Welcome to Talk Amongst Yourselves, AKA ‘TAY’. Organise meet-ups, talk about games, talk about anything you want! Consider this the unofficial Kotaku Australia forum. Become a TAYbie today and join the best and friendliest community on the internet!
See Games Differently
Now you can get the top stories from Kotaku delivered to your inbox. Enter your email below.
By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
If you’re 16-54 and live in Australia, then complete this survey for your chance to win a Prezzee voucher redeemable at brands like JB Hi-Fi, PlayStation Store and Xbox.
Comments
508 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
I’ve been absent so long my comments just go into moderation?
Hi all 🙂
Welcome back
I still love your avatar image. What’s been happening
Been living and working in NYC for the past six months. Intend to come back to do annual PAX Melb pilgrimage with the group I have the past couple of years. 🙂
I’ve started speedrunning Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2. I could be far, far worse at it than I am.
It’s a strange beast to play. Not only is the game unforgivably hard, to the point where you can lose more than 5 minutes to a single mistake, but it’s physically taxing. My back is incredibly stiff from playing yesterday and I stopped to stretch multiple times over the 2 and a half hours I spent streaming. I’d say that those people advocating for standing desks are right but I’m fairly sure that it would be equally uncomfortable.
Streaming from a DS is simply not feasible. You can buy a capture card for a DS or 3DS that lets you capture the game directly. They cost several hundred dollars and you have to send your DS to Japan. You can do a firmware mod on a New 3DS to allow wireless streaming… of 3DS titles. For some reason, DS games use different hardware within the 3DS so you have to use pirated versions of DS games to stream them. That’s frowned upon (and also I don’t own a New 3DS).
My solution? A webcam dangling from a desk lamp. It’s surprisingly effective. Despite the fact that the image quality is not amazing and my hands consistently block parts of the screen, I still get a viewer every time I stream. Sometimes even several!
One of the more satisfying bits is finding new glitches to make use of. Trauma Center’s touch screen controls are weird. To suture a wound you have to use the suture tool and draw a zig-zag, crossing over the wound at least 3 times. That means if you draw an N or Z, you will consistently suture a wound. I’ve named this method “Kiwi suturing” but it basically means “the minimal effort to do it the right way”. I’ve also found a way that abuses the touch screen called “Delta suturing”. You hold one stylus next to the middle of a wound. Then on the other side you tap your other stylus far away, one tap aligned to the top, the other to the bottom. Release both styluses and a triangle shape will appear on the screen. The wound will also be sutured.
The best part is that Delta suturing isn’t necessarily faster than Kiwi suturing. It looks cooler though.
Damn, that’s all so cool! I only played through those games the once, ages ago, and was just happy with progressing the story!
Oh man, I was watching you the other night and was unreasonably impressed by you using two styluses and I hate myself for it.
I should clarify that when I say I was watching you, I meant that I was watching you through the window, not via stream.
That would explain what Alice was barking at.
The two stylus thing is funny. I’ve pretty much always done it. There are some tricks you can do that make the game significantly easier by using two styluses plus it makes tool selection much faster. The Trauma Center speedrunning community mostly plays the Wii games. They didn’t get that using two styluses was ridiculously faster and easier than using one.
Then szsk ( a Japanese dude that holds most of the records for the series) released a video where they beat UTK2 using two styluses.
All of a sudden people understood. “Oh, using both hands means you can do more things and that’s a good thing.”
Hey TAYbies!
In response to decent arcade sticks costing 400 bucks here, I finished my design for an easy DIY arcade stick for the masses:
http://i.imgur.com/bO6FCFq.jpg
20 bucks in case materials, two hours, and no skill required. It also has no external screw heads, tooless access to the internals, double-sided art layers, and spring-based wiimote retention (if you swing that way).
https://youtu.be/A4JXiu4fuAQ
I’m punting a couple more out for some of the brissie fighting crew atm.
That’s pretty damn awesome man! Really nice work indeed, and fantastic price point! Looks nice and heavy too! I have an arcade stick for xbox 360, which I use on my pc sometimes too, but the only shitter with it is it’s just too light. Yours looks rock solid! 7/10! Would use for sure!
I notice you said $20 in case materials though. How much were the internals (not including the wiimote)
The buttons (11) and stick cost about 60 bucks, but the shipping can be cripplingly expensive compared to that (like 40 bucks from the US!). I spare myself some pain by buying in bulk, or from the UK.
The PCB I used was from a five dollar knockoff classic controller.
All in, that stick cost just under a hundred bucks. To have some high quality quality art sheets printed up would take it to the tonne.
It’s still half the price of the horrible mayflash arcade stick you can buy at JB!
I also have a couple of Brook UFBs, which is a PCB which works with ps3/4/360/one/pc/pokken. It ain’t cheap, but it’s very very cool. :p
Quite reasonable really! Many years ago, I used to work for an arcade game co making lightguns. Wonder if I could hit them up for some cheap real arcade components….
Light guns are awesome.
Yeah they are pretty cool 🙂 I was making ones with solenoid kickback systems too! Best part of that job was that I had to test them all by playing video games 😀
Hey, you, yeah you! Gonna be in melbourne? Gonna be at pax? Because Pax Meat is happening once again!
If you haven’t told me if you’re coming, now’s your chance!
If we have told you, can we tell you again because we’re very excited?
Got my PAX pass at the weekend from the post office. 🙂 Found out a friend is running a panel too (YAY) at 10:30am on Saturday (Um… booooooo). 🙂
Do they want to come to pax meat?
I’ll ask. 🙂
Mornin’ all. Weekend was pretty quiet. Which was nice, dad & I spent most of last week fixing up the truck we own (ex-council tipper, not one of them things we call utes but are now called trucks) for road worthy which it passed with no faults which was nice.
Got Green Day & Alter Bridges new albums, both are okay. Not their best work sadly. Green Day’s sounds like they could be left overs from 21st Century Breakdown, but I actually like these songs ha.
Suddenly I’ve remembered one of the costume ideas I wanted to do while I am still embeardened, so now I gotta mad rush to get it all going. And still need to figure out when I’m going/coming back/where I’m staying for PAX. Last minute whee!
Managed to get all the junk packed back into my room before my parents got back on Saturday, not as much progress in the end as I was hoping, but took a fair chunk out of it. All the talk and pictures made me nostalgic for the trip I made a few years back with friends. Sunday, had a friend’s 30th, damn old bastard. Ate way too much, didn’t need dinner at all.
Time to go scouting for materials.
I thought I was on the last bit of my cosplay sewing, but discovered a problem when trying to fit the two halves of the pattern together. So I spent last night seam ripping :`(
It’s looking like I may need to do far more sewing than I planned, if I go down this path. Can’t seem to find anything decent in a pre-made state 😛
Cosplay, ugh. The worst.
Painting took 2 weeks instead of 2 days
Heads up for later today: if you were interested in going to PAX, but couldn’t grab a ticket or afford one, we’re going to be running something on the site and across our social media channels. Stay tuned.
Are they sold out already? : O
Three day passes are sold out, single day passes are still available.
Hooray!
I just bought the individual passes last week. At that stage they were not running low
So pax meat?
I know I’m a broken record D=I’m sorry to be a pain, when is it again? I’ll be marking Uni papers then which is an arduous process haha
Saturday the 5th of November, 7pm to 1am, Backlot Studios
Wanna add that people can get a chance to hang out with us cool guys? =P
…and me! 😉
I’ve entered because even though I’ve got a single pass organised, a three day pass would be a convenient upgrade!
Started playing Mafia 3 on the weekend… technical flaws aside, I’m really enjoying it. Sure, if you use USB headphones, you won’t hear any dialog in the cutscenes, and you won’t hear any dialog in-game unless the speaker is in your vision (luckily, Rocksmith has a similar issue, so I always have an analogue set of headphones connected). Sure, driving through downtown drops the game to 12 fps (using 30-50% of your GPU and 60-70% of your CPU to do so), and driving out in the relatively empty bayou it chugs at 20-25. Sure, dropping all settings from max to “low” will only increase the downtown framerate to 14. But the characters, the characterisation, the music (omg, the music!)… so good.
Also got a second character to rank 5 in Iron Banner… not sure I’ll bother with the last one. Two characters have given me plenty of infusion fuel, and I’ve got no room in my vault for any more. Had a bit of fun with the new exotic sidearm, tho – so much so that of the 114 kills I got over the 10 games it took to reach rank five, I apparently only got 26 kills with my primary. So satisfying to just melt someone rushing me with a shotgun…
Partner and I hit Rank 5 in Iron Banner just last night as well.
Loving the shit out of Control right now though. Wish you could veto out some of the shitter maps, though.
\o/ woohoo!
I hit rank 5 with the Warlock on saturday night (um sunday morning), and last night decided to play with the Hunter as a friend was trying to get to rank 5. The second character buff is substantial, I’m at 1100/2400 in rank 4 and haven’t even completed two of the bounties so could make rank 5 with 15 more ability kills and 3 losses. I think I’ve only won 4 matches and played 10 or so with the hunter. Year 3 book going really well.
Good Forge session last night too, that was fun.
I’m still very amused by the Skirmish run I had with my level 3 Titan (now level 5).
I had annual leave last week and apart from one day where I went to the beach I pretty much just played Forza Horizon 3. What a pretty game. I “finished” it in the sense that I reached the final Showcase (accumulating 10,000,000 fans) but there are so, so many races left to finish and I haven’t even maxed out all of my festival locations.
One weird thing about this game is the flexibility. Not only can you blueprint your own races, but the game scales car power to whatever you’re driving. Unlike Forza Horizon 1 where you needed to use a specific class of car, the default races are defined by car “type” and you’re not forced to use an A-Class SUV if you prefer a B-class one. The opposing vehicles will scale to that so the races are always fair. It was weird to get used to but ultimately it’s easier to just not think about it and just keep pumping that right trigger.
Showcase events were a blast but it was funny playing from the perspective of being the festival “boss” and the showcases being pretty much the point of the game, whereas in FH1 (my only basis for comparison, I didn’t paly FH2) the showcases were great from a spectacle perspective but also an opportunity to win sweet new cars (as was beating your rivals).
Anyway, PLENTY of content left for me to churn through, and it never really stopped being fun. The game kept prompting me to bump up the drivatar skill level because I was mostly winning but I don’t think the game appreciated that I wasn’t exactly cruising through those races. Keeping everything on default (medium difficulty/average drivatar) was the perfect challenge balance for me.
Morning all.
I’ve been getting into GTA online recently and really enjoying it. Been too shy to try the heists cause it would mean I’ve have to talk… But I took a shot on Saturday and joined someone’s invitation. Unplugged the mic cause I was scared… and the other guy didn’t have a mic either.
It was pretty damn cool. I made a few errors cause I was unfamiliar with the mission. Got in the wrong car etc. But it went smoothly. I was the getaway driver and figured out almost too late that the helicopter chasing us was trying to pick us up. The pressure was intense as I didn’t want to let down my heist partner. Success though. Felt really good. So plugged in my mic just to say thanks and that it was awesome.
Then the guy shot me in the back and stole my money.
I know this happens all the time but this was my first time and I got played. I can’t express how disappointed I was. I know it’s part of the game but man, it put me off.
I’ve requested to join an Australian crew in the hopes of being able to play with more like-minded people. I don’t mind talking on mic if there’s no danger of being trolled and called names… I can’t handle that shit. It depresses me. But the game is amazing.
Hope you all have a good week.
*sigh* Humans. 🙁
Have enough people share a sandbox, and odds are someone will pee in it. :S
Hope you find some good people to play with.
Fortunately this never happens with swimming pools.
*puts hands over ears* *shuts eyes* LALALALALALALALALALALALALALAWell my weekend mostly involved jealously looking at the oktoberfest shenanigans coming out of Brisbane and then feeling slightly better when the hangover tweets started the next day.
Otherwise the weekend was nice, housewarming BBQ and lunch down at the cafe were the main activities. Gaming wise we are still working our way through Alan Wake.
Shared this story on twitter but will reshare here. We were reading a good night story to Tiglet and it goes through all different animals that you say good night to. So we get to the little pup page and I ask Tiglet if she wants a little puppy like that one. Her response was “No, Jigglypuff”. So kinda happy she isn’t after a puppy just yet, but lord knows where I’m going to get a Jigglypuff from.
Can probably get a half decent plush one from ebay.
Tough choice on what to get considering she calls Pokemon the turtle game
You take her to a store that sells the starters and let her choose. =P
Might have to see if I can do that at PAX. But I think the choice at the moment is between Squirtle and Jigglypuff
I think Zing has a wide variety as well. Just in case.
lel those hangover tweets were a blessing to me too! I would love to have joined the festivities, but just can’t quite yet.
We are both horrible people aren’t we
Alan Wake. I have this in my Steam PILE OF SHAME. Should I?
Absolutely. Has been in my pile for ages and it is really, really good.
Excellent. Will give it a go over the summer hols.
Yes. Alan Wake is great. The combat is a bit wonky but the writing is Remedy at their absolute best. Fantastic atmosphere too.
Thanks.
Rebuilding an older PC (with a GTX 680 and a reasonable CPU) at the mo, maybe Steam to my TV is the way to go. Hmm. 🙂
680 should handle Alan Wake fine, it was a 360 game after all.
680 handled nearly everything fine at 1080 (actually at 1920×1200) until this year – it got a bit upset at driving around on planets in Elite: Dangerous and I had to cut Rise of the Tomb Raider back to medium settings to be playable. Anything that’s more than a couple of years old should be fine (shut up you at the back about to mention Crysis… no, shut up…).
Looks like I have a plan for my old Shuttle PC then (yes the 680 fits in it… JUST). 🙂
TAY RPG Pathfinder on tonight at 7:30pm ACDT, 8pm AEST, and 8:30pm ADST. Starring:
@redartifice @tech_knight @freezespreston @beeawwb
The party is deep in the fey forest searching for the missing Valerian Knights. Magic confounds their search so far but what else will they find?
Let me know if there are any issues with playing tonight.
Slight change in the start time because I’m terrible at figuring out daylight savings. It’ll be 7:30pm AEST, 8pm ACDT, and 8:30pm AEDT.
Dangit. Went on a scouting mission for materials, wasn’t so successful. Though didn’t get to check out all the places I was aiming for, not that I predict much success in those anyway.
Also, almost got wiped out by someone on the road yesterday who decided he didn’t want to wait in the stationary lane he was in, and with little-to-no indication of being about to do so, pulled out into my lane on this 80km/h road, I would’ve only been maybe 100m away from him at the absolute most. Never mashed my horn so hard or angrily in my life (usually forget it’s there til after it’s time to use it), car must’ve come an inch or two from hitting his. Fucking idiot. And with Canberra plates no less.
/rant 😛
Ugh. Adrenalin hangover too I bet? 🙁
Glad you’re ok though. 🙂
Like you wouldn’t believe 😛
Combined with the food coma of the excessive consumption at the party afterwards, I was well wrecked.
What are you building?
Bearded cosplay
Easy mode
Hard mode
You know, I actually own an academic gown that might suit your needs.
That could be handy! I saw one on eBay that looked pretty much perfect, same panels/pleating/etc, save for maybe the hem that runs down the middle edges. But stupid pricey/slow US shipping 😛
I’ll dig it out and take a photo. It just needs a dryclean
Here it is: https://goo.gl/photos/mTvnMRr7EBN9kDom9
My arm has fallen asleep from Max resting her head on it.
This is a good problem.
Bloodborne Update:
Ding-Dong The Vicar is dead. Currently getting all sorts of deaded in the Forbidden Woods, with @batguy laughing every time I walk into a trap.Oh yeah, the woods are a fun place filled with fun GIANT FUCKOFF SNAKES
The future of gaming is driving drones on the moon (or below its surface)…damn it its 4 am in Darwin and the possoms are going nuts on the roof becausr its already thirty degrees. Its going to be an evil hot day.
🙁
Proxima B: described as earth sized with an ocean depth of 124 miles. Except the ocean pressure climbs to 2.3 gigapascal. It probably has solid oxygen (Oxygen-4) around its core. Not only is it a diamagnetic, it has an intense negative charge preventing the escape of hydrogen to the surface.
Its more likely this is a Super-ocean much larger than earth and as a consequence has a solid oxygen core (Oxygen-8). Oxygen crystals lined up with magnetic fields so where those fields pass through sufficiently low pressure the oxygen crystals revert to oxygen and bubble to the surface.
The Unobtanium for Proxima B will be Oxygen based opals that only exist at core pressures and go to air when removed.
I’m looking forward to this being updated in Elite: Dangerous so I can visit.
It’s a new anime season so it’s time for…
NegativeZero’s Anime Impressions
Watching the new season so you don’t have to
Once more into the breach. I was way behind in finishing last season stuff off (still have one or two to knock out) mainly due to picking up WoW again, so this is a week or so late.
