Been feeling down lately. Went to a bookstore. Happened on this little fella. Started reading. Piece by piece. I smiled. Best rediscovery ever.

#poetry #bukowski

I wouldn't mind AI in certain graphics, personally, but there's been so much of it, looking samey, uncanny and robotic, that I just feel drained whenever I see more. I swear I am getting an allergy. Upon witnessing slop, my eyes swell and brain goes numb.

6. Characters look like amateur actors -- looking at the "camera", not really interacting with each other, feeling stiff (that's because they are just stiffs).

5. The scene is off -- a cashier in the middle of a room, for example, weirdly too many doors on one side etc. (It's just the way it generates, babs.)

4. Check the background. You might find some visual artifacts the AI or the slopmaker was not able to retouche. (Usually some tangled but complex mess of shapes and lines).

3. Sometimes there's an uncanny symmetry and perfection to faces, bodies and shapes. Seems to be beyond meticulousness of a human perfecionist.

2. All models pretty much cycle the same few styles (perhaps deemed to be effective? The most condensed?) It's Meka Slop Monet signature style.

I noticed some slopmakers on Deviantart don't use the AI tag. Perhaps to get more views. Anyway there's an ok ruleset for recognising slop (that might not look like it at the first glance). Feel free to adjust it/expand on it:

1. There's very high production volume in a short span of time.

Seeing so much ai slop, slopaganda and deep faking being created in record times is a really good argument for regulation. A meth lab can fit into a plastic bag, a single bad actor with a reliable model can sway a public opinion. We are in no position to just let it go.

#ai #slop #slopaganda

Lerone Pieters is a professional photographer based in New York City who uses the city as his muse to create cinematic, evocative night scenes. His work frequently features high-contrast compositions, silhouetted figures with umbrellas, and vibrant neon reflections on rain-slicked pavement.

Pieters is a professional photographer based in New York City who uses the city as his muse to create cinematic, evocative night scenes. His work frequently features high-contrast compositions, silhouetted figures with umbrellas, and vibrant neon reflections on rain-slicked pavement.

So was gaming better than it is now? Absolutely not. There are more options, more games, more designs, a great history of game dev influencing better today. Greed was there before, and still is, with big names. Are some oldies worth (re)visiting? Absolutely maybe.

Considering greedy practice, lazy game design and exorbitant retail prices I have found a great solution to that: I play and support games that cater to my taste, because I can, nowadays, thanks to game market being big and diverse.

Are MTX simply bad? What if I say I consider subs for an online game worse because it gates the experience right away? In a way mtx are a step up from subs (I am talking Warframe or PoE or Deep Rock Galactic, for example), I can play and decide to support later. Method is not wrong. Practice can be.

Some of these games gain a new relevance, because modders improve them or re-release them through open source projects. That's not the good old game as you might remember. That's a new experience that exists thanks to today's efforts.

I have been playing some of these games, replaying some, playing some for the first time. I have found that only a fraction of them feel replayable to this day. Most have only historic value, or a setting/story so good it's worth slogging through. Or they become redundant through successor design.

Missing or dodgy QoL is not a question of now vs then. Take Wizardry 8 and Might and Magic 7. One has a streamlined, easy to grasp combat, one is a convoluted mess involving clicking small ugly icons. Guess which is which.

AAA gaming is actually absolutely driven by the people influenced by good old 90's. Dinosaur brains from the era of early physics, 3d and graphic fidelity races who race today, oblivious to a fact that that's a bygone era.

There's much more games to play nowadays and much more options, communities and resources for indie dev and indie scene overall. Even Path of Achra, which looks like a pixel holding potato, has deeper mechanics than many of the old releases made by whole teams.

Considering game quality, for example, if Morrowind came out today, it would get mixed reviews at best, review-bombed at worst. Why? Dated graphics, unfinished mechanics, bugged as hell, main quest literally borked. There's many oldies we love today, but are broken messes with years of patching.

Some technologies and designs developed/continued today were sidelined by early stakeholders (Microsoft supporting DirectX as opposed to OpenGL which was cleaner and more stable tech) or budget constraints.

90's game industry was revolutionary, because the underlying tech was booming. Stakeholders came in smelling the blood, and they were willing to invest.

I feel like there's a lot of (denied) nostalgia in gaming spaces, but let's be real for a moment here. I'll add each point as a separate post:

#gaming #videogames #opinion #indiegames

That's so real. I love it.

I actually found out that having a scatterbrain is actually a design superpower. While writing, for example, I always ask myself: "Would I pay attention to this?" And damn it does pay off!

Looks cool and adhd friendly! Scatterbrain approved.

Three Fates at the window. One Fate is about to f*ck the other up. Third Fate watches carefree snacks outside.

#cats #moarcats

Dead mer tell no tale. I just found him exactly like that.

Like... What have I been doing? OpenMW is the way! No MSWE from now on, babs.

#morrowind #tes #openmw

The beast gasped and rolled over. I came closer. Seeing its torn belly, guts spilling out, the resigned look, it made me uneasy, but also... hungry.

#itsjustapopcorn #dontworry

I like to whisper "sneaking and stabbing!" when I play her xd. I love rogues too (and fireball casting wizards).

Her playstyle is so smooth! Even though others are fun too.