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If it says one of the games are already claimed, screenshot the pop-up that says its claimed with game name shown! You can pick from the following list of games: Beyond The Frame: The Finest Scenery Bendy and the Dark Revival Builder Simulator The Invisible Hand Operation Tango Spiritfarer Farewell Edition Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate Windjammers 2 Aliens: Fireteam Elite Death Stranding Directors Cut Founders Fortune The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Life is Strange 2 Complete Monster Prom 2 Monster Camp Revita Rollerdrome Edge of Eternity Heros Hour Rogue Lords Golden Light Monster Crown Doom Eternal SE Tribes of Midgard Encased: Scifi RPG OlliOlli World Rad Edition Grow Song of the Evertree Conan Chop Chop Hokko Life Serpent Rogue Hell Let Loose Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reconing Fate Shadow Tactics Roboquest Eldest Soul UnMetal Raji An Ancient Epic Morbid The Seven Acolytes Deathloop Dark Pictures Anthology Little Hope Disciples Liberation Standard Maid of Sker Epic Chef Railroad Corporation Golf Gang Crusader Kings 3 Just Cause 4 Complete The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: Amulet of Chaos Forgive Me Father Crown Trick Descenders Industria The Ascent Hot Wheels Unleashed A Plague Tail Innocence Gas Station Simulator In Sound Mind Mind Scanners Emily is Away Omno Due Process House Flipper Project Wingman Wingspan BPM: Bullets Per Minute Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Simple Rockets 2 Timelie WRATH: Aeon of Ruin Mobius Front '83 Katana Zero Amnesia: Rebirth John Wick Hex 112 Operator Guts and Glory Ring of Pain GARAGE: Bad Trip Textorcist Tools Up! Hiveswap Friendsim Black Future '88 Syberia 3 PGA Tour 2K21 Nowhere Prophet Blue Fire Deep Rock Galactic Necromunda Hired Gun Legion TD 2 - MP Tower Defense Legend of Keepers Lawn Mowing Simulator Banners of Ruin Yes, Your Grace ATOM RPG Trudograd Phoenix Point YR 1 Edition Call of the Sea Gamedec Pumpkin Jack Siege Survival: Gloria Victis I am Fish SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE Planet Zoo Spongebob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated Surviving The Aftermath If Found . . . Genesis Noir Embr Ghostrunner Destroy All Humans Monster Sanctuary Killsquad Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos Suzerain Chicken Police Naruto to Baruto: Shinobi Striker Desperados 3 Nickelodeon All Star Brawl Man of Medan Red Solstice 2 Nebuchadnezzar Police Stories Evan's Remains Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3: Directors Cut Black Book Per Aspera Just Die Already Before We Leave Paradise Lost Everhood Calico Mafia: Definitive Edition Iron Harvest Project Winter Rebel Cops Rustler The Henry Stickmin Collection Farmer's Dynasty Between The Stars Retrowave Midnight Protocol Endzone - A World Apart Beyond the Wire Partisans 1941 The Survivalists Lacuna - A Scifi Noir Adventure 8doors: Arums Afterlife Adventure Greak: Memories of Azure Fling to the Finish TOHU Voidigo Neon Abyss Not for Broadcast Roki Narita Boy West of Dead Atomicrops Heaven's Vault Fort Triumph Orwell: Ignorance is Strength FRAMED Collection Bloodstained Superliminal Last Oasis Out of Space We Need to Go Deeper Carto As far as the Eye Cepheus Protocol Drake Hollow (currently Page 2 on humble monthly lists)
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Size and Weight: Spinosaurus is considered one of the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs, possibly exceeding T. rex in length, with estimates suggesting it could reach up to 50 feet (15 meters) in length and weigh around 7 to 10 tons (6,400 to 9,000 kilograms). Unique Features: It had a distinctive sail-like structure on its back formed by elongated neural spines, which could have been used for display, thermoregulation, or storage of fat. Aquatic Adaptations: Spinosaurus is thought to have been semi-aquatic, with adaptations such as a long, crocodile-like snout and conical teeth suited for catching fish. Its limb proportions and possibly its tail suggest it spent significant time in water. Time Period: Spinosaurus lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, approximately 112 to 93 million years ago, in what is now North Africa. Diet: Unlike many other large theropods, Spinosaurus likely had a diet primarily consisting of fish, as indicated by its specialized teeth and the discovery of fish remains in its fossilized stomach contents.
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Size and Weight: Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs, reaching lengths of up to 40 feet (12 meters) and weighing around 9 tons (8,000 kilograms). Bite Force: T. rex had an exceptionally powerful bite force, estimated to be between 8,000 to 12,000 pounds per square inch (psi), making it one of the strongest known bite forces in the animal kingdom. Time Period: T. rex lived during the late Cretaceous period, approximately 68 to 66 million years ago, shortly before the mass extinction event that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Teeth: It had large, serrated teeth that were capable of crushing bone and tearing through flesh. Some of its teeth could grow up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) long. Vision and Senses: Recent studies suggest that T. rex had relatively good vision and an excellent sense of smell, which would have been advantageous for hunting and scavenging.
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This is a very easy game. You simple add one as a non-staff member, and us staff count down one! I'll start: -1
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This is a reminder that any forum games you participate in do not count towards badges, post count, and anything related! Feel free to post here as much as you want, but you don't earn badges here!
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Hello everyone! I'm Kenson, the owner of Mesozoic Haven, and Co-owner of a future project this year! I am 30 years old and living in Central Texas. I love dinosaurs. Big time. Especially films like the Jurassic Park franchise, though World is alright, it isn't quite as good as the original films, in my opinion. Some other things I like include How To Train Your Dragon. But you can learn much more about me on my About Kenson page, which will be updated more frequently than my intro thread here. I also do stream twice a week, as a hobby currently. Would be awesome to be able to run this community and make enough to turn streaming into a full-time gig, although I am not expecting that anytime soon!
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So, you want to know some ways to optimize your PC ARK Experience? ARK can be pretty demanding, even on higher-end systems. That is for sure. There are some tricks to getting the game to run more smoothly, but it will sacrifice the quality of the gameplay a bit. That is until we see how the UE5 changes how the game runs. Let us explain a couple of things about why ARK is this way, before helping you optimize your gameplay. If you have any questions, feel free to join our Guilded or Contact Us, and ask us for some more tips! We would be more than glad to help answer your questions to help your game run just that little bit more smoothly! ARK Optimization Methods There are multiple ways to improve your PC ARK experience and thereby get it to run smoother for you. These include Steam Launch Options (which are not available with the Epic Games version of ARK, unfortunately), updating GPU drivers, and tweaking in-game settings. Hopefully, the UE5 Upgrade Fixes Some Major Issues Hopefully, the UE5 upgrade will make significant performance improvements to the game at large, but we will have to wait and see. The game seems to have fine FPS when facing certain directions with fewer creatures roaming around, and places with little to no base structures. Thankfully, there are multiple tricks to adjusting your ARK experience, but we will start with the most popular method. Why Is ARK So Badly Optimized? The main issue for ARK Survival Evolved's bad performance is based on its "spaghetti code." When they originally built the game, they used a custom version of Unreal Engine 4. They've since fixed a bunch of issues, but they still have some performance issues that they have still not fixed. Thankfully, they seem to be doing a full recode of the game in UE5. That should fix a lot of the remaining issues. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to fully fix all the problems. To get a good, happy experience, there are multiple tweaks you can do to give your system a little bit of a break while rendering. And sometimes, even mods are needed to fix certain things, which is only possible on the Steam edition, not Epic Games. Method 1: Setting Steam Launch Options The first, and "easiest" way to squeeze some more performance out of your game is to go to the game's properties and add some Launch Options. To to this, you will need to right-click on the game on your Steam Library list, and hit "Properties." We recommend starting with the first two. If that doesn't give enough boost, then second. Once you are on the General page, which should load by default, you will want to find the "Launch Options" field at the bottom of the screen. There are multiple launch options, but the most helpful ones are: -sm4 | Forces a simpler shader model, and seems to give a 20-25% performance boost. But it makes the game look significantly worse, and makes torches less useful. -d3d10 | Forces game to use DirectX 10 instead of the newer 11 (12 is latest). It boosts performance at the cost of visuals. -high | Forces higher CPU priority on the game, but doesn't do much if you donât have other CPU-heavy processes running, due to ARK being mostly GPU bound. -lowmemory | Lowers some settings to make ark run on PCs with 'only 4GB RAM' -nomansky | Removes sky details, but does not give much of a boost, just a couple extra FPS. But if you are on a lower-end system, every FPS you can gain helps. We recommend trying the first set of launch options, then booting up the game to see if it is playable for you with just those two. If you need to squeeze out more performance, then close the game and add the other 3 options to squeeze as much performance as you can out of the available Launch Options. [FRIGHT] -lowmemory -d3d10 [h4]Minimal Recommended Launch Options[/h4] -lowmemory -d3d10 -sm4 -high -nomansky [h4]Extended Recommended Launch Options[/h4] [/FRIGHT] Method 2: Checking GPU Performance & Drivers To be honest, this should be the first thing you check for getting better performance from any game, but in ARK's case, the method above might be the quickest way to boost performance. If that is not enough for you, you will want to check to make sure your graphics drivers are fully up-to-date. Or if you are on Nvidiaâs Studio drivers, you may want to change to the Game-Ready drivers to see if that's any better for you. Checking drivers is different between Nvidia and AMD, and even Intel's new ARC GPUs. With Nvidia, there are two ways you can get your drivers updated. These are Geforce Experience and manual GPU driver downloads. For AMD, we are not too familiar with any tools to automatically get updates, but there are manual GPU Driver downloads you can do. Mostly Automated: GeForce Experience/AMD auto-detect The easiest is by using GeForce Experience. That will automatically find the appropriate drivers for your GPU, and keep them updated with notifications in the bottom right corner of the screen when new drivers are available. We recommend this option, as it is less hands-on, and you get notified of updates being ready for you. If you are on an AMD GPU system, you can use this link to get your automated GPU update software. We are not experienced with how to use it, but it should not be too hard to figure out. Once installed, it should be more or less partially automated, at least. Manual Updates: From Nvidia's Website Download the Nvidia Drivers from here. For the manual method to optimize your PC ark experience, you will need to select the right GPU model in the form provided on this page. In our case, we would choose the following: We use the Studio drivers here to optimize OUR PC ark experience since we also run creative apps like photo and video editing and do it more heavily than most people. You can select 'Game Ready' drivers in the Download Type for your case, unless you are a creative person, like us. Game-ready drivers are the best option for 90% of people. Most people will not need Studio drivers. Nvidia's Studio drivers do not get updated as often, every 3 months or so on average unless a critical bug is found. This is because these drivers are optimized for stability with creative apps like Adobe Suite, Davinci Resolve, and other similar creative tools. Manual Updates: From AMD's Website If you are on Team Red, you will want to download from AMD's website if you do not want another process running in the background. Simply head to their website and select the right graphics hardware that you are running. There is not much to that. Hit 'Next' and 'finish' to install the drivers, then a restart of your PC is recommended. Method 3: In-Game Settings Changes While you are performing tweaks to optimize your PC ARK experience, these are some changes you can make after doing Launch Options tweaks and graphics drivers updates. If your game STILL does not perform better, it may be time to take more drastic measures like lowering your graphics settings. We recommend changing a couple at a time until you find the stability that you are ok with. Personally, we have not noticed much of a difference in visuals between 1080p and 1440p resolutions unless you are looking at something up close. So that's the first thing we would recommend. If your game is running at 4K or 1440p, try dropping it one setting level (from 4K to 1440p; or 1440p to 1080p). Another setting that can be fairly demanding is Resolution Scale, try sliding that down little by little and see if dropping it slightly will help. If you can keep it higher or max it out, the game will look better. If you drop it too much, you will notice a significant drop in quality, but also better performance. Anti-Aliasing and Post Processing can also be heavy hitters, try dropping those down if needed. Shadows can sometimes be fairly demanding, especially if there are a lot of dinosaurs roaming around, or in a forested area. We keep those at medium, and it is good enough for us. We do our best to keep Textures on High, at least, since that can make the dinosaurs look 'plasticky.' One setting that is not on by default is certain settings in the middle column like 'Simple Distance Character Movement,' which can sometimes help, but not always. If you have 'extra level streaming distance' checked, try unchecking it, along with 'Distance Field Ambient Occlusion (expensive!).' How To Make ARK Look Better (On PC) To be honest, even at max settings, ark looks decent but does not look super good. There isn't much we can do about that. This is where ARK Survival Ascended will come in. This guide is meant to show you ways to improve your performance, which does the opposite of making ARK look better. There isn't much that can be done to improve ARKs visuals without taking a pretty heavy hit to your game's performance. ARK Survival Evolved is coded with "spaghetti code," which means it runs, barely. ARK Survival Ascended is being re-coded from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5. This will improve the visuals, as well as performance. From what comparisons we've seen, and from what various major map makers for Evolved have rendered, it is looking like it will most likely look much better than Evolved ever will be. What Engine Was ARK Made On? ARK: Survival Evolved was developed on a heavily customized build of Unreal Engine 4. That is one reason the game runs so poorly even on fairly high-end PCs, and on Consoles it has the limitations it has. This will most likely be remedied by ARK: Survival Ascended's release this October (2023). Conclusion Hopefully, these tips can help your PC ark experience to run a fair bit smoother. The game is not fully optimized, and hopefully, ARK Survival Ascended will significantly improve performance, and it sort of has, but also has some other, different performance issues now.
