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[AlphaCrystalDragon69]

I'm very proud to announce,
Mack Hugo was born on 14 March 2024 @ 04:09am
7.4lbs
3.88kg
3880g
Measuring 51cm
MrsSith did an incredible job delivering our boy, it was no easy feat!
Lunar year of the Dragon
A member of Generation Alpha
And Katie and I have just celebrated our Crystal Anniversary!
So... username AlphaCrystalDragon69 taken or should I just register that now? :-D

Where else would I go to check if I am the only one experiencing issues with Discord?
All I get when launching the app is a message saying "Sorry, you have been blocked you are unable to access discord.com"

A quick look at down detector shows quite a number of reports but nothing like a nationwide black out, so who knows!

Unrelated, I think this is the image of pure greed from Discord that I think is really a shame.

FIRST!

Lets discuss future Ark plans like we would normally, also, plan boss fights etc!

Hi everyone!

You might have seen chatter about the Center being live again, I don't have the achievement for the boss kills here and I have been working with the gang to get the resources ready to do this!

We're looking to take on the boss on Thursday night. If you're able to help find some of the materials check the vault at the Blue tower to see what is still outstanding.

Otherwise come get an achievement with us on Thursday night I'm sure it will be a laugh since the map is old and we have gear from the future of ark :-D

[mmorpg]

Picture this, its 2014 (That's 5BC 'Before Covid') and this YouTube video is revealed of a new South Korean mmorpg that is a top down Diablo type arpg.
[video=youtube;R8MPRzTONUE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8MPRzTONUE[/video]

Fast forward to 2022 and it is FINALLY getting a western release having enjoyed many years of success in KR and in Russia, published by Amazon games (not a plug I promise) and it is FREE TO PLAY Launching on 11 Feb unless you get a founders pack for a headstart.
[video=youtube;4Sjlex_DdGk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sjlex_DdGk[/video]

I am mainly starting this thread to just ensure that anyone who chooses to give it a go, all end up on the same server. This website does a good job of breaking them down, but it looks for me at least like Zinnervale will be my first choice unless anyone has a hardcore reason for another I'm not aware of, maybe some big twitch community or something?

Anyone else going to give it a try?

Katie and I have tickets booked to go see the Matrix's 4th (Possibly final?) instalment for release day at 6pm 12.22.21 <--(The American cinema loves that the numbers look this way in their calendar format so I'm using it here)

Anyone as hyped as we are for the film? We have just made it through a rewatch of the legendary original release, and are making our way through the Animatrix before relaxing with the sequels over the next weekends.

I'm a huge fan of the series and have loved the games etc that have accompanied it, and for those that don't know there is a free PS5 "Experience" released yesterday that is supposed to setup / tie in / hype up the coming film, I can't wait to try it this afternoon!
I also am particularly fond of theory videos around the matrix and I thought it would be nice to link one of my favourites here.

Otherwise have a great afternoon!
[video=youtube;VkMU1mKdwPI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkMU1mKdwPI[/video]

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a video by Marques Brownlee (like he needs views lol) that I thought was incredibly interesting and maybe a bit of a hot topic amongst a technology focused / gaming group like all of us!

I first noticed the AI effects on photos with my Huawei P30 and it was the phone that made me sell my DSLR actually, I'm not ashamed at all to admit that I loved getting the photos I wanted faster just by tweaking an already slightly tweaked photo, and the results I achieved were fascinating, I wanted a better screen and processor and switched to a OnePlus 8 this year when it was incredibly cheap one day and I have to say, I have regretted the camera switch for sure, and possibly this is just because the OnePlus Chinese-Photo-computer-man living in my phone interprets images differently to the little Huawei demon that lived in my P30.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts, especially from some of our Photographers in the community (I'm looking at you Smilodon!) to see what other considerations there are :-)

Link to the video below:
[video=youtube;MZ8giCWDcyE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ8giCWDcyE[/video]

First!

Just want to say thanks to all of you, especially the Admins for doing a great job on such an intimate LAN, it was great seeing you all and I'm glad that all of you that tried the Muffins enjoyed them!

It was awesome see you all and I can't wait to see those attendance numbers skyrocket for the upcoming LAN's !

