#now is simply unplayable

[jaycestaliss]

nividia has really fucked it up for us geforce now free users. i know membership users get priority bc well they paid for it but they really didn't have to fuck us up so hard like we can spend 6+ hours in queue only to get stuck at a random number and for the queue to not move further and to top it all off you can get remove from the queue for 'inactivity' like wtf?? as if waiting 6+ hours to play wasn't enough you can just get kicked out bc nvidia feels like it

[beatcroc]

everybody give it up for 100 hours of ringracers

[saladadventurebox]

Did silverwastes (red rock bastion in particular) and BOY DO I MISS IT. I spent probably 100 hours there alone in it's heyday, countless base defenses and boss kills under my belt.

I have to say, though, that for the first time I was made keenly aware of how much the introduction of mounts ruined maps not originally designed for them. Say what you want about convenience, but Silverwastes had a distinct feeling when you had to run everywhere that is now entirely gone. I'm not even covering how many overworld events get missed because the bulk of the group hopped onto griffons and skyscales and is halfway across the (smaller, meant for foot travel) map before you're even out of combat. I'm only talking about the vibes of the map, the way I felt as a character playing through it, and my immersion in their world.

Silverwastes was my favorite map bar none. I loved the event cycle, and more than that, I loved how it made me actually feel like a commander in the Pact. The constant flipflop of defending/rebuilding was such a tight game play loop, and you even had built-in ways to help while you're getting there because of the caravan routes. And for the final event, Vinewrath had some really good design principles (was just re-marveling over how they prevent lane spillage post-boss defeat with a single status, the other lanes still being relevant even after their boss is dead, etc).

And when I was fighting those bosses and the Vinewrath trio, it feels like you're really dealing a blow to Mordremoth. And that!! Was how it was meant to feel!!! The all-time high of the Silverwastes assault followed by the absolutely crushing loss in Verdant Brink was so masterful that I still think about it nearly a decade later.

When you would look up and see one of the copters, you would feel like you had artillery backup. Like the weight of the Pact was fully behind you while you marched into hell. Now I look up, and I see a skyscale dyed like Spyro the dragon. And it suddenly feels so cheap. I don't mind transmogs that are "lore breaking", but I do kind of mind this. Maybe because I remember how it felt before.

It felt so much better.

[healpimp]

#FixTF2 Masterpost: Important Information Regarding the Movement

As promised, here is a comprehensive post about the #FixTF2 movement, the issues it tries to bring up and where to find more information and follow developments.

It is now day 7 of the protest with no response form Valve. Either this is them trying to wait for this to blow over or waiting for the signatures of the petition to be printed out and brought to their office, or they are still preparing a proper response to the movement. Regardless, this protest is still ongoing.

❓What's going on with TF2?❓

I'm sure everyone and their grandma knows by now, but TF2's most popular game mode, Casual, has been plagued by bots for several years by now. This is in fact not the first attempted protest and you may have heard of the one conducted two years ago named #SaveTF2. The movement wrested a response from Valve, which since the first protest has earned infamy and a status as a blatant lie among the game's players.

However, this task has seemingly been abandoned entirely. The last time in recent memory with no bots was when the game upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit, which seemed to break the bots for a while. This was something the bothosters remedied a few days later, and no steps to remove them from the game has been made ever since.

It is worth mentioning that TF2 has had updates to battle the bot issue many times after #SaveTF2. They did indeed move to make TF2 a bot-free game for a while.

❓Why is this even bad?❓

Now, this might seem like a non-problem; TF2 is a video game and no more than that. People could simply move on and play similar games, like Overwatch, Paladins, Splatoon, etc. This would certainly be an easy solution but this has roots much deeper than simply playing a game.

For one, this game has been around for about 17 years by now. Ancient by FPS standards, but that the game is still played and talked about to this day stands as a testament to the love and passion the playerbase and general fandom has for it. The playerbase is loyal, the potential for content is seemingly endless and many are willing to pay money for the game. And therein lies some issues.

TF2 has millions of dollars invested in it by the playerbase. Loot boxes, MvM tickets and any sale made in the community market all gives Valve a steady and reliable revenue stream. This is significant, because you will have to make the assumption that this money will come back to sustain the game from imploding in on itself and remain functional. In the case with MvM, the PvE mode (that has not been updated in QUITE a while), the chances of receiving valuable loot from the missions is actually so small that there is no way to feasibly make any of your money back.

Additionally, any content updates added to the game every event (Summer Update, Scream Fortress and Smissmass) is community made. This means Valve picks and chooses cosmetics, emotes, unusual effects, warpaints and maps made by fans in the workshop.

While the creators of these items are compensated for their work, Valve naturally profits from these content updates.

In shorter terms: Valve profits off a game that has been in a near-unplayable state for more than 5 years by doing next to nothing.

And that isn't even the end of it. This is just the general negligence of Valve. It gets a lot uglier when delving into the punishable crimes conducted by the bothosters.

This video by TheWhat Show talks about this in depth, focusing on a particularly important case that involves MegaScatterBomb, who was harassed, doxxed, impersonated and swatted for trying to develop a working anti-cheat for casual.

This video is also in a document form for those who would rather read.

A more recent development with the bots has been their blatant advertising and promotion of CSAM, which you may better know as CP.

After #FixTF2 started, bots have been found spamming links in text chat that they claim is CSAM, while micspamming disturbing audio into the voice chat that is either edited to sound like or is legitimately CSAM. Valve has yet to respond to these reports, but good amount of players on Twitter/X have already started notifying FBI about this situation.

Another thing worth noting is that the bothosters have actively attempted to take down the petition website by DDoSing it and by filing a fake DMCA claim, both which are punishable crimes.

So to summarize:

It is wholly unsafe to play the game due to the bothosters and their willingness to commit crimes in the name of ruining the game experience.