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Here's a list of useful Path of Titans commands for both players, server administrators & moderators! If you find this page useful, please let us know! We'll add to the chart below as new commands are added to the official builds (we do not include Public Test Builds as those could change or be removed). Some people may call these "cheat codes," which some are; but these are also useful administrative commands for servers! Commands For Everyone These Path of Titans Commands is available to all players, no matter what! These are not permission-lockable or deniable. CMD Name CMD Perms Commands Description /rules Everyone Lists the rules of the server. /motd Everyone Displays the server's Message of the Day (MOTD). /help Everyone Lists all commands the player has access to, with a short description of each. /clear Everyone Clears the current chat channel (for you). /mapbug Everyone Copies current player position to clipboard. /bugsnap Everyone Loads dialogue for submitting a bug snapshot. Will not work with mods. /respawn Everyone Kills your creature and respawns them at a standard spawn point. Useful if you get stuck. /mute (user) Everyone Mutes specified player for yourself, not others. /unmute (user) Everyone Unmutes specified player for yourself, not others. /listplayers Everyone Lists all players on the server. /whisper (user) (msg) Everyone Whispers message to the specified player. If no player is specified, it will whisper to the last player you messaged. /w (user) (msg) Everyone Shortcut/alias for Whisper. Administrator Commands The following sections are for Administrators, or for servers that have custom roles that grant some commands to other users, like Content Creators or Streamers on the server. Common Admin Path of Titans Commands This is a list of the most commonly used Adminstrator Path of Titans commands. Bookmark this page for quick access! CMD Name CMD Perms Commands Perm. & Description /save Administrator +Permission=save Forces a server to save. /promote (user) (role) Administrator +Permission=promote Promotes player to specified (admin) role. /demote (user) Administrator +Permission=promote Removes all (admin) roles from the player. /kick (user) (reason) Administrator +Permission=kick Kicks the user with a message. Can optionally leave messages blank. /ban (user) (reason) Administrator +Permission=ban Bans the user with a message. Can optionally leave messages blank. /restart (sec) Administrator +Permission=restart Restarts server after X seconds. /cancelrestart Administrator +Permission=restart Cancels upcoming restart. /announce (message) Administrator +Permission=announce Makes visible announcements to all players on top of the screen. /listpoi Administrator +Permission=listpoi Lists all Points of Interest on the map. /listquests Administrator +Permission=listquests Lists all quests on the map. /listroles Administrator +Permission=listroles Lists all roles on the server. /listwaters Administrator +Permission=listwaters Lists all bodies of water on the map. /listwaystones Administrator +Permission=listwaystones Lists all waystones on the map. /weather (type) Administrator +Permission=weather Sets weather to the specified type. Available: ClearSky, Overcast, Fog, Cloudy, Rain, Storm /timeofday (time) Administrator +Permission=time of day Sets the time of day. Available: morning, night day. Can optionally set specified numbers for specific times. Eg: /timeofday 2000. Midday is 1200, night is 2400 or 0. /day Administrator +Permission=time of day Shorthand for timeofday. Available: /day, /night, /morning. Teleportation & Travel These path of titans commands pertain to quickly going from location to location. Very useful while running events on your server! CMD Name CMD Perms Commands Perm. & Description /teleport (coords) Administrator +Permission=teleport Teleports yourself to the specified coordinates. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /teleport (user) (coords) Administrator +Permission=teleport Teleports the user to the specified coordinates. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /teleport (userA) (userB) Administrator +Permission=teleport Teleports the first user to the second user. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /teleport (POIname) Administrator +Permission=teleport Teleports yourself to a point within the specified POI. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /bring (user) Administrator +Permission=teleport Brings the user to your location. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /goto (location) Administrator +Permission=teleport Teleports you to the target location. Location can be a name, POI, or coords. unsafe Optional, use to change from a safe teleport to unsafe teleport /teleportall (POIname) Administrator +Permission=teleportall Teleports all users on the server to a point within the specified POI. /teleportall (coords) Administrator +Permission=teleportall Teleports all users on the server to the specified coordinates. /bringall Administrator +Permission=teleportall Teleports all players to your location. Statistics Changing (Player Stats) If you need to change a player's stats, like healing them after a server 1-vs-1 battle event, this is the place to get these commands! You can change things like rewarding your players some Path of Titans marks (in-game currency) for winning events, though it's best to award all participants some marks just for participating to keep things fairer to all. Some things, like Growth Commands, exist in this section. CMD Name CMD Perms Commands Perm. & Description /addmarks (user) # Administrator +Permission=setmarks Sets your marks to the specified number. /setmarks # Administrator +Permission=setmarks Sets a players marks to the specified number. /setmarks (user) # Administrator +Permission=setmarks Add a number of marks to the player. /removemarks (user) # Administrator +Permission=setmarks Removes a number of marks from the player. /heal Administrator +Permission=heal Heals yourself. /heal (user) Administrator +Permission=heal Heals the specified player. /healall Administrator +Permission=healall Heals everyone. /godmode Administrator +Permission=godmode Apply godmode to yourself. Use this command again to toggle it on/off. /godmode (user) Administrator +Permission=godmode Apply godmode to a user. Use this command again to toggle it on/off. /(attribute) # Administrator +Permission=modify attribute Sets your hunger to 100. Use /hunger <user> 100 to set a user's stats. Other examples: /thirst 300 /stamina Jiggy 50 /oxygen 20 /modattr (user) (attr) 0.0-1 Administrator +Permission=modify attribute Modifies the user's attribute by the value specified. This is additive, rather than /setattr, which overrides the value. Some common attributes: Health MaxHealth Stamina Hunger MaxHunger /setattr (user) (attr) 0.0-1 Administrator +Permission=set attribute Sets the user's attribute to the value specified. Available Values: Growth, Health, Thirst, Hunger /givequest (user) (quest) Administrator +Permission=givequest Assigns the specified quest to that player. Misc Admin Commands These Path of Titans commands are just extra things that can sometimes be of use, but are not regularly/commonly used. CMD Name CMD Perms Commands Perm. & Description /clearbodies Administrator +Permission=clearbodies Clears all dead bodies from map. Helps clear lag. /waterquality (source) (0-100) Administrator +Permission=waterquality Sets specified water body to quality #. /waystonecooldown (source) (0-100) Administrator +Permission=waystonecooldown Sets specified waystone to % cooled down remaining. /playerinfo (user/ag-id) Administrator +Permission=playerinfo Shows specified player info. /servermute (name/ag-id) (time) (admin reason) (user reason) Administrator +Permission=servermute Mutes a player serverwide. If 0 is given for time, lasts forever. Can specify, example: 20m, 4h, 1d. /serverunmute (user/ag-id) Administrator +Permission=serverunmute Unmutes a serverwide mute for specified player. /whitelist (user/ag-id) Administrator +Permission=whitelist Adds player to whitelist/allowlist. /delwhitelist (user/ag-id) Administrator +Permission=delwhitelist Removes player from whitelist/allowlist. /reloadbans Administrator +Permission=reloadbans Reloads server ban file. /reloadmutes Administrator +Permission=reloadmutes Reloads server mute file. /reloadwhitelist Administrator +Permission=reloadwhitelist Reloads server whitelist/allowlist. Misc Commands These commands can be helpful for certain roles, like giving Spectator to your YouTube and/or Streamers on your server so they can use it to cast events up close without risking the death of their creatures (say, in 1v1 events or such). CMD Name Common Roles Commands Perm. & Description Spectator Mode Admin, Mod, Creators AllowSpectatorAccess=True Put this near the bottom, after OverrideAdminChatColor, and before ReservedSlot for best performance. N/A N/A N/A Sample Commands.INI Perm Config This sample config adds Owner, Admin, Moderator, and Creator permissions. Gold for Owner, Bright Red Admin, Bright Green Moderator, and Purple Creator. Gives Owners all permissions, Admins most (except a few like restart and such), Moderators useful permissions, and Creators access to Spectator, Teleport, and Announce. [Role:Owner] +Permission=save +Permission=promote +Permission=kick +Permission=ban +Permission=restart +Permission=announce +Permission=listpoi +Permission=listquests +Permission=listroles +Permission=listwaters +Permission=listwaystones +Permission=weather +Permission=time of day +Permission=teleport +Permission=teleportall +Permission=setmarks +Permission=heal +Permission=healall +Permission=godmode +Permission=modify attribute +Permission=set attribute +Permission=givequest +Permission=clearbodies +Permission=waterquality +Permission=waystonecooldown +Permission=playerinfo +Permission=servermute +Permission=serverunmute +Permission=whitelist +Permission=delwhitelist +Permission=reloadbans +Permission=reloadmutes +Permission=reloadwhitelist ChatColor=(R=255,G=215,B=0,A=255) OverrideAdminChatColor=True AllowSpectatorAccess=True ReservedSlot=True [Role:Admin] +Permission=save +Permission=promote +Permission=kick +Permission=ban +Permission=announce +Permission=listpoi +Permission=listquests +Permission=listroles +Permission=listwaters +Permission=listwaystones +Permission=weather +Permission=time of day +Permission=teleport +Permission=teleportall +Permission=setmarks +Permission=heal +Permission=healall +Permission=godmode +Permission=modify attribute +Permission=set attribute +Permission=givequest +Permission=clearbodies +Permission=waterquality +Permission=waystonecooldown +Permission=playerinfo +Permission=servermute +Permission=serverunmute +Permission=whitelist +Permission=delwhitelist ChatColor=(R=255,G=22,B=12,A=255) OverrideAdminChatColor=True AllowSpectatorAccess=True ReservedSlot=True [Role:Moderator] +Permission=save +Permission=kick +Permission=ban +Permission=announce +Permission=listpoi +Permission=listquests +Permission=listroles +Permission=listwaters +Permission=listwaystones +Permission=weather +Permission=time of day +Permission=teleport +Permission=teleportall +Permission=setmarks +Permission=heal +Permission=healall +Permission=godmode +Permission=givequest +Permission=clearbodies +Permission=playerinfo +Permission=servermute +Permission=serverunmute +Permission=whitelist +Permission=delwhitelist ChatColor=(R=102,G=255,B=0,A=255) OverrideAdminChatColor=True AllowSpectatorAccess=True ReservedSlot=True [Role:Creator] +Permission=announce +Permission=listpoi +Permission=listwaters +Permission=listwaystones +Permission=teleport +Permission=teleportall ChatColor=(R=200,G=0,B=200,A=255) OverrideAdminChatColor=True AllowSpectatorAccess=True ReservedSlot=False [PlayerRoles] 733-765-037=Owner Make sure to change the PlayerRoles for Owner to your own ID! This is Kenson's ID, and config used on Meso (WIP, not up)! We also recommend keeping the "Reserved Slot" for Creators off, unless you don't plan to give it to many people. If you plan to have a lot of Creator-ranked people, keep it set to False so other players can still join! [Reserved slots lock a slot to each player, so if you have 10 players with reservations, and 20 slots, only 10 can join at a time] Are we missing some important Path of Titans commands? Please, respond below and let us know! You may also join the Mesozoic Haven Discord and chat with us about this fun game!
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Here is a list of all of the official dinosaurs in Path of Titans! We will sort these by diet type and in alphabetical order! Released Dinosaurs & Creatures Carnivores Omnivores & Piscivores Herbivores Achillobator Alioramus Allosaurus Ceratosaurus Concavenator Deinonychus Daspletosaurus Hatzegopteryx [Flyer] Latenivenatrix Megalania Metriacanthosaurus Pycnonemosaurus Tyrannosaurus Rex Kaiwhekea (Meat & Fish) [Aquatic] Spinosaurus (Meat & Fish) [Semi-Aquatic] Suchomimus (Meat & Fish) [Semi-Aquatic] Sarcosuchus (Meat & Fish) [Semi-Aquatic] Thalassodromeus (Meat & Fish) [Flyer] Deinocheirus (Plants & Fish) Albertaceratops Amargasaurus Anodontosaurus Barsboldia Camptosaurus Eotriceratops Iguanodon Kentrosaurus Lambeosaurus Pachycephalosaurus Stegosaurus Struthiomimus Styracosaurus In Development Dinosaurs & Creatures Carnivores Omnivores & Piscivores Herbivores Eurhinosaurus Microraptor Rhamporhynchus Tylosaurus Leedsichthys [Aquatic] Miragaia If our guide is not up-to-date, or is missing a new official creature, let us know in the comments below! Otherwise, please leave comments on this thread dedicated to adding new upcoming official creatures!