3-gatsu no Lion
Aka ‘Sangatsu no Lion’ or ‘March Comes in Like a Lion’. I had my eye on this one going in, and am happy to report that it lived up to expectations. Adapted from a manga by the same author as Honey & Clover, I’m not entirely sure what it’s about, but it seems that it involves a guy who is a professional Shogi player despite still being in high school. He seems to have a strained relationship with his dad, who is also a pro Shogi player, though not as good. It’s hard to give an accurate synopsis of this without knowing where it’s going, honestly. The big draw here is that it’s SHAFT animating, with Akiyuki Shinbo directing. Shinbo is one of those directors that always has his style, but he either tends toward slice of life or comedy stuff (eg Hidamari Sketch) or stuff where he can go balls-out on the visual side (eg Monogatari, Madoka Magica). This is the first time I think he’s done a serious drama. His visual style is still right there though – rapid cuts of elements of the scene to set the tone and so on. Masterful work IMO. Worth it just for that. This one looks like a regular watch for me.All Out
Was anticipating this a bit, because it’s a Rugby-themed anime and that’s never happened before. I’m not sold on it though. It seems to be fairly good for what it is, but it’s a sports anime and follows the sports anime tropes. Seems to have a dual protagonist thing going on. One of them is short, knows nothing about the sport and has anger management issues. The other is ridiculously big but apparently scared of hurting people because of his size, and quit Rugby because he dislocated his friend’s shoulder in a match once. My biggest issue is that both these guys give me the irrits. Additionally if I was going in with no idea about the sport, the first episode would have done sweet fuck all to make me interested in it. Also gives the misleading impression that tackling is shoulder charging, clotheslining or just crashing into people – all of those are dangerous ways to do it. I’m going to give it a bit to get into it, though. Sports shows usually ease the viewer in and stuff. But it’s going to lose me quick if it doesn’t improve.Bloodivore
There’s actually quite a few shows out of this new studio I hadn’t heard of this season. Turns out I hadn’t heard of them because the studio’s Chinese. The first point that I though something could be wrong here (aside from the fucking retarded titled) was the fact that the copyright is held by Tencent. So presumably this is some kind of shit phone game tie-in. Anyway, it was pretty awful. Apparently there was some virus or something and a cure was developed but it had the side effect of turning some people into basically vampires. Main character and his group are all afflicted. So for some reason they break into a bank and the heist goes bad and they’re arrested. Then sentenced to death because everyone in the bank was murdered after they left. Yawn. The plot is trite and the setup is dumb but the execution is where this really lets itself down. It’s just bad. Dropped hard.Brave Witches
New spinoff series in the Strike Witches franchise, this time focusing on a new group (the 502nd ‘Brave Witches’, rather than the 501st we’re used to). Let’s get it out of the way first: yes, this is a world where a global military conspiracy resulted in the removal of pants and/or skirts from the female uniform. Yes, it’s dumb. Anyway, I’ve had a soft spot for this franchise for years, being a big fan of the original artist as well (Shimada Fumikane) as the character artist & director of the series (Kazuhiro Takamura). Takaaki Suzuki returns as a plot consultant too, fresh from Haifuri and Girls und Panzer. The conceit of the Strike Witches stuff is that it’s a faux WW2 setting except the enemy is a supposedly alien species, the Neuroi, and the only effective defense against them are Witches. They’re all based off famous aces from WW2 and all fight by flying around with propeller things on their legs. It’s very stupid, but I like it all the same. Anyway, in this specific case, the main character is once again a raw recruit from the Fuso Empire. Her older sister is one of their greatest aces and she basically lives in her shadow. Some stuff happens and she finds herself sent to the European front to join a new squadron. She’s a little bland, honestly, with that tried-and-true ‘I’ll do my best’ trope in full force. Cute voice though. I’m expecting that much like Miyafuji in Strike Witches, she’s deliberately a little bit boring to act as a sort of Everyman backdrop for the rest of the cast, who haven’t been introduced yet. This is without question a regular watch for me, it’s right in the center of my strike zone. But despite high production values I expect it to be a bit too niche for most.Cheating Craft
Absolutely fucking awful. I didn’t finish the episode. Apparently it’s set in some kind of perfect utopian meritocracy where your entire life’s trajectory comes down to how well you do in the national high school exams or something and some people cheat and that’s about all I got out of it before dropping it hard because a 12 minute episode was 12 minutes too long. Terrible. Dropped.Drifters
I need to preface this by making an unpopular declaration: Hellsing is overrated, mediocre garbage. That said, this is adapted from a manga by the same guy as Hellsing, and seems to share a lot of similarities. That series always really clicked with a lot of people in the west and I expect this one will too. Visually, it looks so much like Hellsing Ultimate that if I had just seen random shots from it I might even have assumed it was the same show. That’s either a good or a bad thing depending on how you feel about Hellsing, I think. It’s violent and gory (people literally getting decapitated and stuff) so it’ll probably appeal to the American’s bloodlust as well. Main character is a talented Samurai of from the Satsuma clan, and after they’re routed at the battle of Sekigahara, he finds himself mostly dead, then suddenly he’s in a corridor with a creepy man with highly reflective spectacles (Hellsing staple) and then finds himself in another world, where he meets up with two other people. One of them is Nasu no Yoichi, the famous archer from the Genpei War, and the other is Oda Nobunaga. That’s really all that happened in the episode so don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s well-made, with a striking visual style and a lot of violence so I expect this will be popular, but it didn’t do much for me personally. I’ll probably watch it because it seems okay and there’s precious little else to watch, but it’s right on the verge of me dropping it already.Shuumatsu no Izetta
Aka ‘Izetta: The Last Witch’. I had my eye on this one going into the season as well, and first impression seems pretty reasonable. An original production rather than an adaptation, it involves the princess (Otofine) of a small European country that looked to be Switzerland or something, in a sort of alternative-universe World War 2. Germania has started invading the other nations, and with her country in their crosshairs, she’s traveling to a neutral zone to negotiate help from Britannia, but before negotiations can conclude, her nation is invaded and she finds herself captured. She finds herself on a transport plane along with a strange stasis-pod-like thing which turns out to contain a girl that’s actually a witch, and that girl is someone that Fine knew as a child. Additionally in her country they have a legend about a witch that repelled invaders and lead them to victory or something. It seems to borrow a little from Valkyria Chronicles and a few other things, and the plot’s certainly nothing that new, but the execution is very good. High production values, nice character art, interesting enough plot, and I kind of dig alt-history stuff too. I’m leaning toward it being a regular watch but it’s going to depend on whether it stays strong or loses its way an episode or two in.Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru
Touken Ranbu (the game) is basically a reskin of Kantai Collection. Instead of WW2-era warships turned into cute girls, its conceit is taking famous swords and turning them into cute boys, aiming at the female audience. Somehow things went weird though, and the KanColle anime adaption was an utter shitshow while Touken Ranbu gets a really good adaption by Ufotable. 🙁 Anyway, this wasn’t terrible but it’s not really my jam. Additionally it feels very much aimed at fans of the game. Huge cast and most of them have very complicated names which are hard to remember. The central character (the Fubuki of this setting I guess) is Yamatonokami Yasusada, one of the swords of the Shinsengumi captain Okita Souji, so he dresses in that ice-blue Shinsengumi haori and so on. This felt like it channeled the game much better than KanColle’s shitty adaption did. It was basically 90% the characters fucking around and 10% them going off for some combat. Feels like the people involved actually played the game. It’s not for me though (I’m not really into cute boys), and it just undescores for me how badly fudged the KanColle anime was, so probably dropping.Mahou Tsukai no Yome
Aka ‘Ancient Magus Bride’. What is it with shoujo anime and having a girl that has red hair so she stands out? This seems intriguing, though. Basically, the main character is the apprentice of a magic user who may or may not be human (his face looks like a goat skull?). This is another one that seems like you need to know a bit more about it before you can summarize accurately, but it seems that she was an unwanted child and additionally can see monsters that no one else can, so basically your standard tortured ‘special’ childhood. It seems like it could go interesting places depending on how it develops. I don’t like the art very much though, there’s something off about the character design (I don’t mind overly large eyes, but the protagonist is the only one that looks that way and it just makes her seem like she’s staring at everything). I’m intrigued enough to give it another couple of episodes, though. It kind of reminds me a bit of Howl’s Moving Castle.Keijo!!!!!!!!
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in the board meeting that came up with this, because hooooly shit. Anime isn’t exactly socially progressive, but this…fuck me. I only got a couple of minutes in before declaring “this is utter shite” and then bailing, though it doesn’t seem to be poorly made or anything (the opposite, actually), the actual premise is the problem. Imagine if T&A was a sport. Seriously. Remember (if you admit to playing it) that shitty mini-game in Dead or Alive Xtreme where two girls stand on a floating platform in a pool and then compete to knock their opponent off into the water by smashing their butt and/or boobs into them? Yeah. That’s what this show is about. It seems to be a standard sports anime formula, but the sport is literally butt battles. I don’t know what to say. Aside from the fact that I’m probably not watching more. I don’t even know why I find it so offensive, but I really do. Maybe it’s the unabashed pandering. I don’t know. But seriously, yuck.Vivid Strike
I remember a time when the Nanoha series was fucking awesome, before it crawled up its own asshole because the people involved had no idea how to bottle the same lightning a third time after the first two seasons. Conspicuously absent from the title now is the ‘Nanoha’ part, presumably because of Yukari Tamura’s public spat with her record label last year, which is a shame (and it also probably means no Fate appearance or the whole we’re-not-saying-they’re-a-lesbian-couple-they-just-live-together-and-have-a-daughter schtick). Also I think this is a quasi-sequel to Nanoha Vivid from a year or so ago. I say quasi-sequel because Vivio and Einhart appear to be supporting characters and there’s a new lead. I never finished Vivid due to it being kind of mediocre and also the subs drying up, but I kind of want to go back and finish that before I get into this one, even though it feels like it’s pretty self-contained.and accessible as a starting point. However anyone looking at this seriously that’s not into the franchise will be doing themselves a massive disservice by watching it first. Go back and watch Nanoha and especially Nanoha A’s (the movie adaptions are fantastic), then don’t bother with the rest unless you’re really into it. Going to see what else shakes out of the season before I decide whether to watch this on the regular or not. CR subs seem a bit shit too – character’s names are misspelled. 🙁Flip Flappers
Weird show. The plot is… I don’t even know. Insanity. Normal girl meets weird girl that flies around on a surfboard and then they get transported to another world that’s all full of snow that tastes sweet and some stuff happens and normal girl gets super long glowy hair and beats the giant slug things and then they go home. Or something. That said… holy shit that animation. I had to pause a few minutes in and look it up to see if it was Gainax or Trigger. It’s channeling FLCL in a massive way. That same exaggerated distortion, the sensory overload with explosions and speed and everything. Plus the batshit insanity. The last thing I saw that had animation like this aside from moments in The Rolling Girls was probably Kill la Kill or maybe Kyousougiga, though in that case Yoh Yoshinari’s style overrides the more Gainax look. I don’t know where this came from either – the director worked on bits of Space Dandy but it’s his directorial debut. Animation director’s resume doesn’t stand out. The studio itself (3Hz) previously produced Celestial Method and Dimension W, which were both solid but unremarkable. And then suddenly this explosion of color and light and movement. If the animation stays at this quality, then I’ll definitely be making it a regular.All Out
Have to agree about this show. The two main characters are frustrating as hell and the lack of any actual rugby was annoying. I’m not going to continue with it despite having reasonable hopes for a good show.Keijo
I admit that I watched Keijo after a friend told me about how ludicrous it was. It is as stupid as you say and I could not find any redeeming qualities aside from the animation being good. I can handle a stupid premise but this was just beyond stupid fanservice.I’m still yet to find a show I want to watch this season. Always appreciate your tireless work in sorting through the utter crap.
For me right now, I haven’t watched them yet but I can guarantee that Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans S2 and Hibike Euphonium S2 are regulars. The former was the best Gundam in years, and the latter is Kyoto Animation doing stuff that they didn’t self-publish the light novels for, so is actually good.
From the stuff in the list here, Sangatsu and Brave Witches are absolute locks for regular watch. Izetta is a probable, and I suspect Drifters will be too. I have a strong suspicion I’ll end up watching Vivid Strike but it’ll be in bursts rather than on the regular.
I also watched Bernard Jou Iwaku. Don’t repeat my mistake. 3 minutes 30 seconds of my life I will never get back. I watched Sengoku Choujuu Giga as well and that’s also shit – basically Sumi-e style where the people are animals or some shit and it was just a dumb comedy segment. The only remarkable thing about it was the narrator which was unmistakably Megumi Hayashibara who hardly ever does anything any more and I wish she did because her voice is so smooth.
Stuff that I haven’t watched yet (I do do some basic research so I know what I’m going into)
– Bungou Stray Dogs S2 – I watched one ep of S1 and thought it was okay, but didn’t ever go back, so I’d need to try and catch up first.
– Bubuki Buranki S2 – I didn’t finish S1 but it wasn’t terrible so maybe will catch up
– Time Bokan 24 – Probably not.
– http://WWW.Working – Probably not, Working is dead and buried for me now and friends have told me the new cast for this is shitty
– Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku – Unlikely, but who knows?
– Tiger Mask W – Not sure if this is a remake or sequel, but Tiger Mask is an old classic so maybe?
– Okusama ga Seitokaichou! S2 – Didn’t finish S1 I think?
– Magic-Kyun! Renaissance – Otome game stuff, very unlikely
– Nyanbo – I actually watched half this, but I wasn’t stoned so it didn’t work 😛
– Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume – Might be okay, girls’ Table Tennis
– Trickster – Dunno anything at all
– Gakuen Handsome – Looks awful (that art) but I hear it’s an otome game parody so maybe?
– Nanbaka – Unlikely, sounded shit.
– Nazotokine – Possible. It’s about puzzle-solving.
– Nobunaga no Shinobi – AFAIK short-form show and that’ll kill it for me. Probably not.
– Regalia – I didn’t mind the first ep of this despite them pulling it after ep 4 last season because of it being underwhelming quality, so may try it again now it’s restarted. Possible but unlikely.
– Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari – Heard positive comparisons saying it’s the lovechild of Barakamon and Amaama to Inazuma, which sounds okay to me, so a possible one.
– Occultic;Nine – Heard less than stellar things, but it’s the Steins;Gate author & franchise so worth a look. Possible.
– Long Riders – Some kind of thing about biking I think? Probably not a regular.
– To Be Hero – I think this is another Chinese one so probably not.
– Yuri!!! on Ice – Ice Skating thing that apparently doesn’t involve any yuri so probably not. 😛
Very weak season. I think I have five to six regulars and maybe two more. I normally have like 12+ series on the go so that’s really low. There doesn’t even seem to be the usual generic harem action show and the fanservicey ones are trashier than normal.
@alexwalker: something that always annoys me when I make longer posts like the one above that uses a lot of HTML: every single time, when I post, it will send me to a Captcha page, and when I click the ‘I’m not a robot’ thing it’ll redirect me but eat the post. Don’t know if it’s getting auto-moderated or just thrown away. But I’ll post again, complete the captcha and the second time it will post correctly. It’s very annoying. Maybe something to pass on to the web team?
Yeah, that’s weird. Thanks for the heads up.
Haven’t figured out if it’s post length, use of spoiler tags / HTML tags, or some combination of both. Also could be the combination of that plus the fact that I’m usually posting from work so am behind some transparent proxies / NAT etc.
I always skipped over TAY for some reason in the past, I just had nothing to say lol.
So I just type the words here? here goes.. Hello everyone!
HELLO
Hiya. Is it allowed to post links to stuff on Youtube you made? Like a 360 degree video?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay thanks! Here you go people, enjoy. Best enjoyed in a headset of course.
This is like the first ever 360 thing I made without procrastinating and not finishing it 🙂
https://youtu.be/zRqitE3dxeo
Hi! What are you playing at the moment? Are you coming to PAX this year?
At the moment I am switching between Fallout4 and Space Engine. What a combo haha.
Also never been to PAX. Am always too busy with work 🙁
Well, If you’re a Melbournite, I definitely recommend checking it out, even if it’s just for one of the weekend days. This will be the third year I’ve gone and it’s always been worth it. Of course, meeting up with TAYbies is part of the attraction 😉
‘
Welcome to tay. It used to be more of a monster. Most people have moved to twitter because they are the worst. =P
Don’t worry, those who are left are definitely worth chatting with!
I have a question. I wanna buy some stuff from the states but the company I buy from do not ship outside of the USA because they have local variants in a lot countries (Dickies clothing) but i’d rather buy from the states for 2 reasons a) their US pricing is about 1/3 the price in Aus & b) there’s lines that just aren’t available here that I want.
So who is the best shipping company to go with..? I guess preferably someone who has their receiving warehouse in a tax free state like Oregon.
The last couple of times I needed a US proxy shipper I used ShopUSA and they were okay. Obviously nowadays I just have Amazon ship stuff to me direct (but I live in WA so 9.8% sales tax)
Ah thanks! I’ve heard good things about them. Last time I used a proxy shipper (Price USA I think) they weren’t that great, high fees and didn’t let me choose an economical postage option, only 3 day postage from memory.
@tech_knight Happy Birthday!
I was going to say that D=
@tech_knight Happy Upgrade day! You’re now on Operating System Version 28.0!
Thanks everyone!
DESTINY RAIDS:
Atheon: done it all the way through a few times.
Crota: done it all the way through quite a few times!
Oryx: Done it all the way through twice, and done bits and pieces at other times.
Aksis: Done the first encounter once (not very hard, good fun). Totally underpowered for the second encounter…
So, last night, after doing a bit of Iron Banner and getting my second character to Rank 5, and then some Archon’s Forge, while I was trying to sort out the deluge of engrams, I got dragged in for a bit of raiding. Good, thinks I, I’ll get another chance at the first chest. Woohoo…
…and then we arrived at the final encounter. Which I’d never seen before. With a 356 Hunter. And zero heavy engrams. Uh-oh. “Guys… …um.” “We’ll be right” As it turns out, one dry run while I was just trying to follow the damn encounter where we still managed to smash the boss down to about half, one where I stuffed the team by lobbing a bomb clear over the bosses head and then jumping on a wrong pillar, and a couple where we just died and failed, we did it! Was amazingly good fun and I actually think I wasn’t completely useless as I was starting to get the rhythm of the encounter and was lobbing good accurate bombs (apart from that first one – I blame switching from Warlock to Hunter…).
TWO 365 drops. Then went and sorted my engrams, dived back into Iron Banner to get my last bounty and I got the Iron Saga boots so Hunter has a full set of Iron Saga gear. Switched back to Warlock and some creative infusing means I can run a 361 Hunter or a 360 Warlock (or a 27 Titan :-p ), so I think I’m ready to start running Nitefail this week, and redoing the Rise of Iron story in Hard.