Valve is profiting from keeping this broken product running, yet refuses to put any meaningful effort into fixing the bot problem.

The community actively contributes to the game by designing cosmetics and maps, and while they are compensated for their work, Valve are the ones who profit the most from their contributions.

Real people have been and are being harmed by the bot problem, and as far as we are aware, no one has been held accountable.

This is wholly unacceptable, both from a professional and unprofessional standpoint. If Valve fancies themselves a corporation worth using money on, their choice to simply ignore the problem speaks volumes of their priorities.

As Valve is releasing their new game Deadlock, there are serious concerns about the security of this game. TF2 is far from the only game that has bot/cheater problems. CS2 has had a similar problem for a long while as well and there is a clip of a Chinese bot farm that has been going around and which has even breached into the #FixTF2 movement.

❓What should we do?❓

Sign the petition while it is still up. At the time of this post, the petition has reached 270k+ signatures. The website has more general information as well.

Add to the #FixTF2 tag on mainly Twitter/X. Tag your posts with it, retweet and like posts in the tag and put the focus on the bots and ONLY the bots. One of the issues of the last movement, #SaveTF2, was that it wasn't focused enough on any particular problem and Valve could get away with making no promises. So, post clips, fanart and rants to your heart's content, so long it is specifically about the bots.

Watch youtube videos with #FixTF2 as the subject. Here are some good places to start:

4. Boycott any transactions in TF2. While Weezy was against this method in his video above, he has since changed his opinion. It has been established that Valve is very unlikely to shut down TF2, since the TF2 community market has millions of dollars invested in it and shutting down TF2 would render all items useless, thereby fully taking away any and all investments any players have put into the game. This would not just be devastating to the general economy of Valve's marketplaces, but a huge blow to their reputation if they want to remain reliable in the eyes of consumers.

5. Don't interact directly with bothosters. This includes harassment and any attempts at doxxing/swatting. These individuals are bigoted and some are even criminals. They have no remorse for their actions and talking to them would be a fruitless endeavor. Refrain from mentioning their names/aliases, as they are fond of attention and are getting just about enough of it since #FixTF2 started.

6. Don't give up.

❓Where can I keep up with any news?❓

Here are accounts to start with if you want to follow any important proceedings regarding #FixTF2:

Weezy (One of the biggest voices for #FixTF2 and spearhead of the protest):

Weezy's Youtube Channel

Weezy's Twitter

TheWhat Show (Similar to Weezy, outspoken supporter and spearhead):

TheWhat's Youtube Channel

TheWhat's Twitter

Shork (Outspoken supporter and generally active in the fandom)

Shork's Twitter

MegaScatterBomb (Creator of the TF2 cheater database and attempting to make a working anti-cheat for casual)

Mega's Youtube

If you discover new information, inconsistencies, broken/repeated/wrong links, etc., please speak up! Use the comments section, reblog with a comment or DM me!

[emmafrostdefender]

crush | logan howlett x female reader

hi everyone! i wrote this for fun. it'll probably turn into a series of small chapters while i write my more hefty logan fic. i hope you guys enjoy!

warnings: reader's kinda horny i guess, sexy man, based on crush by ethel cain, 1.5k words (i wrote this in like an hour)

You’d seen him around town. 

At the laundromat with the blinking fluorescent lights. At the dingy bar around the corner from the laundromat. At the gas station, filling up the tank of his red truck.

You never thought to say hi, never to engage with him in any way. 

He created such a stir when he first arrived. No one moved to your town unless something was truly wrong with them. Most of the men had leering gazes and dangerous intentions, but not him. Never him. You were in his vicinity frequently, but never once did he attempt what many others had. All failures, of course.

You lived contently in your grandmother’s old home, moving there after her cancer took a turn for the worst a few months ago. When she passed away quickly after that, she left the house to you and you decided to keep it. It still smelled like cigarettes, the stench burned into the walls and carpet, but the smell reminded you of childhood trips to Kansas. Those trips were scorched to the back of your eyelids, forever being replayed. Everything was the same as when you were a child; the small Mexican restaurant, the old movie theater, the arcade that closed seven years ago.

 Now, you sat behind the counter at the small antique shop you spent most of your days in. It was quaint, filled to the brim with every kind of knick-knack you could think of. There were crates filled with records and CDs, most scratched or completely unplayable. There were pieces of furniture, dusty mirrors, moth-eaten upholstery, chipped paint jobs, and broken hinges. The bookshelves that lined the walls of the store were stacked with books. You’d taken a few home in the past, knowing that they wouldn’t be missed.

And the clothes. There were racks on racks of vintage clothes. Most were out of fashion (even for the time they were made) or damaged. Still, you liked to play dress-up every so often. 

The job was boring and mundane, but it paid the bills. The family who owned the store didn’t seem to have time to keep up with the place, so you managed the inner-workings of it.

Today, you watched cars go by, wondering when would be the best time to cut your losses and close for the day. Some days you managed to get more than a few browsers, but today was not one of those days. You had one person come in around lunch, but they looked for about five minutes before heading out.

Your mind wandered as you watched people walk by the storefront.

You thought of him. The man you saw everywhere. The man who never spoke to you, not even to say, “Excuse me.”

The man that just walked through the front door.

Eyes widening, you sat up straighter and calmed your heartbeat that suddenly thundered in your ears. “Welcome in! Everything with a blue tag is sixty percent off today,” you said with a bright smile.

He simply looked over at you and then continued his perusal. 

You deflated. Harsh.

As he walked around the store, you felt like a live-wire. Every creak of the floorboards sent your heart spinning in your chest. You hadn’t felt like this about a man since you still called men boys. Being in your late twenties, that meant a very long time.

You grabbed a box of donations from the back room and moved to the floor to start stocking items on the shelves. You rationalized your decision to suddenly start restocking items after having a full day to do so by telling yourself that if you looked busy, he might feel inclined to buy something. You could nearly feel your nose growing by the second at that thought.