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Here is the ultimate list on what you can redeem with PlayCoins on-stream on SharePlay! General Use 100 | 5 Pushups 100 | 10 Jumping Jacks 100 | (per) StreamLoots Chest [EXCEPT Epic+ can't be redeemed, only purchased] 100 | (per) Dino Mask - 5 Minutes 200 | (per) Beanboozled Bean 300 | (per) Warhead Extreme Squirt 500 | Two Warheads [at same time] Flavors: Gr. Apple, Watermelon, Blue Raspberry 500 | 3 Beanboozled Beans (5 mins between) Game-Specific Uses These are game-specific uses for the primary games that we play on-stream! Monster Hunter Series 100 | No Eating for 1 Hunt 200 | No Buffs for 1 Hunt 200 | Pick a Monster 300 | No Armor for 1 Hunt 500 | No Armor, No Buffs, No Eating for 1 Hunt [Discount of 100 Coin!] *PlayCoin emote used with permission of SharePlay staff
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The live-streaming industry is getting a new contender, SharePlay! This is not to be confused with Apple or PlayStation's "SharePlay" - they are unrelated. SharePlay is hoping to carve out a niche for itself as a viable alternative to the streaming titan, Twitch. Let's explore what SharePlay brings to the table, and how they aim to shake things up. A Focus on Discoverability One of the biggest challenges for new streamers is getting their content seen by the public. SharePlay is promising to be a platform designed to help Creators stand out. Their algorithms will show random streamers on the front page, up top for live channels, and scrolling down a bit for offline channels, as well: Online Random Channel Recommendations Offline Channel Recommendations SharePlay Is Born Putting Creators First, But Not Forgetting Viewers! SharePlay aims to be a platform that lets creators of all sizes get discovered! Traditional streaming sites focus on a "top-down" view of streams, showing the most to the least viewers. This makes it extremely difficult for newer communities to get discovered in the first place! SharePlay hopes to help resolve this by showing streams of all sizes on the home page and category pages, without showing viewer numbers, so people aren't as likely to go "Oh, they're popular, let's check them out instead." While some details are still under wraps, SharePlay is committed to providing a rewarding experience for viewers and streamers. One exciting feature is a global "level" system that appears next to your name in all messages. We don't know what all will be added to that system, but that's one thing we're looking forward too! We don't have a lot of details about other systems, but we do know they are going to work on features for viewers, as well as streamers! Is SharePlay a Twitch Killer? While it is too early to say if it will be a "Twitch killer," or dethrone it, it does offer new options for both streamers and viewers. Its focus on discoverability, creator benefits, and its plans for viewers (which Kenson cannot talk about right now due to NDA) give it the potential to be an amazing competitor to Twitch! Things To Look Out For Content moderation: Building a safe and inclusive community is crucial for any streaming platform. It will be interesting to see how SharePlay handles moderation. Will they have clear and enforceable community guidelines? For example, Twitch has had issues with harassment and hate speech and has struggled to keep those from going overboard. Striking a balance between creating a welcoming environment, and allowing free speech, will be essential for the platform's success. Building a Community: A successful platform thrives on having a strong community. How SharePlay fosters interaction and engagement will be key to attracting and retaining viewers. Can streamers easily connect with their community? That is important. Community building, and encouraging it, will be essential for SharePlay to create a platform that feels engaging and interactive for viewers, AND streamers. SharePlay's development is signaling a potential shift in the streaming landscape. Whether it does become an actual Twitch competitor, or only offers a fresh experience for creators & viewers, we all know one thing: we will have more options to choose from. We can only hope that SharePlay will become a worthy platform to stream and watch streams on. (This article will be updated as needed)
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Terra Nova: Spielberg’s Ambitious Journey to the Prehistoric Past
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
Terra Nova ... a show that deserved more than one season, for sure! It was a short-lived series that ran in 2011. This amazing show, executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, had a ton of potential, but unfortunately, it was wasted when it only lasted 1 season. The kids in the show are now over 10 years older, so bringing it back would be tricky unless they did even more time-travel shenanigans. Since Spielberg had such a high spot in the team that was creating this show, it gave high expectations from the audience. Unfortunately, it did not get greenlit for more seasons. Terra Nova, and Chuck, are two of my favorite TV shows. The latter was almost canceled twice but saved by the fans. Why couldn't the fans have saved Terra Nova, as well?! Be warned, there are spoilers for this show ahead! Terra Nova's Premise This show had a fairly unique concept. It was humanity's escape to the Cretaceous period, to try to save the future. The main characters, the Shannon family, almost got separated by the authorities in the future timeline. They had to be sneaky to get their family together. Which most people completely understand. Most families want to stick together so they can be in contact at all times, whenever needed. The future timeline was set in 2149, and the past timeline was in the "Cretaceous period." They didn't specify which part of the Cretaceous they were in, though. That is up to speculation. They mostly had fictional dinosaurs, named Slasher, Empirosaur, Gallusaur, and Ovosaurus. Some of the real dinosaurs they had included Brachiosaurus, Carnotaurus (though with some modifications), and pterosaurs. Plot Highlights The show begins with the family in the future, where the Earth is in bad shape. The father was not included in the family's ticket to the past, they had to sneak him through the portal so they could be together. Once in the Cretaceous period, they went to the town, aptly named Terra Nova. The commander, Nathaniel Taylor, played by Stephan Lang, also played a military-type character in James Cameron's Avatar. Here, he was a good guy doing his best to protect the residents of Terra Nova. There is also a group of enemies called the Sixers. The motives were initially unclear, but they're a constant threat throughout the show's short run. Along with them, there's also drama between a few of the families, too! Visuals, Effects, and More Back in 2011, the visuals for this show were pretty good. Though they've somewhat held up today, they could be better. They had high production values, with each episode costing around four million ($4,000,000) dollars! This was likely due to the elaborate setpieces, Special Effects, and the locations they filmed in. It was primarily shot in Queensland, Australia. More specifically, in the Brisbane and Gold Coast region. If they rebooted the show, I would hope that they end up having Steven Spielberg produce again! That would allow it to have a similar feel to the original show. With streaming platforms allowing binge-watching these days, they could be rescued by platforms such as Netflix. They have been known to bring back niche shows, either with the original cast, or a new cast. In this case, they would likely need some replacement cast members, specifically the younger children in the show. Terra Nova's Reception, and Legacy The premise of the show, mentioned above, was praised for its originality and potential but suffered from uneven writing. The visual effects at the time were generally impressive, but it was also very high-cost, for its short run. That 4 million dollars per episode likely contributed towards its unfortunate short end. With inflation costs, it would be closer to 4.8 - 5.2 million dollars per episode today. In today's terms, that wouldn't be too different from the averages. Broadcast networks can do 3 million or more per episode, Cable dramas can reach up to 5 million per episode, and streaming services can sometimes spend 10 million or more per episode! It would likely be 'affordable' in today's TV show industry. The impact it had on fans, like Kenson, though, was much higher. The fans of the show all wanted another season or two to flush out the story, even if it didn't go further than 1 or 2 extra seasons. Today, it remains a memorable and beloved show, though it was unfortunately cut short before it had a chance to take off. Concluding Thoughts Overall, Terra Nova was a great show that got cut short too early, just like Firefly! Some amazing shows don't get the chance that they deserve, and this was certainly one of those. I highly recommend giving the show some love. It's unfortunately not available on any streaming platforms, though you can buy it on Prime Video (Disclaimer: Affiliate link), Apple TV, or Vudu. -
Get ready for a rawrsome adventure! I'm taking a break from my daily life in Texas, for the lush landscapes of Hawaii! This is my first trip off the continent, and I can't wait to relax in the sun, explore new and fun places, and document my journey while sharing it with you! This blog post, and its subsequent pages, will be my trip journal, with lots of photos and memories to be made! Certain pictures with other family members will be kept private, of course. While I prepare for this rawrsome trip, here's a sneak peek at what I have planned! Stepping into Jurassic Park! This is a tour of the Kualoa Ranch. An iconic filming location for the original 1993 Jurassic Park saga! Get ready for lots of pictures of that trip, along with me hopefully avoiding being Rexy's lunch! Dive into the Wonders of the Deep! We're hoping to squeeze in a visit to the Maui Ocean Center, where I'll come hand-to-fin with amazing marine wildlife! Keep an eye out for a blog page with the trip to the aquarium! This is just the beginning, dino friends! Stay tuned as I update this blog daily, starting April 15th! Until then, this post will be not updated too much except if we add more fun things to do on the trip! Leaving Soon! I'm leaving for my trip in less than TWO WEEKS! I am very hyped for this trip, especially taking that Jurassic Park tour at the Kualoa Ranch, where they filmed actual scenes from multiple movies! I will be sure to update you all via an Announcement a day or so before I leave for the trip, to remind everyone that week's stream will be canceled! Update 4/13/2024: I am now beginning the draft of my "Pre-trip" page, which will be published tomorrow night sometime! Update 4/22/2024: Jurassic Adventure Tour page up! The right side of thumbnail image was created with Microsoft CoPilot Designer Day 1 - Flying Into Hawaii! Today was the longest day of our trip. I am writing this on Tuesday, actually. We were so tired after flying for nearly 10 hours and being stuck in an airport for another 2 or 3. By the time we got to the condo, after shopping at Walmart, we were wiped, and I went to sleep at 830 pm or so Hawaii time. Slept until 730 or so the following morning. We didn't get much done today, so there isn't much to talk about. I did find someone who was almost on our flight that works for AppSumo, an amazing service that gives you deals on software. Also met a kid at the hotel before we left that is learning to play the guitar. They said after only 3 or so days, they're learning some songs. Takes a lot of talent to pick up an instrument that fast, I would say. I don't have any pictures to share of this day, since it was mostly private to friends and family. But on Tuesday, we had some more fun things to do. Read on to find out what we do today! Day "Zero" - Pre-Trip Today is Sunday, the day before my long 10-hour flight to Hawaii! Today, we're staying in a hotel in San Antonio, since my flight is before 9 am. We plan to arrive in Hawaii sometime around 1-2 pm Hawaii time since they are 4 hours behind us here in Texas. At least for the first few days, my body will be used to Texas time, so I should have minimal to no issues waking up early for the Jurassic Park tour on the 18th! I am very much looking forward to that tour, even though it's 2.5 hours long! I will be taking my phone, a battery pack, and taking as many photos and videos as I can! Since I likely will never be taking this tour again. Waiting On My Ride It is now 3:30, and I am currently waiting for my ride to arrive, then my HAWAII TRIP officially starts! This page will be updated once or twice tonight after I eat dinner and get to the hotel! Keep an eye on this page for updates tonight, and my long day starts tomorrow, with over 9 hours of flying! Arrived in San Antonio just fine, got to hotel safely. Watched random TV shows for a few hours, then we went to bed around 10:30 PM. The Next Morning It is early Monday morning, 6:45 as of the time of writing this. We ordered Cracker Barrel for breakfast, since the one in our hometown is pretty good. We were NOT impressed with the food at this Cracker Barrel though. 3 out of 5 stars. They didn't give us any silverware, we almost had to eat the eggs, hashbrowns, and grits with our hands. Thankfully the hotel had some for us. Also, the grits were pretty bland, as well as the eggs. I should've gotten cheese melted into the eggs in hindsight. Oh well. The bacon wasn't too bad though. I hope the rating isn't for the driver, but for the restaurant! We are now waiting on the shuttle to arrive to take us to the airport, where our first flight to LAX will start around 9 am. Then we have a 1 hour layover between flights, so I can update and start the next page at the airport. Hopefully LAX's wifi is decent! Day 2 - Beach and Food Today, we spent a little bit of time at the beach, since its a 5 minute walk (or less) from our condo. We will be heading to an authentic hawaiian food truck to get some food shortly, I wonder what they'll have. Since I'm not big on coconuts, I definitely won't be having a Pina Colada. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when we fly to Oahu for our Jurassic Park tour on Thursday! Here are two pictures I'm comfortable with sharing, since it does not show any of my family members in it. I want to keep their privacy in-tact as much as I can! I am now just waiting on the rest to get back to the condo, they are still at the beach, so we can head to the food cart and try some of that authentic Hawaiian food! Day 3 - Flight to Honolulu & Prep for Jurassic Park Tour! Today is the night before the Jurassic Park our at the same exact ranch that the first movie, and parts of the other movies, were filmed on! Today we flew from Maui to Oahu, and are staying on the 20th floor of a Hilton hotel. We enjoyed some time at the International Market across the street, and got dinner there as well. We finished our night by watching Jurassic Park 1993, to prepare for the JP tour tomorrow! I wonder if I'll recognize any other locations besides the log. I sure hope they'll stop the bus and let me take a picture of myself by the log. That would make for an amazing thumbnail replacement for this blog series! We'll have to see though, if they do this. I read that the bus does not stop, but on the website it shows people getting a picture taken in front of the log. They could've stopped doing it, but I am hoping that it was temporary and they are back to doing it again. It would not feel like a complete tour for me, without getting a chance to get a couple pictures in front of that famous log where they hid from the Gallimimus in the movie, and where Rexy ate one of them on-screen. I am winding down, and preparing to sleep now, since it is 9 pm Hawaii time, which is technically 2 am Texas time, which is when I normally go to bed. Take care everyone! I will be taking as many pictures and videos on the tour tomorrow as I can, and making it a special album here on Mesozoic haven. GOOD NIGHT, fellow dinos! Day 4 - Jurassic Adventure Tour Yesterday we took the Jurassic Adventure Tour, and man . . . it was WELL WORTH IT! Want to know more? Read on to find out! Shuttle To Jurassic Park Our shuttle to the Kualoa Ranch took about an hour, and even then, we arrived 2 hours early! There was a couple of quick pics I snapped, but other than that, the shuttle wasn't that interesting. We figured out it might've been a bit cheaper or quicker to grab an Uber both ways instead. In hindsight though, if I ever am able to make it back to Hawaii in the future, to take the Hollywood Movie sites tour, we may take that method instead. Waiting ... For Two Hours Once we arrived at Kualoa Ranch, we had to wait at least two hours before our tour took off. It felt longer, though. But my mother and grandfather joined me on the tour, which made the wait more bearable! For privacy reasons, I am keeping their names and pictures out of this blog post. To any family reading this, I will have a private album I can share with you all in the future. They also offered horseback tours, ebike tours, and atv tours. If I come in the future, I may take a bundle deal with 3 tours and a lunch buffet for the same price as the Jurassic Adventure Tour. Since I've done that tour, I can do the others next, since there won't be anything new on the Jurassic Adventure Tour unless the rumored Jurassic World 4 films some stuff at the ranch. But what's cool about this is I can now officially say "I've been there!" whenever I rewatch the Jurassic movies! The Tour Begins! Our tour guide was very friendly and professional. His name is Zach, and I will give more info in a later part of this post. Our tour lasted just about 2.5 hours, like the website said. We had 6 stops along the tour, including the log from Jurassic Park 1993, and the hill they run from the Gallimimus on as well. Some other stops included the Gyrosphere building from Jurassic World (they took out the movie-specific stuff, but the structure was there). Another stop was an unused, behind-the-scenes look at the first building they designed for the Baryonyx scene in Jurassic World, but they also had the actual building that they ended up using. Unfortunately, our bus didn't stop at the one they used in-film, so I have no pictures from the "real" Baryonyx building. Though, for some odd reason, they have a statue of a Tyrannosaurus Rex coming out of the entrance, not a Baryonyx, I am not sure why that is the case. Our First Half The first half of the tour went well. The guide told us some of the history of Kualoa Ranch, as well as a bunker that was used in one of the World Wars (I can't recall which one, though). They had turned that bunker into an area to show props from various movies that was filmed either in part, or most of it, on the ranch. Our Second Half The second half of the tour, on the other hand, was wet. It rained for a few seconds here and there. We were in an open-air tour truck, so we got wet and rained on. It mostly started while we were at one of the stops we got out of the vehicle for, so by the time we got back into the truck, our seats were not just misted or lightly wet, but enough that our butts got soaked, as well! We saw both the actual Baryonyx building that they used in the final cut of JW: Fallen Kingdom, but the bus didn't stop there for some reason. We kept going, and the next stop was from an earlier version of the Baryonyx building that they ended up not using in the film. Very Professional Tour Guide Our tour guide, Zach, was extremely professional. He also went above and beyond what a Tour Guide is required to do. Told us all about the history of the ranch, since he grew up nearby, and so he had a lot of knowledge about the area. He also helped us locate my grandfather's phone. He lost it somewhere, and he was willing to go back to the last couple of stops to check for it. Considering it's a 2.5 hour tour, that tells us a lot. If any of the Kualoa Ranch staff are reading this, give Zach a bonus to his pay this month, or a raise. He went above and beyond the duties of a Tour guide. Overall Thoughts on Jurassic Adventure Tour I was very happy with the tour. Even the parts where we got wet due to the rain. Would I go again? Yes. I would do this tour again, but after I try the other tours like the Hollywood movie sites tour. From the friendly staff in the gift shop, the lobby/waiting area, and our Tour Guide, Zach, I would say that this was the #1 best tour I've ever taken in my entire life. I would love to try the triple package with the Hollywood movie sites and 2 other tours combined with a buffet in the future. I of course, would write a blog post about each of those tours, as well! Thanks to all the super kind and friendly Kualoa Ranch staff, for allowing me to have one of the best days of my life at your ranch! If you're reading this, I would love to work out date and time to come back, experience the other tours, like Hollywood movie sites trio tour, and the ATV tour! Feel free to get a hold of me if you're interested via the Contact Us link in our footer! Day 5 - Maui Aquarium I don't remember much about this day outside of the Aquarium visit. We went in the morning, spent a few hours there until mid-afternoon, then headed back to the condo. We went through the entire aquarium except the fancy sit-down restaurant, since it would've been expensive. One of the first things I saw was a tide pool, shown below: Soon after, I saw this weird seahorse-looking thing that wasn't a seahorse, but related: Can you find the Frogfish? Took me a couple of minutes to find it at first. This was one of my favorite signs in the entire aquarium. Lots of info about SHARKS! Please protect sharks, they are essential to the ecosystems and health of the oceans! Shortly after, we saw the Sea Turtles. Here's a couple of pics of one I saw swimming, along with the underside of a turtle shell: Then there's the shark tank where they had a ... animatronic? human? diver. Some of the kids at the demonstration learned something since I asked a couple of questions I already knew the answers to. "How many shark species are there?" "How many are dangerous to humans?" to which the answer to the latter is only 10-12 or so of the 400+ species of sharks found. Day 6+ | Relaxing Until Going Home Day 6 and later didn't have much of anything going on at all. We mostly sat around the condo, relaxing and doing small things here and there, like going to the beach a few times, checking out more local food trucks or farmers markets, etc. All-in-all, Day 6 through 10 weren't that exciting, not enough to write about for sure. This is the end of the blog series. I hope you enjoyed it! Have a day!
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software review Guilded – It’s Death by its Owners, Roblox?
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
We just got an announcement recently, about an incredibly poor choice by the Guilded overlords, Roblox Corporate. Even though I'm a Partner with them, myself, and the vast majority of Guilded Partners are extremely unhappy with this change. I will be quoting content from their latest blog post. Let me say this, I don't blame Guilded directly. I blame Roblox. They think by forcing me to create an account (which I can't, the username I gave to my cousin), they'll get me to play that horrid game that's full of toxicity and poor moderation. No, it won't. I guess I'll be losing 3-4 years of history, and my first major Partnership with another company. It's not Guilded's fault, it's Roblox's. Not to mention ... if you get banned on Roblox, for whatever reason, even if it is a mistake on their part, you'll be banned on Guilded too! Global ban from the platform, from what I understand. That is not acceptable. I can understand server-by-server bans for breaking TOS or their rules, but a global ban across the whole of Guilded for something on Roblox, even if a mistake? We can't trust that. Their first paragraph states: Beginning July 15 2024, all Guilded accounts will require a Roblox account connection in order to maintain access to Guilded's services. Email login will no longer be supported. Starting today, all new Guilded accounts will require a Roblox account. Jared They Didn't Discuss With Their Partners They never tried contacting us Partners (or even the GilGang [their version of HypeSquad]) to see what we thought of these changes. Honestly, they should have given Partners a heads-up before publicizing this change. Let us discuss it with the staff to get input from their active Partners. Of which the vast majority would have said "NO. Don't force Roblox login. Optional is fine, but not forced." or something similar. Before any sort of huge, major change that would affect a vast majority, or in this case, all of its users, they should honestly contact their Partners, get lots of valid input, and then take the input from their Partners to Corporate, so that way they can get input from their biggest and most active users of the platform. They didn't do that in this case. Guilded Used To Be a Great Discord Alternative This is no longer the case. I'm likely to lose my Partner status with them, but honestly, they did it to themselves. Guilded used to be an amazing alternative to Discord, offering free emotes, large uploads, custom URLs without needing Partner or Lv 3 Boost, and more. Why did they choose to slow down their development cycle, and alienate both their developers and users? It started earlier this year, or a bit before the end of last year, when the Bot API was slowing down with updates, and a few of the major bot developers have either paused development completely on their bots or have shut them down. One major bot, Parrot, was one of those bot developers that paused development, except for crucial security patches. They were considering rebuilding their Discord bot to Guilded again, but with this announcement, they decided not to: "What's Changing & Why" We'll start this off with a direct quote from their blog post: Guilded's mission is to build the best communication platform for your communities. In pursuit of this, we're taking steps toward more deeply integrating with the Roblox platform. By connecting Guilded and Roblox accounts, we're able to lay a foundation that will allow us to serve Guilded's current users with more robust infrastructure and access to new capabilities – from improved spam and raid prevention, to advanced localization tools, and more – while also introducing new opportunities for Roblox communities to engage and grow on Guilded. We're excited about the amazing opportunities this connection will help us unlock, but we understand that this may be inconvenient for our users who have not yet connected or created a Roblox account. For this reason, we're giving users until July 15 to claim their Guilded account with a Roblox account before this change goes into effect. Jared Here are my thoughts on this part of their post: How can it be the "best communication platform for your communities." if you turn something that used to be optional, and then start forcing it on everyone? Especially if the platform is known to have some moderation and toxicity issues? Let us know why you say that, please. Furthermore, "We're excited about the amazing opportunities this connection will help us unlock," is utter crap. That does not make any sense; at all. It is very likely to do the complete opposite, instead. Guilded's Own Users Are Unhappy I have gathered some quotes from various Guilded users who are extremely unhappy with this announcement they've made. While I do love Guilded and it was where I first joined Mesozoic Haven fully, I do not like the direction they are going by not letting partners voice their opinions on big changes like this. Cause you should not need a Roblox account to even use a different platform! If your account is banned on Roblox, you can just say good bye to your Guilded account as well. Gaian-Commander (Mesozoic Haven Admin) Discord execs would like to thank Guilded for boosting their end-of-year earnings. Codeize I'm not saying that they won't say that, but they probably won't name them directly, Codeize. I've been using this godsend of a platform for over 3 years, every chance I get a question in a stream about it, I stop what Im doing to explain the amazing benefits of all it encompasses vs Discord. You see a very well-known game dev sent me a side message with a virus once on Discord, which cost me over $450.00 in fake charges, I don't normally click things but this person was a valid person to receive a message from. So I found this amazing platform and it's security and gave my community of over 12 years of streaming a great home. We're older, we play a **** ton of Star Citizen and we don't like all the ****. I enjoy the 10 different options a channel can become, such as... the calendar, and announcements, the ability to give each game we play a section that also has categorized and organized sections. Great voice ability, beautiful large picture and video clip uploads.... all of these things make this platform MILES better than any Discord, Teamspeak or Ventrilo I've ever used. It became a home to people who DON'T PLAY ROBLOX or give ZERO about it due to its ability to attract the wrong kind of person and crowd. It's just not for us old folgies. But NOW I feel like it's Mixer all over again, great concept, but it's being killed off due to poor decisions by management. If this is HOW you want to get rid of those of us who don't play Roblox, this is obviously what you want and how you're going to do it. You missed the boat on monetization, so it can't afford, IMO, to support itself. It's always been almoooost perfect but not quite. I realize you also don't give ZERO about any of our pleas, or comments, or requests to readdress this decision. SO we'll move our community back to a platform I hate through no choice of my own. It was a great ride, and I wish you all the best....... but management and the person creating this decision, I hope you step on a Lego and they can never remove it from your foot. Ging3rbomb (Guilded Partner) A very nice, detailed post. Thanks Ging3rbomb! It sums up my favorite parts of Guilded, which are now unfortunately coming to an end now. Here's a quote for you, Roblox sucks. @Cupara Could you please consider reversing this change, before it becomes permanent, and a negative part of your history? FAQ From Their Blog Q — Will Guilded no longer be supporting communities that are not focused on Roblox? A — Guilded's mission remains the same: to build the best communication platform for you and your communities. Guilded will continue to serve gamers, developers, content creators, and interest groups of all stripes. Q: Can I opt out of connecting a Roblox account to my Guilded account? A — A Roblox account will be required in order to access your Guilded account beginning July 15. If you choose not to connect with Roblox, you will no longer be able to log in and access your account. However, you can restore access if you choose to connect and claim at a later date. Q — What happens if I cannot access my Roblox account? A — Access to your Roblox account will be required in order to log into your Guilded account. If you experience issues accessing your Roblox account, please refer to this Roblox Help Center section. Q — How will this affect the 2FA I have on my Guilded account? A — If you have 2FA enabled on your Guilded account, you will be prompted to enter an authentication code in order to connect your Roblox account. Completing this step will disable the 2FA on your Guilded account, and Guilded will defer to your Roblox account security settings. Guilded 2FA will no longer be supported. For more information on Roblox 2-Step Verification, please visit this Roblox Help Center article. Leaving Guilded? Are you leaving Guilded, like me? Check out this site (site is no longer maintained, here's archive link) for some helpful info! It has a timer on when the 'death' date will happen, along with a link to Guilded Scrubber. A way to remove your content from the public view. I would run that right before deleting your account. Concluding Thoughts I honestly hope that Roblox Corporate reverses this change. I'm not very hopeful, since you know big corporations seldom change once they make a decision. Once they make it, the chances of reversal are usually less than 1%, in my experience. There are some rare instances, like when the community won against Studio Wildcard & ARK Survival Ascended's horrible changes they were making to server hosting. We won that battle, but that was a highly unlikely one to win. Since the reversal of this Corporate decision isn't likely to happen, we want to take a moment to warmly invite you to our Mesozoic Haven Discord server! The same community we had on Guilded, but on Discord! We hope to have some game servers up within a few months once my debts are down a bit more.-
- guilded
- may-31-2024
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game review Toontown Rewritten & Corporate Clash - Which One Is For You?