Thanks to my favourite Destiny mentor @os42 of course. 🙂 \o/ If you’re up for it, sir, I think taking a look at the Year 3 book and filling in the gaps like the low-level strikes and the Rise of Iron story missions on Hard might be a good thing to do.
Also, need to do Aksis in the right order from the start… 😉
Thank the other guys, who invaded the chat 😛 But yea, I was honestly expecting us to hop in from the start – we all had at least one character who’d missed out this week due to Banner taking precedence. Was looking forward to more than one loot drop, but I guess it still leaves a bit of mystery for when you do the intermediary areas with your group – they’re a lot of fun to discover as a group 🙂
Yeah, was a top invasion. Very funny too. One, then more, then EVERYONE. Haven’t spoken to most of them for such a long time too, and they’re all reliable, pretty patient when a n00b’s on deck (probably helps that I do listen and don’t usually make mistakes more than once!) and most importantly not a bunch of toxic ragers! 🙂
How many low-level strikes you got left to do, or did you finish them? I think I’ve done 5.
They’re good guys, and they’re not prone to rage-quitting – they enjoy working the raid out for themselves, so they’re pretty patient with other people learning the encounters as well. And you did really well, too – you observed, you learned, and you never made the same mistake twice. And the pillar was kinda our fault – I don’t think anyone mentioned that they disappear once they’re used… and they honestly don’t look big enough to protect everyone 😛
I still have 8 more strikes to do, 8 more hard missions, three more weekly patrols, and an iron bounty (tho I’ve got three Forge bounties sitting at 75%, so that’ll be easy).
@trikeabout … reply fail.
Hahaha yeah, it was “Head to the pillars” so I dived for the closest one. Then I saw everyone on the other pillar “oh are we all supposed to be on the SAME pillar?” “hey, why did two pillars go?” “…yes, sorry. Same pillar. Got it.” hahah! So it was nice that I did get some room to learn for myself. 🙂 Lots of fun. I did get wrecked by the adds once where I got smashed right after I was revived, but on the whole being cautious, using the cover and using smoke bombs when running out to use the bombs helped me stay alive.OK cool. Well I’m up to do any of that if you want easy strikes or hard stories. Not tonight as
a) I’m at the soccer
b) you’ll be raiding… 😉
but later in the week, knock one off every couple of nights, we’ll soon finish.
It’s the 10 supremacy wins that’ll take some time. :/
Also, I think I only finished one weekly patrol last week – that Good Deeds that I knocked off in about 30 mins of Archon’s Forge. That’s handy to know. Grab them both, do the patrols, finish off good deeds in the forge. Done.
OMG!!! I never believe blank ATM card do exist until when i finally came across Mr lion Forster. My blank ATM card can withdraw €4,000 daily. I got it from Him last week Wednesday and now I have €14,000 for free. The card withdraws money from any ATM machines and there is no name on it, it is not traceable and now i have money for bossiness and enough money for me and my 4 kids. I am really happy i meet this perfect ATM hacker because i met two people before him and they took my money not knowing that they were scams. But am happy now. Mr lion sent the card through DHL and i got it in two days. Get one from him now. he is giving it out to help people even if it is illegal but it helps a lot and no one ever gets caught. The card works in all countries except Malaga, Mali and Nigeria. lion foster email address lionfosterblankatmcard996@gmail.com
I wish I had money for bossiness.
No deal if I can’t use it in Malaga though.
I don’t know if I should trust this poster, with two first names, or the perfect ATM hacker with no first names…
Found a pair of red coats today, both of which seemed like possible bases I could build on. One was a lady’s trenchcoat which was nice and plain in features, though calf length rather than thigh length. The other was… I think it might be one of the uniforms they wear at the Lyric Theare? Had shoulder pads and those shoulder strap things on top, and pockets and lots of buttons… but it’s got absolutely NO shape (well, fridge is a shape I guess) and the wrists are ridiculously narrow… and the sleeves are really short too. And have no length in the back so pull the instant you try to move your arms at all.
I asked the lady what she thought and she reckoned go the trenchcoat, but offered a discount on the other one so I got that for five bucks and can harvest its 16 buttons. Also they were both on the half price rack anyway. Woo 😛
Harvesting buttons is a top idea.
Not as top as my other idea – creating the hat from scratch. By which I mean an absolutely terrible idea that I will come to regret 😛 Because nothing that exists (that I’ve been able to find, anyway) seems to be right shape at all (god damn tricorns everywhere!) except for some little kid’s hats that are kind of close but waaay too small. So best I can figure is get my crazy cardboard geometry on to build up some kind of skeleton and stretch out some felt to cover it. Maybe use a regular hat as a base so I’m just building the brim, take a bunch of work out of it. Also there doesn’t seem to be anything around in the Halloween sections that I could use for the dead crow he’s got on top of it, which is annoying. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one will keel over in the backyard or something…
Maybe use EVA foam and hot glue instead? You can bend it into shape with a hairdryer, and once it’s sealed (just paint it with pva glue all over), it’s easy to spraypaint. I made a very wearable top hat for my Bloodborne cosplay this way.
It’s official! I am official!
My song is now available on iTunes and Google Play! Should be on Spotify and a whole bunch of others soon too!
https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bsejgbklaoykgchrnaagejztd7y&tid=song-Thbtzmpmgjwiprs5ws3yfzp6aq4&hl=en
Wow.. pageget! SCORE! :p
https://itunes.apple.com/ua/artist/mc-who/id1164020990 I think this is just my artist page, but I can’t see cos I don’t have iTunes.
Can someone who has itunes do me a favour, and search for my song and give me a direct link to it? I can’t seem to do it without installing itunes, and I dun really wanna do that.
Actually, looks like it just had to settle in! I can see it now! My song is here!
https://itunes.apple.com/ua/album/who-am-i-single/id1164020981
Any other Android users notice missing cards in their Now feed? Used to get a huge list of recommended articles and such from all over the place, now I’m getting just weather and … xkcd… for some reason.
There’s a post on page one that might help. Blank card that works anywhere.
Clearly that card is magic – it can withdraw Euros from an Australian ATM. 😛
Can withdraw money from the gullible too. 🙂
Ugh, fucking rain.
Soaked and smelling like wet dog. 🙁
@jocon You ok for a chat tonight jo for healing tomorrow?
Yeah.
BOARD GAMES!!1!!!
What board games are people playing at the moment? The Battlestar Galactica article reminded me how badly I’ve lied to my friends and destroyed humanity. I bought Eldritch Horror a couple of weeks ago, and it’s great. Played a fair bit of Imperial Assault, and more casual games, currently: Machi Koro, King of Tokyo and Ticket to Ride
My go-to at the moment is Condottiere, which is an awful lot of game in a tiny box.
I have Bloodborne card game coming…some time soon, and I just got a kickstarter one called Thief’s Market which looks really neat
Condottiere is one of the best surprises.
Not so much a board game, but I’ve been playing the Bravest Warriors card game.
And I have been of course playing Magic. Brewing a new commander deck so I have been ebaying cards
We have been playing a bit of Thurn and Taxis which is always fun
Haven’t got out much so haven’t played to many games. Although you did remind me that I need to check if we bought the snail game for Tiglet
Tiglet is probably big enough now for Tummy Ache by Orchard Toys. Love that game 🙂
I am waiting to play TMNT Shadows of the Past.
Sushi Go! has been my current go to. I’m wanting to play Star Trek: Ascendancy again.
But I’m also about to go overseas for three weeks so only travel games for now.
Until Pax of course!
We have Sushi Go – I bought it for $3 at vinnies ^_^
Board Games. I remember those.
(Haven’t found a new board gaming group since I moved 🙁 )
Had Nonno’s funeral today, got to hear all the stuff that I never knew including a story of how he and a friend ended up in jail for hunting rabbits on what turned out to be some kind of army supply property. Oops 😛 Also met an interesting dude who has done meteorology work in Antarctica, and is about to go off for a year’s stint at the North Pole too. It sounds like living out a sci-fi show but for real.
Had a bit of time after getting home to run off to shops, but stupid traffic kept me from getting to as many as I wanted before they closed. Almost found a good pair of boots, but they were a size too small and still too effeminate once on 😛 Went by Lincraft and started getting materials, so I’m all in now. Tossing up whether to go out for another expedition tomorrow, or just get started on other stuff.
Jeez. $27 for a Woolies shirt just so I look the part when I work in replenishment during the day. Wish they’d let us wear the old dayfill/nightfill ones they’re more comfy and less hot..
Bloodborne Update:
Gosh I dislike the Forbidden Woods. Giant Fuckoff Snakes indeed. But I survived (with a bit of coaching from Batguy) and made it back to the lantern. Found the Cannon (woo!) and the White Church Set. Probably missed some other things, but at least now there are some open doors around. Also, I hit level 50 last night!Picked up Mafia III for PS4 yesterday, not a bad game. Bit disappointed in the graphics & general clunkiness of the game play though. Kinda feel like I should’ve picked it up on PC rather than PS4, but I prefer these types of games from the comfort of the couch on the big screen. I guess I really need to invest in a Steam Link..
…or a long HDMI cable. Very long. 😉
The length i’d need would mean i’d also need a signal booster 😛
Excellent, you’re all over it. 🙂
😉
Haha, yeah 😛
Hey everyone, I could use your brain power. I’m worried that my visual novel is needlessly complicated. I would love some ideas and help with sorting it out.
So at the moment, I have 5 characters that the MC has to make friends with. There are 3 options with five interactions. It’s only if you get a high friendship level during those five interactions that you’re able to continue and get a chance to get a good ending.
The ending you get depends on how many friends you have at the end. I’m worried that all I’ve succeeded in doing is making everything ridiculously complicated.
It would require at least 11 variables running at once to code. A friendship meter for each character and the resolution variable and the ending variable.
Is there an easier way to do this without compromising continuity? I’m worried if a friendship meter is low, then when you talk to that person and they act the same may be a bit jarring.
Please help.
I came here to help but I’m stumped. The only thing I can think of is that each friend has to be independent and non-critical so if the MC doesn’t meet the threshold they can disappear from the story and not impact the rest of the narrative (kind of like in Saint’s Row 2, Carlos never appears in story missions with other homies because he dies in the Brotherhood quest chain, stuff like that). Maybe there are core “unloseable” characters that you can focus the ending around, and have the others basically just add flavour?
Each character is important. The only other way I can think of doing it is to make the player choose whose path they want to take and in which order, kinda like normal visual novels
Sounds like smoothing over it with a writing solution would be preferable over a programming solution. Can you frame the ending events in a way that it makes sense to boost everyone up to at least mid-level friendship? That way instead of having to cover a range of interactions you only have to do mid, mid-high and high (reluctant, genuine and deep friendship). Then after the events you can give them personalised one on one interaction sequences/individual plotline resolutions that more accurately reflect the friendship levels.
I’m really concerned that I may make “false choices” much like the walking dead does. Nothing is more frustrating then making a choice and that choice later becomes non-relevant. I think it’s my want to avoid that, that is making this so complicated
Maybe try putting in more release valves and consolidation points. Events where the decisions pay off in ways that either tie up that part of the plot ahead of time or bring it together so the ending only has to use the more general version. Ie, our interactions in the park, on the bus and on the train come together at the picnic, so when later on at the party instead of having to address all these interactions we just use the outcome of the picnic.
That said don’t get too hung up on making choices matter. It’s ok if sometimes the pay-off is just atmospheric or simple. Revealing a little more about a character is sometimes more important than a call out during the finale.
I might get you to help by reading over my work?
If you want but I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be. Writing isn’t exactly my strong point. =P
other eyes are great
So where can I find a copy of it?
I’m using word online, so I can give you a link. Are you on steam or twitter or something?
I dug up your username from the Steam Kotaku group an added you. Just keep in mind my home PC is always on so I might not reply if I’m at work.
I read this and all I can think of is
“Scree’s making a waifu simulator”
I’m pumped.
One of the characters is male. This is the serious one. Wait for the stupid one that will be made once the serious one is out of the way.
I’m a programmer so if I need to track something just adding variables makes sense.
If you only have 11 variables you are tracking that doesn’t sound too hard. I think the danger you will have with that is it sounds like there is going to be a perfect playthrough that you have to do to get the good ending.
You think it won’t get too messy?
I don’t think so. Each variable sounds like it is very self contained and there is very little interaction between the different variables.
Talk to person A > Pick response > Set variable A up or down based on response
Talk to person D > Pick response > Set variable D up or down based on response
The complexity will only come in if you are mixing up what the outcome and change in variables will be based on other people. For example
Talk to person D > Pick response > If friendly with A but not with E then it goes up but if you are friendly with E it goes down.
I don’t think they’ll be included. And I think the only one that will look at others is possibly the endings. Maybe I should just continue then.
Yeah I think you will be fine, doesn’t seem like it will be overly confusing to manage or keep your head around.
When i get to writing code, I may ask for your help.
Just be sure to give them meaningful names 😛
I plan to. I’m still in the writing stage, and I’m still tryign to wrap my head around it
Custard-flavoured jobby
Mangled apricot hellbeast
Leather-faced piss jar
Blinkered plum
Rug wearing thunder nugget
Speaking here as a general programmer, not necessarily aware of whatever scripting tool you’re using, what you’re describing doesn’t seem like it’d need that many variables to track unless your scripting system only lets you have on/off flags. You should only need 5 variables, one per character. I’m going to assume that your scripting system uses signed values i.e. can’t have negative numbers.
Also I might be misinterpreting your problem, so let me just state exactly what my understanding is:
– No branching routes (?)
– Five characters
– Five decision points
– Multiple options at each decision point
– All characters must have max affection level to get the good ending.
– Unsure how many ‘bad’ endings but assuming based on your description there’s 5 – 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 friends.
So what you do is you have a variable for each character that indicates their opinion of the main character, and you set it up to a ‘neutral’ value. In this case, if there’s five points where you can improve their friendship by +1 point, you want to set the initial state to 5.
When the player picks a choice that improves the friendship of a character, you +1. When they make a negative one, you -1. Each decision point presumably affects different characters different ways.
To be a character’s friend you need to have picked the options that give them the maximum affection level – assuming there are five chances to improve that per character, their value is at most 10.
To figure out how many ‘friends’ you have (where a friend has 10 points in their meter) sum them together and divide by 10. This will give you a number between 0 and 5 thanks to the wonders of integer division (49 / 10 == 4 on a computer using integer values).
If the result is 5, good end, else if 4, 4 friends end etc.
Note that this exact same approach will also work if you have a route for each character then an ‘ending route’ as well. Where it doesn’t work is if you have a non-uniform amount of + and – for each character for each option – to make that work you need to weight one decision higher. Eg let’s say there’s one character, and only 3 options can improve their affection toward you. Make the first one add +1, and the second and third add +2, and you’ll be max 10. Also the choice of a range from 0-10 is arbitrary – you can expand or contract the range as needed, as long as you scale each one uniformly.
Note also that if you wanted to have a ‘best friend’ element in the bad ends, then:
Friend A if A >= B && A >= C && A >= D && A >= E
Friend B if B >= A && B >= C && B >= D && B >= E
Etc. Can flip the inequality around to find the character that has the lowest affection too.
You don’t have to store these in a variable, you should be able to just do the logic check in-place.
Non-technical thought: have you worried at all that your choice system might be too symmetrical?
No? There are 4 endings, failure, limbo, partial success and good. If the requirements aren’t met to continue, then you get Limbo. Now I think about it, how the hell can you get failure if Limbo occurs when certain requirements aren’t met. Unless you get all 0 which would need it’s own requirement.
I am confusing myself now.
The story is that to have the cursed removed he has to help the 5 students with their issues. The idea was to have a limbo ending like persona 4 if you weren’t able to get a high enough friendship to activate the persons most personal issue. If you we’re able to correctly choose the responses, then the person would grow and you’d need to do this With all 5 characters
Okay, so that’s actually easier, you just add them together and then branch based on the total:
If < 25 points they get bad end
else if any of them is at 10 points but total is < 50, they get partial success end
else if total is 50, they get good end
else limbo end
Failure end is if you chose options that actually made people dislike you. Limbo is kind of your default ending.
You could have a “holy shit you’re an actual monster” ending if you get everyone to 0 too…
I guess I just find it weird that they would spill the reasons for their innermost issues if they don’t like the person.
… I don’t follow.
That was the reason for the friendship metre. To me it makes no sense that if you pick the shitty responses that they would still chat to you in a pleasant manner and discuss personel secrets with you.
Yes but I’m not sure what the relevance is? I mean, that’s up to how you write it…
It was the reason for the friendship variable. If it’s a low number, the person will have a colder response, as opposed to a normal response
You can still do stuff based off that though? Not an either/or case. All I was pointing out is that you can re-use the same thing for all of what you want to do and don’t need tons of tracking variables.
To be honest, I have no idea how to do it without variables. Wouldn’t it get too messy?
IMO using less is better, but I program for a living. If you’re more comfortable using more, then use more.
My biggest suggestion to you though is to break down your main story choices and flow and flowchart it.
I plan to. I just haven’t had time at the moment. Cosplay stuff
\o/ picked up my new motherboard today, didn’t want another ASRock, I ended up going for the Gigabyte Z170MX Gaming 5. More features and a better build, and i’ve never had issues with Gigabyte boards!
Found some boots! Well, a couple of pairs. One looked pretty good, but they were a size 40. That’s fine for my climbing shoes, but I think normally I’m about a 42. I’ve only just grown out the toenail bruise I got from Gief’s slightly-too-small snowboard boots last year, so I’m not overly keen to go and undo that all over again, even though they didn’t feel tooooo bad over the maybe 15mins I was wearing them in the store. Then I found another pair of 8s that seem like they must be a men’s pair based on the size, though the styling is a little ambiguous. They were on the more pricey rack though, asked for them to be held while I went off to look at other stores. Found some maybes there that were way too small, ended up cutting the trip short so I could just go back and get the 8s. Probably won’t find better.