Moving through the rows of shelves and assorted items was second nature to you at this point, knowing where everything went in this mess of a store. You conveniently moved to the side of a shelf that viewed his aisle through gaps in the many items strung about. As you placed a silver mirror on the shelf, your gaze moved to watch his face on the other side of the rack. He was stunning.

You hadn’t had much time to analyze him; it was only small glances here and there in the time he’d been around. Now, you took your time. He was looking at an old book, bound in red fabric. It looked as if it had seen the bottom of a sewer. Luckily, he seemed to be making a careful inspection of the text, giving you enough time to look him over.

He was beautiful in a rugged kind of way. He looked like he worked with his hands; they were large and rough, with calluses around the fingers. His knuckles were prominent with sharp edges. You wondered what he did for a living. Did he move here to get away from city life? Was he a runaway circus performer? You internally smacked yourself in the head for the stupid thought. 

He’d probably make the circus look sexy, though.

He had a large figure hidden by a flannel and white t-shirt. His attire pointed to him being a worker of the land. A farmer, maybe. That would check out with the truck you'd seen him driving around in. Always covered in mud with logs of wood piled high in the back. 

His hair was a rich brown and you wanted to dig your fingers into it. You wanted to feel his beard against your skin.

What the hell is wrong with me?

You don’t have sex for so long that your brain goes fuzzy at the idea of a stranger’s beard scratching your neck. God. Get a grip.

You straighten your back and continue restocking things. Play it cool.

Soon, you fell into the rhythm of it, nearly forgetting the other person in the room. You moved to the bookshelves, loading more books onto the already strained wood. People really needed to stop donating things to you and start actually buying things. You’d be out of business by next summer. 

As soon as you realized you needed to go back to the stock room to grab another box, you heard a grunt behind you. You nearly jumped out of your skin. You dropped the box you were holding and faced the man. Your mystery man.

He was so close, you could smell him. He smelled like smoke and sweat. You felt yourself salivate.

You looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Do you need help?” You asked quietly, scared that he’d run off if you spoke too loud, like a wounded animal. 

“How much for this?” He asked, keeping your gaze. His voice was smooth.

You looked down to his hands, which were holding the book he had been examining earlier. “It doesn’t have a price tag?”

He shook his head. 

Now you felt like you were being held under a microscope. The way his eyes ran over your face made you go red; you hadn’t felt this flustered because of a man in a long time. 

“Okay, I can check at the front,” you said, keeping your quiet tone.

He just grunted again and followed as you led him to the register. You had a book of all the prices for things so that you could properly mark them. If you didn’t have the vague feeling that you were going to explode at any moment, you’d know off the top of your head the price of that tiny book. It was about the size of his hand, making you bite the inside of your cheek. 

You opened the book and searched for the page with book prices. When you found the page, you ran your finger down the list.

Small = $1.99

When you looked up at him, you jumped a little. He was looking at you with such intensity, you’d thought he was going to have an aneurysm. It made your cheeks flush again, but you cleared your throat and said, “It’s $1.99. With tax, it’ll be $2.30.”

He nodded, putting the book down on the counter as he reached for his wallet. You read the book title: Frankenstein. “I love Mary Shelley,” you said as you reached for a brown paper bag. 

He looked at you, his expression not revealing anything.

For some reason, you decided to keep talking. “It’s such a perfect analysis of ‘how far is too far’ in science and experimentation. I loved reading it in high school, I think you’ll really enjoy it,” you said, not particularly needing a response. 

He placed the exact change due on the counter and looked you in the eyes as he said, “Thank you.”

Your heart fluttered. “You’re welcome…” You trailed off, hoping to God that he’d tell you his name.

He thought about it for a moment. “It’s Logan.”

You smiled. “I’m glad you stopped by, Logan.” You introduced yourself. It would be nice to have another person to say ‘hi’ to on the street. And you imagined he was thinking the same thing.

His face didn’t jump into a smile, but it didn’t look as harsh as it did when he first walked in. 

And so began your crush on the stoic man who moved to town.

[hero21us]

Chav Tech Unleashed

Trey, full-blown chav and loyal member of the Golden Army, strutted through an alley behind a derelict electronics shop in East London. He wasn’t looking for treasure—just a spot to vape and blast grime from his cracked speaker. But fate had other plans. Half-buried under old cables and rusted consoles was a strange, gold-plated wristband. Trey snatched it up, turning it over. It hummed with an odd warmth and pulsed with faint light.

“Mad, this is,” Trey muttered, slipping it on. Instantly, a sleek interface hovered in the air��coded glyphs flickering, a joystick of control panels appearing like a game HUD.

"Target: Acquired. Nearest alpha male profile—locked."

Confused but intrigued, Trey looked around.

At the far end of the alley, a shirtless gym bro jogged past, earbuds in, veins popping. Trey tapped the display.

The jogger stopped mid-stride, blinked twice, then turned back toward Trey, walking with a slouch, swaying to unheard bass, and calling out, “Oi bruv, you seen my vape?”

Trey’s eyes widened. He smirked. “This thing’s proper mental!”

Over the next few hours, Trey tested the device with gleeful chaos. He turned a squad of shirtless CrossFit bros in the park into tracksuit-wearing, chain-flashing chavs who started a spontaneous dance-off under a motorway bridge.

He convinced two smug personal trainers to abandon their routines and instead stage a grime cypher near a kebab shop.

But by sundown, Trey knew this power needed supervision—or at least someone with even more swagger. He swaggered into the Golden Estate, straight to the gym where Chav Herc, the mountain of muscle and gold himself, was benching impossible weights while two drones shined his trainers.

Trey dropped the wristband on a bench beside him. “Bruv. You gotta see what this bit o’ kit does. Had gym lads skankin�� like it’s Carnival.”