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
What is Toontown? ToonTown is a game designed for kids but has people of all ages playing it. It has also been around for a long time, being released all the way back on June 2nd, 2003 for full launch. This game is one of my favorite nostalgic games, and I semi-regularly stream it live, in addition to Monster Hunter & ARK Survival. Watch live here. There are currently two primary private servers that are keeping the ToonTown community alive: ToonTown Rewritten (more vanilla-like) and Corporate Clash (more modernized). Between the two, I prefer Corporate Clash. It is less grindy than Rewritten is and has more up-to-date textures and more gag choices. Toontown in one form or another, has been alive for 20 years now! Disney shut down the game officially on September 19, 2013. They had it running for roughly 10 years since 2003. Private servers of kept it running for 10 years as of September 19, 2023. This game may look like a kid's game, but it means a lot to me, Kenson. I grew up with this game! As such, I stream it on a semi-regular basis. What Corporate Clash Does Better Than Rewritten Corporate Clash is a much more "recent" and "modernized" version of ToonTown Online. Because of this, it does require a bit more computer power to run. I personally recommend a minimum of 8 GB of RAM. That is not too difficult to get these days unless you have an old PC. Some of the things it does better than Rewritten include, but are not limited to: More Toon Species A New Gag Track (ZAP) 8 levels of gags, vs 7. You can also buy all 8 levels in the Gag Shop, vs having to get 500 exp between uses for level 7s in Rewritten Completely rebuilt (from the ground up) Lawbot boss, the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) The upcoming update includes a "mix-n-match" system to make your own variation of a toon species. Significantly less grinding than Rewritten. Makes multi-tooning (not me tho) easier. Leveling cog suits in rewritten can easily take months of work. Not always, but it can easily take months. You can play the full game "task-less," although you won't get the full 150 laff, since you need to complete each playground's Kudos boards. This is nice if you find certain aspects of the task line offensive. Some people do not like magic or witchcraft, so you may want to completely avoid the Ye Olde Toontown section in that case. But if you do not like magic or witchcraft, you cannot continue through the rest of the story until you complete that section. Because of that, you'd miss out on 8 Laff points, maxing out at 142. What Rewritten Does Better than Corporate Clash It wouldn't be a good review if I didn't compare the features of its "competitor" (they don't call themselves competitors, all Toontown private servers are friendly with each other because they are all keeping the spirit of the game alive) or "alternate" choice to Corporate Clash, would it? Here's what Rewritten does better at (in my opinion): If you have played Toontown before, it is a much more familiar experience. More vanilla-like experience (if you want to experience the original game (except field offices, they overhauled that from the OG game) Larger player base. Rewritten averages over 1000-1500. Corporate Clash averages 600. Uses fewer system resources than Corporate Clash (easier to run on older systems). Which Private Server Is Better For You? To be honest, it really depends. If you have an older PC, you will want to probably play Toontown Rewritten as your primary server. You can give Corporate Clash a try to see how well it runs on your PC. While I'm streaming, in an Overclocked CLO (hardest boss in the game right now) I get an average of 30 FPS, sometimes 18-22 or so during the final round. This is on a Ryzen 5800x, 3070 Ti, and 64GB of RAM with all SSDs (no HDD). But while I'm not streaming, it runs fine and can average closer to 60 in the OCLO. Other parts of Corporate Clash run a fair bit smoother than CLO/OCLO. Certain sections of that boss tend to strain a PC more, and it is the reworked boss in comparison to the old version of the boss still existing in Rewritten. This will hopefully be alleviated with the "Mix-N-Match" update from what I understand. They will hopefully be doing some more Toon/Character optimizations at that point, which will allow both better visuals and better performance. There is no "best server" really – it is a matter of preference. Both of them have pros and cons. Corporate Clash is a much more modern game, and as such, it requires a bit more of the powerful computer. Rewritten is the classic experience of the game. This means you can run it on a potato essentially! I highly recommend giving both a try to see which one you prefer. Conclusion In Kenson's opinion, Corporate Clash is the better option in terms of private servers. It does not get as many players as Toontown Rewritten, but it has a lot more modern additions. This makes the grind less labor-intensive, and they also allow you to change your gag tracks out anytime you want with no retraining. This allows you to change or build to be optimal to whatever is currently needed. That is one thing I like, meaning if I really need to add Sound, I can add it for that one run, and then get rid of it again. Because I normally run soundless. Who knows, you might prefer the more vanilla aspect of Toontown Rewritten. Be aware, though, that it is currently significantly more laborious than Corporate Clash. If you do not mind the grind, then either one will be okay for you. But if you are someone like me who does not really like magic in games, you may personally want to avoid Corporate Clash. Although, you can skip that storyline and go taskless. The differences between Corporate Clash and Toontown Rewritten are actually pretty significant. Clash aims to be more modern, as mentioned earlier. Rewritten aims to have less significant changes, to what they think Disney would've done at this point.-
- sept-21-23
- toontown
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Don't get me wrong, the entire Horizon (Zero/Forbidden) franchise is among my favorite games of all time, along with ARK Survival, and Monster Hunter (World/Rise). I love the fact that there are robotic dinosaurs in this amazing game series. But there are some things that when this game was released in 2017 were considered 'top of the line,' but this is no longer the case. The small Quality of Life improvements in Forbidden West, along with a Spinosaurus-looking machine (below), make Forbidden West my favorite among the two games. While this post is about Horizon Zero Dawn, I do have a Forbidden West review in the works at the same time, as well. One of my favorite aspects about the first game, Zero Dawn, is that you get to explore Aloy's origin story. In Forbidden West, it is less about her own story and more about saving the world (which you do in both games). Being able to explore the main character's own origin story is a big part of my experiences in single-player games. Things I Love About Horizon Zero Dawn There are plenty of things to love about the Horizon (Zero/Forbidden) universe. It's single-player, story-driven, and open-world; all at the same time. It seems that a lot of gamers don't enjoy good single-player experiences as much as we used to, and prioritize multiplayer experiences. There are benefits to both Single-Player and Multiplayer, of course. Single-Player lets you sit back, relax, and play a game at your own pace, since in 99.9% of Single-Player games, you can pause it at any time (or near any time). NOTE for Parents: In Multiplayer games, you can not really pause these games, since there is multiple real humans involved in the session. That alone makes it nearly impossible to pause a Multiplayer game. Very minimal games can be online paused. Some that come to mind are the LEGO series of games. It is not possible to pause 99.999% of Multiplayer games. If your kids are in a multiplayer session, give them time to finish their current round/match/game. Usually, they last no longer than 15-20 minutes per round unless its a stalemate in some genres. That is one of my favorite things about Horizon Zero Dawn & Forbidden West. The fact that they are single-player, so I can literally pause at any time to take care of things IRL, like family emergencies (should they come up), chatting to my stream at length about a specific topic that requires my full attention, and similar. Single-player games are great for that, and the fact that the first two (and upcoming third) Horizon games are Single-Player, is perfect for a chill community & stream. Another one of my favorite parts of Horizon is all the dinosaur-like machines. From the Tallnecks that look like Sauropods to the Slaughterspine in Forbidden West that looks like my #1 favorite dinosaur, the Spinosaurus, Sunwings (which are like Pterosaurs, not technically dinosaurs but in the same time periods), Grimhorns (similar to Triceratops), and others. There are many machines that give off dinosaur-like vibes, but not all are modeled after them, like the Fireclaw and Frostclaw which are modeled after bears. Horizon Zero Dawn's Storyline The storyline, in my opinion, is pretty well-written. It isn't the best storyline of course, but it isn't a bad one either. (minor spoiler) You start as a young Aloy around 6 years old, for a good bit. You'll finish the tutorial when she is an adult. I do feel like the storyline in Zero Dawn is a bit better than the story in Forbidden West, though they are both good stories in my opinion. If you don't own the first game, but plan to play the second game, I recommend checking out my streams (I replay it once in a while), or a YouTube video, to get the general gist of the story, at least. There are some areas that they could improve upon in the first game's story; once you arrive in Meridian, for example, some of the story at that point feels a little dull, in my opinion. The beginning of the story is good, and the game in the mid to end-game areas is better. And in Forbidden West, I would say its a similar story; parts of it are great, some are "eh," and others are also good. The Many Machines of Horizon Zero Dawn There are many, many types of machines. Some resemble dinosaurs, some resemble mammals, and others are more fantasy (like the Corruptor)! While my favorite, the Slaughterspine, isn't in the first game, it is in the second. It will hopefully be added into the third game as well, whenever that releases. Here are some of my favorite machines from Zero Dawn: There is a wide variety of machines between the two games. That allows for some very nice, unique combat between all the machines. I've seen some interesting videos where some people override a large machine and have it combat another large machine. For example, a Slaughterspine vs. a Thunderjaw. There is an area in Forbidden West that has both of those machines very close to one another so it's easy to get them to fight each other without any real difficulty. Slaughterspine in Horizon Forbidden West (Taken by me) What I Want To See In The Second Sequel After spotlighting all the people moving up the ranks at Guerrilla, the statement goes on to talk about what comes next: "We have full confidence in our new leadership as they steer Guerrilla towards a bright future," it reads, "expanding the world of Horizon with Aloy's next adventure and our exciting online project." Push Square, Stephen Tailby As Push Square mentioned in their post, a third game is all but confirmed at this point. That is something I am very excited to see. And there's even confirmation at the end of the second game, in a sense, as Push Square continues: If these words from the dev aren't enough of a clue, Horizon Forbidden West — game number two in what will become a trilogy — ends with a lot left hanging in the air. No spoilers of course, but the seeds were clearly planted for a third game, which looks to raise the stakes even higher for Aloy and her allies. At the end of the second game, there is clear evidence that a new threat is on its way to Earth via space. That is something I will be very hyped for and will want to stream or make a video series of it within the first few days of its release. You can bet your dollars that I will be getting into the third game within the first couple of days! Conclusion Horizon Zero Dawn, even though its graphics are a bit dated in comparison to Forbidden West, is still worth playing in 2023. If you have a PS5, you can play both games at no extra cost with PS Plus. For Zero Dawn, there's also a Steam release on PC. Hopefully, this means in the future, Forbidden West will come to PC as well. Thankfully, I finally got a PS5 thanks to a friend/business partner, so I was able to play through the second game without having to avoid spoilers for multiple years.
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game review Paleo Pines A Relaxing, Dinosaur Ranching Game!
