mind, I might enjoy it...."

Oh, doh, that makes sense. I loved that animated series - not as much as ToS, but it was fun, I have it on DVD. It's mentioned so infrequently tho (well, in my limited experience) so I just never think about using letter ID for it, heh. I have heard that about Lower Decks, but when I looked at it briefly the other day, I don't think I could get into it. Not my style at all.

Btw, what does TAS stand for.

I just saw that. The uncanny valley is fairly limited, but peeks thru here and there ofc. Still, I liked it. I don't "get" any of the nuTrek references but the last bit of the two of them together was still nice. It always felt a bit sad that those two iconic characters didn't get to grow old together, so to speak. Never liked what they did re: Kirk's death/s. Wasn't the worst or anything, it just wasn't satisfying.

^ Yeah, I heard about that. Most play up the gaming connection, but I'd be more concerned about the anime/manga influence, if any, that could affect films, series etc. Not to mention the general "yet more under one umbrella" concerns.

Me, staring at cards stuck to fridge: "Hm, dentist cleaning on the the 26th." Hubby: "That's still a long ways away, like a month and a half." Me: "It's less than 2 weeks." (at the time) Hubby: "I guess it's not October?" Me: "YES! *fist pump* I am not the only one losing their mind."

^ I saw the first season of From (thru MGM sub). It was pretty decent. Meant to watch more, but by the time the 2nd season came out, I ... didn't feel like it. 😛 Maybe one day. ======= Subbed to Paramount+, because of Matlock. I suspect after that I'll cancel it, although it will be a while (Matlock is at 6 episodes, I think it's supposed to be 18, and it ... was renewed for a 2nd already...). Anyway, because of that, over the weekend I tried: The Stand - ok, that 90's mini-series was sometimes cheesy and a few bad miscasts, but Gary Sinise and Ray Walston were highlights. Maybe this newer one will be better. I watched one episode and turned it off. I think it's even worse, including the casting. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - heard this was the best of the nuTrek. I like the actors for Pike and Uhura. I thought the first episode was horrible. What is this with Spock and T'Pring, is this alternate history. I say that because in Amok Time he kept staring intently at that picture of T'Pring as a child, as if he'd never seen her as an adult. Well, I guess we can hypothesize background for new stories...but it felt soul-icky for some reason. I don't like the Spock actor in this one either. And Pike with foreknowledge, ok. I fell asleep in the 2nd episode and woke up to maybe the 6th episode with Spock kissing Nurse Chapel on the bridge, filling the screen, wtf. Ok, no context, back to episode 2. I did like 2nd episode a lot better, it felt more adventure Star Trek-y. I get the feeling I'll like it when they're doing space/meet ppl on planets story bits, and dislike most of the interpersonal relationship/chr. stuff. But everything feels kind of ... stiff and unnatural. Maybe it's the dialogue. Maybe it's (most of ) the actors. Maybe it's all the shiny fancy tech of the ship vs. the ToS Enterprise period. I get it, needs updating, but it's a little over-much, akin to those movies. Maybe I've just forgotten what anything but the ToS pacing is like. Well, it's shortish, I suppose I can power through the rest. Edit: and no, I won't be watching any of the other nuTrek. The idea of following Pike's adventures, pre-James Kirk, was at least interesting on paper.

Dad pretending he doesn't wanna, until the lights go off. Kids get fun toys these days.

^ Wait, does this mean you'd need a bnet account to play it? Or is it just the store purchasing option? .... Steam doesn't mention it, so I hope that means no on it being attached to bnet itself. ...it's $70US on Steam. ...it's $90US for the pre-order which gets you 2 skin packs, artbook/soundtrack, and "up to" 5 days earlier access. >.> Yeah...that makes me expect more from it, quality wise, than I originally was. Like length, replayability, that sort of stuff.

The key to kitty comedy is apparently hard floors.

I was confused for a minute. Game? Show? What? Oh, anthology 15 episode series ... based on games? The games tie-in does nothing for me, depends on the stories. Hm. 🤔 Has some big names doing some of the VA.

