Well fellow human beings, it's another weekend and that means another WRUP. Weather has been beautiful here in CA the last few days, though as of yesterday the smoke is making its way back into the stagnant, sky choking form it's been taking for the last couple of months. That happens though when land management is bad and there's a drought and within the last few years there's been a mass die off of trees and oh human influenced climate change is in fact a real thing that lies atop the natural cycle of Earth's already fragile climate and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is almost two hundred percent of it's safe levels. Do you guys know that even though CA is actually a leader in clean energy and efforts to combat climate change that we also have on a regular basis the worst air quality in the nation? Mega fires, man... geez. Locally we've been pretty lucky not to have a huge fire in our back yard like the past maybe six years. At least there's that, I guess. You'll hear people, tourists and the sort, around here asking why anyone would live here with the fires and the constant threat of earthquakes. But if you think about it everywhere has it's issues. I mean yeah we've got these ever worsening fires, a drought that won't go away, and I feel earthquakes actually almost weekly because Mammoth Mountain (an active volcano) isn't actually too far from where I live, but what's the east coast got? Hurricanes, flooding, power shortages. How about the central US? Tornadoes, fires, ice storms, lightning, floods... The lists can go on and on. I guess it's just what you're willing to put up with. Or at the very least what you'd consider normal living conditions if you've been in it your whole life. Anyway I'm getting way off topic and rambling on here, let's talk about some more WRUP related items shall we? Happy weekend everyone.

Activision Blizzard and the feds have settled on an $18 million fine for the frankly atrocious allegations that were presented in various forms of workplace hostility including alleged sexual harassment so bad that it caused suicide. Now I don't know about you guys but I feel like a settlement of $18 million dollars is nothing more than a simple bridge toll for a company like Activison Blizzard, when it's CEO makes over $150 million in a year. And we can use terms like "allegedly" all we want, but if there's a settlement it's not because nothing happened. But let's do be fair. This doesn't mean every person at Actiblizz is bad and it shouldn't speak for the entire work place as a whole. Though it is a heavy weight to get out from under if you've seen it first hand. Here's more from Kotaku

Speaking of Blizzard, Diablo 2: Resurrected is out and it seems pretty good. No auction house or store fronts selling items for real money or in game economy besides the usual trading that took place twenty years ago. Player stash is now linked to all characters in the same vein that Grim Dawn has it's own done, thus eliminating the need for mule characters so far. It's even possible to play using the classic look versus the new and quite nice looking high res graphical updates. And yes the old Bnet chat gem is still there to make you wonder WTF it's doing when you click on it in the game lobby. PC Gamer has done a review and here it is

Amazon has released New World in full and it's quickly become one of the most popular games ever. If you're playing it and liking it, that's great, more power to you. I happen to think it looks super boring and grindy. Our own Yoda has given it some time and has more or less confirmed it's boring grindiness and this is coming from a guy who has played so much Black Desert he may as well be South Korean now. The very important Twitch streamer, Shroud (I'm not sure if the sarcasm is coming across when I say "Important" or not) has stated that casuals should stay away from New World because srs business reasons. In actual seriousness though, if you are playing New World please make sure to take precautions to safe guard your GPU. The game is still killing hardware and it's not just 3090's that are literally going up in smoke. I'll link a video from Jayz Twocents here and he'll explain it and even show you an example. Do yourself a favor and watch here There's also a PC Games article that explains more if you're not in the mood for a video.

Are you looking for a new power supply? Well firstly, good luck. Second, make sure you really pay attention to reviews and branding because that venerable 80 Plus rating may not mean what you think it means. 80 Plus and it's various stages have nothing to do with build quality and may not even accurately represent its intended mark of efficiency. It's easy to get a rating with a test model and sell a line of PSU's made with inferior parts that do not ever meet that 80 Plus standard, or even completely falsify the 80 Plus rating all together. Ever hear of 90 Plus? It's not real. Gamers Nexus has done us all a service and provided a detailed PSA about it. This is important info guys, don't skip it especially if you're in the market. And continuing with GN, they've also received the new fan controller for Fractal's Torrent PC case. If you have a Torrent case and have not signed up for the recall, please do. The fan controller is defective in a way could burn your house down. Thankfully Fractal has acted in a way very professional and recalled all of the cases in order to fix the issue before they go on sale again. Here's another link Again, this is very important info, please don't skip it if it relates to you.

Finally in more positive news, Phison has a new SSD controller in the works for PCIe 5.0. I'll just a put a link to the article here from PC Gamer because it's pretty cool sounding tech. I wonder how much they'll heat a PC case up...

So WTF anyway?

Yoda: Well Friday will be marking the first day of my month long break from BDO this October. I don't want to stop playing, but when you've played nearly every day for 7 months straight, it's time to take a chill pill. But I've been slowly getting a bit more into Path of Exile so I'm prolly gonna play more of that this weekend.

AJ: Well it's October and I just got the Castlevania Advance Collection, so probably plenty of that and also perhaps a little Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (since I just got that as well).

Scroo: Snowrunner is going slowly. I'm behind quite a ways in the mud hell that is Amur so it'll just go at it's own pace I suppose until I can get to the new maps. A friend has been playing Metro Exodus and it reminded me that I have STALKER: Clear Sky, so I installed that and have been playing a little. It's a game that holds up pretty well actually.