Herc raised an eyebrow, slipped on the device, and nodded slowly as the interface booted up. “Golden tech, innit? Looks ancient. But proper weapon.”

Within days, Chav Herc had implemented the tech into training the Golden Army football squad. Before, they were elite—fast, powerful, relentless. Now, with the device broadcasting its influence across the training grounds, the players underwent subtle, then rapid transformations.

Their kicks became sharper, their tackles more aggressive. But their behavior on the pitch… shifted.

Gone were the clean-cut, focused professionals.

Now they rolled into matches in gold-trimmed tracksuits, chains bouncing, chewing gum with arrogant grins. They played with swagger—taunting, jeering, celebrating every goal with street-style dance routines. They didn't just win. They humiliated.

Commentators were baffled.

“The Golden Army are simply unplayable… but what’s with the attitude change?”

“They’ve turned into... well, East End bad boys with perfect footwork!”

Off-pitch, the squad still held their edge, but during every match, the chav energy surged. It became their brand—loud, gold, dominant. Fans loved it. Opponents feared it.

In the locker room after crushing their rivals 6-0, Herc leaned back on the bench, grinning at Trey. “Told you this tech's a game-changer, bruv.”

Trey chuckled, flipping a gold coin. “Next time I nick some alien gadget, remind me to bosh it on the ref, yeah? Make 'im proper skank about like a muppet.”

“Oi, not before we test it on the entire Premier League,” Herc smirked. “Golden Army’s goin’ global.”

And as the wristband pulsed with deeper gold light, neither noticed the final message blinking beneath the interface:

“Phase 2: Chav Dominion—Preparing for Global Sync.”

______________________________

Do you want to join? Contact our recruiters: @brodygold , @goldenherc9 or @polo-drone-001.

19 notes

[cleolinda]

State of the Hill

SHORT VERSION: I will continue to write and post recaps to go with Ian's SH2 streams whether I can get my own video to work or not. We will get creative if necessary.

LONG VERSION: Things are not going great right now! The OBS recording software has decided that it hates me personally. I have been spending hours every day beating my head against this wall, sleeping on it overnight, coming back with some new approach, and hitting brick again.

It started as "the game's frame rate has become unplayable but OBS records that fine," and then I updated everything on earth, and the game looked great in person but the recordings were fucked. Shaky, jumpy. (Note: The cinematics record just fine. It's only the gameplay.)

At this point, I am working through my list of fix options. I have rolled back the NVIDIA drivers; despite NVIDIA fucking the game community over, that doesn't seem to be the problem. Downloading the Streamlabs plugin did not help; I only want to record, not stream, so I am going to uninstall Streamlabs (which seems very nice otherwise, but I don't need it), probably uninstall and reinstall an earlier version of OBS, and then, somewhere along the way, see if Avast Security is blocking something. Yes, I have enough storage. Yes, I have enough RAM. Yes, I have turned the computer off and on again. Yes, it is plugged in. I reinstalled a repair version of Windows at one point, so please believe I am trying everything I can think of. And when I run out of things to think of, I will look into other game + voice recording software, and we will start the troubleshooting cycle all over again (which is fitting, I guess).

(Actually, I tried repairing Windows because something happened to Microsoft Edge along the way--Microsoft Dot Com swears it's already installed, but every time I accidentally click some Windows news link I didn't want, it tells me there's no app to open an "edge link." Like, I didn't want or use Edge anyway, but it alarms me that I didn't choose for it to go away. But the OBS saga was happening before Edge went missing, so it's probably unrelated.)

Anyway, my point is, I am reducing my tech panic by telling myself that I will not have the fifth Silent Hill 2 video ready next week, and that this is okay, because you will have Ian's stream/upload if you want to see the full gameplay, and I will simply continue writing the recap as usual. I can still play the game, after all, and I have my muttered practice recordings from right before the frame rate got untenable. I know what I want to talk about for a recording that never actually happened. I can get any screenshots I want, and I can link to existing clips of the cutscenes.

The reason writing this is important to me, even if only three people read it, is because I have spent a lot of my life not finishing things. I am going to continue to look for any way possible to keep going with the means that I have (here's hoping I don't fall off a cliff, or my house sink into the sea) (I am nowhere near a sea) (that won't stop my luck). I am just giving myself over to radical acceptance of this bullshit situation--while I do continue trying to fix it, yes--so that any outcome is okay. I will sit and talk into Voice Memo on my phone like I am telling you a goddamn campfire story if there comes a time when that is all that remains to me. And then, of course, there's [gestures at everything] going on and maybe video games are not something we will care or worry about in the near future. My point is, I find that when I start putting a Plan B out into the universe, I find that Plan A often works itself out instead, and if it doesn't: I still have Plan B.

(Look where I was in the game. Look at it. I was so hype. If I weren't emotionally repressed I would cry. Universe, don't you want me to record this? Universe, pls.)

[phoebified]

ok here's what i think after trying to organize my closet again. the wardrobe NEEDS to remove the scroll bar within the pages. the game is borderline unplayable for me now because i cannot use the wardrobe anymore due to disability. i have arthritis in both hands but especially my right hand, which is my mouse hand, due to EDS. the scroll bar is fucking awful. it isn't reactive enough to be functional, but it needs to be that unreactive in order for it to work as a page scrollbar. the pages are not big enough for that to even make sense, though??? i really need sso to either make the wardrobe ENTIRELY. CUSTOMIZABLE. or totally remove the scrollbars within the pages and just make them fit to the wardrobe UI. i suggest doing that, removing the extra space or downsizing it somehow, and just adding more tabs. that's the only way i can see the wardrobe working for me without making the wardrobe fully customizable. i don't mind a scrollbar existing for different scrolling through the page tabs on the side but one being within the actual pages themselves makes the game basically unplayable for me because i don't have the motor skills required to use the TEENY tiny scroll wheel within the pages (and even if i did, nobody likes dragging a scroll wheel) and i don't have the mobility to constantly be scrolling up and down as it's a very painful and frustrating movement for me. in an attempt to make the game more accessible they've basically barred me from playing the game. i'm not mad or blaming anyone for it because they didn't appear to test this before launching it, meaning we're the feedback, so i don't expect them to notice this. that's why i'm making this post. until they make the pages not require scrolling of any kind, this game has stopped being disability friendly, and i am barred from playing it and have no other options but to either stop using the wardrobe, which any player will see the issue in quickly, or limit my ability to play it, which is frustrating and doesn't make the game feel worth it to play.

