LadyCrimson

^ Hm. I started wondering if what we are both referring to should be labeled as tropes, not archetypes. Which led me down a small rabbithole of trying to find what's the bloody difference. Far as I can tell, there would be far less archetypes and they tend to have deeper human nature reveals/purposes, and tropes, while similar, have a broader/shallower focus, thus why there's 7 million of them. I think tropes are close to cliche's then archetypes but I profess I'm still confuddled on what the difference is, at least in terms of TV/film. Rapid fire, over-talkative sidekicks tend to annoy me as well. I think I'm one of the few who does not find Mr. Pesci all that amusing in the Lethal Weapon series, although he does get a few really good one liners. I seem to recall mostly liking the reindeer in Frozen - probably because it was "cute", heh - but the snowman I wanted to melt with a hairdryer. But it's not like I loved Frozen overall to begin with. I still haven't watched Banshees. I still want/meant to. I just haven't.

Blow dryer starts around 1:40

@Bartimaeus I'm curious what those archetypes that you tend to dislike, are. I know a few archetypes that I tend to gravitate to (methodical, intense, and/or logical/rational, Spock, Data, Sherlock, certain villains), but if I almost immediately dislike a character it's usually because of something like "ugh, they remind me of someone I knew irl that I couldn't stand" and I can't disassociate, vs. an actual archetype. Or any character like this one (male, female, child, don't care, can't stand it): Edit: I'm not sure if that's a true archetype or more a director's direction, thing.

So I had no idea The Last of US is finally coming to PC soon. This makes me debate with myself whether I want to buy it, when I already know the story (YT videos and watching someone play it, but a long time ago), plus it's not typically the gameplay style/genre I'd play. ...still, especially after watching the TV series, I sorta wonder what it would be like to play it vs. watch it. ...I'm sure they're counting on the TV series to boost sales. >.>

I still love the first season of BBC's Sherlock. And that's as someone who's a fairly big nerd re: the original written stories. But it did go downhill quickly, even if it still had some good moments here and there and what they did with Moriarty was ... interesting. Elementary on the other hand - wasn't awful as a show itself, but the lead's interpretation didn't feel like the chr. Sherlock Holmes to me at all, not even in vague spirit. I didn't watch more than a few episodes I think. My favorite not-named-Sherlock fictional US TV series "genius/slightly unhinged" detective was probably Vincent D'Onofrio in Law and Order: Criminal Intent. At least the first two or three seasons. I didn't watch much past that and I think Vincent became less prominent with shifting/different detective team leader/multi-actor focus and stuff.

Postscript: The thing about modern 3D games recently that I've disliked is all the massive directional lighting/shadow tricks. Environmentally it can look great, don't get me wrong, but on characters...where even when it's night-time (vs. bright sunlight say), from one angle, your chr's is lit up nicely/naturally, but then you turn them 70 degrees and their face becomes this murky hole of terrible shadowing, or their dark hair turns white/red/green/purple, stuff like that. Anyway, maybe I can continue trying the early game with other Houses now that the game doesn't crash every 15 minutes.

I think my main thing re: faces in Hogwart's was that during dialogues, so often they seemed at least somewhat animated (even if mouth movement was iffy at times), eg, it was all right, but then they'd finish speaking and their face would often fall into this neutral, robotic expression.

^ I think I lost most of my ability to find what many TV/films billed as comedies think is humorous, back in the early 90's.

There. I still have a few missing (non-revello) pages and conjurations, but not many. After 8 tries finally got that last broom side quest, and you know what that means - I finally have this complete outfit!

Eh, all games have a small portion of people with big issues ... maybe Hogwart's is 7% instead of 3% (the usual figures pulled from my arse) so you see more 'net complaints. Don't think it's all that bad overall vs. how many bought the game. Most of the time I get lucky and am on the doesn't-have-issues side of games - this time I wasn't. I remember initial release of FO:NV was really bad for me w/crashes too, lol. But I played for a couple hours, no CTD, felt smooth, no .ini tweaks etc. so maybe this time w/patch+the last driver reinstall etc it's finally good? Got a couple more Steam Achievements and have only 1 more side quest to get 100% in the 4 challenge categories and I assume hit max level. Of course, it's the only side-quest left and it's the final broom upgrade one. Failed it three times. Bah. I wish they had left a little more leeway re: max level/challenge completion, so there could be a few quests you could skip if you didn't like them, and still reach it. Forcing a player to do every single itty bitty thing isn't my fave method. Although ofc one doesn't have to do all that just to complete the main story. There *is* however a chr. lvl requirement to see the final short cutscene before credit rolling, which some could reach without being that level.

Yeah, that's sometimes a stopper for me too...even if it's only 8 seasons. I also don't have the patience anymore for things like "but it gets really good after 2 seasons!" I'm not watching multiple seasons just so I can understand/get what's happening in the supposedly "good" later seasons. Kinda like when people say a MMO game gets good after 100 hours. Nope.

I tried to watch Psych once. Felt too sitcom-y for me maybe or I wasn't in the mood. I might try again someday. There's also the comedic series Chuck, which someone I know loved but I never got around to trying, tho I do know who Z. Levi is because of clips and his VA role in Tangled was great/fun. Nearing the end of season1 The Mentalist. Still liking the rewatch, both with full attention/TV and as something to have on while cooking etc.

