Good morning everyone. It's Saturday and that means WRUP around here.
Last weekend I posted about my Oak Fire experience and within the last few days all roads have opened to the public again. I plan on taking a drive and getting some pictures when I'm not in the way of remaining emergency personnel who have stayed to monitor plenty of still smoking hot spots. Yesterday I got my first look and the landscape has changed for sure. In some places it looks like healthy underbrush burn while in others all that's left is a bright white scar of ashes noting where there was a stand of trees. We also got a couple tenths of rain yesterday thanks to a monsoonal storm that blew by. Today containment stands at 90 per cent and the acreage hasn't grown measurably. An article from Outside magazine shows the perspective just a few miles down the road from where I live. I've seen him riding his E-Bike many times in fact and I had no idea he was a writer. Small world.
Okay WRUP stuff and things.
I'm sure we've all read about how YouTuber and Twitch streamer jtisallbusiness spent a solid six figures on his Diablo Immortal account and maxed their character out only to be hit with the sad but hysterically funny realization that literally nobody else is in his level range so he can't find games to PVP in. From a personal standpoint I do not feel sorry for this dude. That said, perhaps Blizz could relax the level range in this top 5 per cent of people so they can at least have their own fun? I guess? Well, said streamer contacted Blizzard about some sort of solution and eventually they got around to responding by saying they'd maybe do something at some point, probably. Here's some info from SVG that gives a pretty good run down.
A project I've never heard of about a commercial game engine to slot in some place between Unity and Unreal has been shut down and completely wiped away. The engine is called The Machinery, and devs were suddenly told to stop work, that it would no longer exist and to delete all evidence of the project. It's a weird sounding situation that makes me curious. I don't imagine we'll find out what happened. PC Gamer has the story. Our own Dr S delivered an in-house opinion -- "meh. sucks for the devs invested, but does the world really need another commercial engine?
With unreal, unity, game maker,... there are enough options for every level with very open access. More competition wouldn't necessarily make the space better, especially since engine companies are already struggling with Unreal's dominance atm.[...]
More interested in how Godot continues to develop, since a really good open source engine is what's really missing"
More from PC Gamer here as a Discord Bot AI was asked to come up with the last selfie ever. Midjourney is the name of the AI and the images are, in my opinion, fucking awesome. But they are very haunting.
What Are We Playing?
Greywolfe: chicory's painting continues. we're at the point where i can run down to the main "hub" of the game without crossing too many screens. so maybe a little less than half way. tomorrow, i'm going to be starting a new text adventure called mindwheel. i know little about it other than the stories sort of swirling around it's development and from that perspective, it's absolutely fascinating. otherwise. more final fantasy 5. i'm at first very massive "gone forever" point, where the game just yanks a whole lot of content and you can't go back to it. i hate this sort of design. it's absolutely unfun.
AJ: More retro Sega gaming with Tennis Ace for the Master System and Altered Beast for the Genesis.
Scroo: I'm still enjoying my foray back into the Roller Coaster Tycoon space. I'll probably hit that up a bit more. And the typical Deep Rock Galactic.