• Palworld - So they keep doing this running gag for a April Fools joke where their next Palworld themed game is going to be a dating sim. :3
  
  Turns out that April Fools Day was yesterday...... in Japan.
  
• Developers of the game, R.E.P.O., released P.E.A.K.O. - Developers of the multiplayer game, R.E.P.O. had been developing a game called P.E.A.K.O. for a few years now, and now they're ready to release it.
  
  In P.E.A.K.O., you, and three other players, climb a mountain, and reach its peak. Sounds...... familiar to another game with a similar concept. O.o
  

• YouTubers and Twitch Streamers - YouTubers and Twitch Streamers having their own April Fools Day Jokes, as the usual. :3
  
• PSO2:NGS taken over - Neau... Neow.... Or however you spell it, had taken over PSO2:NGS' Twitter account. The interns from PSO2:NGS had already dealt with the.... cat-like thing, and are operating back to normal. The takeover was yesterday, due to April Fools Day happening in Japan a day early.
  

Scharon Harding, Ars Technica Wrote:Adobe has canceled plans to discontinue its 2D animation software Animate.

On Monday, Adobe announced that it would stop allowing people to sell subscriptions to Animate on March 1, saying the software had “served its purpose.” People who already had a software license would be able to keep using Animate with technical support until March 1, 2027; businesses had until March 1, 2029. Per an email sent to customers, Adobe also said users would lose access to Animate files and project data on March 1, 2027. Animate costs $23 per month.

After receiving backlash from animators and other users, Adobe reversed its decision on Tuesday night. In an announcement posted online, the San Jose, California-headquartered company said:

We are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate. Animate will continue to be available for both current and new customers, and we will ensure you continue to have access to your content. There is no longer a deadline or date by which Animate will no longer be available.

Adobe said the software will be available for individuals and businesses and will still receive technical support and security and bug fixes, but not new features.

The company said its Monday announcement “did not meet our standards and caused a lot of confusion and angst.”

“We are committed to ensuring Animate users have access to their content regardless if the state of development changes,” Adobe said.

Mike Chambers, a community director at Adobe, affirmed via Reddit that Adobe has no plans to shut down Animate. If the company decides to discontinue the software, it “will work closely with the community to ensure they have adequate time to plan in order to minimize disruption and will take steps so that the community continues to have long-term access to their content,” he said.

30 years of animation

Animate debuted in 1996 as FutureWave Software’s FutureSplash Animator. After a 1997 acquisition by Macromedia, FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Flash. In 2005, Adobe bought Macromedia and renamed Macromedia Flash to Adobe Flash Professional. In 2015, the software became Adobe Animate CC. In its nearly 30 years of use, Animate has been used in numerous popular animated films and shows, including Star Trek: Lower Decks. Still, Adobe said on Monday that “new platforms and paradigms have emerged that better serve the needs of the user.”

Based on the response to Monday’s announcement, not everyone agrees that Animate is obsolete. Adobe’s announcement has also drawn increased scrutiny because of the company’s growing focus on AI-based tools, which have led to higher subscription fees.

“Shutting down Animate and cutting off users from decades worth of work, while simultaneously focusing on anti-artist AI technology, is incredibly disrespectful to your users. Make the software open-source if you’re not going to do the work yourself,” a user on Adobe’s forum going by “FFFlay” wrote in response to Monday’s announcement.

Although Adobe has shown an ability to respond to customer frustration and will allow people to use Animate for the foreseeable future, people who depend on the software, including for animation and education, are concerned about relying on a program that Adobe almost discontinued.

In a post today, an Adobe community member going by the username rayek.elfin wrote, “The damage is done in my opinion. The news of Adobe discontinuing Animate went viral and probably created so much anxiety and uncertainty that studios and indie animators are already looking to replace Animate in their pipelines.”

When asked how Adobe will try to rebuild trust among users, Chambers said, “Trust doesn’t come beforehand, it comes after (and has to be earned). We say what we will do, and if we consistently do it, we gain trust. We are at the ‘we say what we will do’ part for a lot of people.”

Liberty Wrote:Welcome back, all!
Yes, you heard correctly, the site is back! Thanks to Benny (and team) RMN has been revived and is stable on life support.

Is this the upgrade? No. It's just the site as it was before it went down, but with a faster loading time and much more stable than it was. It should mostly run as normal, bar a few bits and bobs.

Current things to keep in mind:
- Downloads aren't working yet.
- Latest Articles, Media, etc are also not quite working.
- Lockers should be working so if there's stuff in them you want to access or download, you can!
- Registrations are currently locked so that bots don't rush the site but depending on how well the site does with the current influx of members we'll re-enable to let new members join.

If you find any bugs, crashes or general weirdness, please report them to the Bug Report topic. I'll update this topic as needed.

Don't forget to thank Benny and his team for all the work they've done to help bring the site back online:

Isaiah Williams Wrote:

• Nintendo Switch 2 users are reporting overheating issues in handheld and docked modes
  
• It comes amid Nintendo's recent controversies surrounding its new Switch 2 device
  
• It reportedly occurs even when playing less demanding games

It's no secret that Nintendo has been at the center of controversy since the announcement of $80 game prices, along with recent findings around its new Switch 2 display and its ghosting issues. However, the handheld's problems seemingly don't stop there.

As highlighted by Notebookcheck, multiple users are reporting overheating issues with the Nintendo Switch 2, even while playing less demanding games. Notably, most reports suggest overheating occurs when using the Switch 2's Dock, a vital component that allows users to play on external displays and provides more power for improved performance.

A plethora of Redditors have voiced frustrations with the Switch 2 Dock's lack of ventilation despite featuring a built-in fan. The latter isn't designed to cool the Switch 2, but rather the Dock.