Post summarization: without removing the scroll wheel within the pages (not within tabs), the game has become significantly difficult and frustrating for me to play due to disability. I suggest a total removal of the scroll bar within the pages in favor of simply adding more page tabs.

also, closing remark: please god make the wardrobe not full screen. i can't stand it

[meltran]

i finally played pathologic 2 and i dont know anyone who played pathologic 2. so im writing the thoughts here. these are my thoughts on pathologic 2, from someone who thinks pathologic 1 is perfect

i hate to go reviewer brain on this but im conflicted so let's go reviewer brain and start with The Positives

the spectacle is truly wonderful. seeing the town recreated in clear autumnal glory, having kids walking around and actually talking to and playing with eachother, the architecture of each building being ramped up in its strangeness. the poetic item descriptions and the implications thereof in the culture. as a base to build a game off of this is all a fantastic progression of patho1's game world

the new gameplay elements also feed into this, the factory being a proper base you can do upgrades in, the children's caches hidden around and the world they convey, the weirdness of the dead item shop, having an actual job you have to do and get paid for is especially fantastic!!!

for the first few days this liveliness is very pronounced and theres lots of good character moments, a profundity of activities, there continues to be some of this throughout the game. there wasn't a point where i was thinking this is bad or anything

but also... as a game called 'pathologic 2', somethings missing, isnt it...? it's not just that there's only one character out of three - even with that in mind it feels like the game doesnt really scratch some of its surfaces. when i think of any route of pathologic it feels hopelessly dense, overloaded with information, almost every single character getting at least one long monologue about something that is connected to what multiple other characters are doing at this time. patho2's interactions feel (i must stress 'feel', im sure a few great ones could be pointed out to me) on average lighter by a lot, which works well for when there is a profundity of things happening at any given time but that's not a constant for the whole game. at which point the "extremely choreographed walk from monologue to monologue" retains some power over what exists now

(the move AWAY from that, towards something 'alive', is a valiant goal. but it's merely a goal.)

and none of this would bother me that much if i played the game in a vacuum. the focus of patho2 is different than patho1 and that is to be expected and valued. it's a new game, and the things that distinguish it are what make it worthwhile to exist. it's a great game, and a part of a whole (the series as a whole), all things are connected by the lines

but it's just a bit frustrating in the context of the way people talk about these games: "patho1 was the limited unplayable game, its not what they REALLY wanted to make. patho2 is the actual successful execution of those ideas, that's the one you SHOULD play". certainly some ideas got to be brought to life in 2 that were sterile in 1 (see above), but i'm trying to imagine a world where patho2 is the first or only game in the series someones played, and it just doesn't work!!! the disarmingness of the game mechanics is striking for all players, but there is simply not enough there for the characters to feel fleshed out for a newcomer - the kains dont really do anything, the political power struggle rarely comes into play, the bachelor and changeling are very funny when you meet them but rarely interact with anything you're doing, aspity is... just not interesting, and even when i keep in mind that many characters only do a couple things per route in 1, the characters in 2 simply don't talk about eachother enough. the illusion of life breaks and the existence of life can't compensate throughout most of the game. we know a lot of characters opinions of eachother in 1, but 2 will just quickly brush over a thing we knew from 1 or not mention it at all, and not develop it too much further

again that's not universal, the new connections between your personal childhood friend group are great!! but they don't keep their relevance either, you dont get to keep meeting with them throughout the game as a group and discuss whats going on. i thought i must have missed a lot by how many characters in my game died (a very cool new addition), but when i look it up there was only a handful of things. maybe those would have been enough to change my experience, but it's much less than i expected. and so the overall sense i get of the game is empty... i was thinking "im gonna HAVE to replay this one" but it doesnt seem like it would be as rewarding as it gives the illusion of being

which again iiiis fiiine because theres a lot i enjoyed in whats in there. but u have to think about how the pathologic subreddit is almost always talking about patho2 without even having to specify it when someone makes a thread asking a specific question. its just assumed that people only play patho2. so how does this fandom even work??? why do people care about eva yan or the stamatin brothers or anna angel or aspity or the kains or saburovs or the bachelor or clara or general block if they have only played the game that barely goes into their deals? is it solely feeding off fan fic and fanart by those who have dug deeper??? probably i guess but that's very strange to me!!! or youtubers and i restate my usual take that people who make videos about pathologic should by and large be bullied for pushing this narrative of "oh patho 1 is SOOO hard and miserable you could NEVER play it unless youre a skilled hyper gamer which almost none of us are cause we're so weak. only i can play it and interpret it because im smart" like they work at a church or something. also patho2 is a lot more crushing of a game. to be honest.