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
Are you someone who has a need for a pleasant, calming & relaxing game with dinosaurs? Your answer may be Paleo Pines! They are a small indie studio making a dinosaur ranching game, and with my early access, I was able to get my gameplay in a week before the demo went public, I must say, the game is worth it, even though it is only in the beta/demo stages. From my 7.5 hours of gameplay so far, I am in LOVE with this game. I have played through the demo story twice. The second time I got further along with my ranch building than my first time playing. I plan on having an interview with one of the Paleo Pines team members that will be published on the site soon! Keep an eye out for that, and maybe some more tidbits about the game will come with it. When Will Paleo Pines Be Released? I will be getting early access to the full game, and recording/publishing some YT vids for ya'll! Embargo lifts around the 12th of September, 2023. I will be posting a video or two starting on that date! The game fully releases on the 26th to the public, though! The official Paleo Pines release date is on September 26th, but the demo is available RIGHT NOW! Go ahead, give it a watch, and see all the cuteness that's coming to the gaming world in late September! If you want to see how my second playthrough of the demo went, here is my stream archive that you can watch! Feel free to watch it all the way through, which is recommended. We did skip the dialogue on this playthrough since we already read it all the first time through. (it is 3 hr, and 45 min or so, just so you know!) What Is The Estimated Paleo Pines Price? We do not have concrete pricing information yet (will update this once we do)! We have an estimate that it will likely be around the $20 to $30 USD mark, but as there is no released pricing info, we have to make do with a guestimate for now. (Kenson's opinion) I am personally hoping it will be closer to the $20 mark. They can always add extra paid DLC for more regions and creatures down the road, and I will be buying those, of course. What Is Paleo Pines About? This game is all about providing a very relaxing, chill game with some vibes of Animal Crossing, Ranching Simulators, and dinosaurs, all combined (in my opinion, at least)! I am in love with this amazing game, and it is still only in a demo state! By the way, I will be making a series of videos when the game comes out in September, but I am keeping it a surprise for you all! Keep an eye out for that on my YouTube channel at the end of September! Paleo Pines is a game that we hope you will enjoy, especially if you love dinosaurs as much as we do here at Mesozoic Haven. Don't hesitate to join our Guilded server to hang out with us and chat about Paleo Pines, and other dino games! Frequently Asked Questions - Paleo Pines Paleo Pines Dinosaurs - What Will They Have? They currently have 29 confirmed dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures planned! Here is a gallery with the journal art for the dinosaurs! [GALLERY=album, 1][/GALLERY] Will We Be Able to Breed Our Dinos? No. There is no breeding available in the game. And since there is no breeding, there will be no mutation system. However, some dinosaur patterns and colors are rarer than others! Can We Name Our Dinos? YES! You can name, and rename, all of your dinosaurs, except Lucky. You can do so in your journal. How Many Dinos Can I Have? Technically, you can tame as many as you want. But . . . there is a limit on Dreamstones throughout the map. So long term, there is a finite limit on how many you can have on a more permanent basis. How Will The Dinosaurs Sound? All dinosaurs in Paleo Pines will have a more cutesy sound design. Larger dinosaurs tend to have a big, low, honking-type sound. Smaller dinosaurs, on the other hand, will have chirps, trills, and similar! Will My Dinosaurs Die? NO! They will not! They do not get sick, but if you forget to feed and take care of them, they may decide to leave your ranch. They will also never attack and kill each other! A perfect game for little kids! This means young children will not have to be sad that their creatures will die! Will There Be Multiplayer or Co-op? No. Paleo Pines is intended to be a Singleplayer experience. They do have it in their mind, so in the future, a co-op experience could happen. (Kenson's opinion) It could be in the style of Stardew Valley, or a trading system. But we have no confirmation on this as of yet. What Platforms Will Paleo Pines Be On? This game is confirmed to be released on the following platforms: Steam (PC) [And SteamDeck] Xbox (One & Series) PlayStation (4 & 5) Nintendo Switch Interview For Paleo Pines Coming Soon! (Update: Unfortunately, the developers never got back to us, so we couldn't get the interview. Keep an eye on our blog! I have sent off interview questions to one of the Paleo Pines team members and am waiting to hear back from them to put together the interview post for this amazing game that has so much potential. I would highly recommend wishlisting the game on Steam! Content I Have Planned For Paleo Pines I have plans to make videos relating to every dinosaur in the game, which at the time of writing this post, is 29 confirmed dinosaurs! You will have to wait and see how each video comes about! Some will come at the beginning of September to start hyping up the game with dinosaurs available in the demo! I cannot wait to share these videos with you, but as mentioned earlier, I do want to keep it a surprise so we can hopefully be the first channel to do videos of this type! If you have not subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do so, and turn on the notification bell to "ALL" so you can be notified when these videos (and others) go up!-
- paleo pines
- jun-21-23
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game review ARK Survival Ascended & UE5: Match Made in Gaming Heaven?
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
What Is ARK Survival Ascended About? ARK: Survival Ascended is a dinosaur survival simulator that pits you in large open worlds, surviving against the elements and many creatures roaming the world. You can learn more about ARK in our review post for more information and detail. There has been confirmation that ARK ("one") is getting an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5, which will make some big improvements to the game's performance overall. The original game was created off a modified version of Unreal Engine 4, and the UE5 upgrade will be a stock build of the engine, more or less, which should improve performance significantly. The Community Has Backlashed Against ARK Devs We are not sure why the community is as against this as they are. The developers are partially to blame, for sure, but there is also blame to be given to their publisher, Snail Games. The publishers basically tell the developers what they can and cannot say or share. It is all on the publishers for some of the key areas that people are complaining about. We recommend sharing the blame with Snail Games as well. This publisher has ruined some other games in the past, so we hope that Studio Wildcard can get away from them as a publisher, and go to a better, more reliable publisher like Microsoft or similar. ARK Survival Evolved's Development History While ARK has had a mixed history in the gaming industry, they have made a game that was, at the time, very unique in its combining of survival and a wide range of dinosaurs you can interact with, tame, or survive against. At the start, they used a customized build of Unreal Engine 4 (Source), and not a stock build. This means updating the game to later, stable versions of Unreal Engine 4 was not really all that feasible. With ARK Survival Ascended, the remaster, being coded in a standard (vanilla) version of Unreal Engine 5 (probably 5.1), it will make it much easier for them to update the game to the later builds of Unreal Engine 5, say 5.5, down the road. This should help it benefit from all the improvements of future versions of the UE5 engine. What Are The Unreal Engine 5 benefits? The benefits of UE5 over UE4 are plentiful, it has made many strides in performance over Unreal Engine 4. Unreal 5's Lumen lighting system has made dynamic global illumination much less costly, and more efficient. The Nanite mesh improves the quality of static system meshes, which makes a low-cost, more beautiful environment renderer. It also improves the physics aspects of games. The engine itself is also free to use, which is nice for modders and indie developers wanting to make great-looking games! Some of the best parts of Unreal Engine 5 are: Lumen - A lighting system overhaul, which is dynamic real-time illumination. Nanite - A overhaul of the mesh system. This should solve all the meshing problems that the original ARK Survival Evolved has. It does not waste resources on rendering things not shown on screen (which Unreal Engine 4 does). So this should vastly improve performance on consoles, for example. World Partition - This allows people to make much larger maps than the original ARK Survival could handle. Basically this allows maps to load and unload chunks of the map dynamically. If nobody is in a specific region of the map, it can unload it so it doesn't take up resources on the server. Physics System Overhaul - Unreal Engine 5 introduces "Chaos Physics" - a new system built from the ground up for UE5. It's a huge leap in physics capabilities, and will vastly improve quality of all Unreal Engine 5 games that make use of it. This includes: Rigid Body Dynamics & Animations Cloth Physics Ragdoll Physics Hair simulation and much more! Destruction - A completely new Destruction system. Will ARK Survival Ascended use this? We don't know yet. It will have thresholds that define how much damage is needed to destroy an object. This could allow for more dynamic cave and custom structures in ARK Ascended. Improved Lighting & Visual Updates are Incoming! As we mentioned in the previous section, Unreal Engine 5 had a complete overhaul of the lighting and visual systems in the latest engine version. There have been samples of what ARK Survival Ascended could look like, thanks to some tweets, thanks to these lovely people: There Are Some Downsides To This Upgrade, Too! There will be some downsides to this update, two of the biggest will be that mods will break and are incompatible from ARK Survival Evolved to ARK Survival Ascended. We will have to wait on the mods to be updated to the remaster. Another downside is that save files will NOT be compatible between the two editions of the game. You will need to start new saves, and cannot transfer them to the new game. Mods On Steam Edition WILL Break! This is one huge downside to the remaster that we will have to deal with. Thankfully, Nekatus (Fjordur creator) has stated he will be moving at least some of his stuff to Unreal Engine 5. Unfortunately, it seems the Eco decor mods developer may not be bringing their mods to ASA, which is a huge bummer if that remains the case. Those decoration mods are amazing and they make your bases look much cooler! ARK 2 Release Date Delayed Again This has been confirmed now. ARK 2 has been delayed yet again. To be honest, that is no surprise. We were expecting something like this to happen. What we are thinking now is, ARK Survival Ascended is being made just in case ARK 2 fails to meet sales expectations, or similar. This will allow them to have a more up-to-date game that they can continue updating to make some money to keep the studio alive if ARK 2 fails. Concluding Thoughts While the community is partly right, they are also partly wrong. Sure, Studio Wildcard has made some questionable choices in the past (like selling Scorched Earth while in early access), but they have also made huge improvements to the game over the last 6-7 years. They also have much more experience and knowledge nowadays. They should be able to successfully fix the game with this remaster. Updating ARK 1 would not really be feasible at this point, due to its heavily customized engine. They would have to recode the entire game from scratch even to fix ARK 1. So why not build it in a new engine with tons of fixes and improvements? Since it is a completely updated engine that was not customized by them, the remaster should perform a lot better. The biggest downsides are that save files are not transferrable to the remaster and those mods will need to be "recooked" according to multiple developers. It may not be very difficult to update mods for the remaster and not take a recode of their mod. But a lot of mods are basically abandoned at this point so some of the best mods may never get an update for ARK Survival Ascended or the updated Unreal Engine 5. Hopefully, someone will step up and remake the mods for the remaster if that is the case. Do not forget to join in Kenson's Streams!-
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movie review Lyle Lyle Crocodile - Fun Family Film About A Singing Croc!