Travel safe everyone!

I travelled to the moons in-game in my Cutlass Black and really enjoyed doing some actual exploring.

The result is this collage I made of the view from the side doors of my Cutty.

HUGE Thanks to Pesteh for helping me align the images!

This is all captured in Alpha 3.14.1

The huge image can be found here!

Hey everyone!

In case any of you had a fleeting thought that "Oh Sith is from SA, I wonder if he's wondering about what is going on there."

My hometown and regular spots for the weekend have been utterly destroyed

Luckily most of my family have moved away but the ones in Johannesburg are ok and away from trouble for now..

Pretty mental, just thought I'd share since its pretty surreal looking at footage emerging from there and recognising the places.

Hello all my fellow pyromaniacs!

I am finally going to make my first purchase of a BBQ (a braai) in the UK and it just occurred to me that I've long got by in SA with only a hand made drum type braai, or someone else's brick braai.
I'm sure there are plenty of deadMen (possibly some other genders) who have purchased BBQ's in the past and can share some tips on purchases or really reliable / fun BBQ's

I am determined to stick to my roots and exclusively purchase a wood/charcoal type, so please recommend away, at first glance I like the shape of this little number and this is probably where my budget reaches its apex too.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! otherwise just share what you like, I know at least a few members have got smokers etc.

[(I HAVE COMMITTED NO MONEY TO THIS GAME!)]

This is simply the most enjoyable fun, funny and fantastic game I have ever seen on a mobile device. (I HAVE COMMITTED NO MONEY TO THIS GAME!)

I have set up a guild in the game I would love people to join, at this early stage, the guild only serves to do seasonal raids where we damage raid bosses as teams.
Feature list is extensive, I'm not even going to try list it here, its fun man, give it a go.


Check out the trailer below, and let me know if you're playing at all. and also the main site at https://guardiantales.com if you still want to see more before trying a free game.
[video=youtube;WPKB3KJYTn4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPKB3KJYTn4&t[/video]

[not]

I've not purchased it or anything like that yet.

Yo everyone, if you're interested in new MMO's check out https://ashesofcreation.com

Just been catching up on MMO news this morning, it looks like Ashes of Creation is coming along nicely, I've watched this vid by none other than LazyPeon that covers just about everything there is to cover about the upcoming game.
.
[video=youtube;1s82xJnx1EY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s82xJnx1EY[/video]
.
Recently-ish the dev's uploaded this video which is just purely gameplay for almost 2hours.
.
[video=youtube;fkwaYLOuw2s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkwaYLOuw2s&t[/video]
.
It has a referral program I'm not even sure what the rewards for are but my link is here in case you decide to sign up THE REFERRAL LINK

I've not purchased it or anything like that yet.

Here's a vid of the Claim Jumpers mission in a Freelancer (which all of us have for free at the moment)

I have upgraded its guns only slightly, I've swapped ballistics for the NDB-30 Neutron Laser Repeaters thats all. No ammo replenishment and no heat issues, but the engagement range is shorter.

Enjoy the vid it is the fastest 15k aUEC you can make in the game right now I think, and I take multiple of these at the same time, that way you end up with possibly 2 missions in the same mining claim area.
[video]https://youtu.be/14sg0wMX-GI[/video]

Hey dudes, I've recorded a 24minute full in its entirety FPS mission that's available in game, it is paying 14000 credits for relatively LITTLE effort, especially if you encounter one of the issues I had. [SPOILER]The AI NPC's that spawned for me were brainless...[/SPOILER]
.
[video=youtube;RjliFt4UHU8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjliFt4UHU8[/video]
.
Some things  to note:
I'm not a youtuber lol
The mission was a complete end to end success, however I didnt realise I would become a criminal for dispatching "scum" as the mission title suggested.
I loot a weapon from one of the dead npc's and I try to demonstrate that it becomes part of my inventory now, I effectively own the gun afterwards, its just not been purchased.

The attack in space is because I'm a criminal, it is not a player it is an NPC.

Enjoy the footage dudes, I'll try to record other odds and ends from the fun stuff available!

Hey everyone!