(re: general block: the army is like barely in this game? block gets hidden away somewhere by longin and people talk about that a lot but longin is literally not in the game so what??? they couldve reworked the entire military presence to make them wayyy more involved it couldve been cool)

some of this is even echoed by the devisers - btw i can barely find any convo on the devisers or the PTB's role in this game or isidor ghazar or mark's quantum mechanics moment which are all the actually interesting and cool new deep lore parts of this game. theres actually MORE talk about p1's deeplore. so idk what's up with that - but anyway one of the devisers says to you "We're wasting years copying what already existed, and we have no time to add anything original on top." like thats literally in the game, in present tense. the limitations of patho2 as a work are part of what patho2 is so idk i think to get real value from it we have to engage it as a work on its own and not "pathologic remake" which is what everyone wants it to be even though its so inadequete at being that

so speaking of which, getting into analysis, those ending choices, huh? i only saw diurnal myself because why would i come all this way and not cure the plague. but the choice you have is interesting here because its a sort of nullification of the choices you had in patho1. which were destroy the polyhedron, destroy the town, or instate the invisible storm but dont do that one. the polyhedron was the ultimate symbol of modernity, an eternal end of history, while the town was culture as a progression of real peoples lives. but now, destroying the polyhedron is destroying the cultural history. one is entwined with the other and can't be untangled. so if you come into this from patho1 (AS YOU SHOULD) the choice is extra unsatisfying because the dichotomy is eating its own tail. i don't think either one feels particularly meaningful honestly - other people have pointed out that the game ultimately asking you to choose between the parts of your racial ancestry shuts down whatever interesting things might have been happening in the game regarding your racial ancestry

i think thats true (i AM unsatisfied with that entire story compared to its enormous potential... though i did miss some shekhen content, love that place's existence) but im feeling a bit more positive because i know that pathologic 3 will come out this very year. which is not the bachelor's story in the sense it was originally designed but what i mean is i know theres a future for the series so i can think about what they were trying to do here without despairing over "wouldve been good if they could do that"

in patho1 clara's route can only be played after playing another character's, and concludes a lot of themes from the other routes. its not that it necessarily concludes them, u can get the secret scenes for example in the others, but if you play them in order clara's is already aware of and interacting with deeplore, so there's a clear progression. and in patho2 mark refers to "the next play"... i think part of what you'd probably be doing if youre doing a "more modern" take on pathologic is to actually track progression more directly and have a specific ending scene for playing all three characters, right? that's not how it would go now, but i wonder if the endings of haruspex is made with that in mind. i wonder if the plan was that mark is aware of you the player's progression and each play would end unsatisfyingly no matter what, with mark vowing to do it better next time, culminating in the ability not to unlock a proper ending, but to at least argue about your situation. it's suggested at one point that artemy may have been a real person at one point and the play is merely a restaging of his actions in the past - which of course it is, pathologic 2 is a self-aware adaptation of 1 literally and in-universe. so the endings don't point towards any real future for the town, but if they solved the issues at hand there'd be no reason for a next play... the true goal can only occur in sequence, sequences within sequences

while im here, the powers that be saying they want me to destroy the polyhedron because they want to grow up is a good contender for most unsettling thing in any of these games!? wtf would it mean for the demiurges of this world to grow up??? is that good or bad for us?? this too would be part of the metanarrative that i assume will continue in the now-sequels

while i did find the parts of the game that are less interesting retreads to be, less interesting, so much of the new stuff and the new themes its trying to get at are fascinating for me to think about ... the idea of a "real human" gets brought up a lot and i'd need to look at some of those convos again. the invisibles-esque idea that all of what we go through, both us as a player and the town as a world, is a form of growth needed to achieve our real potential, which is not superhuman but, in fact, actually, truly human. it's a development of themes that WERE in 1 (games as a way to process and understand death, the effort to use the game as a turing test and/or focus to determine the presence of human consciousness) but it's a new side to this. isidor and simon (and georgiy in the marble nest, who is basically simon) devised a plan, an ideology, that is cruel and painful but also a necessary step in the road to true consciousness... at the end of the marble nest you can tell the executor that you're ready to accept the bachelor's death because you are not the bachelor, and it shows you a door at the top of one of peter's staircases... so what i'm saying is, i am god and so are you and we are awakening from our collective dream of separation (which - its just hitting me now - is so obvious if we're dolls of the powers that be. because a hand is holding it and doing a funny little voice, but really, it's all just that hand, isn't it. straw dolls with nametags...) (is the ultimate endgame of this story transcendental growth for everyone involved? for the ptb to grow up into adults, which involves slowly piece by piece putting away each one of their toys, which involves the toys themselves remembering what they are beyond their individualistic sense of ego???? oh my god????)

[magicwithclass]

Reserved List

There are over 500 Magic the Gathering cards on the reserved list. This list is a promise to never reprint these cards in paper which means, that for these cards, the copies that exist are the only copies that will ever exist. The reserved list only comprises of sets from before the year 2000 so most reserve list cards are 25 years old minimum. You would think that the cards on the reserve list would all be astronomically high but very few are over a dollar. Many feel that the reserved list will eventually be rescinded but the failure of the 30th anniversary edition cards makes this seem unlikely especially in the modern era. It seems like a lot of money is in newer Magic cards especially with the advent of serialized Magic cards. Now may be the time to move in to bulk Magic the Gathering reserved list cards. Every year the number of reserve list cards in circulation dwindle. Cards get lost or destroyed or they enter vaults never to see circulation ever again due to investors and speculators. At the moment, old school Magic seems to be at an all time low so this might be time to move in to reserve list cards. I recently purchased a couple hundred reserved list cards in various conditions and over the next couple of weeks I will post them online and explain the logic behind my purchase. Am I simply wasting money buying bulk that will never rise above a buck? Am I a fool for diversifying my purchases instead of focusing on one specific reserved list card and attempting to buy it out? Only time will tell. However, I really do have a love and a passion for the cards and it makes me feel a part of the community to have a piece of magic history in my hands. It is an interesting feeling to own something where there are only a certain number of copies on earth. Isn't this the appeal of serial numbered cards? Are serialized cards just a modern day reserved list for a new era? After all, most of the cards on the reserved list are cheap for a reason. They are simply unplayable in the modern magic the gathering era in almost all formats. Most serialized cards are chosen because they see play and are highly sought after cards. Any cards seeing a lot of play on the reserved list are already astronomically expensive so what is the point? Well, no one can see the future and some cards that were completely unplayable just need the right card printed to become all stars. The only question is which cards will reach that echelon. Yes, I have some opinions on which cards are more likely to see possible play in the future but you never know. That is why I want to diversify my assets. Should a reserve list card below one dollar spike card I will likely have many copies of it in my collection. Should all cards on the reserve list eventually spike as people realize that once all copies are gone they are gone and the cards aren't getting any younger then I will have simply made a profit. Even now, I do think there are cards on the reserve list that are criminally undervalued. I also believe that one day a card will spike on the reserve list that no one will predict. I am going to show the reserve list cards I bought this month although I have been buying reserved list cards for years.