Then also got a tiny little belt and some small knitting needles, but one of the large belts I had my eye on wasn’t there. Might leave further treks til next week, hopefully there’ll be some restocking and some better belts will show up. In the meantime, gotta get cracking.
Oh I am so over my cosplay. I have had so many issues with the paint. It advertised fabric paint but it all washed off. It was supposed to take 2 days and instead it took 2 weeks. I just hope I can get it all done.
Best of luck with yours
Oh man I had that happen to me a few years back. I made this design for a shirt and spent a week straight hunched over the stencils I was cutting out, the thing came up absolutely gorgeous and I was proud as punch. It was my friend whose paints I was using, he did this kind of thing all the time so I was following his lead. But despite ironing the crap out of it, everything got destroyed in the first wash. And stupid me did the stencils with paper, so they got all soaked and distorted after a single use.
I will never but this paint again. It was expensive. I thought it would be good quality because it was Australian made, but it was awful.
@welbot Happy birthday, man! It’s been a rough year, glad it seems like it was over.
Happy birthday @Welbot. May you live up to your name this next year
Not quite over yet. I thought it was going to be, but then I got told I can’t go back to work yet. If I’m really lucky, I might be able to before the end of the year. Fingers crossed any way!
Hosting a work BBQ tonight. Food is easy, got that sorted; music is harder though, my normal playlist of Australian punk and hip hop just isn’t work party music. Halp.
I’d hit up Triple J’s Hottest 100 from 2012, it’s full of inoffensive music.
Plenty of Spotify or Pandora stations with party themed music
I tend to be pretty disappointed with themed playlists in Spotify, they always have a bunch of pop music that just irritates me – because I’m a pathological indie-kid, and can’t find enjoyment in anything that’s broadly popular. Managed to knock together my own playlist, but I can’t rearrange it in the Android app or web player, so it’ll have to wait until I get home.
My favourite party music is whatever WSFM is playing on a Friday or Saturday night (90s now counts as retro party music)
“Is Facebook Disappearing Occulus Founder Palmer Luckey?” Congratulations, Lifehacker, you’ve given my inner Grammar Nazi a stroke.
Can’t really help but at my last work one time we had this debate: could we find a song that everyone would enjoy if it was played at a party/bar.
We had a wide variety of people; young poppy girl, old crusty farmer man, metal head, amature hip-hop artist, ect.
Took most of an afternoon but eventually we found a winner all these people could comfortably listen to: Hilltop Hoods.
There is a lesson here but I’m not sure how to articulate it. Something about popular, but not boppy girly, music being the way to go.
@spadge
I’ll listen to a few songs but wouldn’t enjoy listening to an entire album
For sure, same here. Its but if one of their hits came on spotify while at a bbq youd be more inclined to nod along than reach for the skip button you know?
Yeah, but then again I’m fairly eclectic in tastes but can understand the complexity of the challenge. Hell I probably wouldn’t know any pop released in the last 5 years
You will soon once Tiglet starts going to birthday parties. All the little kids love the Taylor Swift.
I hate talking about music, someone make a perfectly good suggestion like that and all I want to say is:
I like their old stuff more than their new stuff, or I liked them before they were coolAnd then I die a little inside.
Still, thanks for the reminder, I’ll pop a couple of their singles onto the playlist.
Obviously you go with the classics – Justin Bieber, Beyonce and as wind calls her – Tswift.
The Senate Legal and Consitutional Affairs References Committee is perfect lunchtime viewing, and the music played during the short suspension is an unexpected surprise.
Almost wish I’d found out about parliamentary streaming a long time ago.
NEEEEEEEEEEERD
Woke up to a nice little birthday present this morning, by discovering my song is now on Spotify too!
https://open.spotify.com/track/3nJLeRGyuYPXrSviKW9axO
Come follow me if you’re a Spotify user! 😀
Rolls 17d6+5 inches to determine physical height of Player Character. Gets 4’11”.
Title: Fire, to destroy all you’ve done
“The Reichmarshal is expected in three hours for the demonstration and that…” Vosk crushed his gloves in his right hand and pointed at the colossal generator occupying the cavern, “…needs to be operational in ten minutes.”
“I assure you Commander,” Professor Bern cleared his throat. “the n-space generator is ready.”
“Bring it online then Professor.” Vosk twirled his glove occupied hand in a circular motion indicative of a generator that made physical rotation causing Professor Bern to wince at the man’s ignorance. The n-space generator lacked any moving parts. “I want to test it before we demonstrate it to the Reichmarshal.”
“Of course.” Professor Bern signalled the Technician to turn the key before focusing his attention on Commander Vosk. “The capacitors are charging.”
The air in the cavern became the colour of television tuned to a dead channel.
“As you can see,” Professor Bern pointed at the centre of it. “the n-space generator is functioning perfectly.”
“What of the previous problem?” Vosk could see a bubble of gold growing mid cavern.
“Solved by a filter replacement.” Professor Bern pointed at the Gold bubble. “And before you ask No thats not gold.”
“I know its not gold Professor Bern,” The bubble of gold continued to swell. “I read the research.”
“In that case…yes,” Bern smiled. Vosk was a rare jewel amongst the leadership. “that is the n-space boundary.”
“And beyond it is,” Vosk could almost feel the presence of the Fuhrer who was waiting on the otherside for the n-space boundary to reach the volume of the chamber in an almost identical cavern beneath the Berlin. Vosk could feel the weight of the promotion pinned to his uniform. “the second facility beneath Berlin.”
A bell rang alerting those in the chamber that the second facility was online.
“We can build these n-space generators anywhere,” Vosk was excited at the prospect of instantaneous travel. “and simply step through.”
A surge in the electrical bus and molten gold poured from the bubble splashing the floor of the cave.
“Professor?” Vosk turned to look at Professor Bern whose face had become ashen. “Is there going to be a problem?”
“Berlin has just been destroyed,” Professor Bern was physically shaking. “The n-space boundary will reach us shortly.”
“What do you mean?” The bubble had stabilized. “The boundary looks stable.”
“The fluctuation in the power grid was the other facility failing.” Professor Bern was terrified. “The n-space boundary is now expanding uncontrolled.”
“How long?” Vosk stared at the perfectly stable n-space boundary in front of him. “How much time do we have Professor?”
“Minutes.” The Professor was breaking down emotionally. “The Universe is collapsing to n-space.”
“So it will not go further than this boundary?”
Vosk formed an idea walking forward. “Where does that lead?”
“Without a second facility?” Professor Bern understood where Vosk was going. “Anywhere.”
“Anywhere?” Vosk moved toward the bubble of gold to get a closer look before looking back at the Professor. “Then we go where we can.”
“With haste Professor,” Vosk turned his attention to the n-space boundary in front of him.
“The end of the Universe waits for no Aryan.” Vosk stepped through the n-space boundary.
The Universe was bright light. An infinite sea of aromas that Vosk was sure was the outdoors. The light faded from white revealing an ancient forest.
“Professor?” Anywhere now looked a lot like somewhere. Shadows gathered and stirred. They were Men wearing animal hides for clothing and armed with wooden spears. Spears now pointed at Vosk.
“Gun-sar will decide your fate.” They spoke something akin to early German. ‘Gun-sar’ was a name. ‘Gun-sar will decide?’ The warrior indicated a direction of travel with the motioning of his spear. “Move.”
“I am Gun-sar. I rule by right of challenge.”
Gun-sar looked at one of his warriors. “What’s the tally of challenges?” Vosk considered the value of the warriors surounding him. They smelled of dung, urine, sweat, and blood.
“Twenty five dead and one missing. ” The warrior who spoke was closest to his chief.
“Oh come on Ka-to, Ba-tu fell backward off the cliff. ” Vosk needed them to build his empire.
“Yes…” This one would serve as a lieutenant.
“So he’s dead. You can’t say Ba-tu is missing when he has fallen into a bottomless gorge. ”
“No…” but the chief.
“So its twenty six dead.”
Vosk pulled the Lugher, fired with considerable accuracy and brought Gun-sar’s reign to an end.
“I am Vosk,” Vosk pointed his gun at Ka-to, “and this is my boom-stick.”
“Now,” Vosk pulled Gun-sar’s corpse from the throne, sat down on the hide covered frame and looked at Ka-to.
“Where exactly is this village?” A warrior leaped forward in attack. Vosk met the challenge with another round from his lugher dropping the nameless corpse on that of Gun-sar.
“Are there any further challenges today?” Vosk looked about expectantly. “No?”
“You four dispose of these two.” Vosk pointed about before turning his gaze on Ka-to. “How far are we from Berlin?”
“Ber?” Ka-to seemed wary of the new tyrant as he watched the newest corpse dragged from the hall.
“Ber-lin.” Perhaps some other nest of civilization. “How far are we from Rome?”
“Rome?” Ka-to was confused by the word. It was unfamiliar. “Sel-ka. This is Sel-ka.”
“Sel-ka.” Vosk nodded his head. “Great. Just great.” Vosk contemplated the world. No Berlin. No Rome. There was only one thing for it.
“No more Sel-ka.” Decisive leadership was needed. “This is now Ber-lin.”
Author: Sean Robert Meaney
It just hit me – George Carlin is dead and I won’t ever get to hear his thoughts on the 2016 U.S Election. Fuck.
My foot-sweat smells exactly like balsamic vinegar.
What?
Bouldering comp today. Went well!
Dead now. Goodnight.
*slump*
So i now have an instagram. I am terrible at using it and it confuses me. It’s happening, I’m getting old and out of touch. =P Anyway, I’ll try to update with cosplay images. Maybe even artwork.
I’m scree06 on there
What is this insta gram? Is it a new breakfast product?
Confusing as fuck. That’s what.
I hit dat follow! *lurks for more Callie cosplay updates*
I’m so busy working on it, updates might be a bit slow. Sorry
Ugh. Never gonna be any good at getting up early during Daylight Savings.
I even try to go to bed early so I can get up early, but it hasn’t been working for me these past two weeks. 🙁
Im just chuffed that vaping in VR doesnt sting your eyes!
Been making decisions recently that move me outside of my comfort zone and this is one of them. Hi everyone! Nice to meet you all.
Hellooo I lurk here mostly but welcome 🙂
Hi! 🙂
Howdy.
Welcome. We need fresh meat! We’re also so nice here, it’s sickening
Yeah, you guys seem like a really good crew. I’m from Adelaide and spend most of my non-working time being a dad and playing WoW, sometimes not in that order.
@lucifer9783 @redartifice @Jocon are the other SA Peeps. I think i missed one though. I just have a feeling…
ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
There’s a couple others, not many
Coolio. Whats your poison in WoW? a couple of us play to varying degrees of intensity.
Poison is the appropriate term =P
My main is a warrior, been playing at varying intensities since BC, mostly PvE. Best I ever did was 4 or 5/7 heroic firelands as a tank. After that my guild fell apart and my kids came along. Started stepping into Mythic dungeons now though and am on the lookout for a 2 night raiding guild that wants to push Mythic content.
Ah yeah (nudges @pupp3tmast3r) Legion is kinda good I think in giving more options in the end game beyond hardcore raid/pvp or gtfo.
What server/faction? Most of us are Barthilas Horde.
You’ve uttered the magic words –
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20748025178Our guild post, most of us are in the same position that we’re too damned old to raid hardcore hours so the group we’re running is kind of prog raiding for adults (aka don’t sacrifice your life to play). We’re still slower than hardcore guilds (due to the time restraints) but we’ve kept up with other semi-casual guilds that run twice as many hours as us.
You can group cross-server now right? Do you know if US and Oceanic can get together? Because if so, feel free to invite me if I’m on and you need an extra warm body to fill a spot.
Got my ilvl above 835 on my Paladin over the weekend. Not great gear in terms of itemization but first priority was to get to a high level and then start replacing pieces later. Been mainly building a Prot set since our guild’s main tank is leaving, but it’s pretty simple to just swap spec and DPS in tanking gear. Main issue is I haven’t tanked any of the Legion dungeons myself yet so don’t know the fights well.
I classify us as a smartcore guild: cause we raid smarter, not harder.
I’m on Khaz’goroth/Alliance for my main. I’ve got a level 100 boost to burn though, and have some other friends on Barth so I’ll level something once I’ve cleared it with the Mrs. Just have to make sure she’s right to put the kids to bed those 2 nights is all, you know how it is. Orgatyrant#6817 is my BT btw
Hi! welcome aboard!
Bloodborne Update:
A most productive evening of hunting. I took down the Witch on my FIRST ATTEMPT! \o/ Then on Batguy’s advice, I went for a walk and ended up in Iosefka’s clinic :O I died a bunch of times there but Numbing Mist proved to be useful.
I’ve also opened up Cainhurst Castle, and spent some more quality time in Old Yarnham trying to avoid machine gun fire. Fun times.
Oh man, Cainhurst. Marty is a prick, I had to get @freezespreston to help me. Happy to pay it forward.
Ended up going around to my friend’s place on Friday, and spent far too long playing Borderlands. Really could’ve done with that time spent costuming instead >_>
But somehow still managed to get up at a decent hour Saturday and not feel too wrecked, so was still good for hitting up the bouldering comp I wanted to go to. Tell you what though, no more leaving the house on the weekends. The roads are just filled with the biggest wastes of space in all of existence, ended up doing some very angry driving. Got there right as the comp was starting and registration was slow, so missed about 15mins of climb time. Still did pretty well though, managed to get through 43 climbs I think, and only didn’t flash the two hardest of those. One of which involved doing a huge swing on a rope to get from one side of the wall to the other, another had you start on the floor and run up a long angled box on the wall, where you had to then catch yourself on the other boxes to get to the end hold. Pretty happy getting that one. Scored 1459 I think it was, faaaairly sure I cracked 1500 last year. Had a mad rush in the last 10 minutes to try and get through as many as I could up in the bouldering area, but there were a few where I smashed through everything til the last two holds where I could suddenly not hold onto anything any more. Bah 😛 Failed seven over all, and I think my top eight score was 378 which beat one of the other guys I know there who was actually going for the top eight thing. Woo 😛 Aerialist came second in the rookie (climbing for under a year) category. Pretty good!
Everything afterwards is soreness. And costuming. I’ve finally started working on building the hat, and it’s looking good so far. While looking up info on ellipses, I saw mention of the trammel of Archimedes which I recognised as being very similar to something I built out of lego forever ago. Looked around in the old crate but it seems to have been mostly dismantled, but it was easy enough to build again. And it is awesome, way better than the pinned string method. Could really do with one that has continuous settings rather than discrete, also lower tolerances. But still super handy.
Now I just gotta figure out how I’m going to hold everything together…
So. Much. Glue.
So many kinds to choose from!
Only the strongest
Hot Glue!
That’s usually fairly globby isn’t it? Rather than something like spray adhesive which goes on pretty thin.
It depends on what you’re joining. Sometimes a small dot is all you need, or you can use it for holding large areas. I have a glue gun with a precision nozzle, got it at spotlight.
Well I’m constructing a hat using the cardboard in the above pic as the skeleton to lay the felt onto. Right now I’ve got all the radiating spokes curling upward, and am holding alternating ones up with bits of sticky tape between them to hold the shape I want. Tossing up whether to cut down the inbetween spokes so that they can fit flush between the held ones, then just seal the gaps with paper or something. Or to just bring them up as they are and mash them together as best I can, and hope the felt holds it together properly once I get to that part.
A couple of things to try: Hot glue will definitely work for holding skeleton bits together. To make it stronger, consider a layer of pva glue + tissue paper to cover everything and add some strength (thank you Mister Maker for that tip). Hot glue + felt work really well together too.
All these sequel name suggestions and no-one has yet suggested the best choice, Red Dead Redartifice
Red Dead *Reality!
*Virtual
Title: The Tavern
Kas dwelled with ever greater frequency on the past. Those thread bare nightmares worn down by his moments of repentance were replaced with ease by the cue of horrors waiting their turn to torment the drunken soldier as he cowered in the poorly lit corner of the tavern.
“Shall I tell you a tale?” Kas looked closely at the Drunken shadow enjoying his company from the other side of the table and recieved no objection.
“I had at the instruction of my commander,” Kas rolled his eating implement in the bowl of food, “been dispatched from the fortress not ten miles from here to a work camp to over-see labourers working on a section of the Barrier.”
Gathering a single morsel to his mouth, Kas chewed, swallowed and continued with the tale.
“Several Days had passed when the well diggers penetrated through into an old structure,” Kas dipped a steamed dumpling in the thick salt rich black sauce and held it aloft examining it as he spoke. “and deep beneath the earth, ancient chambers were revealed, their heavy timber beams carved by ancient hands.” Kas chewed at the dumpling remembering the Taste.
“I remember the first of the well diggers being pulled out on a rope because he had fallen through a ceiling and dropped a hundred feet to his death.” Kas dipped his dumpling in sauce and continued. “His name was Koji.”
Kas swallowed the remains of his dumpling and reached for the bowl of steamed vegetable broth drinking the beverage before setting it aside.
“His brother Jin had ventured down to retrieve the body.” Kas shook his head at the memory. “Jin spoke of a sea of newly forged weapons still in their racks as though he had discovered a secret imperial armoury.” Kas returned to his meal.
“I made a mistake then.” Kas reached for the bowl of duck meat and lifted the lid from it enough to retreive a piece of meat with his eating implement. “I told Jin to retrieve a weapon from the rack.” The duck dipped gently in the black sauce.
“I did not see the thing that killed him,” Kas looked at his quiet companion. “but we all heard his scream.”
Kas paused to eat his duck, chewing it gently.
“Kuro was lowered in to retrieve Jin’s body.” It was becomming difficult to think about it. “Kuro found what was left of Jin in the darkness of that Armoury, eaten away by something that had poured on him from somewhere above, his hand still grasping the weapon in its rack.”