Todays question is about why my SSD will no longer boot!
Except it does boot if I manually select it from the bootable devices in the BIOS, the boot order doesn't reflect the drives I have and if I disable the other drives and leave only my Samsung Evo (the one in Q here) I get a loop to BIOS because NO drives are detected at all.

So if I had to put maths to it, it detects the drive 1/5 boots.

I have so far:
Updated WINDOWS
Updated BIOS

FORMATTED,
INSTALLED WINDOWS

The problem persists, I have to select the drive (if it appears) in BIOS otherwise I get the Bluescreen boot issue with the 0x0000 blah blah code,
I have tried running repair from a win10 media USB but this just says cannot repair the device.

Chkdsk says no probs,
CrystalDiskMark says its all green.

Any ideas would be super appreciated!

The rig works like a dream as normal once I'm IN windows, but it makes reboots/power-ons a total schlep.

Hey everyone,

I can say with complete certainty that I have avoided actual CHROME for MANY years now, I cannot remember the last time I used it, (possibly 6 years ago?), I've used Firefox, Opera, and now Brave and I thought this would be a nice time to get a bit of community feedback on what browsers you have all had success with etc.

In my experience I've spent the longest time with OPERA, it is the fastest of all for me, customizable in plenty enjoyable ways so that it feels like its "mine" whilst auto blocking rudimentry ads etc, but come on we use extensions for that which I will get to soon.
The only reason I've become frustrated with Opera is constantly having to relog into sites since the great cookie monster bill that reshaped the internet into an "I agree to cookies" mess, Opera seems to fervently forget my sign-ins which is just enfuriating.

I've switched to Brave now, and I'd like to hear from others if its as good as it looks at face value? I feel like it's EVER SO SLIGHTLY slower than Opera, but I might just not be used to it just yet. Its overall look is very clean and smooth, and it has a more robost AdBlocking system and some sort of baked in reward scheme for allowing non-privacy infringing ads to pay you for viewing them? I'll probably update this thread someday in the future if that's actually just a total gimmick or not, or someone else could tell me their experience?

I didn't use firefox for very long, it has always felt sluggish to me, so I cannot even rightfully comment on it without sounding like a hater.

the extensions I never go without are:

• Ghostery - the king of all ad blockers, when in tandem with ABP you get almost completely ad free experience, not even youtube ads make it past this double whammy.
• AdBlock Plus - I'd be very surprised if anyone isn't using this one, its by far the most common I think?
• FBPurity - this removes all ads on Facebook, if you've never tried it, give it a go, it will make you dread using the app on your phone when you see how many ads this incredible extension blocks.

It'd be nice to hear from the (even) more paranoid in the community who despise google's control over our browsing habits, and I'd love to hear opinions on Brave, (OR any alternative browser I've not come across) for the sake of keeping things clean, lets NOT discuss TOR but if you're desperate we can chat about that on discord :g:

I hope its a great weekend for you all!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks the Genesis map is the best thing to happen to Ark since it's launch in..(wait is Ark out of early access? :roflmao: )

It is also one of the most diverse, and beautiful maps we've ever had the chance to enjoy, and its OPTIMISED I mean, who would ever have expected that bombshell??

Post your best screen captures, get creative, and if you think it's photo contest worthy but have no idea how to mess with Photoshop, give me a bump on discord, I'll even make a couple easy edits

First up from me, something a little warm, for those frosty March mornings, thinking about having to de-ice the car.
The Lava biome:

Pretty much as the title says, this video catches you up on some of the mental tech that's currently live in the game right now, check it out.

[video=youtube;hqXZhnrkBdo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqXZhnrkBdo&t=2s[/video]

I love a good challenge and it seems like we'll be seeing the Action RPG giants battle it out next year,
Right on the buttocks of Diablo IV's announcement, none other than Path of Exile 2 has been announced!

Graphics look like they're getting a face lift and numerous other interesting changes can be seen in the reveal trailer, so I'm sure we're going to see a nice power play between these two next year, since they have cult followings each!

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-11-16-hot-on-the-heels-of-the-reveal-of-diablo-4-comes-path-of-exile-2

[video=youtube;9OosC1E8TVM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OosC1E8TVM[/video]