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
I finished watching Lyle Lyle Crocodile the other day, and I must say, although I normally do not enjoy musicals, this one was one of the few exceptions. It's a great movie about a cute-looking crocodile named Lyle. It is available to watch as part of your Netflix subscription, rent it on Amazon Prime Video (Affiliate link), on Vudu, or on Redbox. I highly recommend watching the trailer for the movie. There are spoilers ahead for this film, if you are okay with spoilers, read on! Even if you do not like musicals normally, you may enjoy this one, as I did: What I Like About Lyle Lyle Crocodile What I liked most about it, of course, was the crocodile. I love reptiles of all sorts, so this movie was one I was willing to give more of a shot than most musicals. And to the opposite of what I assumed, I did enjoy the full film. Coming from someone who does not like musicals, this is saying a lot! Since I'm a big lover of reptiles, pretty much anything that includes reptiles, I will love anything that they are in. This can be from Jurassic Park, to How To Train Your Dragon, and rarely, musicals like Lyle Lyle Crocodile. It is a great movie, and a fun, feel-good film that I strongly recommend you give a watch. How can you say no to that cute baby crocodile?! He is most definitely a cutie. Although he grows up during the acts of the movie, I still think that he maintains his "cutie" status. He stays a baby for probably around 25% of the film, then starts growing into a full-size Crocodile that we know and love, named Lyle. I feel that this film will be one I rewatch on occasion since it is a feel-good type of film, and it has one of my favorite types of animals, REPTILES! Who can say no to the cute, scaley creatures that are Reptiles? I did use to own a Leopard Gecko, named Chomper. He is no longer with me and is living with another family in town that has lots of other reptiles, so his housing situation is a bit more comfortable, I would say. Lyle's Growth Through The Film Towards the start of the film in Act 1, Lyle the crocodile is a bit shyer. In fact, through a good portion of the film, he is shy until closer to the final two or three acts of the film. As the film progresses, he slowly becomes less and less shy. In the final acts of the film, he finally starts to become more outgoing and makes real friends who appreciate his singing. While the main characters (in this case, the boy Josh & the crocodile Lyle) are still learning about each other, the kid's parents are nervous. This is understandable since a LIVE CROCODILE is living in their attic. But eventually, the parents get to know Lyle and then they all become friends and are attached to one another. So much so that towards the latter third of the film, they even go so far as to rescue Lyle from being put in a zoo exhibit. Lyle's Growing Friendships Near the start of the film, he pretends to be a fake or stuffed crocodile in a glass box that his previous owner made, to help protect him from being taken away by the New York authorities. But as Lyle grows in his friendships with the Primm family, he starts to become quite a bit more social. This is evidenced by at first, only Josh knowing about Lyle, and then later on in the film, Josh's mother learning about "there's a crocodile in the house!" Eventually, once they become more comfortable with the crocodile, their dad discovers that Lyle was living in their house. Understandably he was very scared and tried getting the entire family out of the house, to keep them safe. If this was real life, I would probably feel the same way until I got to know Lyle as a friend. Would you not feel the same way as I do? It makes sense. Rescuing Lyle From The Zoo About three-quarters of the way through the film, Lyle is discovered by the local HOA group, and his first friend, the magician, is forced to 'sell him out,' to get money to live off of. But shortly after, he mulls it over and knows he made a mistake. He then goes back to the Primm family, Josh in particular, and gets his help to rescue Lyle from the "evil clutches of the zoo." This whole act is one of my favorite parts of the film, where the human characters come to their senses and do whatever they must to maintain their friendship with Lyle the crocodile. This is a turning point in the film, where everyone makes mistakes and learns to fix them and maintain friendships. Learning To Overcome His Shyness Since he is a unique crocodile, it makes sense that he is nervous and shy about his talents which no other crocodiles have. Lyle is the only singing crocodile in the world! I am personally not sure about the choice of the voice actor for the singing crocodile, but hey, what can I do? Until around the last act of the film, Lyle only sings in small groups like the 3 human family members, or by himself in private. But in the last act, he overcomes his shyness for the most part and proves to the world that he is a unique crocodile that deserves the love and life that the Primm family gave him. The singing from Lyle is decent, in my opinion, but could have been better. After all, singing in public can be a cause of nervousness in most humans, and in a crocodile that has that unique skill? HECK yea it can be tough to overcome. Conclusion Come join me on my streams or on our Discord server, and chat about what your favorite parts of this film are! Talk away about your favorite parts (but let people know that spoilers are incoming, please)! We would love to see you there. -
franchise review Jurassic Park's 30th Anniversary: A Tribute to an Epic Film
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
Wow ... 30 Years Already?! Wow ... it is hard to believe that it has been 30 years since Jurassic Park ROARED into theaters, changing cinema forever. This groundbreaking film, directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on Michael Crichton's bestselling book, introduced audiences of all ages to a world where dinosaurs were brought back to life. It was a major success, commercially and critically, and spawned a gigantic franchise that is still being explored to this day. If you are a fan of Jurassic Park, you probably know some of the amazing facts about this movie. For example, did you know that there are only 15 minutes of dinosaurs in the first film? Or that Jurassic Park broke the record for the highest-grossing movie of all time until Titanic? Or that the island where the park was located, Isla Nublar, was based on a real island off the coast of Costa Rica? To celebrate this 30th-anniversary special, Universal has announced a massive series of events and activities to honor the film and its gigantic impact on Pop Culture. Some of these include a special re-release of the film in 4K, a new documentary, a Smithsonian exhibit, more merchandising, and much much more! © 2023 Jurassic Bap What Is Jurassic Park About? If you are a fan of science fiction, thrillers, or dinosaurs, you have likely heard of Jurassic Park. It is one of the most popular and influential novels and movie franchises of all time, after all! But, what is it really about? How did it come to be? And what makes it so captivating and relevant even today? Today we will explore the legacy of Jurassic Park. As well as why you should read or watch it if you haven't already. (no really, you should check it out!) Jurassic Park is not only a thrilling adventure story but is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of genetic engineering and corporate greed. Crichton was inspired by his background in medicine and science, as well as by his fascination with dinosaurs. Crichton consulted with experts such as Jack Horner, a renowned paleontologist who served as the model for Alan Grant. He wanted to explore the moral and philosophical questions raised by his premise: What are the limits of science? What are the responsibilities of scientists? What are the rights of living creatures? What are the risks of playing God? Due to its popularity, some directors have even said that all the sequels that were made after were not needed. They could have just made the first movie and been done with it. But of course, as this movie itself even explains, it was taking into consideration what is common in the corporate world: GREED. Universal fell to the very thing that this movie was explaining. How is it that Universal succumbed to the same thing that the movie explains? 30th Anniversary Celebrations & Special Events © 2023 Folio Society Folio Society Announces 30th Anniversary Edition of The Book The Folio Society is a publisher that specializes in creating beautiful editions of classic and modern literature. They have recently announced a special 30th-anniversary edition of the Jurassic Park book ($60), the bestselling novel by Michael Crichton that inspired the blockbuster movie franchise. As a huge fan of the franchise, I will be saving up for this special edition of the book. This edition of the book features a stunning cover design by artist Vector That Fox (creative name of Jo Breese), who also made 11 full-color illustrations for the book. These illustrations capture the awe, and terror, of encountering these amazing prehistoric creatures. It also captures the beauty and fragility of the island setting. It includes an introduction by Steve Brusatte, another famous author. If you can afford the price tag, we recommend getting this book. The cost may be a bit high at $60, but if you are a big enough fan of the franchise, it would be a $60 well spent. I would get a copy of it for myself (Kenson), if I wasn't currently unemployed. Love the original movie, and have an audiobook version that I could play while reading this paper copy. National History Museum of London Had A Pop-Up Exhibit If you are a fan of dinosaurs and movies, you might want to visit the Natural History Museum of London. The museum had launched a temporary exhibit (which closed on March 31st) pop-up Jurassic Park shop in its Cranbourne Boutique, where you could find a variety of merchandise and decorations inspired by the iconic film franchise. They still have other dinosaur content as well, though! This pop-up exhibit was part of their celebration of the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park. It included life-sized models of Tyrannosaurus Rex, "Velociraptor," and the Brachiosaurus. You could also see models of baby dinosaurs, it was open until the 31st of March, which then shut down. We wish we could personally have attended to get some pictures for you to see, but it was out of our budget. Jurassic Park - 30th Anniversary Special Merchandise If you are interested in LEGOs, you may want to check out one of SlashFilm's latest posts. It explains LEGO's history, some other sets, but also the Jurassic Park T. Rex Rampage set that is part of the 30th-anniversary celebration. It has over 3000 pieces and costs a whopping $250 (USD). It includes a posable T. Rex, including jaws and a hidden compartment for its meals. That is not all, though! Many special releases are coming this year, and we will update this post with other special releases and events relating to the 30th anniversary of this amazing franchise to come this year. We hope to be able to keep you all up-to-date on these releases as we find them! Concluding Thoughts About Jurassic Park Jurassic Park is an amazing movie franchise. It could have easily only had the one 1993 movie with a remaster for the 25th or 30th anniversary, but they did end up milking it for as much money as they could make. We would have to agree with a good chunk of the fanbase in saying that they made too many movies. About half of them did not do all that well in comparison to the original film. Be sure to check out our blog for other Jurassic Park-related posts coming in the future! You may also be interested in our post about ARK: Survival Evolved, a fun game to play with friends! You should also check out our Guilded server to hang out with us!-
- apr-3-23
- jurassic park og
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marine life Winter the Dolphin: Life-changing inspiration to all!
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
I finished rewatching Dolphin Tale recently, then I decided to look up to see how Winter the dolphin was doing. I was very saddened to hear that Winter passed away on November 11th, 2021. She was a big inspiration to me, and others that live with various types of disabilities (I have an "invisible" disability that you will not detect unless I tell you). I hoped to meet Winter once COVID calmed down and became much more reasonable and manageable, but now that will not be possible. Since I will not be able to meet Winter the Dolphin in person anymore, I decided to show my appreciation for all the CMA (Clearwater Marine Aquarium) does in another way. I bought a little keychain addition which just arrived a while back (this is a rewrite of the post), pictured below. I will also look at ways to contribute regularly to my streams or similar. I highly recommend looking at the CMA's website to see how you can contribute to supporting Winter the Dolphin & Hope's legacies. They are a cause worthy of your support! My Pendant To Support Winter Dolphin Tale Movies I would highly recommend watching the Dolphin Tale movies (there are 2) if you love marine life or have disabilities that you live with daily. Winter the Dolphinâs story will make you want to show your support for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, even if not monetarily; you can show your support by sharing their Ways To Help page or this post with your friends. The Dolphin Tale movies would always get me to tear up while watching. But when I looked up and discovered that Winter died during my last rewatch, I was very close to crying. Winter's story makes me glad Winter had a longer life than most captive dolphins. Unfortunately, she couldn't live in the wild back with her pod due to Winter's condition. It would not have been possible, so she had to live at the aquarium for the rest of her life. She got a good 16 years of life; most captive dolphins only live about 12. Watch her rescue series here: Do You Love Marine Life? Suppose you are a fan of marine life and want to help support keeping marine life alive. In that case, I highly recommend looking at their Ways To Help page since you can help a marine aquarium & marine hospital to keep healing marine life and helping keep them alive. Of course, there are other causes you can contribute to as well, that are not specific to marine life (like the World Wildlife Fund). But I feel that the Clearwater Marine Aquarium deserves more support than SeaWorld (though I support both. Blackfish had a lot of inaccuracies. I have had 3 friends who worked there, including 2 who worked with the Orcas directly). However, both are doing what they can to heal marine wildlife. Marine life makes up a huge chunk of our planet since our globe is more than 70% water. We humans need to find ways to support and keep marine life alive. This ranges from Dolphins (like the Vaquita with less than 20 10 left alive) to Sharks which are essential to the ecosystem (which is killing multiple ecosystems globally with shark finning), basically all forms of marine life. Winter The Dolphin - An Inspiration To All She was a big inspiration to me, I have always wanted to visit and now that she is dead, unfortunately, I cannot. The only way I can show support is to keep rewatching the Dolphin Tale movies, their YouTube videos on the Clearwater Marine Aquarium channel, and by getting little things like the keychain pendant I always keep with me wherever I go. If you live with any type of disability, like me, you will more than likely be inspired by her difficult life without a tail. You can watch the Dolphin Tale movies on Amazon Prime [Affiliate link!] (rent for $4, buy for $13), on Vudu, and on Redbox. Concluding Thoughts I would enjoy it if you all could share any wildlife causes you supported, in the comments below. Please! Let me know what various wildlife causes you are all supporting. It would make me feel super happy. Looking forward to reading your comments! Don't forget to also check out my streams if you want to chat about Winter! -
late triassic Herrerasaurus - A Potentially Fast Runner
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in [PG] OFFICIAL | Mesozoic Haven's Blog
.fright { float: right; max-width: 30%; padding: 15px; } Quick Facts Name: Herrera's Lizard Period: Late Triassic Diet: Carnivore, small/med herbivores Size: 6m (20 ft) Weight: 350kg (770 lb) Quick Bio The Herrerasaurus was first discovered by a paleontologist & rancher in 1958, in South America. Its name means, simply, "Herrera's Lizard." There is not much detail available on it, but it was estimated it could run at a fast speed due to its stiffer tail. © Wikimedia Commons | CC 4.0 Attr. Share-Alike Herrerasaurus - Discovery & What Is Known About It? Discovering the Herrerasaurus The Herrera (a short form of its name) is a smaller theropod, believed to be a Carnosaur at first, but then was debated over a 30-year period afterward. The dinosaur was originally discovered over fragmentary remains, with many parts missing. It was also thought to be a basal theropod, basal sauropodomorph, basal saurischian, and even considered at one point to not be a dinosaur at all, but a type of Archosaur. What Is Known About it? It came originally from the outcrops near the city of San Juan, in Argentina, in 1959. These rocks also yielded the Eoraptor, as well. There are two partial skeletons that are being used for research on this dinosaur, which they thought were two different species, but then finalized their findings on both belonging to Herrerasaurus. © Wikimedia Commons | CC 4.0 Attr. Share-Alike Herrerasaurus' Growth & Size This dinosaur grew to be about 6 meters (20 feet) long and weighed an estimated 350 KG (or 770 Lbs). Adult skulls were found to be approximately 56cm (22 in) long, and it was fully bipedal. It had some strong legs for a smaller dinosaur. It is estimated that it could run upwards of 25 MPH. Even Usain Bolt only ran about 23 MPH in a 100-meter sprint. This dinosaur could outrun him, catch up, and eat even the fastest humans (on foot). It had a long, narrow skull that lacked most specializations that other dinosaurs had. It also had a flexible joint in its lower jaw that could slide back and forth, making it able to deal a "grasping" bite to its prey. The teeth in its jaw, were equipped with large & serrated teeth for biting into flesh easier. Its neck was slender and was also flexible. (C) Wikimedia Commons | CC0 (Public Domain) How Herrerasaurus Lived Its Life It most likely lived in lightly forested areas to hilly plains, where it could more easily catch up with its prey while running at its full speed (about 25 MPH). Pictured above, is a small synapsid that it just killed and is about to eat. That was most likely its primary source of food. Herrerasaurus In Media & Games This creature is depicted in the Legacy branch (old version) of The Isle as a "Sandbox Dinosaur" that was not normally selectable. You had to have a server administrator change your character file in the server's files in order to play as this dinosaur, or get nested in by another player. There was a mention of it in the Jurassic Park/World franchise but was not visible in the films. Conclusion The Herrerasaurus is an interesting dinosaur from the early periods of dinosaur times (Triassic > Jurassic > Cretaceous). It was on the smaller side but still had a sturdy build, and could run fast to catch up with its prey. This dinosaur was likely a more common occurrence during its time, and you would likely have seen it running around doing its daily business more than say, other smaller theropods of its time. You can check out my streams to chat & learn more about the Herrerasaurus! We'd love to have you come and join the pack! References & Notes Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons (Pictures)-
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game review EA's Wild Hearts - A Good Monster Hunter Alternative?