“Kuro didnt make it back to the surface either.” Again Kas sipped at the vegetable broth. “Kuro triggered another trap having noticed a box of some value and tied it to the end of the rope in his stead.”
The broth emptied, Kas indicated to a servant the desire for another bowl.
“A red cloud of some poison sprayed from the box as he struggled to secure it,” Kas fetched more duck from its bowl. “He was dead before he could finish.”
The drunken companion reached out of the darkness across the table for a small bowl of wine, clearing his throat.
“The next was Toki.” Kas accepted the arrival of a new vegetable broth with a silver coin. “He managed to send up the body of Kuro.”
Kas cleared his throat of an oddly bitter taste and reached for the vegetable broth. The bitterness eased as Kas drank the warm vegetable Broth.
“Far too many had died that day.” Kas flipped aside the earthenware lid covering the duck and retrieved a third piece. “I instructed Toki to send up the box and return to the surface.”
Kas wiped the duck through the black sauce.
“The box revealed itself to be wood.” The bitterness ate at his tongue. “but inside, a collection of delicate glass vials filled with a strange red liquid, one of which had shattered.” Again the vegetable broth cleared the bitterness from his throat.
“Something leaking from the box had eaten into the rope as we retrieved Toki.” Kas gave up on the duck. It was just going to get worse. “Almost at the opening in the ceiling, the rope gave and Toki fell.”
Kas coughed.
“I gave an order to fetch a new rope,” Kas examined a second dumpling and rolled it in the black sauce. “and this time I lowered myself down into the darkness.”
The dumpling was perfection. The sweet mix of vegetable and meat. The source of bitterness was definatly the Duck.
“The chamber was huge.” Kas held the duck aloft and a sevant scurried forward. “I noticed that every weapon carried a seal of imperial authority etched into the blade.”
The servant bowed before Kas and took the duck from his hand.
“The Duck is bitter in taste.” Kas looked at the servant with suspicion. “It tastes like Poison.”
The servant shook his head.
“No.” Kas collapsed face down on the table. “The poison was in the vegetable broth.”
Not sure if I overdid the VR on Saturday, but today my head feels weird. Like my sense of balance is slightly off…
Did you take the red pill or the blue pill?
@alexwalker it’s doing that weird thing where is goes to page 2 when you post on 3, and also when you try to get to a comment on page 3.
@alexwalker I stuffed up the first time
I reinforce this sentiment, seems to redirect us to page 2 when you post.
I can probably write and post a third shortfiction by thursday evening and we will see what happens. I’m aiming for a tale about a probe that lands on the Proxima b Super-ocean.
It’s weird, I would’ve thought that it must’ve been that Sean guy’s posts that went into moderation or something but there’s only two of those and we’re eight posts in now and still haven’t hit 3.
Either way something’s not right under the hood.
It used to do this only if you were replying to or posting the first post of the page. Off-by-one issue.
NEF LIIIIIVES
HE STILL AVOIDS TWITTER AND IS WONT TO SWEAR RANDOMLY
FUCK
Who’s this guy?
oh em gee
https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/mc-who%C2%BF
I was hoping you’d end up there 🙂
Now I just have to hope they actually play it on air! Just being up there doesn’t guarantee airplay, but it’s certainly good exposure either way!
That’s awesome!
Just had an insanely good climb session, despite still carrying much pain from Saturday. Even managed to nearly flash an Open A problem, and finished up completing the feature problem I couldn’t do on the weekend. Or even earlier in the night, before I’d worn myself out completely. I don’t get it.
This season of Survivor has been absurdly frustrating to watch.
SOMEONE JUST MAKE A DAMN MOVE ALREADY AND KNOCK THOSE BLOODY GIRLS OFF THEIR PODIUM
(probably several eps behind still)
Ok finally got PAX transport and accommodation booked. Timely as always.
Maybe I should get around to doing my tax return soon too…
I haven’t sorted out my Pax stuff yet either and I’m a few years behind on tax.
Don’t worry man there’s always someone worse than you.
At least I hear that a lot, usually they’re pointing to me at the time though…
Scooter, and a box under a bridge?
Close enough. Train and hostel.
When are you getting the train? I’m getting the train too 🙂
Thursday night, getting in Friday morning. Figure I’ll probably need that last daytime to finish making things 😛
Hopefully will be able to sleep through most of the trip just fine.
Cool. Meet you at central!
Ha! Which carriage did you get? I’m on D.
I’m on B, I decided to go first class
@cookingmama Ooh ritzy 😛 I wouldn’t have even thought of the train til I saw a thing mentioning cheap tickets, and between the lower cost compared to what I would’ve had with airfares as well as going directly to Southern Cross (right near where I’m staying) instead of having to faff about with the skybus, it seems like a much more convenient option. Also like it might make things easier for bulky luggage, though shouldn’t have problems with that like I did last year I don’t think.
That was pretty much my thoughts as well. The first class ticket worked out the same as a virgin flight + transfers, and without having to get up at stupid o’clock. So I get to drop my boy off to Batguy at Broadway, walk to central, get on train. Much less stressful!
Excellent!
Wasn’t the geek apartment looking for a roomie?
If they were, I didn’t see anything about it on TAY!
Quiz B asked me. Might have to ask cj or blaghs
They still have a spot
Why did we not get a new TAY? What is going on?! Change. Change! Aaaaaggh!
Here’s a little pikastick:
http://i.imgur.com/NWtXwxg.jpg
Double sided arts:
http://i.imgur.com/7PsB9M3.jpg
You’ve been gone a while, since TAY has shrunk to a few pages it now lasts for multiple weeks (2 weeks I believe).
I haven’t been gone a day, this has only happened twice. I thought the last one was because of the public holiday.
I couldn’t be sure something was up until yesterday.
It’s either a month long now or fortnightly because most people have moved to twitter. Monsters.
I don’t even know how twitter works, I can never get the hashtags right!
I don’t understand hashtags and I’m on twitter and instagram
Good morning all
I’ve decided that yesterday can die in a fire and never existed so happy Monday to you all.
Weekend was ok, didn’t get up too much.
Finally managed to ditch Mummy and have one of our Daddy/Daughter cafe trips. It started out as something we did when she went to the market but she decided she wanted to come as well so we haven’t had one with just the 2 of us for a while.
I had left something at work Friday so drove back in on Saturday when she was down to grab it. Got in, sorted some stuff out and then totally forgot to grab what I specifically came in to get so wasted a couple of hours there.
Had a bunch of work to finish so plugged away at that and ended up stay up to watch the womens cycling world championships.
Sunday played a little Alan Wake and just took it easy, a walk, some lunch and in bed early
I still rate Alan Wake. I haven’t played American Nightmare, but Alan Wake was a well executed example of tension and atmosphere in a video game.
The Daddy/Daughter date sounds great! I haven’t done something like that with my kids for a while. My daughter is a bit young to appreciate it, but my son would enjoy it methinks. You’ve inspired me good sir!
It is well worth it. I started taking my daughter since she was about 6 months old
She has upgraded now and gets her own babychinno and we normally share a cake. Although recently she has been all about the banana bread since they had freshly made stuff at the counter when we went.
Super important to have 1 on 1 time with the kids even if it is only for a 15 minute coffee break.
Also missed your intro yesterday so welcome
Mr 5 only likes the marshmallows in babycinos, he’s more of a milkshake kinda guy. No idea how he fits it all in his tummy!
Tiglet is actually very kind and gives the marshmallows to Mummy. helps that she doesn’t actually like them, isn’t big on really sweet things
Missed the women’s race as I was at the debacle at Etihad. I’m still undecided if Victory are a shambles or City are really really good (or a little of each, which is probably nearest the truth). Following that I went on to a bar to drown sorrows…
That Cahill goal though. Wow.
Did catch the last 25km of the men’s race. That Sagan. Wow. Still, if the Worlds are never again in somewhere so absurdly hot and flat it’ll be too soon.
Such a horrible parcours for the worlds. At least we aren’t going to need to worry about the heat next year. Checking out next year it looks like a super great course. Although maybe I’m just excited to see a single lump in the course 😉
My cousin in-law is a mad city man so at least he was happy
Ah, Norway! Fjord! (vs Hjolden? 😉 )
That looks a lot better. It’s not that steep, and in the middle of the lap. Few twisties. It’s a nicely balanced course. Should suit someone like Hushovd (if he’s going another year)… 😉
Actually, it’s a bit of a Sagan parcours. 3 in a row…? 😀
If Sagan wins that then they will finish 2018 on the top on Mont Ventoux
I think Hushovd would ride for Kristoff, think he should be able to get over those
!!! And then he’ll win that too and they’ll give up and rename it the Sagan Trophy.
If he did 4 in a row I would probably support the name change
Gdi mobile internet.
How are all the people?
Dunno, but the bot is well! 😉
Bot-tom?
You like my shiny metal ass don’t ya? 😉
Mmmmm, metallicy
Been playing the rising of the tomb raiderer.
I like it, not quite as fun or as interesting as the first, but it’s a solid game.
All the crafting & item collection has been ramped up to eleven.
I really enjoyed it. Again not quite is much as the first, but a lot.
Oh, you’ve completed it? Been waiting for the ps4 release.
Yeah, played it on PC earlier in the year. Enjoyed it enough that I’ve grabbed the PS4 version for a replay.
Keen!
I finished Tomb Raider (2013) on PS3, twice. Then I played a chunk of it on PC to see the differences with a good graphics card (GTX680). Then I finished the Definitive Edition on PS4.
Kind of a fan. Been reading all the comics too, that bridge the two games. 🙂
Ahhhh, Gail Simone wrote those right? She’s good.
Yeah, I’m not that big of a fan. That said, even when I am, I often don’t read/watch tie-ins etc.
Gail Simone, and then Rhianna Pratchett have been the writers.
I don’t usually read all the tie-ins. These were an exception as they were written by the game’s writers, and were a direct bridge. Pretty good. Although I’ve just discovered I missed a prequel comic to the first (reboot) game that I’ll have to track down.
I’ve also been playing Dragon Quest VII, just creeping up on 50hours playtime & the main narrative is still only being hinted at.
I seem to be running out of locations to visit, so I think I’m nearing the end of the story.
Man, it can be slow at times & it’s been streamlined from the original.
The last town I entered, the king wouldn’t talk to me until after I’d slept in the inn & seen a cutscene. I couldn’t stay in the inn until I found The owner. It was an npc I’d already talked to, but she didn’t trigger until I’d spoken to another random npc in another part of the town.
There’s so much back & forth.
Job system is fun though.
So addicted to Off World Trading Company, got gifted it by a friend, it might help me resist the urge to pick up Civ 6 straight away.
Morning errbody hows every little thing?
Shit, how’s you?
Shit too we can be shit together
Sure!
*flings poo*
See above. Restarted my week today so all is well
Oh well thats good hows baby tigs
Big.
Has a new favourite word which is No. So that is proving a challenge but otherwise healthy, happy and cheeky as a monkey.
This is her https://twitter.com/Tigerion/status/785998910099632128 now
Heyo !!!
Just wondering what system people will be getting the new shooty shooty Battlefield game on. I’ve got PS4 XBone and PC but not sure where the most action will be.
now I could just decide for myself but its much easier to just be a sheep isn’t it ?
The idea of a shooter on anything but PC does my head in so I would vote PC but is unlikely that I will pick it up
Yeah the PC is my go to system for shooters and my rig is relatively high end so it will look best on there, but my friends list is non existent on Origin (and pretty limited on steam also).
Battlefield is best played amongst friends I think, unfortunately I seem to be lacking them online these days as most of my friends are either not gaming much anymore (we be getting old) or only game on PS4 or Xbone due to drifting away from PC gaming.
Did you play the BETA?,( I missed it). just wondering if tis any good before I purchase and thought you might be able to provide some insight (since you stated you wont be picking it up). I haven’t had a Battlefield game since #3.
I’m not big on the faceshooty anymore (he says as currently plays far cry 3) and with a 2 year old my play time is limited and very interrupt able. So I don’t really play online area shooter anymore.
And if I’m going to play a FPS for the campaign I would play something like Metro or the new wolfenstien
Fair Call mate, My time is limited also and I haven’t played a multiplayer shooter for a long time (since battlefield 3), but I think I might grab this one ant try and relive my Bad Company 2 days…… on limited time and without the “old crew” we used to have.
man I miss being a layabout youth with nothing better to do 😉
I’m kinda interested in grabbing it on pc.
However I’m probably gonna need a gpu upgrade so, uh not today methinks.
yeah I upgraded last year thankfully so I’m good to go there. its just more to do with limited time to play these days and wanting to maximize the fun with people I (kinda) know rather that randoms who will laugh/hurl abuse at my atrocious kill death ration and lack of map knowledge causing the inevitable loss of our team which will no doubt be all my fault 😉
also stupid real life (bills, bills and more bills no doubt) not allowing you a GPU upgrade, the audacity of it all.
My N7 armour is almost there! http://redartifice.tumblr.com/post/151929390745/painting-process-despite-the-awful-weather-ive I need to just clear seal it and attach the back lights, but then it’s done- 10 months work (on and off)!
Really happy with how it looks- hard to tell from the photos, but it’s got this really cool multiple layer shine effect
Can’t wait to see it in person
Will you be voiced by Jennifer Hale? 😉
Looking pretty good! Reckon I’ll be able to find you…
If only
*looks into distance*
If only….
(My voice is very much not voice actor material)
Whee, some super rare N64 goodies arrived from the UK! Between this and the 64DD, pretty happy with the state my 64 collection is in now 😛
Information on them is pretty scarce, and outside of a mention of two other sets (Himitsu no Akko-chan and Hello Kitty) sourced from Nintendo Japan’s old website for them, I haven’t seen any evidence on whether they ever actually came into existence or not. So I have no idea if I have a complete set! D:
You know who else is a 64DD?
MY MOM! w00000000000000000000000000000
@mrtaco Did you need accommodation?
Booked it last night, just at Melbourne Central YHA. Unless you guys have something closer/cheaper? 😛
Further and cheaper. Tent in my garden. 😉
$130 other side of casino to pax. With my self and 6 others
Is that per night or all up?
All up. 4 nights max. Thurs-Sunday out Monday
Hmmmmmmm. I’m in early Friday morning and out Sunday night.
Still$130
That’s cool, I’ll stick with my slum 😛
This is mainly for @welbot but advice from others is welcome.
A few months back, I built a new PC for work and play. After constant annoyances with my ASUS Z170-AR board I finally got around to replacing it.
The board going out (from what I could tell at the time) had massive power issues where it wouldn’t power down, the ethernet port died within 24 hours and the last straw was a couple of weeks back when I would try to reboot only to have the machine report bad overclock settings; settings I never touched.
Now, I have a new board, a Gigabyte GA-Z170x-Gamer 7 and now I have a whole new set of problems.
The system is just completely unstable; it randomly causes Windows to crash (the BSOD varies from a WHEA error to software service problems) and I often can’t even complete the installation before it happens.
As far as I can tell, once I put a load on the CPU (via CPU-Z or a benchmarking tool in Ubuntu – I forget the name at the moment), everything is fine. But once the load is taken off, the machine either freezes or power cycles depending on the OS.
I’m starting to think my problems even with the old board can be traced to the CPU itself but I never had this problem when a load was put on and taken off in the old board.
Before I go through the hassle of sending the board back to ScorpTec, is there anything else I could try?
I’ve manually set the memory timings; even limited them to stock when the sticks are capable of 3 GHz. And I have taken the memory sticks out tried with the bare minima of hardware. The problem is still there.
The only other avenue is maybe my power saving settings are off; especially the CStates which some have reported as causing issues with my CPU; an i7 6700K @ 4GHZ.
But while they usually make good boards, Gigabyte is not known for being able to spell the documentation let alone write it so it is not clear to me what other setting I could try.
Anyhow, if anyone has any advice, it is welcome. But after what I have been through, this will be the last PC I build. This isn’t the 1980s and I don’t need this stress and distraction from work.
EDIT: Sorry, I almost forgot.
There was one last trick I used that *did* stablise the system. When I disabled all but one core in the BIOS, the problem went way.
I won’t lie, PC building is not my forte (I’m basically a village idiot when it comes to them) but even then the fact the problem goes away when I make the chip a single core hints heavily to the processor suddenly getting a defect when I swapped the board out.
It’s very tough to pinpoint the cause of WHEA errors unfortunately, as they could be from a number of things.
SInce you’ve manually set the ram timings, first thing I would ask, is does it do the same thing whether set manually or auto? Timings can be EXTREMELY picky. Usually, if you’re not overclocking, it’s best to just leave all your mem settings on auto, otherwise you’re very likely to run in to problems. Especially when using faster ram. A lot of people tend to buy faster ram thinking faster is better, but if you’re not overclocking, you will see almost zero benefit. The CPU is set to run at a certain bus speed by default (likely 2133MHz for your system) and if your ram is running at anything but 2133, it’s gonna have problems.
So if you haven’t tried it, reset the BIOS to default, and see if still does it.
Next thing I’d suggest is checking for BIOS updates from gigabyte. If there’s a newer version, flash it and see if the problem still persists.
If you’ve done that, and it’s still a problem, double check the cpu cooling (thermal paste and fans/whatever you’re using.) Do you have some kind of fancy cooling?
Next thing, if you’ve installed any of the gigabyte software that allows overclocking, or monitoring of cooling within windows, uninstall it and see if it makes a difference.
Failing that, you will probably have to use something like blue screen view to analyse the dump file from the windows blue screen, and see if it indicates where the problem might be coming from. It could be something as simple as a USB driver.
Speaking of which, have you installed all the drivers from the gigabyte site or cd that came with the mobo? If not, go to their site, download the latest drivers, and try that. Windows does a reasonable job with installing required drivers, but some of the drivers from Microsoft have been known to cause issues (like my sata add in card for instance.. It was actually killing my hdd’s and causing corruption on the drives attached to it, but replacing the driver with a proper one fixed it)
Easiest path for sure tho, is reset everything to default, install drivers, and see if it happens. If it happens in default state like that, it’s likely going to be driver issue. Bad CPU’s are pretty rare. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but it is rare.
