
-Shamus, Wednesday Jan 3, 2007
Continue reading 〉〉 “DM of the Rings Remaster XLVI: The Hunt Begins!”
First up I would like to apologize for this screwup. I fully recognize the irony of my thanks to you all for keeping up commenting, immediately followed by us inadvertently making it impossible to comment.
Unfortunately one of the many things my dad never set up was a user management system. So the site defaulted to requiring a WordPress login. With the combination of WordPress’ centralized setup and the site being out of date, there is currently no way to easily make an account. Which we found out the awkward way when we noticed suddenly nobody was commenting at all. And some further testing proved that WordPress didn’t actually link to any signup page, or provide an easy way to be logged in.
As of now comments should be back online, with only one major adjustment that won’t affect how they function. I will remain the primary moderator of Bay’s comments section as well as watching the rest until we can either find a better long-term solution or the problem dies down.
Thank you for your patience, and sorry about the mess.
Overnight, our project has gone from a ‘quick coat of paint’ to a full fledged renovation. Our family has to cut a hole in the wall to make room for a new door in the BookNook, fill in the wall on the other side, and get someone to come in and put hook-ups for a washer and dryer upstairs.
Kelly halfheartedly complains about the size of the project, but she’s honestly relieved to have something meaningful to do.
Continue reading 〉〉 “Sims 4 Overthinking: Code Monkey”
Hey there, long time no see. By the time this goes up a few of you may have already noticed some adjustments regarding the commenting requirements, as well as the fact that I’m giving you this update instead of Bay.
Over the past few months we’ve had a very big issue with a few commenters using a VPN to circumvent IP bans, which is irritating on a good day, but a very big problem when the contents of their comments are, as listed from least to most alarming; personal insults, upsetting and often graphic statements on their thoughts via the direction my sibling has taken the site including some amount of unpleasant imagery, general threats on their health and safety, and death threats.
My sibling has been doing an excellent job moderating their comments, but it’s been a very big problem, and has started to take a very real toll on them. So for their health and safety we’re making some more changes to the way the site is moderated.
As of yesterday evening all commenters need to have a registered account to leave a comment. Which won’t deter every sock puppet but will help with the VPN issue. And I will be moderating all of my siblings’ comments for them as well as assisting with overall site moderation. I want to apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. But being constantly threatened and/or harassed is pretty stressful. And as they are already dealing with a myriad of physical and mental health issues, Bay starts the day half-empty most of the time.
If this continues we are considering requiring moderation approval per comment to weed the worst easier, but we’d rather not discourage discussion by implementing a mandatory waiting period, as discussion is a part of the site’s appeal. But my family’s safety is my top priority, and if it becomes necessary we will be using it as a buffer.
Thank you for your patience while we deal with these problems, to the folks who aren’t sending death threats and implying we’re desecrating a corpse. I want to thank you for your support. Your kindness has meant a lot to us, especially them. And we’re continuing to make plans to upkeep and preserve the site. While keeping it fun and safe for everyone involved, including you. You all keep this up and running just by keeping up the conversation. And we thank you for that.
This week I’ve been almost exclusively playing Risk of Rain Returns.
I like it; the changes from the original are mostly improvements, and it has more depth to it. The new characters are engaging and creative, and don’t feel too out of place from the original. It’s more of a challenge than I remember the first one being; then again, it’s been awhile. The Providence Trials are hit or miss, a few of them are annoying because the difficulty scaling is all over the place, but the good is really good. My one real gripe is the camera magnification, you get two settings; 1x and 2x, that’s it. I really wish there was a 1.5x since neither feel quite right.
Complaints aside, I’ve played 65 active hours with no sign of stopping, so the issues are clearly somewhat negligible.
What are you guys up to?
The trip from Hutta to Dromund Kaas is no simple journey. Kaliyo and I are in space for a week, with only a handful of stops, before reaching the Imperial Fleet. The stay at Vaiken Spacedock is necessary to process our identities and clearances before gaining permission to travel to the Imperial Capital. This process bothers Kaliyo greatly, but in her consternation she doesn’t notice that I have to do the same paperwork. We are in the middle of our fifth round of drinks in the central bar when we are summoned to the shuttle for Dromund Kaas. We are STEPPING INTO THE HANGAR to embark our transport when a uniformed Duros with no visible rank or identification asks if we’re traveling to the Capital homeworld. Considering this particular entrance leads ONLY to Dromund Kaas departures, I do not bother to answer. The Duros proceeds to claim *I* have a reservation on an Imperial Gage-class armored transport called The Black Talon.
Continue reading 〉〉 “SWTOR: Rix’larril’an of the Ascendancy 1.02 – A Grand Moff Interlude”

- Entice them with a compelling story.
- If you can’t do that, then bribe them with treasure.
- If you won’t do that, then let them know that if they don’t play along they will be stuck in this boring, treasure-less campaign forever.
– Shamus, Friday Dec 29, 2006
Continue reading 〉〉 “DM of the Rings Remaster XLV: Last Disrespects”
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
A look back at one of my favorite games. The gameplay was stellar, but the underlying story was clumsy and oddly constructed.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
No, brutal, soul-sucking, marriage-destroying crunch mode in game development isn't a privilege or an opportunity. It's idiocy.
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Let's ruin everyone's fun by listing all the ways in which zombies can't work, couldn't happen, and don't make sense.
How does image compression work, and why does it create those ugly spots all over some videos and not others?
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
Ever wonder how seemingly sane people can hate popular games? It can happen!
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.