[chriscranky]

How to Play The Sims 1 on Windows 11

Recently, I've been rebuilding my collections of The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. I used to have the discs when I was a kid, but I lost them, and now I don’t have a computer that can read DVDs. After acquiring The Sims 2 Complete Collection and gradually adding to my Sims 3 collection through Steam, I started thinking about The Sims 1.

The last time I played The Sims 1 was when I was 6 years old. When I tried to download the game again to relive my childhood nostalgia, I was using a Windows 10 machine. Unfortunately, that experience was a complete disaster, as the game wouldn't even let me select a household! It was bugged and unplayable. Now that I'm trying it again on a Windows 11 computer, I approached it with low expectations—until I stumbled upon something magical.

I discovered a GitHub repository that provides an all-in-one installation of The Sims 1, eliminating the need to install patches or edit graphics files. With that in mind, let me guide you through the process of installing The Sims 1 on a Windows 11 computer. To install The Sims 1 on a Windows machine in 2024, simply follow these straightforward steps. You won’t need to enter any keys, edit scripts, or perform any manual tasks.

Please know that this is how I installed The Sims 1 on my computer. I've gotten no crashes or bugs from this method, and my game runs smoothly. My computer specs are:

System Model: ASUS TUF Gaming A15 Laptop

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics, 2900 MHz, 8 Cores, 16 Logical Processors

RAM: 32 GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060

Step 1: Download Installer

Download the The Sims 1 Starter Pack Web Installer. Alternative link can be found here.

Step 2: Run Installation

Run the TS1StarterPack-WebInstaller.exe and follow the instructions. If you get a Windows protection notification, select the option to "Run Anyway". Windows does this to protect us from unknown executables, but this one is fine.

Enable all of the components. This includes all the patches you will need to make your game full-screen and compatible with your system.

Select the folder you want to install it in.

Wait for the installation to finish.

Step 3: Run The WideScreen Patch

During your installation, a popup will display asking you to choose your resolution. If this popup hasn't shown, you can find it in your E:\The Sims 1 Starter Pack directory as Sims1WidescreenPatcher.exe.

From this, choose your screen's aspect ratio and resolution, and set the “Wrapper” dropdown to DDrawCompat.

Click “Patch.”

If asked to enable “Borderless Fullscreen” mode, click Yes.

Close the patcher once it has finished patching the game.

Step 4: Run The Game & Have Fun!

And that is IT. Now you can run the Sims.exe program and the game should run.

If your screen size is weird, just run the patcher again.

Now you can start playing the game and rediscover that old-school nostalgia of having fun!

Conclusion

I hope this guide has been helpful! If it has, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Additionally, I have a blog where I detail the mods I use for The Sims, including instructions on where to place them. If you're interested, you can check that out here.

[ngc-5194]

yknow i could very easily accept someone not liking the mobile kh games if people actually gave... understandable reasons??

mostly i've heard that they're 'inaccesable'. which. they're in general more accessable since the console they run on is a phone, a device more people have than a ps4. though, granted, it is the offline version of both games only.

however, if you don't have a phone, have limited space on your phone, or are uninterested in a mostly unplayable game, all of which are understandable, there are cutscene compilations (ux (story important, all), dr) available on youtube too!

if the lots of reading is the issue then there is a completely dubbed version of the cutscenes of ux and you can easily find voiced playthroughs of both union x and dark road on youtube as well.

(for instance, here is a playthrough of dark road that i watched as my phone needed repairs by the time i had caught up with the series enough to move onto khdr. but, of course, there are many more options if you simply search up 'kingdom hearts [dark road/union x] playthrough' on youtube. find whichever one suits the kind of videos you like to watch best!)

if you don't have the time to sit through all of the cutscenes, there are summaries also avaliable! here is a video one for union x, and though unfortunately i can't find a similar one for dark road, it is also always acceptable to just read the wiki section on the story of the game! (here is the union x wiki section as well)

the other major complaint i've heard is that it's 'too confusing' or that the story 'doesn't make sense in parts'.

to which i first must ask, what part of kingdom hearts does make sense to you then? many many signifigant, heavily important parts of this series can be the most mind boggling things you have ever read or heard. so much so that we are known as the fans of that overly complex and insane disney game. that is what we are known for!!

and more to an actual point, there are many many people out there in this fandom who would be thrilled to talk to you about parts of the plot you found confusing. who have posts pages and pages long on minute details.

we are all fans of this weird ass game series and we all can. i don't know. help each other, newcomers and people who have been here awhile alike. us fans who like the mobile games are no different. we are willing to share and help and explain anything you need.

and as for the take that the mobile games are 'unimportant'.

strelitzia, someone deeply important to marluxia, larxene, and ventus' backstories, is seemingly implied to be one of the main characters in kh4 and if you have no knowledge of union x, then you likely have zero idea who she is.