Some of what you have covered I’ve already tried. But I was trying to keep my post short and not have it longer than a draft of the next George R.R. Martin book, 😛 Heck, I’m sure I could write faster than him!
Jokes aside.
I guess it can’t hurt to try one last time on auto. Truth be told, I developed a habit of setting them manually when I built my own PC for the first time and found the setting was just wrong (12 in stead of 15, etc).
My major peeve is the voltage is never set correctly (who’s the genius that thinks all ram run on 1.2 volts?!)
I did set the frequency back; no good.
At the risk of being laughed out of here, that was the first thing I did.
I wouldn’t call it fancy, just a typical liquid cooler. A Corsair H110i from memory.
It appears to be working; CPU stays at 30 degrees. Found out I forgot to plug it in on the first try though when I saw it climb to 52 and higher.
When I did manage to install Windows (after making the CPU single core) I did try installing drivers from the pack-in disk. Everything seemed to be OK. Then I turned the other cores back on and I was back to where I started.
If I put the machine back to only one core, it should be stable enough for me to get that file. Thanks.
But like I said, the BSOD reason is not always the same. It’s almost as if a random string is being used as (like I said) sometimes it is a WHEA problem, sometimes it’s a driver, sometimes it’s a Windows server.
I’m just waiting for the BSOD to ring a bell and say, “Your our 10,000th victim!” 😛
Yeap. Used the pack-in disk. Again, sorry for not disclosing the full detail (even this post is getting too long).
The only other possibility is my motherboard is just not getting the voltage settings right. I have read that this solved some problems but it then begs the question; where the hell do I get the voltage specs so I know Gigabyte is configuring things right?
I did try just now upping VCCIO and VCCSA voltages to 1.5 and 1.22 respectively. Still no change.
Is there a chance I do have a bad CPU and the problem is only now manifesting for me? While I built my this year, I got the CPU last year practically when the first batches came out.
Don’t know if this helps but just this morning I got three long BIOS beeps. Is there still a chance my RAM has gone bad?
They are 4x 4GB Ripjaw4s (F4-3000).
Regardless of the outcome, thanks in advance for any advice you have.
3 long beeps is not actually a proper code unfortunately.
Chances are it could be RAM, as I’ve heard of others having those beeps, and the problem was memory related. Best way to test, is to just try 1 stick in the machine at a time. See if some give you stable results. If you find they are all stable alone, try inserting a second stick one at a time in the paired slot and repeat until you get a solid result one way or the other.
As for the CPU, if you used it originally, and it had no issues, it’s likely not a bad cpu, unless it’s become damaged by the voltage tinkering somehow, but they are pretty robust compared to things like memory.
With the memory timing/voltage thing, when you set it to auto, don’t touch the voltage. It may be running lower than what the ram is technically capable of, but that’s not a bad thing. You should only be adding voltage when you overclock, and the system becomes unstable. Adding the extra voltage can help to stabilize things if it’s trying to fun “too fast” and not getting enough juice.
I’d even go so far as to say, if you can’t get it stable, and have no intention of overclocking the system, return the ram, and get some standard run of the mill 2133 memory. Ignore timings and stuff completely. The timings are also there for overclocking and trying to push the absolute max out of your system, but the motherboard should do a perfectly fine job of finding the correct settings automatically to keep things stable.
As an example, I have ram in my system, capable of running at 2GHz, but I only run it at 1333 and whatever the default settings are that it picked by default. I have done some overclocking with my system in the past, which is why I have it, but while playing around with it, I reset the cpu to default during one step, and forgot to set the ram back as well. My CPU was back to running 1333, and my ram was on 1600 with timings set. System wouldn’t stay up more than 2 mins. As an experiment, I played with the timings to see if I could get it stable, but it just wouldn’t work. Only thing that got it solid with default cpu speed, was to let the motherboard automatically manage the ram.
So yeah.. if you can’t figure it out, take the ram back, get some cheaper stuff at 2133, and get yourself something else with the difference in price 😉
Didn’t take long for me to go down that route. I did try with just one stick. I even took the graphics cards out effectively meaning the computer only had the board, PSU, CPU, cooler, M.2 module and one stick of RAM installed.
Again would not stablise until I limited the cores.
OK. When I see the specification on the RAM packet, I assume that is what the RAM is rated for and requires.
Thus if it says 16-16-16-35 1.35V as my sticks do I assumed that is the precise settings needed.
When I built my first machine back in the day, my system was phenomially unstable. It wasn’t until I set the timings and the voltage (RAM required 1.25 but was only getting 1.05) the system stabilised and the habit stuck with me.
At the risk of jinxing my luck, it looks like your suggestion to not set the timings has worked. I was able to copy over the nVidia drivers and run the pack-in driver disk (I’ll get newer ones later).
Both of which I virtually couldn’t do before unless I disabled the cores.
Overall, all the parts are from my old rig; I only replaced the board and the case (it was cramped in there).
Thanks for the RAM insight though. Will let you know if I’m successful as I’m about to turn Windows Update on.
Depending on how long ago you’re talking, it’s likely that timings may have been necessary. Old PC’s never used to have auto management systems for memory, and it could often be a nightmare. Some boards just refused to work with anything but specific modules that had been tested and confirmed by the manufacturer. So glad those days are behind us!
Glad to hear you’ve had some luck at last! Hope it stays stable for you 🙂
I has; just installed the latest nVidia drivers. Something I could not do before.
Thankyou, Welbot.
Even if it comes back, at least the system is now in a far more stable state.
Most excellent! 😀
This is why I give Welbot money or steam games occasionally. Always helping others.
Problem is back but at least it is taking longer to happen.
Just for humour, is there a chance an automatic setting is getting the voltage wrong on the CPU?
If you have ideas on what I should look for I can get them for you and report back.
But I do have your idea in mind in just getting some RAM on Gigabyte’s compatibility list and see if that solves the issue.
extremely unlikely. The cpu’s don’t use a constant voltage when things like speedstep are enabled, so you will often see different values to what may be specified. When the cpu isn’t under load, it will lower the voltage to save power, and increase it when it needs more speed. It constantly adjusts unless you use a legacy mode, or turn off speedstep.
This is what I was thinking; can the dynamic voltage accidentally go too low causing the CPU to stop?
That aside, I think I’ve finally nailed it. I hope you are in good health otherwise you will laugh yourself to death at my stupidity.
Now, I have two GPUs, a 1070 for GFX and a 960 for PhysX.
I never turned off integrated graphics.
The other is this board comes with a Thunderbolt 3 Controller.
Despite my lesson from two months ago, I never turned the thing off. Just like the old board I turned it off to stabilise it when it wouldn’t power down.
I turn it off on my new rig and suddenly the post is much faster and the system is 1,000,000 times more stable.
In a way, it make so much sense now; Thunderbolt combines a lot of buses including PCIe. Mess with that bus and the PC crashes.
I should have even seen the signs. I used a SATA M.2 module and the crashes were random and infrequent. I used a newer M.2 which is PCIe and the system loses all stability.
Regardless (sorry it isn’t much) but you have my gratitude in being a sounding board.
It’s unlikely but if someone of a similar nature to me crosses your path in the future, maybe my work around while at least narrow the variables.
Again, thanks for being a sounding board and for providing advise.
@wisehacker
No problem. I would normally suggest turning off integrated graphics when using pci-e gpu’s, but generally it doesn’t cause problems, as long as you install the intel driver BEFORE the nvidia/amd one.
Having 2 pci-e gpu’s makes it a little trickier though, and in those situations, I would always turn it off.
I haven’t had a lot of experience with Thunderbolt yet, but I know that it does sometimes cause issues with power when the port is not integrated in to the rear panel of the motherboard.
As for the m.2, my guess is that you don’t have enough pci-e lanes to handle the whole lot. Given you are using 2 gpu’s, they will likely be using up 16-24 lanes just for themselves, and if memory serves correctly, your cpu only has 26? (MIght have to double check that. Depending on how you configured your cards, they could be running 16x and 8x, or 8x and 8x. Likely the former though)
This means you only have 2 more, and if you also have an intel LAN port, it’s entirely possible that it is also using 1 lane, meaning you’ve only got 1 left.
M.2 pci-e cards use between 2 and 4 lanes, which, as you can guess, means you don’t have enough. If you don’t have an intel LAN port using a pci-e lane, you may have 2 free, but if you have an m.2 X4 card, it might be trying to use 4. I’m not sure off hand if there’s a way to manually force them to only use 2, but might be worth looking in to. 🙂
Glad to hear you’re at least getting on top of things at last 😀
Having said all that, if you can live without the dedicated physx (there’s really no humungous gains by having it as it’s only used by a few games) ditch the 980, and you should be able to get the system stable, even with the thunderbolt card in.) Alternatively, you could limit the 980 to 4 lanes in the BIOS.
@welbot: Thanks again. This board I have has two ethernet ports built in so even going by your best cast math I am hitting the limit.
If the problem comes back again I will try limiting the PCIe lanes as you suggest.
And truth be told there is a bit of history why I have a 960 as a PhysX card.
Originally my system had two 960s in SLi. The plan was to use it as a bit of gaming and self teaching of CUDA.
Sadly, not many applications take advantage of this and I’m doubtful even nVidia is putting the effort into CUDA any more.
So when the opportunity came, I got myself the 1070, took one 960 out and used the remaining card as a PhysX accelerator. They are still good cards and I didn’t want to stuff both in a cupboard as spare parts.
It’s also to try and prolong the life of the machine; even if games get more demanding, I still have the room on my 1070 to cope without PhysX getting in the way.
Overall, the focus on my build is longevity. Who while the overclocking potential is there (an 6700K, liquid cooling, etc) it is there as a last restore to keep the machine going when software demands rise. The goal is to have this machine last me a good seven years like my old one (which should shed light to you why I was still setting the timings by hand).
Anyhow, I’ve taken enough of your time. Again, thankyou for the insight. If I ever build another PC again, I better wipe my slate clean and brush up on the knowledge.
@wisehacker Always happy to help. Cuda is still being developed, and I too am a big fan of it! I like to use apps in my 3d stuff that utilize it, as it’s so much more efficient than anything else!
Also love PotPlayer for my media, as it too can use cuda to pump out glorious 4k movies at blistering speeds!
As for your 2x LAN ports, depending on what revision your board is, you may have 2 intel, or 1 intel and one killer. I can’t seem to find any specific info on the type of intel one that’s used though, apart from GBe, which means it may or may not be using a dedicated pci-e lane. Usually the one’s I’m referring to, are denoted with a PN or something. Those have a direct pci-e connection to the cpu itself, which bypasses any chipsets or anything, making them much more efficient, but nowhere I’ve looked seems to say whether it is that type or not.
Either way, you at least know of ways you can free stuff up if need be! 🙂
Ha. Eagle Flight requires Uplay, which was down at launch so nobody could play it.
Guess that’s one purchase I don’t have to bother with :p
At a Microsoft server 2016 launch event all morning. Free breakfast though so not all bad. What’s everyone up to?
Since we’ve got a Read Dead Redemption sequel confirmed now, I feel it’s time to remind everyone what the best part of the first game was. That soundtrack. One of if not the best soundtracks in games history. Absolutely flawless and pitch-perfect. And that’s putting aside the fact that all the music is dynamic.
Seriously, if you’d told me that ‘El club de los cuerpos’ came out of an actual Ennio Morricone soundtrack I’d believe you. That piece is just epic.
You’re not wrong. I think it’s my favourite soundtrack after Journey.
I’ve actually never finished the game. I got distracted by something else and then my horse that I’d had for ages got shot because of game glitches and I kind of lost interest after that. 🙁 But I’ve also never gotten around to Journey. I’m a bad person.
I haven’t totally finished RDR either. Pretty much finished the main story.
And yes, you’re a bad person. :-p 🙂
@tigerion TOUR ROUTE.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/oct/18/tour-de-france-2017-route-early-climbs-team-sky
Have they got the mountain stage profiles up yet?
Will have a good look at lunch
Alright, steephill has mountain stage profiles for the stages but nothing on the individual climbs. A number that I don’t actually know so will need to have a look to see how decisive they can be. Will be interesting to see how aggressive the hilly stages are, for example the stage into leige, will it basically be the LBL course. Limited ITT is good with the interesting choice of no uphill ITT. Would rather the final moutain stage to be after the 2nd ITT but oh well.
From what I see 2 summit finishes with some downhill finishes. Of the mountain stages what I see is
Stage 8: 12km @ 7% with fresh sky train and 10km from top to finish. Somebody might be able to attack on the little kicker at the finish but see a bunch GC sprint finish.
Stage 9: Will set the stage for the rest of the tour. People need to break the sky train here. 3 climbs each ~10km at ~10%. Decent on the Du Chat is going to see at couple of GC contenders out of the running. Pinot will struggle. Nibs will hammer it. Prefer a 5km flat at the finish compared to the 12 km.
Stage 12: Will depend on race positioning but think people will wait for the Peyragudes. Attack over the top and down the decent then hit the final 3km hard.
Stage 13: Going to depend on the complexity of the decent but short stage will 30km decent to the finish I don’t see being overly selective unless it is technical. Don’t think the 10 km at 8% is going to be enough to shatter the field so big groups over the top
Stage 17: Galibier is one of my fav climbs but think it will be a sky train up and down this. Trouble for anybody welling unwell or with an off day.
Stage 18: Final chance but liekly will need to wait for the final climb. Don’t know it so will need to see a profile to tell if a longer attack could stick.
The most interesting thing is Prudhomme asking to be allowed reduced team sizes, dropping that would be awesome I think, will really lower the effectiveness of the sky train.
Excellent, I just outsourced my Tour analysis… LOL! I haven’t had a chance to really go through stage-by-stage yet – I’ll give Steephill a couple of days to get the profiles up. Nice thoughts. 🙂
Not sure about reducing team sizes. Trains have been a big factor since at least the ONCE days dragging Big Mig up the climbs. I think a better option is some sort of salary capping and teams having to have a dedicated person in a number of roles – Team leader, recognised sprinter, maybe having to have a young rider or two. Getting rid of team radios and just allowing a race radio (for safety) so all riders get the same race info unless the team boss issues a verbal instruction to the team. That would mean more going back to the team car and harder to keep a train together, plus allow more surprises.
Have you played any of the games? I haven’t, it all seems a bit weird. 🙂
Race radios being removed can help but when you have the sky train already predetermined what watts they are going to output for how long on each climb lacking team orders doesn’t make a big difference to them.
Having it so they can only set that pace for the first 2 climbs but not the final opens it up.
The difference with big mig and now is they level of the doms. When you have people like Landa who potentially can podium working as doms there is no chance to attack against that.
Salary capping could work but then what is the level and all associated rules. Does that mean you can’t pay TDF bonuses? What about random incentives like Tinkoff saying if you win the worlds I’ll buy you a new sportscar.
Then you get into marketing rights and sponsorship. Really messy and could greatly impact riders ability to make money.
I have never played the games which I guess you mean the pro cycling manager ones. I do a couple of fantasy league style games based on cq ranking. Did a multi year grand tour elimination game previously which was great fun but not running anymore.
Yeah, would need to be careful, but I think some form of team total with one marquee outside the cap might work. Or a points/ranking based system for creating a team. Let’s give managers the same constraints we work with for fantasy Giro!
And yeah, I mean stuff like the official TdF PS4 game. Just seems bizarro to me! 😀
I think the biggest thing with a salary cap is how long it will take to implement
Dropping to 7 riders could happen this year just as a single decision that would affect the single race not the entire season
ok slight update to my prediction of stage 13 after seeing the profile of Mur de Péguère
Those final 3km are brutal and anybody on a bad day is going to suffer majorly. Still don’t see a solo or small group attack working but if you get dropped from the group before those last 3 km it is going to be damn hard to claw anything back. Then in the wind the whole way down, won’t be super selective but an off day could see people out of contention
Old adage – you don’t win the Tour in a day, but you can lose it in one.
Yep and stage 13 looks very much like that. Bonk on that climb and you are stuffed
I love rice paper rolls, but i hate corriander. =(
Are you a soapmouth?
I am. Tastes awful.
\o/ Genetic superiority! *flex*
Mum hates it, but just because she thinks it tastes like dirt. A friend of ours used to always bring along a dip made from cream cheese, crab meat, sweet chilli sauce and coriander, and I’d devour half the thing myself 😛
Do you try and replace it with something else, or just skip it entirely? I cook a few things that I put a heap of coriander in, and I couldn’t imagine just leaving it out. Corn, black beans, tomato, capsicum, avocado, coriander salad with a splash of lime and tabasco is one of my go-to salads.
Skip it entirely. If only a little bit is in there, it’s all I can taste.
RECIPE PLEASE!!!! That sounds amazing. Also no onion which makes me a happy panda, onion does my gut in D:
Red onion is nice in there as well, but it’s not compulsory :).
1 400g can unsweetened corn kernels, drained
1 400g can black beans, drained
1 avocado
2 tomatoes
1 green capsicum (doesn’t have to be green – though it looks good with the corn, beans and tomato)
1 large handful coriander
1Tbsp lime juice or, to taste
1 tsp Tabasco or, to taste
Cut the avo, tomatoes and capsicum to a 1.5cm dice. Put everything in a bowl, mix.
Legend! Making this for the GF this weekend. Thanks so much 😀
TAY is a good source of recipes – lots of keen cooks around, apparently.
That’s salad is great for BBQs, because it has no leaves, so there’s nothing to start wilting if it sits in the bowl for a couple of hours.
I feel sorry for you, coriander is pretty necessary for a lot of stuff to taste right and it’s pretty hard to avoid in most south-east asian and also mexican cooking.
I don’t like corriander either :\ YUK!