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
Quick Game Facts PLATFORM: PC, Xbox, PS5 # OF PLAYERS: 1 - 3 GENRE: Action, Monster Hunting DEVELOPER: Omega Force PUBLISHER: EA REVIEWED ON: PC ESRB RATING: T MISC INFO: Not worth it in current state. Overview of Wild Hearts EA's version of Monster Hunter is about to release (on the 17th of February 2023)! Does it match up to the long-time series, Monster Hunter from Capcom? In short: No. It does not. It needs some major work done, primarily on the Optimization front. My system with a 5800x overclocked to 4.2-4.3, a 3070 Ti, and 64 GB of ram was STRUGGLING to play it smoothly while live. For Console players, this review may not necessarily apply to you, this is a review of the PC edition of Wild Hearts. Performance Issues Galore At The Beginning The game does look good, to be completely honest, but its performance has some severe issues. I was playing on a high-end system, and it was still running slowly and felt laggy on-stream but about halfway through my playthrough, the game started slowly getting laggier. You would think that a system like mine would be able to run this game, if Monster Hunter World runs well enough, right? Well ... you would be unfortunately wrong! I will do some testing on it off-stream to see if it runs any better, but I am not very hopeful. Let us hope that EA can get their act together, and optimize this game a lot more. Wild Heart's Visuals Look Nice, But Looks Are Not All! As a continuation of what I was talking about before, a high-end system should be able to run any game you throw at it, without issue. 60+ FPS smooth gameplay. That is not the case with Wild Hearts. If you want to play a Monster Hunter-like game, I recommend the actual Monster Hunter series. It has been around for over a decade now (the first game was in 2002/2003) and it runs so much smoother. Barely any noticeable frame drops ever on my rig. Both Monster Hunter World and Rise run much, much more smoothly on my rig, and I can maintain 90+ FPS while playing Rise. Things I Feel Wild Hearts Needs To Work On The biggest issue they need to fix as their number one priority is improving the game's performance, especially if they want people to be able to stream it on a single-PC setup like mine. The game is stuttery and did not run smoothly at all. Performance is a big issue that a lot of studios seem to struggle with. They should have lower-end systems to fully test on, and not just high-end systems. They can not honestly expect everyone to have PCs from mid-range to high-end. They need to think about people on a budget that can't afford top-of-the-line graphics cards. Especially with the insane prices that NVIDIA is charging for the current generation. Please. EA. Optimize this game, and it could become a fun game to play with friends. Do I Recommend Wild Hearts? In its current state, I do not recommend purchasing or playing Wild Hearts. If you have EA Play, though, you can try a 10-hour free trial to see how it runs on your current system. Iâm sure Xbox & Playstation may run smoother since they are optimized for that. But with so many different PC components out there, I do not recommend playing it on PC at the moment. Conclusion This game does have potential, but it also clearly has some major issues they need to work on. Optimization is the biggest issue this game has on PC, but I can't speak for Consoles, since I don't own a PlayStation (I do now!), and rarely turn on the Xbox. Especially at the 70, or 90-dollar price point. If it was cheaper while it was in "early access," something like 20 or 30, then I may say "go for it" on PC. Until the game's performance has some major fixes, I would recommend saving your money for a different game that you want to enjoy. You will be happier with making that decision. You can check out my streams and join the Mesozoic Haven Discord to learn more and chat about other games like ARK and Path of Titans! We'd love to have you come and join the pack!-
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movie review 5 Reasons why How to Train your Dragon is an Amazing Movie
KensonPlays posted a blog entry in Kenson's Blog
Movie Quick Facts WATCH/STREAM ON: Amazon Prime (Affiliate link! Free with ads), iTunes GENRE: Adventure, Family-Friendly TOM. CRITIC RATING: 99% TOM. REG RATING: 91% MISC INFO: Great movie to watch with your kids, and kids with their parents! Great movie to watch with friends, or alone as well! We recommend watching in this order: Movie 1, Race to The Edge show, Movie 2, Movie 3 Reason 1: The Film's Synopsis Is Well Written How To Train Your Dragon is an amazing franchise, well, for the most part. The "modern-day" series that is up on Netflix, kind of feels sort of like a retelling of the first movie, so I would not really recommend that one personally. The original movie, which this post is about, is the beginning of a superb franchise that I highly recommend watching as soon as you can! The movie is about a young Viking boy named Hiccup. He finds a Night Fury they become friends. This movie is about building that friendship and trust among one another. It is a crucial film to watch if you want to understand the later films and shows in the franchise. Warning: Ahead of this message are SPOILERS (mostly for the TV show, Race to the Edge). (C) Dreamworks 2010 Reason 2: It Has Some of my Favorite Moments in Animation Where do I start? The How To Train Your Dragon (commonly shortened to HTTYD) franchise is a great universe of movies and TV series for entire families to enjoy together. Currently, it is a possible replacement as a favorite franchise for me, potentially taking the place of Jurassic Park. I seem to rewatch the HTTYD franchise more often than Jurassic Park(/World) franchise these last few years. What I love the most about the How To Train Your Dragon franchise is that the universe is so in-depth. There are many species of dragons, each with its abilities, classes, personalities, and more. If you haven't seen any of the movies or the TV series, I recommend watching the first movie first, then the TV series "Race To The Edge," then the second and third movies. The TV series takes place between the first two movies, and if you watched the movies then the TV show, you might be confused about certain things. SPOILER WARNING The TV show still has Hiccup's dad alive, so I recommend watching the first movie, then Race To The Edge TV series, then the second movie. How To Train Your Dragon is a wonderful universe if you like dragons. It has a wide variety of species of dragons, which I love. There are at least 85 species of dragons in the lore. Not all are shown in movies or TV series. But just think . . . 85 species of dragons in the universe. There is so much potential for more movies or TV shows down the road with new characters. Although personally, the original movies and Race to The Edge will most likely always be my favorite as they're what got me into the franchise in the first place. The expansive universe, its many, many species of dragons, and how they make me feel, are all things that make me love the franchise. In all 3 movies, there are moments I start tearing up and almost crying when they happen. I will not say what they are in this post, since I want this post to be minimal spoilers. If you want more details on what I like about each movie, I will be working on a blog post for each movie and the TV series as a whole (maybe split into two posts for like 3 seasons each or something). © Dreamworks 2010 Reason 3: It Does Have Imperfections, But Not Many! There are a few things, though not many, that I do not really like about HTTYD. Some parts of the sequels are meh, while other parts are great. As a lot of people say, the third and final movie was a mixed bag. It did have a nice wrap-up to the end of it, which I will get to in the blog post dedicated to The Hidden World. One of these minor imperfections, in my opinion, is that the animation style changes a little bit between the movies. Technology does improve at a fast pace, but I would have liked to keep the animation visuals the same between all three movies, personally. That would give it more of a consistency that people can come to expect. Then there are some minor inconsistencies, which happen in almost every universe created around a book, a movie, or the like. There are not many, which I do not want to give out specifically in this post, but I will likely mention them in the movie and TV show-specific posts, mentioning what they are between the other parts of the HTTYD franchise. Reason 4: It Has Plenty Of Sequels in Movies & TV I hope that they make more movies and TV shows in the future, perhaps with new characters (Psst, now they do on Netflix, modern-day. It was meh, and feels like a retelling of the original movie to me) to explore the huge universe HTTYD has. This will allow for a huge variety of content for people to enjoy. I would not be surprised if even more content is being developed or planned. I will probably write some posts here and there relating to the series, but as a whole, unless they make another movie or TV series, the franchise is at an end in terms of new content, so there is going to be a limit at some point of how much we can write about the HTTYD franchise. If you want to discuss How To Train Your Dragon, feel free to ask me on-stream! Reason 5: I Wholeheartedly Recommend This Amazing Movie YES! I wholeheartedly recommend watching this amazing franchise. I personally recommend watching in this order: How To Train Your Dragon (this movie) Race To The Edge (TV Show) How To Train Your Dragon 2 How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Conclusion Go and give it a watch in my recommended order above! It may take some time to get through the TV show, but you won't be as confused as to "why is Hiccup's dad still alive?" if you watch the second movie then the TV show. Let me know in the comments what you think of this first movie! You can check out my streams to chat more about How To Train Your Dragon! We'd love to have you come and join the pack! -
Today I write to you about a streaming tool that I use on my streams, Stream Avatars, and the avatar pack that I have commissioned! If you are on this website, you are likely interested in dinosaurs in some manner! If that is the case, and you happen to be a streamer (on Twitch, YouTube, Trovo, Dlive, or Facebook), you can make use of this tool and these cute dinosaurs on your stream! You can view the list of suggested creatures on the page with the button above. The pack initially started with just nine dinosaurs, but we have over 16 now! We want to add more dinosaurs, but we are waiting for the animator to have available time to make new dinos! Above is a picture of the thumbnail to look out for on the Steam Workshop. Search for "dino" or "Dinosaur Avatars," and it should pop up! We are planning on making this the ultimate dinosaur avatar pack for streamers to enjoy! Feel free to submit new dinosaurs in the Steam Workshop discussions area! What I Love About Stream Avatars You are free to use whichever dinosaurs you want for your stream. Enable some, disable some, or make some only available to subs or manually gifted out! One cool thing about Stream Avatars is that you can make some avatars unique for specific viewers. The avatars will also have speech bubbles with what the viewer says in chat appearing above it. There are minigames like boss fights (right now, we have three bosses!) and a battle royale minigame for all viewers to enjoy. Viewers can also duel each other. Stream Avatars is a tool only the streamer has to purchase, so the viewers do not need to run a copy on their machines! The app is only $20, which is not bad. Your viewers can interact with the avatars via a Twitch extension or chat for other services! Things Stream Avatars Could Improve Upon This is a pretty minor thing, but Mixer's been gone for a year now (RIP, one of my favorite websites of all time), so they should honestly remove it as a login option for the app. Hopefully, they notice and get to remove it soon unless they're hopeful for a revival, haha. One thing I would love to see would be to allow specific viewers' avatars always to show. Even if they aren't active while still despawning other inactive viewers. Say, for example, your mods, subscribers, and VIPs to the channel could always have their avatars spawn in and stay even if they're lurking and not actively chatting. They should honestly increase the "extension space" if someone wants to have a lot of avatars to use but not create avatars themselves, and make the upload space for active artists much higher. It gives you less than 25 MB by default. That usually is enough for most people, but with my avatar pack, we have 12 of the 19 planned dinos, and one boss of probably ten or so planned bosses, and we're already at nearly 4% of the storage. It does not include the possibility of some custom backgrounds or "gear" that people can add to their dinos potentially down the road. You Mentioned Dinosaur Avatars? What About Them? It is true! I did commission a great artist to make our dinosaur avatar pack. Their name is Potterzilla. They also made the Smash Bros avatars if you are interested in those. My dinosaur avatar pack is the only dedicated dinosaur pack out there for dinosaur lovers or people who want to give dinosaur avatar options to their viewers. I am striving to make these avatars reasonably accurate to what they would've looked like in real life and scaling them roughly to what they'd be if they all lived together. Some dinosaurs, like the Velociraptor, had to be scaled up a bit, or they would be nearly impossible to see, though, unfortunately. If you have any suggestions for dinosaurs to add, please do not hesitate to add your suggestions in the Workshop discussion tab for the pack, in the comments below, by joining our Discord, or contact us directly! I will add it to my notes with a list of dinosaurs we eventually want to add if it does not seem like it would be too similarly designed to the dinosaur avatars that we already have. Additional Notes I will update this post over time when we add new avatars, and we will adjust our thoughts if the Stream Avatars dev adds the features that I mentioned in the "Improve Upon" section. Keep an eye out for updates every so often! I stream with the avatar pack when I stream games that are not too demanding to cause the app to slow down! Feel free to come watch!
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