LadyCrimson

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.

Hubby: (who has never played any Fallout) "Ppl keep telling me it's good, were you going to/do you want to watch it (together)" (asks several times, eg he's impatient and I keep forgetting) Me: "Ok, ok, I'll try it." - (I've played 1.5 games/know of the older games and a lot of memes but I'm not a Fallout deep lore person) ...we also did 2 episodes. I kind of liked it. Kept my attention, mostly, anyway. I liked the short prologue bit almost better then the rest, perhaps, but the rest was fine/felt as Fallout as a TV show probably could. The episodes felt a little long and maybe a little laborious but not in an annoying way/it's fine. There's nitpicking I'd do re: world and situation buildup (not main plot, I mean loose thread type stuff). Doesn't really hurt the show I guess, it just left me scratching my head about some background things, here and there, especially the 1st episode. ...dog is cute. Of course it is. ...anyway, it's ok for Prime. Music,costumes, and camerwork/scene settings were nice. Not an instant binge-watch for me (but not much is anymore) but it's decent for what it is/I can understand general praise. I might finish it if I remember. I told hubby it's fine if he wants to finish it without me.

"Hang in there", but when it's a flood, not sky-heights.

Installed Lords of the Realm 2 (GoG) for 1st time in ages thought I'd just quickly nostalgia run thru the campaign right. It seems to run fine but ... the cursor side scrolling is so fast I can't control it (goes one side of the map to other in a microsecond) and half the time the mouse r-l clicking is also too fast and screens/stuff show and disappear in a blink (registers as multiple clicks I guess). Among other things. Compatibility modes do nothing. I suppose I could turn on the loud ancient slower Win7 paperweight rig (that I'm thinking of relegating to a closet soon) and maybe play it from there but lately I can't be bothered. Could there be ways to deal with such? Sure, sometimes, but again, can't be bothered. Nowadays if it doesn't easily work, I don't play. Ah well. Time marches on. Back to ... something else.

Nothing important, but since HBO is now MAX, I noticed they had some of those true-crime shows I liked from whatever channels they were ages ago. So I'm working my way through some seasons of Homicide Hunter/Lt. Joe Kenda. I remember liking a couple seasons of that, and there's a lot more seasons. They use a persistent actor to play young Joe Kenda during re-enactments. Sometimes it's rather cheesey, sometimes less so, the music is always way over-dramatic, but they're shortish and Mr. Kenda himself has this dry delivery and occasional sense of humor I find watchable. Just one of those good for casual viewing while eating/exercising shows (which seems to be almost the only time I watch video media anymore). There was also apparently a semi-recent Forensic Files 2, which I didn't know existed. I loved the old original one from the late 90's, back before such shows were quite so cheesy/over-dramatic. It was probably mostly what got me on that whole kick in the first place (well that and CSI...). FF 2 isn't as good but it's still better than most modern shows. The first few episodes the new narrator (Bill Camp) was totally overboard and I thought "oh no" but they must have told him to take it down several notches and became at least tolerable. The original Forensic Files narrator (Peter Thomas) had the most awesome voice for such, but he passed.

Patron - got to around 3300 population. The save file takes much longer both to load-in, and when processing exiting game, now. Although save file doesn't seem super huge or anything. But I'm starting to get a little bored with expanding mostly for sake of keeping citizens from complaining about no housing, there's no other motivation at this point. I mean, I'd still love to fill the map but the performance keeps dropping, too, ofc. So it might be time to try another map/try with different land challenges. I think I did figure out why citizens still get grumpy re: no housing even with Shelters - I think they will stay in Shelters for a while but eventually get annoyed and want a proper house, perhaps as part of an "angry citizens may leave or riot" mechanic. Thus kind of negating Shelters supposed no-births growth-damper effect. Only need 3-4 Shelters, because they start to get annoyed before any more will fill up.

I would guess average modern town/colony builders end things/want to start over somewhere around here. Maybe more tightly packed houses. I've been kinda all over the place building those. And then there's the people like me. Sadly I don't think PC will allow filling map entire. That's still only maybe 2/3. At around 3300population now.

Patron - "My CPU might tank at 2000 total population." I was wrong. It's getting close to 3k now with close to half of the map covered and if fully zoomed out it's at 28-30fps (still very playable, a little sluggish if scrolling quickly), at middleish zoom it's 45-50fps. So maybe at ... 4.5-5K then? I can't get any good pictures of whole thing tho because even with photomode, the draw distance is so limited that if you fly upward to try to include more than 1/4 of current spread, everything undraws/disappears. Should be noted that I use a small Steam workshop mod that massively increases warehouse storage. Otherwise you'd end up covering half the map just with stupid warehouses. Pfft. The gold mines/mints are broken if you make tons of them - at this point I could delete all the farms for more houses and just buy all food and stuff.

He liked it. It just looks so good - city builder if you want, a little more rts/AoE if you want, take your pick. Will it be another lone-person dev success story? I may break the 'avoid early access" rule for this one. I also may try buying it on GoG, since it's there, so I can have separate .exe versions for each alpha/beta or whatever. Probably doesn't matter tons to me anymore but that's my biggest annoyance with ea and/or current times of constant game tweaking patches (not just bugz) for 5 years even after full-release. >.>

That SW game is trying to appeal to gamers like me with a cute animal sidekick. But Ubisoft, so no. I think KOTOR2 is the only SW themed game I ever played. I don't' even remember why I picked it up originally, tbh. Probably random "might be fun" grab in the physical store. For some reason liking/loving a movie (or novel) generally has not translated for me into wanting to play a game based in a film universe. Not sure why. Just rarely appeals/I usually don't even look at them.

Yeah that was one of the main things that made me go "ugh" when I learned of it near their ea release. I was hoping eventually a mod would get rid of that. The other thing was their (seeming) focus on combat. I know you can turn it off but point is that could change development focus. I do like RTS/strategy with a bit of city management (Stronghold, mainly) but to me a mainline "city builder" is still a separate thing vs. RTS and vice versa. More and more game genres become so mashed together (City Builder, Tower defense, rouge-lite, political strategy, RTS, post-apoc!) it just feels like a mess/don't like it. Still hoping Manor Lords RTS factor will be something I like - but at least there will be a non-combat mode if I don't. We'll see. Lately tho, while I appreciate the current efforts/genre revivals, more and more I feel like "may as well just play the old games instead."

Hubby bought a car. A 14/15 year old Lexus-something (SUV, taller/boxier type, LX maybe,* I dunno/don't care) with 150K miles on it, which re: his back he says is "as good it as it seem like it's going to get." And it was still 18k+. Apparently this is fair/normal market value, maybe even a little lower than average. I don't care how long the engine lasts these days, that's still ridiculous imo it should've been more like $13k at most, but whatever, we can afford it and I know I'm not with the times anymore. That said, he had it checked out by a Lexus dealer and a separate mechanic he's known for years, plus carfax, yadda yadda. Hubby's more like me now - outside of occasional work his miles per year is extremely low so it should be fine. At least I could drive it in emergency. It was long past time to get rid of that old Dodge van anyway, back or not. *Edit: it's GX, not LX. I guess GX's are 60kish new while LX's are 80k-130k, which is just outrageous. GPU's, rent, houses...wtf greed. Yes yes there are cheaper cars. It's still all silly.