LP Update/Comment Thread

[KnoutOut]

hey mesk, did you hear??

there is this new game in town, that looks like postal, feels like postal, and plays like postal.
it's called "HATRED"

what do u think of this masterpiece of a game? Is it ethically and morally balanced to kill people in videogames??? And how will women be oppressed by it??

[IskatuMesk]

I heard as a game it's really boring and repetitive.

I'm very glad the game has made some SJW's upset, though! It is, of course, ethically and morally balanced to kill whoever you want whenever you want. Such is the foundation of our great demicountry.

/edit

Mucky's old dota video has been added to the compilations section.

[ArcCain]

Would you consider Battle Realms? I don't know much about it but it looks potentially interesting.

[IskatuMesk]

Never heard of it.

[ArcCain]

Some information and gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6brEpJuBqXQ

[IskatuMesk]

Ah. I seem to recall the name, now. I think someone may have mentioned it a time back. I will consider acquiring it in the future.

Depression has been really bad for the last few weeks so I am behind on editing and I have two AWP's to edit, now. I'll see about getting them both done today.

/edit

I got sidetracked with Unreal 4 and wc3, but the two AWP's are now up.

[IskatuMesk]

I'm planning to revive Coffee Hour to talk about subjects nothing else really covers at the moment. I'm currently debating whether or not this will be audio-only (seems the best choice, not much visuals were ever added to Coffee Hour). Although stress has been murderous, I've almost entirely caught up on all video work and am ready to start recording again whenever.

To wrap up one loose end mentioned in AWP - after JademusSreg shared prospects regarding the likelihood of being able to solve sc2's AI, I have ceased all plans for any mods or mod-related projects from hereon. Apex F is completely closed as an sc2 concept and I will not be pursuing any further research regarding the modding of games in the future. I may have mentioned offhand during AWP or elsewhere about the possibility of resurrecting Loladins of Legend for wc3, but this will not be attempted either, due to me not knowing JASS and wc3 not being worth returning to.

A few projects I am distantly associated with will want some vocal work done in the future, so that is likely all you will ever see from me in any nature of custom content from hereon. A few are sc2 campaigns, some are a lot bigger. If you have a map, mod, or other non-profit project that is demonstrably >90% complete or fully finished and are looking for voice work, send me videos and extensive details about what it is you are making and why I should help, and I'll consider it.

I have polished up two articles, being the revised RTS article and the Apex Design article, which will take the place of nearly all of my old articles currently on CC's site (as they are shit). I do not plan to write any further articles.

In a few weeks I'll be 28 and wow what a waste of time it has all been.

/edit

I have very slightly updated my Considerations list. Notably, I have corrected the note to Tomb Raider in that, when I get around to it, I will not be running the new one, since it has QTE's. I also removed a few games that have either been run or removed from considerations, and added some extra notes for games like Golden Axe in which I also intend to run their Arcade versions as well.

/edit

The whole divorce thing is actually happening. Apparently Neville is moving out in this coming week.

Of course I am really hoping we can achieve some kind of financial stability and not be forced onto the street, but hoping doesn't exactly give you much. I have already been told I am going to lose all the money I've been saving post-car shit because she wants him out needlessly earlier and I will have to foot all the bills as a direct result.

If things ever stabilize I really hope this will lead to an era of relative peace where I can finally focus on getting work done. The heat here, however, is marginally worse than at the last place. I can't sleep in this and it's really starting to affect me.

/e2

lmfao this lot

"his own son won't help him because he is afraid he might be the only one who does"

/e 3

MOVING FURNITURE IN 33C IS GOOD FUN

/e 4

I asked granny where the spoons were and she went fucking ballistic. She cussed out my mom, my aunt, and neville's son, too. This shit is getting really out of control.

/e 5

Stress crash was bad. Very bad. Today sucked bad.

/6

Well. I think this is end of the line. At the very least I doubt I will be able to cast again with the stress of homelessness and being unable to care for the cats over my head...

/7

I managed to stabilize it for now. But fuck... I can't even carry a basket down the stairs with this knee anymore. Also my headphone cord is messed up.

[IskatuMesk]

During the lull of uncertainty following the events of the divorce and subsequent stress meltdown I have begun recording Dragon's Dogma. It is a decent game, but my new environment has given me a variety of troubles with audio. Namely, the fan has been difficult to control the turbulence of.

I've had success with a FTT filter targeting frequencies below 100, which annihilates most of the low rumble and leaves the rest of the audio virtually untouched.