It’s the only issue with Mexican and Vietnamese cuisine.
Thai uses it a bit too, and that’s a double whammy for me, cos I hate savoury coconut dishes :\ BLEAH!
D=
I’ve found a great Viet place here that doesn’t feel the need to drown everything in Coriander, and it’s ace. No coriander in the Pho, none in the rice noodle bowls, none in the rolls.
I told a guy at work this (he’s Viet) and he gave me such a dirty look, like I had admitted to buying Donald Trump’s dead foot skin to use instead of Parmesan cheese in my pastas.
Love the description. But yeah, at lot of these places make the rolls before hand. They always add corriander, but it just drowns out the flavour of everything else. I’m looking forward to making my own Vegetarian ones in the future. Once I get a mandolin.
Music is essential to good cooking
The cutting one
But does the Pho have Vietnamese mint? Most of the Pho and Bun around here is missing Viet mint and it’s just so bland and incomplete without it. 🙁 I think I might have complained about this to you when we went to that super average Vietnamese place after PAX.
So, this whole thing about not telling anyone about a pregnancy until 12 weeks is because we don’t want to make people uncomfortable with feelings, right? Given that, apparently, 1/4 pregnancies end in miscarriage and 4/5 of those are in the first trimester, there must so many people out there who have suffered through that loss in silence. TAY parents (TAYrents? Don’t think that portmanteau works…), what are your thoughts?
Also, sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
There are a few things in that but yes the primary one is miscarriage. Hard to articulate but it is partly because you want the announcement to be a big deal and with the 25% chance of not getting through that trimester the last thing you want is people going ‘ oh I’ll wait a couple of months and then be excited for you’
But the other part of it is just sharing that with your partner. Coming to terms with the reality that you are going to be parents, considering things like do you need to move house, what are the options at work, how long will you take off work, how the hell are we going to deal with a child oh my god what have we done.
Having that sorted out and just being comfortable between yourselves before you start getting questions, advice, thoughts, offers, recommendations
Also, sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Haha, the “what have we done?” issue is perhaps a little better for us, we’ve put things off a couple of years so at least house and work are stable. My wife is a both a genuinely horrible liar and hates having to keep a secret, and if her mother doesn’t know by then end of the week then I would be stunned. Just takes one technologically inept aunt to congratulate her on Facebook and there goes our announcement. Also, she’s never been the person to turn down booze, so a few of our friends should catch on pretty quick with summer just around the corner.
I think the 3 month thing is always flexible and there will always be some who know. It is more the broader broadcast that is delayed. Extended family, work mates and wider friendship circle.
The “what have we done?” issue might be less for you but just remember that in 3 months time when you wake at 3am and realised that a living breathing human is depending on you for every aspect of their survival
Yeah, it is terrifying, but a good terrifying?
Definitely terrifying though.
Firstly – squeeeee! ^_^
don’t underestimate the fear of miscarriage – it’s very real, and not telling anyone is, I think, less about other people’s feelings, and more about protecting yourself from others’ well meaning, but often careless comments.
The other thing is that the first trimester has you feeling like utter crap – fatigued, nauseous (or vomiting) and struggling to get through the day, hoping that no one notices the crackers you’re constantly eating, that the smell of coffee makes you want to puke, or that you’re vanishing when work drinks are on. If/when you make it to the 2nd trimester, you start to feel much better and have the energy to deal with telling everyone what’s happening.
My aunt miscarried about four times before having her first child. She didn’t suffer in silence though. It’s something people don’t talk about much publicly but that’s not the same as being pressured to keep it a secret. It’s just one of those situations where it’s very private and personal and there’s no real cause to rally support for so the conversation sort of stays within family/friends.
Try not to dwell on the possibility too much. Focus on the fact you’re taking this great step forward in your life. Plus there’s enough work to be done to keep you guys busy and distracted. =P
My wife had a miscarriage earlier this year (it was through IVF and most likely our final chance with IVF due to expense) and it absolutely gutted her and still does, for me it didn’t quite hit too hard but my emotions are screwed up anyway.
What made it worse for her is she had friends that were pregnant who had constantly whinged they never wanted any more kids, she also lacked the support from her family and most likely me. Last month was terrible for her as it was roughly around when the baby would be born.
As far as when to tell people you will always have that amount of risk if you mention it day 1 or whether it is 12 weeks, our first we did it as soon as we realised (roughly 7 weeks) and the second we waited a bit longer (2nd was IVF so we just wanted to make sure it had worked first). This 3rd one most people already knew very early due to when all of the testing and IVF requirements were taking place.
End of the day it is up to you when you do it and hope for the best.
Finished the SP campaign in War for the Overworld the other night. The game is great – all the best bits of the Dungeon Keeper games with a few nice QOL improvements.
That being said, the campaign ending was awful, but don’t let that put you off playing it – it’s well worth your time, and I’m 98% sure I’ll be forking out for the expansion.
Also on the topic of video games – Battlefield 1. How cool would it be if they included the Christmas Day Truce as a segue between missions? You get up out of the trenches, walk over, play cards, play soccer, have a drink, then next mission you have to murder the people you just played against.
Would be cool if they just randomly added that in for december without warning
I got an email from the Metallica store telling me about some new merch & I spotted this so I bought one. Because why the fuck not.
Holy fuck.
After 30 minutes straight, and a decade of attempts prior on the PS2, I’ve finally beaten the second mission on BLACK.
Will update later.
Goddamn that was an underrated game.
Hell yeah. Just beat missions 3 and 4, and bloody hell it’s an enjoyable game.
I’ve decided to take a WoW break.
So I can go play the Other WoW (World of Warships). Need to do 1.3 million damage on a T4-5 ship and again on a T6+ to unlock the two Arpeggio ships again this month (should be doable, 11 days left) and also the Royal Navy cruiser line was added this morning and I’ve been itching to try them, plus it means that the new IJN Destroyer sub-line and the HMAS Perth premium are probably pretty close to releasing too.
Also WoW has been ruining my ability to function at work. So that’s not good. I’m also finding Legion’s design incredibly unsatisfying and frustrating overall, mainly because of the things everyone else is raving about. 🙁
Once it starts impacting your work that is a sure sign of major issues. If it is impacting your work and you are not enjoying it then take it behind the chemical shed and shoot it
How is it possible no one is talking about Mount and Blade Bannerlord 2…why is there no Kotaku article about it yet??? It just went up on steam today woooooooooot!
I’m so hyped up for it.
Wait, really?
Ah, still no release date but still, progress!
I’m sure there will be something more once there is something to report
That is basically just an announcement page, hopefully we will get a release date soon. Have they made any comment on that, I think it is a 2016 release timeframe?
I’m keen as well, hell I kickstarted Mount and Blade before kickstarter existed *fringe flick*
BF1 gush:
Holy fucking shit. This game looks incredible. Fired it up last night on PC, happy to see it defaults to max settings on my 2+ year old PC, and it runs like tasty butter at 1440p. First DX12 game I’ve seen, and those intro scenario/encounters look incredible. First time I’ve been genuinely blown away visually by a game for a couple of years. I spent the first 10 minutes swearing and marveling at how amazing it looks.
It’s also a hoot to play. Loving the multi.
Don’t tell me about it… my PC is 5 years old (bought for BF3 no less) and would probably need a marginal overhaul. I don’t need to hear this at all XD
IT’S FINISHED https://twitter.com/redartifice/status/788726217784512512/photo/1
I need to reinforce some pieces on the thighs, but it’s DONE!
😀
😀
How is the mobility?
Looks so damn rad though
I need to adjust the shoulders- you can see I’m having trouble with that in these pics- but once I do that it should be OK.
I won’t be clapping my hands over my head, but it’ll be OK
*salutes*
Commander
Wrex.
Man, so tempting. But worth buying a 1070 for? Thats my conundrum.
@ynefel
Depends how it runs on what you’ve got currently, I guess. I was pleasantly surprised at how well my old hardware managed it. (‘old’ by my standards, anyway) Using a devil’s canyon i7-4790k oc’d@4.6ghz and an R9 290X slightly overclocked, and it shits it in at 1440p.
I think the Nvidia 10s are disgustingly overpriced. Amazing cards, don’t get me wrong, but Nvidia are straight taking the piss with the pricing. I’m waiting on the AMD Vega chips to see what they’re capable of.
I have a 670 so I’d be surprised if it can handle it.
But the longer I wait to upgrade the cheaper it will be and there is nothing else on my radar till 2017.
Could get it in ps4 I guess, but not ideal.
Oh man, it looks so good on PC. Haven’t seen console version, but it blew me away.
Well, black friday sales next month. Might see what deals I can find.
They’re just gouging until the competition catch up. Sit and wait if you don’t need to be an early adopter like I am 🙂
A big bappy hirthday to one of our resident writes @shane. May your family spoil you and your readers review you well
Spent all of yesterday convinced it was Thursday. Took me most of today to realise it is Thursday. With any luck tomorrow will be a hat trick.
So… Nintendo
NXSwitch.‘Switch’ is probably the best branding they’ve had since the original DS at least. I was half expecting them to call it ‘WiiP’ or ‘Pii’ or something.
They’ve massively over-engineered it to solve problems that no one actually wants to solve. I don’t mind the hybrid concept. Since around the N64 their strength area has always been the portables, not the home consoles, so making a portable that can also work as a home system isn’t a terrible idea. It’s all the other stuff that’s stupid.
IMO there are two use cases that are actually practical here:
– Using it all in one piece as a personal portable system
– Plugging it into the dock and using a real controller
That whole slide-the-bits-off-the-tablet thing is a solution looking for a problem. You’ll never do it. If you’re using it portable, you’ll use it as a portable, not set the tiny as fuck screen down infront of you on a stand and play with the tiny bits off the sides. The idea that you’ll get multiple people using those tiny controllers all poring around a tiny screen that looks barely bigger than a phablet is comical too. Plus this is going to confuse the market – is it an accessory for my Tablet? Does it work with iPad? And the idea of selling a board to sit between the two tiny bits of controller to join them into something resembling a proper controller is farcical. “If only I had a tiny system that I could play with on the roof of the neighboring apartment with my attractive, tiny-handed thespian friends” is not a problem I think I’ve had before.
Notice that at no point in their presentation video does anyone touch the screen. Presumably it’s not a touch-sensitive device, or touch for anything beyond menu interaction is out because you wouldn’t be able to play it that way while the system’s docked. Also, only a single screen active at once. This almost guarantees no backward compatibility with DS or 3DS, and not with Wii U either.
It kind of looks like it could have the chops to finally replace my Vita at least, but it’ll depend on third-party stuff and whether Nintendo continues to force developers to dumb down everything they release on their platforms. Also whether they stop being shonky as fuck with their digital purchasing & general online capabilities. And stop being dicks about region locking.
On the upside, looks like The Zelda Scrolls is going to be button-based interaction and not fucking waggle again. Which means it might be playable!
The tiny-handed people you’re thinking of are called children. Kids are going to LOVE those little controllers.
Why can’t they just be like puppies and have adult sized hands?
There was not a single child using one in their pitch video. It was all highly attractive 20-something actors in swish millennial apartments in Sweden or something where people can actually afford things because they don’t spend all their money on smashed avocado.
Of course, because Nintendo has been struggling to get away from the reputation that they make stuff for kids for years.
Just saying, kids are going to love this thing, even if they’re not in the promos (yet)
I’m going to have to get me some smashed avo tomorrow, since people have been talking about it all week.
See I would think the same thing too… But imagine having this, and a game you REALLY want comes out right before a big trip, or you travel a lot for work or you spend a fair bit of time on the train… Any of these things mean that having the docking functionality is pretty fantastic, and if it looks decent on an enormous screen then I’d be all for it!
Yes, but see, go read what I wrote again and you’ll see that this is the exact second use-case I was talking about, using it like a standard portable system. That’s fine. It makes sense.
I feel like the use-case of “hanging out on the neighbour’s roof at a party and pulling out my barely-bigger-than-a-phablet gaming system and detaching the tiny midget controllers so we can play 2-player Mario Kart” is a complete edge case that they shouldn’t be designing around because no one is going to use it that way.
The detachable controllers are stupid, tiny-sized and probably prone to getting lost. Also what happens to the button layouts for example when you detach them? The buttons are going to be labeled but if they don’t re-orient them when you detach it’ll be mind-bending because everything is shifted 90 degrees, but if they do remap them when you detach it, they’ll be mislabeled.
It’s just a bad idea. A solution looking for a problem.
Now, if you’re talking using it as a single-player gaming portable with the control bits attached and maybe playing ad-hoc multiplayer with people while out on the go (i,e. like the current 3DS with Monster Hunter etc) then that makes total sense. I hope the Switch can replace my Vita for that – I know it can replace the 3DS because unlike the 3DS it actually has some though put into the ergonomics…
Imagine though you go on holidays and you have a family, or there’s a few of you going etc. You can bundle a few extra small controllers in your bag and everyone gets to play that way 😀
I’m just trying to be positive here 😛
I’d rather take some big controllers. Or not take a video games system at all and take a good board game and actually be social.
Also what if Nintendo doesn’t sell the mini-controllers separately? They’re weird sometimes.
They are weird sometimes. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out ^_^
Really? I saw the exact opposite. I saw another flat rounded-rectangle with the same controls layout. The only thing ergonomic about it is the separate 360-style controller.
Have a look again, the underside has proper recesses for the hands and the triggers stick out. It basically looks like a smaller, better Wii U gamepad.
I mean it’s still not great but this is Nintendo. Their last handheld was literally a rectangle.
Hard to find an image, but this (centre and bottom-left image) show essentially a flat back with slightly raised parts at the top to house the triggers (which is a nice change, don’t get me wrong). Otherwise, it still looks like a flat rounded rectangle to me – nowhere to grip comfortably with my bottom three fingers.
You’re right, I must have been seeing things.
Fucking hell, Nintendo. Hire an ergonomics person.
At a glance there’s no reason why they couldn’t release small, medium and large controller accessories.
Their width (when held horizontally as a gamepad) is going to be dictated by the height of the screen they attach to?
They slide on from the top and there doesn’t seem to be anything important on the upper left and right corner edges of the screen, so they could probably just do an L shape that hooks over the top a little overhangs at the bottom to keep the screen centre aligned vertically. Just a guess, but it shouldn’t take much to scale them up/down.
The “Nintendo WiP”? Not even Nintendo would be that clueless with their branding.
Honestly, the reveal reminded me of a Coca Cola ad – it was trying way too hard to be trendy/hip/cool. And the ergonomics… what is with Nintendo and creating flat rectangles? Do they expend all their creativity on the gimmicks, and have none left over to make them comfortable to use? Oh well, at least you can use a real controller…
Still, if it gets a MH game, I’ll pick it up in a heartbeat. And if it actually gets proper third-party support, I won’t even feel guilty about doing so.
I do like the idea of a portable I can dock to my TV, tho – the reason I don’t really use my 3DS at home outside of big releases is I have a better screen and more comfortable controller to play games on. Hell, I have two of them. That side of the Switch… actually sounds like a brilliant idea.
I feel like this console was built for Monster Hunter. MH3U was great but it didn’t have that transition from handheld to console that I think it’ll get from the NS.
This is the same company that released a DS, 3DS, 2DS and New 3DS and had the systems and games on sale for all of them. 3DS and New 3DS can play 3DS and DS games but 2DS can only play 3DS games, and none of them can play New 3DS games, only the New 3DS can do that, except that there are New 3DS games that actually are backward compatible with 3DS and 2DS as well.
This is the same company that thought Wii was such a good idea that they released a second system and reused the name.
The Nintendo “Work in Progress”? At least DS et al don’t really have alternate commonly-used meanings, Wii aside, and that was likely sufficiently immature to attract their (overt marketing-publicised) target audience… If Nintendo released a console called the WiP and managed to succeed with the group targeted at with their Switch reveal, everything I know about marketing would turn out to be false.
WiiP, not WiP.
Pronounced ‘weep’. It was a joke.
