I miss the classic era of DAoC and still hum various town music to this day. Cotswold being the most recurring.

I’ve yet to find a game that properly rolls in a distant storm that eventually grows into an intense one. They tend to come on very quickly and escalate to 10 in about 20 seconds.

I went through a brief Asmongold phase about a year or two ago where I enjoyed just listening to him rant and bitch (mostly) about the video game industry. He was surprisingly articulate at times and not quite how I had perceived him. I watched him take a political alignment test and he was dumbfounded that he was fairly left-wing. I thought that might be a turning point for him, but then election season came around and he went right back to being an obnoxious Trump-supporting Texan. I don’t think Asmongold even knows who he is deep down or what he stands for. I think he just spews vomit from his brain and doubles-down on all of it because he’s incapable of dropping an argument or admitting he was wrong. It’s kind of his shtick, but I’m long since done with it.

I know enough about him to attempt a deep-dive into his psyche in regards to his decrepit home, his mother’s death and his unwillingness to seperate from his lifestyle, but at the end of the day his sad circumstances unfortunately don’t excuse the abborant shit he sometimes says.

Nearly every server is different, but the ones my friends/wife and I always did (10+ years ago) were like role-playing kingdom building maps. Server owner (usually me) would hold the title of King/Sovereign and appoint their friends to specific roles. I would oversee the general development and expansion of the kingdom, as well as decide and manage a system of ore-based currency (or would at least create the mint and appoint someone to running it). Afterward I would introduce and gradually roll out phases of a larger storyline for anyone who cares.

My left and right hand would build/manage the keeps/barracks/military structures, or the government buildings/libraries/cultural centers, etc. These would all be injected with their own lore and staffed by the person in charge of them. Everyone else would receive more minor roles, but typically be given monopolies in certain types of goods or commerce. Maybe Bob wants to be a trapper. Sure, anyone else can legally go and gather leathers and animal parts, but Bob is the only one permitted to sell those items in his shop in the city. Things like that just to try to keep it interesting. When Bob isn’t trapping or trading or being involved with the kingdom, he’s pretty much just playing Minecraft on his homestead.

The idea is to open it up to the public (via applications and careful vetting) and watch people run amock in the simulated medieval economy. We used to have a blast doing it. Especially with mods installed that added skill progression, abilities at milestones and other MMORPG-esque mechanics.

Normal people, however… They just do what they do in single player but occasionally trade, work together, tackle bosses, and show each other their latest creations.

Finally another game the Elder Scrolls Online community can enjoy.

Those oldest memories of Minecraft are the most peculiar of them all. I still remember starting with either the last Alpha release, or the earliest Beta release. I had come across a comic (using screenshots from the game) of Steve looking out into the night and seeing a single pair of red eyes in a distant hill. He looks out again and a monster is looking back in (or something like that). Always wanted to find that comic again. Anyway, that was my extent of knowledge going into the game. I knew there was mining, night time, and monsters.

I remember digging a hole into a hillside to survive my first night. There was a single torch placed outside of the hole, and throughout the night I watched various animals gather around the entrance to look in at me. I remember feeling awful, thinking they wanted shelter from the monsters outside, but realized while looking back much later that they were just spawning in my torchlight.

I also recall finding sort of a canyon or mountain pass with lava flowing into it. There was a small doorway or opening on one cliff face, and several flaming poles between it and the other side. It looked like an altar of some sort. This was back when lava/fire burned leaves and left the stumps to burn eternally, but in my inexperience I thought these were pyres placed deliberately by some entity, and began to worry there was truth to the Herobrine myth. Maybe other players were in my world.

Early Minecraft was a trip.

I imagine he spent the entirety of the ban raging like Dennis Reynolds and counting down the days. “IDIIIOOOTS! IDDDIIIIOOOOTSS!!!”

Oof… Thanks for the warning!

How does the camera quality and shutter speed compare to the Pixel on these? I love the color and the style, but am unfamiliar with this brand. I briefly tried to Samsung (🤮) S22 Ultra a few years back, as it was hailed for having the absolute best camera at the time. The shutter speed was absolute garbage and I was deeply unhappy with everything It produced. Not to mention the absurd amount of unnecessary bloatware that I couldn’t remove, and this was on top or the Google services. Brought it back for a measley Pixel 4A and was very pleased. Using a Pixel 7 now and with a launcher it has been a dream.

I’m open to other brands like this, though.

I’ve tried to get into ESO multiple times, always hyping myself up to just ignore the combat/difficulty and pacing and do it for the story alone, but it wears me down quite quickly every time. The vibe is just entirely off in every way. It’s like playing with a cheap McDonald’s toy with stiff legs and a weird button that makes it move it’s arms vs. a licensed action figure.

Save for my issues with the lack of real risk or challenge anywhere outside of running end-game group content solo, I always get irritable with the weird class themes the developers went with. I think if they had three guardian base classes (Thief, Warrior, Mage) and allowed players to spend their limited pool of points into other Elder Scrolls trees (Destruction, Alteration, Restoration, Conjuration, Blunt, Blade, etc.) it could have been balanced well enough and felt true to what we’ve come to expect from that universe. But instead it feels like they made the game as an entirely different MMO, then at the last minute agreed to put an Elder Scrolls skin on it.

I’d like to be a Warrior with minor specialization in Restoration and Alteration, but if I want to play that sort or archetype I basically have to be a Templar who uses sun spells and does all of his fighting with aetherial javelins, maybe joining the Mage’s Guild or something to simulate some sort of Alteration type buffs. Or I roll a Dragonknight who is themed entirely around fire and lava spells. Or I run around labeled a Sorcerer and use daedric spells/buffs to simulate Alteration, and ignore the rest of that classes abilities to branch out into melee and armor abilities. It’s all just so convoluted and unusual.

Beautiful soundtrack, though… Moth, Butterfly and Torchbug really does things to my heart, and leaves me hopeful that even without Jeremy Soule, TES6 may still have the type of score it deserves.

I want to be positive and I’m trying to remain optimistic, but somehow I just know it in my bones that they’re going to further Fallout 4 the franchise and strip away even more skills and attributes. Hell, maybe they’ll get rid of dialogue entirely.

Just give him an NES with Battletoads, file off any print, and tell him you made it.

Just gonna drop this here, since Ross has blown up suddenly. It’s important this masterpiece never fall into obscurity.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PNZBb6b9LvDWpI-5CPYUxG1Rnm-vr9V&si=dLKBo06GqI30I3QP

STALKER, Stardew Valley, No Man’s Sky, Skyrim, Morrowind, WoW Classic/Vanilla, Mass Effect, Fallout 3/New Vegas.

Google needs to make the three Little Pigsels, a series of special starter Pixels for children. The three Pigsels come in Straw, Wood, or Brick, and feature a stock Android UI and a standard Pixel camera to get your child started on the correct path.