Well, it's nice to use Ansel in combat. Combat animations are still not very still-screen photogenic, however. unrelated ... wish they would allow you to look up and down while flying. Not sure why they limited that one.

--Had terrible texture issues. --DDU'd and reinstalled nvidia drivers, again. Deleted shader caches, again. --was able to restart and not crash in the first 10-20 minutes a couple times, giving me hope. Maybe I can at least play 2-3 hour sessions again. We'll see. --I no longer seem to need the Engine.ini gpu/performance tweak. It runs fine without it/gpu utilization remains high, vram use seems a bit lower, have most settings back to native High/Ultra, mostly 50-70fps, no severe frame pacing stutter even during brief dips into low 40's, etc. ...cautiously optimistic.

--got it to start again --I'd say overall fps/general performance is about the same for me, at my settings etc. --Ansel does work during combat actions now --Biscuit quest indeed fixed, the lock appeared, could rescue. --but CTD'd in about 20 minutes after casting a spell at an enemy. It's just totally random for me in the sense there is no predicting/avoiding a cause/moment. I do not CTD while fast traveling. When the CTD happens the GPU usage in task manager seems to do a sudden moderate drop then a spike to 100/max a micro-second before the crash, vs. the more typical steady-line 85-90%.

...nope, CTD'd after 10-12 minutes of randomly flying around on the broom. ...last night I turned DLSS back on and managed about 30 minutes. I had it off again after patch. ...you can use Ansel while sitting on the broom now. ...I'll restart and see if that Biscuit lock bug is fixed. Edit: oops now it won't even start. Hit Play button and the button turns blue for about 3 seconds then goes back to green/Play state again.

I saw some others on LInux posting about some crash fix, maybe it's the same one you're using. I guess it's all an argument to get rid of Winblows. I'm certainly not eager to go to Win11, but then I wasn't eager to move to any new version of Windows.

Well, that is not a promising start. Edit: ok it supposedly installed. Going to verify integrity before starting. I removed the Engine.ini config tweaks temporarily. Let's see if it starts...

Hogwart's patch: https://steamcommunity.com/app/990080/discussions/0/3789254716315683638/ Many crash related notes in there: ...I suppose that's why they feel so random... ...it says it fixed Ansel use while spells are cast and on the broom. Does that mean we can use it at those times now? ...like all patches, some say it broke the game/it's even worse, maybe especially some RT settings (at least I don't use those) etc.. I'm almost afraid to try it, lol. I suppose it can't get much worse than it already has been for me, since it started all the CTD recently.

^ Don't have a specific tool but I've used everything from screwdrivers to hard kitchen spatulas. They break quite often even then. I miss when things were mostly done with screws and metal clips but pretty futuristic designs don't work well with that I guess. Unrelated: Well, with brief testing, it would appear putting the power-target of the gpu (undervolting?) at or below 68% stops the CTD's in Hogwarts, for me. Or at least, stops them from happening at either start up and within the first 30 minutes. >.> At that low of a target (vs. 80%) I do lose 5-8fps tho. Makes me think Hogwart coding is currently doing something that triggers micro high wattage spikes for me, and either the gpu or psu or power strips or who knows what doesn't like it. Of course, that's still just a theory. ...ordered a new/different giant power strip because it's the easiest thing to try first. I bought one when we moved because the one I was using at the other house didn't have a long enough cord for wall outlet vs. middle of the room distance. And no, I'm not just concerned re: Hogwart's, I was having those spontaneous PC reboots, too.

^ "Taking this off is so easy!" in the 3 or 4 videos I watched for the PS4, I'd guess it was so easy because they'd done it on theirs several or a dozen times or more already. >.> Plus manufacture randomness. But yeah, 7 times out of 10 (not just computer stuff either) the plastic snaps break and then you're hunting for the duct tape.

One of my attempts to make a "oh this looks cool" show up in a screenshot. Oh, so that's what they look like (since you're usually so far away from them) -godmode cheat used so I didn't have to attack - Ansel works when enemies attack, just not when your chr. is doing any attack/animation

In my case it's always possible a reformat/O/S reinstall might help, or maybe it's even something hardware that more demanding games are triggering. But Hogwart's has many CTD complaints so I'm not alone with that one. That stupid hydro gpu cooler did slightly leak onto the gpu a bit, ages ago. Seemed fine but never know. >.> I haven't had any actual spontaneous reboots since doing some cleanup, and only CTD in Hogwart's and one Alpha-state game. I'm not building a new PC yet and I'm too lazy to reinstall O/S any time soon. I think the only thing I haven't tried yet is replacing the large industrial power strip much of my stuff is plugged into. One never knows.

Last of Us Episode 8 - Better then last episode, imo. I wish it had been maybe 10 minutes longer to pad out a certain early aspect/tension a bit more. ---Troy Baker playing a small role. 'Nuff said. ---With the way they have been condensing some things I'm certain they can end the show with the one episode left. One has to remember that TV is not a game with the player taking a long time to "do stuff" - the essential story can be told fairly briefly. It might've been better at 10 episodes vs. 9, however. ---I still feel like Episodes 1-3 were the best ones, with the rest falling a notch or two below. Still good.

Oh yeah, by mid-game that's not really an issue. It's just if you spent a lot of your moonstone when you get the first main RoR rooms, it might feel more significant. Had 300-500, spent a few hundred, that kind of thing. 999 is the max you can hold anyway. It's more just that some likely wasted a ton of time deco'ing before getting vivariums etc. Annoying.