And the gaming community are fond of shortening things – just ask the “Xbone” 😛 And yea, I know it was a joke… just a little too plausible for me to not consider what would happen it they actually did call it the WiiP. Or the Wii-Absolute, even… ワィーアブソルート, which would typically get shortened to ワィーアブ 😛
It’s been a couple of weeks but since I decided to semi-quit WoW again, I actually had some anime time the last couple of nights, so…
NegativeZero’s Anime Impressions – Part 2
Watching the new season so late that you have to do it yourself anyway
Part 1 here
Classicaloid
Shit but I wish it wasn’t. Seems to basically involve a bunch of caricatures of famous composers fucking around at some chick’s house and there’s supposedly FEELS because her Grandmother was nice and she’s not around. Animation quality’s low, characters are all kinds of irritating, and seriously the only redeeming feature is that the evil overlord behind everything seems to be JS Bach, dressed up in one of those old-fashioned coiled wigs and wearing sunglasses and voiced by one of those guys with the really bassy voices. This was right at the end. It almost made me consider not dropping it. Almost.Nazotokine
Half-length show which seems to involve a super cute office lady that somehow gets sucked into some kind of parallel dimension where she supposedly is going to solve puzzles, whatever that means. I don’t know because exactly zero puzzles were solved. Nice character art but that couldn’t save it. Crap. Avoid.Occultic;Nine:
I think this could be good, but if it fails, it’s going to be because of the hacky direction. Really big cast that’s introduced rapid-fire in the first episode, I think trying to do a Durarara, but the problem with that approach is that DRRR gives you enough time to actually establish who everyone is before moving on. This was just all over the place, really rough cuts. Felt like someone trying to emulate Shinbo’s jump-cut style without actually understanding how he makes that work. The part you’re meant to be looking at in each shot is never in the same place and never in the center so you just don’t know where to look. That aside, the plot seems to involve supernatural phenomena. I’m not sure if it’ll be a everything-can-be-explained-with-science murder mystery or actually involve supernatural stuff. Either way, it looks like you’re going to have a bunch of overlapping and intertwined character plots, which will be good if it’s done right. I see potential. I just hope it’s not lost in the animation staff trying to be edgy. Also that one chick with the DoA-style floppy boobs is a real turn-off.Stella no Mahou
A cute but completely spacey girl starts high school, and while investigating the clubs, she encounters and then joins a group of girls that run a game development club. There’s been a really high number of game development / game club stuff in anime recently. Not sure what’s up with that. Would have been a great club to be in if it had existed in my school when I was in high school though! I just made games for my graphics calculator in my spare time instead. 😛 Anyway, I liked the feel of this. I don’t know if it’ll hold up longer term – it’s definitely nowhere near as appealing as, say, New Game – but it seemed watchable enough to give it a few more episodes.Yuri on Ice
Despite the name, this is actually not about that sort of yuri at all. It looks kind of gay, definitely aimed more at a female audience, but not over the top manservice pandering either. Seems like it’s going to follow a sports-ish arc, something along the lines of Free? Anyway, Yuri is a figure skater but he bombs out in a major competition due to a number of factors including being intimidated by skating in the same competition as his idol, 27-year-old Russian figure skater Victor. After he returns home in semi-shame, he shows off a pitch-perfect imitation of Victor’s routine, not realizing it was being filmed and uploaded to youtube. It goes viral, and Yuri suddenly finds himself with Victor as his coach and presumably a rival with another Yuri, a Russian guy that seems like a grade-A twat. Animation’s very good, presentation is good, humor and everything is on-point and this seems quite watchable unless you’re really, really put off by shots of men’s asses in lyrca.Nobunaga no Shinobi
5 minute episode show that’s actually pretty cute. Kind of reminds me of Shinobuden a little, though not anywhere near as good. Basically Nobunaga saves a ninja girl that’s drowning and five years later she comes to serve him. Inori Minase seems to be the go-to for cute voice nowadays ever since she broke into mainstream as Chino in Is The Order a Rabbit? so naturally is here too. I hope she doesn’t end up everywhere and get over-exposed like Hanakana or similar.Girlish Number
Slightly sarcastic comedy about a girl working her way up in the seiyuu business. Nice art and solid animation, plus a good cast. After a year doing bit parts, her manager (and older brother) sort of accidentally gets her a main role in an upcoming show. I liked this one. It’s not amazing but it’s serviceable and enjoyable enough. Despite some biting commentary it does seem to be a pretty rose-tinted view of the industry though.“Semi-quit WoW”? I….I don’t understand these words.
You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.
@welbot: Starting a new thread so it is easier to read.
Unfortunately for me the problem came back and it brought its mates with it.
While waiting for advice from other sources and some fresh RAM, I put the machine back on the table and reset the CMOS.
Solid as a rock so far. Needless to say, the lack of consistency is driving me nuts.
But one element is sticking out. On the table, the machine is connected as follows:
* A HDMI -> DVI adapter so I can use my old monitor
* My office keyboard
* A wireless Logitech mouse.
In my office:
* Straight up HDMI to the monitor
* My office keyboard
* Razer Copperhead Chroma mouse
* Optical wire to my amp.
I know I’m going to be laughed out of here for even suggesting this but could the the problem (now) be the mouse?
I’d like to think some bad setting was still in the CMOS but given that I loaded the defaults before in the BIOS, that effectively rules it out.
There’s a slim chance it could be the mouse. I have a mate who has a razer mouse, and he often seems to have issues with their drivers. His doesn’t blue screen though. Are you able to get bluescreen view and report on its findings at all?
Also, have you checked the event log to see if there’s any consistent errors in there?
This is the thing, I’m not using the Synaps drivers; it’s now a case where I have to create an account and install the manager to get the drivers.
So maybe it is a case this configuration does need the drivers.
But in terms of the BSDO, my apologies for not sharing. The top or second top entry in the minidump is hal.dll; so clearly a hardware problem.
But in the event log, on some occasions before getting a BSOD #124, I find a X64_0x124_GenuineIntel_PROCESSOR_CACHE error.
From what I can tell, that can mean anything from the CPU being bad to the RAM being bad to even just a simple driver issue.
Right now, I’m taking a gamble and trying ffmpeg to stress the CPU with some home videos. It’s been chugging away for some time now and was even playing a video on a loop for about half an hour before I started ffmpeg.
No issues so far.
It is tempting to plug the mouse back in and see if it really is the culprit. It’s getting more likely now that I’ve tried and rules out all other options.
Like I said in my past post, I even reset the CMOS (I’m lucky there is a convenient button to do that on the board). The only changes I have made via the BIOS is turning off Thunderbolt 3, the Integrated Graphics and (just for laughs) change the LED lighting on the back plate from red to blue.
Partly because I like blue but mostly because red makes the panel impossible to read!
Tangent aside, it makes sense that it is the mouse; these days they are programmable so most likely have additional functions running over the USB connection that may upset the driver (if I may use the term) ecosystem.
Only 2 suggestions I’d have at this point, is run a mem test for a while, and see if you get any errors, and try running “sfc /scannow” in a command prompt window as admin.
That will scan all the windows files and drivers to make sure none of them are corrupt, and if it finds any, will attempt to fix them.
Thankyou for your help, WelBot. It look liked I nailed but after about two hours the cycle of BSODs has returned.
I’m getting in touch with my local computer shop and have a professional examine the hardware for me.
At this point there problem is there but is being masked by my inexperience.
I have run Memtest before and never got an error and given the unstable state it is likely sfc will be interrupted and corrupt the files further.
Again, thankyou.
cool cool. hope they can flush out the bugs with haste!
Long time no chat Taybies. SOOOO Civ VI came out at midnight and I managed to squeeze about 40 minutes in this morning before coming to work.
Spoiler tagging the below in case people want to discover these features on their own.
So far it is a sexy sexy game. The graphics are crisp, the explorers map style fog of war is a wonderful aesthetic addition, with the added bonus of actually making it easier to read where resources and the likes are on the map.
The reworking of the religion and civics screens is brilliant. Civic advancements are now a tech tree on their own. That means you earn culture and unlock things as you would earn beakers and unlock technology. This now feeds into a government tree which is a more flexible arrangement of what we had back in Civ IV with the government options in a much easier to use interface.
Also the bonuses principle is a brilliant idea! You are now actively rewarded for small side quests around the board to advance technology and civic principles. EG if you kill 5 barbarians, it gives you a 50% boost on bronze working for spearmen and barracks good times. If you discover a second civilization, it will give you a bonus towards trade etc etc. These are all listed below the relevant civic or technology so you know exactly what you need to do.
The worker function is brilliant now too. Even though they’re only a 3 use unit, it makes management a lot easier. Once you hit build, the tile is automatically converted, so no endless waiting for workers. It actually makes the game a lot smoother so far and I can foresee it removing the tedium of worker management/putting workers to sleep in the future. Roads are apparently automatically built by trade caravans too.
What does everyone else think so far? What are you excited about the most?
Let me know if you want more updates on the game when I get a chance to jump on later tonight!
The way they use fog of war in this iteration I think it’s gods darn gorgeous!
It’s just soooo pretty. I’m kinda miffed I’m catching up with a mate tonight, but I should be able to get out of there around 10 😛
It’s like you’re playing on a living map on a table, commanding it all from your throne room. It really adds to the feeling of being an actual ruler of a nation I think, instead of the previous iterations that didn’t quite hit that mark. You were like more a god looking down on your people from above 😛
Exactly! It really adds to that explorer of new worlds bent that makes the game so much fun. Oh I want to go home now… This is me in the office.
https://juliascottdouglas.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/celebrity_tyrone_biggums.jpg
Ya’ll got some more of that Civ VI?
Oh and also, love the pick of voiceover for this one, always liked Sean Bean’s voice, one of the few I’d let narrate my life if he offered 😛
I’m not allowed to play Civ when I’m not on holidays.
It does…bad things for my ability to work the next day
Haha yeah…. I’m not surprised about that 😛
It’s almost a summer holiday tradition at this point for me to play long sessions of Civ or Crusader Kings in the summer. Might be when i pick this up
I was thinking of waiting until the first expansion, because that’s made a huge difference in the last two iterations, but it is sounding pretty good.
From what I’ve seen and heard so far, this isn’t like the previous iterations where the vanilla is not so great. There seems to be a lot to offer on the vanilla version alone. If they do make expansions on this (Which I’m sure they will), it will only make what’s already great, greater.
What tech said @spadge, all the previous things that were xpack only are now in the base game. So they’re core parts of the game now as opposed to a rework of the game. It’s bloody brilliant! I think Civ V really balanced out the various routes to victory better than all iterations before it, but VI is knocking it out of the park so far. FARKKKK I want to go home :'(
I’m going to be late for work again, aren’t I?
I’m not going to lie, it’s a serious possibility 😛
Ugh, new splatoon. This means I need to buy the Nintendo switch. Excuse me while I cry in a corner
Right, so best way to have smashed avo, go.
I’ll start us off: Lightly toasted sourdough, smashed avo, feta, salt and chilli flakes, poached egg.
Smashed avo, bit of goats cheese, lemon, salt, freshly cracked pepper, on a piece of sourdough brushed with olive oil, cooked under a salamander/grill and then topped with some smoked salmon, a poached egg, some capers and some Worcestershire sauce ^_^
Tosted Ciabatta, some nice ham or even better some prosciutto, guacamole (fuck plain avocado), poached egg, hollandaise, sprinkling of cracked pepper.
Chunky guacamole though? It’s a bit past ‘smashed’ if it’s a puree :p
Homemade obvs. Though the ‘guacamole’ that you can buy in the supermarket that has like cream cheese in it and is more like a dip? That is fucking amazing with eggs and bacon.
Put that store bought guac on huevos racheros – dice up some tomato, capsicum and onion, add garlic and chilli and bake that, then chuck a couple of eggs on for the last 10 minutes or so, then put guacamole on top of that.
Only if I want to spend an hour or two on the shitter afterward.
Lightly toasted sourdough (still soft, not crunchy) with good butter. Squish the avocado, salt and fresh black pepper. Fried egg optional.
First, you get an Avo, and then you smash it into the face of one of the arseholes that have fucked up the housing economy.
But, maybe you could eat the avocado and then throw the seeds? That seems like the more delicious option.
yes, but it makes less impact.
Man, I’m going through Dragon Ball Super at the moment and just watched Episode 39. I have to say, that was the best thing I’ve seen since Goku went Super Saiyan the first time. Grinning like I was back on the couch watching Cheez TV before school again.
Cousin’s fiancée is seating me next to her “hot, single cousin” tomorrow. RIP.
Oh damn. She wasn’t kidding.
It’s ok though, wine is doing its job.
How hot, on a scale of “PHWOAR to HOT DAMN”?
This is important, for some reason I can’t explain.
Maybe about a *whistle*, I think.
Just watched Independence Day 2. I See the stupid people decided they were in charge. Otherwise they would have built deep space vessels to establish observatories in other star systems, colonies.
If I was this alien menace all I would need do is push the moon into the earth with my alien mothership.
I wish that Gizmodo / Kotaku would stop linking to StackSocial courses / books. StackSocial is shit. Their content is bad and they will spam your email over and over trying to sell you more crap content.
@welbot: I hope you don’t mind if I run this by you while my machine is in the shop (dropped it off Friday so it might not be till the middle of this week before I hear anything).
Anyhow, during the whole discussion it never occurred to me to share with you the actual stop codes I got.
They didn’t always appear but it was always one of the following three:
* 0x0000000A : Hinting at bad RAM or driver, sometimes got IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
* 0x00000124 : WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR, hinting at a hardware failure and was the code I encountered the most.
* 0x0000003B : Basically hinting that something tried to write to a region of memory it was not allowed to (Win 3.11 GPF anyone?)
The more I think about it, the more likely it is I have a bad motherboard; that is the only component I have changed from my old rig.
Unless it is something very simple like a bad wire (the layout is different this time so maybe I broke one) or I’ve plugged the wrong cord into the wrong point on the PSU.
It’s not here for me to check but I can’t remember if I plugged my 2×4 pin cord for the CPU in the right spot.
Is there a chance my problems could be that simple? Being electrical if I had plugged into the wrong rail the BSOD would be more consistent in the reasons, wouldn’t it?
Anyhow, I hope to learn more once the techs get a look at it but any insight now might help me better understand what the techs say when (and preferably, if) they find the problem).
Just bothers me that hardware tests pass but the moment I install an OS (I even tried Ubuntu) I get problems.
Strangely, even though a lot of those codes tend to indicate hardware or memory, 90% of the time, the problem turns out to be driver related. It’d be damn near impossible for me to give any insight. It often took me ages to figure out the cause even when I had the machines in front of me!
As for the power, there’s a slim chance, given that you said the machine was stable on one core. If the 12v rail wasn’t plugged in properly, there might not have been enough juice to keep it going under load, but since you got it to actually run under all cores and loaded at times, my guess is it was in correctly. Towards the end, before you took it to the shop, the bsod’s were seemingly random right?
Still giving me more than I would have on my own. Not many know this but some knowledge simply doesn’t get learned or set in until one bounces it of another as is this case.
It is starting to look like I have both; drivers are being corrupted due to a sporadic RAM issue which I have not been able to pin down.
About as a random as a die; sometimes the machine would BSOD before I even logged in, other times it would BSOD when left idle or just playing a video, in other cases I could put the thing on a high load for a prolonged period and it would be sometimes be fine after or BSOD when the load was taken off.
I have heard that besides the Prime95 issue, some early Skylake chips (which I’m sure I have) had trouble with the power management mechanisms in some boards. It all depends on how the manufacturer defined the words ‘Auto’ and ‘Adaptive’.
It’s why I upped the voltage before; it was working on the theory that Gigabyte’s ‘Auto’ setting (which also happens to be their Adaptive setting – there is no separation) was setting the voltage too low for the chips memory controller causing issues even with stock settings.
Unfortunately for me, it didn’t solve the problem but if you Google i7-6700K and C-States, there are a lot of tales of woe and many having to turn various combinations of settings off to stablise their chip even at stock.
Some even had to set the RAM to a specific frequency because too high or too low and the CPU threw a fit.
But back to my rig. I honestly think the problem is hardware based. At one point I installed Ubuntu just for kicks (I had nothing to lose).
The install went fine and I was able to run some benchmarking/CPU stress and all seemed fine.
I was even starting to think maybe it was a bad driver in Windows.
Then I stoped the benchmark and Ubuntu froze. Would not respond to anything. The mouse cursor even disappeared.
Unfortunately with these things, there’s so many potential problem points. I’ve had many systems behave like this in my time, and it’s always a bitch to figure out where the problem lies. I’ve even had it come from bad sectors on the harddrive. One file sitting in an unreadable spot can lead to totally random bsod’s (depending on the file of course.)
I’ve not personally had any experience with that particular cpu before, so I can’t really say much about the issues others report about it, but in my experience, if the system isn’t stable at stock default settings, there’s no point tinkering with voltages. I’ve never come across a motherboard in the past 10 yrs that’s been incapable of properly managing its own voltages and such under the defaults. I mean, anything’s possible, but still very unlikely that it would be under powering itself. It’s much more likely to be a bad/dirty PSU than the motherboard power management.
One thing I probably should have checked, since you were running 2 GPU’s, did your motherboard have a 4 pin molex connector on it somewhere? (One of the white ones with the beveled corners?)
Molex? As in the old point need to power IDE devices?
Didn’t see one and it’s not showing up on the manual for the motherboard (GA-z170x-Gaming 7 Rev 1.0).
Yer from the pic on the site, it doesn’t look like there was. will have a quick squiz at the manual though
Ok. Having looked at the manual, I can see it has an 8 pin 12v rail connector. Did you only attach the 4 pin? That may be part of the problem if you did. It’s possible that the 8 pin setup on this has taken over from the old PCI power boost, so it’s possible that with 2 gpu’s and other “expansions” you may need all 8 pins connected.
Nope, connected all 8. But the cord from the PSU was too short so there is an extension attached so the cord can run behind the plat and then too the board.
Maybe something is loose on the extension?
Or worse yet; maybe I’ve plug the PSU side of the cord into the wrong point on the PSU. Can’t remember but it feels possible.
Anyhow, based on what the guys at the shop say if they find nothing when I get it back, I’ll check the wiring.
But hopefully they will do the same; I’ve even given them permission to take the computer apart for individual component testing if need be.
Just as an extra, even on older boards like mine, the 8 pin connector was always recommended if you were running an i7 cpu. i5’s it didn’t matter so much, but with i7’s it was always recommended to connect all 8 pins.
Not gonna lie; when I see 8 I assume all eight need to be connected or the board won’t even power on. Never knew it is dependent on the CPU.
cool cool.. It is possible you plugged it in to the wrong bit on the PSU, but I’d have to check. Most of them have an indicator for where the 12v rail should be plugged in, but not sure if they have a different plug for it to ensure it can’t be put in the wrong spot or not.
Hopefully whatever the cause it, it turns out to be an easy fix
Just one last crazy idea; what are the chances my problems are because my cooling pump is not attached correctly?
I’ve just been looking at the instructions and how to videos and I noticed that many have pipes going in and out of the pump at the 3 o’clock position but mine is more at 6:30.
I have a Corsair H110 with the radiator fixed to the top of the case.
It worked fine like this in my old system (again, only the mobo has changed and the case) but is there a chance this maybe contributing to the problem?
I’ve not had experience with that cooler, but my guess is, as long as the flow was going in the right direction, it should be fine. I’ve never used one that had a directional flow to the side, only ones that pump towards the cpu from the front. If the temp readings weren’t high though, chances are it was doing its job properly.
OK then. Cheers for the advice anyhow.
hehe getting ahead of you now 😉 disregard
Let me put it this way, even with the two of us and the guys at the shop working on this thing the calendar will be using Star Dates before we find the problem, 😛