I have recorded over 11 hours of gameplay and will continue to record this as it is a reasonably simple game to play during my state of recovery. It is a decent Japanese title and is a nice break from the inactivity. I will probably go into Lost Vikings soon and pick up where I left off elsewhere once I have a better understanding of why the fan noise is being such an issue (I get gusts of reverse turbulence from something and I am not sure how or why yet).

Divinity 2 processing continues. I am nearly done editing the 15th segment.

I am still dealing with the new Coffee Hour and deciding how exactly I want to present it.

[Mucky]

did you ever try out the ffmpeg stuff

[IskatuMesk]

Not yet. I actually forgot about it amidst all the things that have been happening. I need to get a newer version of ffmpeg and that plugin to try it.

/e

Man, it's really funny just how bland and uncomparable skyrim's gameplay is compared to dragon's dogma. 3 major releases and buttesda didn't even bother to try anything. DD is hardly polished, and I've managed to break some things pretty severely, but what is there is easily the best "open world" game I've so far played.

/update

Coffee Hour: THE REVENGE's first episode is now available in the same area the AWP podcast is in.

/e

Added three "general" analysis videos to league html directory.

[IskatuMesk]

Strong progress continues into Dragon's Dogma.

An OBS version has appeared that has the ability to output audio devices to different channels. A very, very long-awaited feature for fraps that still hasn't appeared. However, tests yield that my CPU is not capable of handling OBS in most recordings. I can record stuttery 720p League of Legends with it, which doesn't benefit from the new feature. However, the possibility exists that I can do console recordings without much issue. I will not test this with Dragon's Dogma, I'll test it with my next console LP (probably Kingdom Hearts). Some preliminary tests will be conducted first so I don't accidentally kill my run if something really unexpected happens. So far I've tested high compression and low compression (re-encoding with vegas) and both are sufficient for League.

Nonetheless, I will at some stage test the ffmpeg batch record Mucky suggested. I suspect the impact on performance will still be very high, and I don't know how the recording plugin actually works, but the only way to know for sure is to try it on something non-destructive when my workload is a bit lighter.

/edit

I have finished Dragon's Dogma recordings.

A fair spoiler but related to my run of this game.

Spoiler

The optional end-game boss is not included in this since my group is not actually strong enough to kill him and I didn't encounter him during my LP. An additional segment will be created in the future where I cover this. Due to the time investment it's not currently a big priority, but I do want to get around to killing him.

[KnoutOut]

I'm excited for dragon's dogma since you said it was one of the best open-world games you have played, I want to see how it is done there, compared to bethesda games like Skyrim and Oblivion, that do feel rather bland and empty. Will you make the recordings available before you have defeated the boss?

[IskatuMesk]

Yes.

Also, we are making an attempt to get some progress into Dragon's Crown and hope to finish that in a reasonable timespan as well (I want to wrap it up before continuing divinity since it's comparatively very short).

[IskatuMesk]

FXAA is garbage, and if you use it in your game, you should be hanged.

Console games a predominantly afflicted by a western plague known as FXAA. This blur filter is used in place of anti-aliasing because it's easier to be paid out by Nvidia and implement half-assed garbage rather than educate oneself.




Dragon's Dogma nears release, but I cannot help but wonder what the game would have looked like if it wasn't so damn blurry. Two challenges were offered by this game for my encoding - actual night, and FXAA. As one of the few games I've played that doesn't sport artificial lighting keeping night from being dark, it played havoc with x264 and motion estimation. My standard encode (seg1) produced far less than satisfactory results. A higher quality encode using exhaustive motion estimation (seg2) produced superior results. Eventually I met a crossroads with the latter template @ 26.5 CRF (the rest of the game). However, low res textures and blurring made for poor motion estimation results. Despite all of this, the following segments still very closely resemble the actual game. It really is just that blurry.

Don't use FXAA. Stay away from shitty shovelware producers like Nvidia, unless you want to end up like Gearbox and become the laughing stock of anyone sentient.

/e

Also of note, I will be researching X265 and any possible benefits it can offer for my productions. Currently, X265 is seeing gradual introduction into anime releases, and shows promise of being more size efficient than X264. However, it is still largely incomplete, and may not support the motion estimation requirements some of my videos demand. Also, encode speeds take a dramatic hit from x265, so it may not be viable for most productions. Nonetheless, I will run a targetted test at some stage and see what the benefits and drawbacks are.

[IskatuMesk]

The 15 segment Dragon's Dogma is now available! Join Shaft Shaman and Professor Snape on a politically correct journey through a Japanese RPG-esque jitterfest filled with chins, lizards, and wolves that may, at times, hunt in packs.