the foretellers and the master of masters are being set up as potential villians in the next arc of the series. all of these characters were introduced in union x, four years before back cover released. and while yes, back cover gives the perspective of the foretellers more while union x is from the eyes of the keykids, there are many interactions with the foretellers in union x, beyond the scope of back cover, that are deeply important to the plot and establishment of their characters.

while yes, dark road has drastically less set up for the future in it, as all of the characters featured are now dead, it gives a lot of depth to xehanort and eraqus both. eraqus' behaviours and motivations are given reason—not necessarily morally good ones, and certainly not ones that always provide justification for his actions, but actual fully defined reasons for it all.

as it has always been with kh, every game is important to understand the story. you couldn't simply play kh1 kh2 and kh3 and expect to understand everything, and you can not expect to understand everything if you don't at least know surface level of the stories of the mobile games too.

you do not have to play them yourself. they do not have to be your favourite games in the series. if you are reading this and you hate them, you can stay not liking them even for all i care.

but you have to accept that they are important to the plot of the series. that they can not simply be ignored if you want to grasp the entire story of kingdom hearts.

[enden-k]

goddd I wish wuwa worked better on mobile it looks so interesting but it's practically unplayable (my phone isn't even that much of a potato, it's pretty decent, but it's just not optimized like at all. ahh)

anyway because I can't: are there any parts of the story that stuck out to you as particularly interesting so far? or is it too early to tell?

i already heard it caused unusual overheating and stuff, seems like they didnt fix everything 0: thats too bad, maybe soon!!

apart of that one time it had rlly bad lags, after the fix my game runs smoothly now idk

i finished the main story so far i think!! there wasnt anything that rlly stuck out for me, there was just sections i rlly enjoyed like meeting jinhsi for the first time (shes so pretty aaaaa), the black shores entire section and the battle against the dreamless (love its design)

tho maybe idk, rover retrieving that resonance beacon w encore and aalto was pretty interesting to me simply bc of the location, the vibes and the experiments there, i kinda like that stuff

[adacatlovelace]

Copying my reddit post here for greater visibility:

Im gonna spare you the gloom and doom of my own personal doubts, and simply reiterate the very real possibility that Valve, who has a very long history of neglecting TF2 will continue to not intervene.

Rather than say "Everything is fucked and TF2 is dead" Im here to offer a solution in the form of the kryptonite for bots and cheaters that has been in the game since it first launched: community servers.

However, this comes with a massive caveat: The current state of TF2 vanilla community servers isnt the best. With the introduction of Quickplay, many servers were starved of new players as Quickplay prioritized putting people into already massive server groups like Skial, and matchmaking only made things worse.

Now if you open the server browser youll mostly see the big server groups or servers that run something entirely differant than the vanilla game (VSH/Freak Fortress/Jailbreak) when it isnt just servers inflating their numbers with fake players or bots.

Thankfully, this is entirely fixable without Valve. While casual remaining in its near unplayable state there is a growing need for spaces to play the game that are moderated by actual humans who can simply kick and ban bots. Uncletopia and Lazypurples silly servers have been MASSIVELY sucessful simply by offering those spaces.

So how do YOU get involved in helping this? Three main ways:

A. Simply playing on community servers instead of casual. Community server population operates on a snowball principle, where empty servers stay empty and populated servers fill up.

B. If you have the resources, open your own community server. It may seem like a daunting task but the reward is being able to tailor a space for both yourself and others for the exact experiance you want out of the game, wheather thats sweaty tryhard, friendly messing around or somewhere between those two extremes. Theres also a MASSIVE amount of amazing maps out there that will likely never be added to tf2 that you can have a chance to play on.

C. Spread the word. Doing B is likely not in the cards for most people, but big name youtubers definitely have both the resources and influence to run at least ONE sucessful community server, and if even half them who have previously made videos step up to offer an alternative, TF2 will be in a MUCH better place than it is now. Alongside this, if you DO find a server you like, PROMOTE THEM. Let as many people as possible know there are alternatives to casual mode.

To reiterate, I am by no means saying give up on #FixTF2 Im simply offering a plan B in the form of #ReturnToCommunity

[blanks--pace]

I know my pre-covid self wouldn't be proud of who I am now and it's simply because of the amount of times I've drawn Quackity LMAO

Like WHOOPS I know we swore to never forgive him after he raided Animal Jam and made it unplayable for a few days after because all his fans kept coming back and messing up the servers, BUT you have to consider he played a cool character on a minecraft roleplay server.

[riding-the-sunset-bird]

Wait, wait, wait. When answering the other anon, you mentioned that you can play the Wedding DLC even if you are already married?!

I always wanted to be married before Cove’s Step 4, but thought it ruined the DLC and made it unplayable. Any unique convos for being already married in the DLC?

Being already married to Cove basically makes the distinction of:

Legally, you already were married, but you'd waited to have a full-blown occasion for it, with a ceremony, reception, and everything.

The game also warns if the player is already married:

Because you're already married to Cove in this playthrough you can choose to continue your story into the wedding planning events if you accept the framing that you were legally married before and are only having the actual wedding now.

If you want to imagine that the wedding already happened when you got married before the start of Step 4, these events won't make sense for your life.

As for differences, not too many notable ones? I mean, you won't get an entire scene change over it, but the game changes a few little sentences and interactions since Cove is your MC's husband, not fiance.

For example, if it was the poppy hill engagement in Step 3 (whether Baxter was told about it or not), Baxter with react to Cove saying that he and the MC are married like, "Ah. That makes sense. Engaged and married, it's all gone by. I've missed a lot."

He also won't bother asking what they want their last names to be and will simply ask what they are, since the name change would have already happened. Cove will later express amazement that he and the MC have been married "this whole time" but are really having a wedding now.

The MC obviously won't take note of Cove's name being "Cove Holden" as "the last time he'll have it" or that they would share it with him/take it, since they've already been married.

Otherwise, most changes just swap the word "fiance" for "husband."