Factorio is one of those games I've looked at, but it seemed to be more architect-skill based (not literally, but you get what I mean) then simpler base or city-building based, which for me means no. There's been a few games where even if the concept was appealing, I wasn't willing to do that much learning of the "system." I'm sure once you know how-to, it's second nature, like most games, but these days I like games I can "learn to play" without feeling like I'm learning AutoCad. EDIT: felt a need to clarify that I do like complexity at times/in certain forms, but such can also trigger obsessive patterns that at this point are more exhausting then entertaining, so I tend to avoid. My aging brain slowly wants simpler and simpler gameplay, not convoluted busy work. But yet ... not too simple. Tic Tac Toe is still boring. The most irritating to me is when there are needlessly complex/silly levels of something, which makes you think it's going somewhere, and it turns out it's all pointless/there is zero need to even utilize it. As much as I liked No Man's Sky's exploration, that cooking/food system they had was like that. It was just ... utterly pointless. You could remove it entirely and almost no one would notice.

Dunno if someone posted this in the past but this looks right up my alley. We shall see.

According to internet, I quite likely have many "traits" of: ADHD PTSD being somewhere "on the autism spectrum" (ASD), or whatever title is currently in fashion to use Major Depressive Order (long or maybe forever "remission" stage) or whatever they might call it now A laundry list of physical disorders A laundry list of hormonal disorders "Of course, this is not a diagnosis, but only a list of possibilities." ...is it just me, or has it reached a point in mass modern culture where everything anyone ever does is a symptom of something, that might need "fixing" or "managing?" ...maybe I am just ... me?

^ If a game's main point (to me) is exploration+sandboxy and maybe repeated restarts, static maps are boring over time because you know where everything is. There is nothing to explore/discover since you know the "best POI/weapon" is 10 clicks over that hill. Static maps are fine/great for rpg's, since there's a path and quests you're supposed to follow that require a certain structure (although this means I personally won't replay them more than a few times perhaps), or mission-structured RTS/citybuilding maps where part of the challenge was finding different ways to conquer/build the same limited-size/terrain map, etc. ARPG's like old Diablo's that did that mixture where a dungeon was randomly picked from several possible maze-rearrangements, worked pretty well for that type of game. Which you could eventually memorize all the possible maze configurations, so you knew which one you had as soon as you entered the dungeon, but at least you couldn't predict which one you'd get at any given time. Usually I'd have gotten bored of any 7Days update by now, even with all my mod tweaking.. There just isn't anything else yet I care to purchase to play - or it's all Early Access etc. Sometimes I feel like Steam has become 85% Early Access. >.> I think I've given up on Manor Lords because they put in that food spoilage mechanic and it doesn't appear like they'll remove it or give an option to turn it off. Whenever they add an actual new map I might check it again but eh.

Putting a zombie down in one sneaky blow - satisfying. Making them hold their severed head in hand (happy accident) - sublime. I keep trying to shoot both arms off of one, because it would be funny seeing them chase after me with no arms, but so far I haven't made it happen.

Was getting bored of 7 Days but then I found a user-made map, on 7daystodiemods website, which enlarges/alters the game's default "hand-placed/created" Navezgane map. Most of us long timers are bored of/never use the vanilla Navesgane map, because, y'know, it's static, and the towns are all tiny/spread out. But it has much more artistic charm, unique POI's and terrain features etc. I've tried other oddball user-made maps and didn't like them too much, but this one is great. Combines Navez's unique personality which helps inspire exploration more, with some RWG styled features. Suits my nomadic/roaming style to a T. Sadly as with any map, I'm sure I won't care to play/use it more than once or twice, but at least it made the game less boring for a bit, again. I'm still waiting for that beavers city-building game to be not-early-access. And a couple others, all in EA for at 3+ years now. Maybe in another few years. Every time I see a new early access "release" claiming they hope for " a year in early access" I just laugh. Just fess up and say 3-5+ years.