Others also point out higher temperatures while using its Ethernet port, to the point where the handheld and its accessory are too hot to touch, and the display output ends despite the console still running.

Nintendo suggests setting the console aside to cool down and ensuring the handheld's air vents aren't obstructed – but frankly, that's hardly much of a solution to eliminate the supposed overheating.

It's not just the Dock alone; users are also reporting that the device displays a warning message before entering sleep mode when undocked. This appears to be the system's way of throttling, but instead of that, it makes it not playable while resting.

This is a worrying sign for Switch 2 owners. If these issues become more prevalent, it would most certainly supersede the concerns about the display quality.

Analysis: Hopefully this isn't a bigger issue than I think...

It's not uncommon to hear reports about overheating with new hardware. I've become quite accustomed to it, with new GPU launches, and (more relevant) the early reports of SD cards overheating in the Asus ROG Ally.

Since this is a similar issue, it seems that Nintendo might be able to address it with a software update, similar to what Asus did. However, there's no guarantee that this will lead to a resolution. It also comes at a bad time for the Switch 2, considering its recent controversies.

It's the absolute worst-case scenario for a new handheld console owner, especially at its $449.99 / £395.99 / AU$699.95 price; it's also worth noting that the original Switch has seen a price hike in some regions, so it's not exactly a great time for these overheating reports to emerge.

If the Dock happens to be a detriment to the Switch 2's cooling, I doubt any software update will be able to fix the issue. There's also a lack of compatibility with third-party docks, so if you're facing these temperature issues, there isn't much of a solution for now.

Let's just hope Nintendo is quick to address this before it gets out of hand...

Christopher Livingston at PC Gamer Wrote:A European initiative is now underway for videogame preservation and consumer protections against publishers "killing games."

One of the most common reasons a game becomes unplayable is because it can only be played online and its servers have been shut down by publishers. In 2023 alone we saw nearly a dozen games like Battlefield, Call of Duty: Warzone, Knockout City, Spellbreak, Gundam Evolution, and more meet the same grim fate as the lights went off for good.

There are two tragedies when games go dark. First off, the work of all those programmers, artists, writers, animators, modelers, and everyone else who labored on a game, maybe for years, is gone forever. Killing a game is also anti-consumer because, y'know… people bought that game. They paid for a product, the same way they'd buy a book, a movie, or a song, and they should be able to use that product for as long as they like. Troublingly, there's no legal recourse when a game you paid for gets shut down.

But there are people trying to get laws passed to protect both the games and the people who buy them. For a more enjoyable explanation of the effort from someone more interesting than me, please direct your eyes to the video below:



You'll probably recognize Ross Scott's voice immediately—he's the creator and narrator of YouTube webseries Freeman's Mind—and he's one of the organizers behind Stop Killing Games. Scott compares the practice of publishers shutting down games to movie studios during the silent film era "burning their own films after they were done showing them to recover the silver content," pointing out that "now most films of that era are gone forever." Game preservation is a concern, definitely, but so is protecting consumers.

One way to combat the killing of games is to propose a new law, an effort that is currently underway in the European Union. The process is called the "European Citizens Initiative," and if it's signed by 1 million citizens in the EU it has a chance to become an actual law. If passed, the law would require "publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state," even in the event that the servers are shut down or the studio closes.

"An increasing number of publishers are selling videogames that are required to connect through the internet to the game publisher, or 'phone home' to function," the petition reads. "While this is not a problem in itself, when support ends for these types of games, very often publishers simply sever the connection necessary for the game to function, proceed to destroy all working copies of the game, and implement extensive measures to prevent the customer from repairing the game in any way."

Understanding that developers and publishers can't support games forever, the initiative would expect "the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state." That means giving players the tools to host the game on their own servers, for example, and removing the requirement for games to connect to the publisher's (defunct) servers in order to be played. This is what the developer behind Knockout City did when it pulled the plug on the game's official servers.

Not only does this initiative apply to games that are sold, but includes free to play games that have microtransactions for assets (like skins) or other paid-for features. The thought is, if you purchase an item in a free game, you should have the right to continue to use it indefinitely—which means keeping that free game playable in some form.

It's important to note that even a million signatures doesn't mean an automatic win, just that it'll go forward to the European Union as a proposal to become a law. A million signatures is a pretty tall order—though as far as I can tell, the initiative has been signed by about 45,000 people after a single day online, which is a great start. The initiative will also remain open for a full year, so there's plenty of time to acquire the rest of the signatures. You can view the full initiative here, and learn more at StopKillingGames.com.

Indigo (of Pixelation.org) Wrote:Happy New Year everyone. This is just an announcement that the forum has officially entered archive mode. All boards have been set to read only.

Quote:

As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows.

This change is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

Although support won't end until 2024, we strongly encourage all Windows 7/8/8.1 users to update sooner rather than later. Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 in January 2020 and for Windows 8.1 in January 2023. Computers running these operating systems, when connected to the internet, are susceptible to new malware and other exploits which will not be patched. That malware can cause your PC, Steam and games to perform poorly or crash. That malware can also be used to steal the credentials for your Steam account or other services.

Quote:It isn't long into the film "White Noise" that the line between fiction and reality starts to blur.

• During the movie's second third, a tanker truck carrying toxic materials crashes into a train in a small Ohio town creating an airborne toxic event. Sound familiar?
  

Why it matters: On Feb. 3, a real-life freight train derailment occurred in East Palestine, Ohio.

• Just as in "White Noise," which was released in November on Netflix, the East Palestine derailment resulted in the venting and burning of carcinogenic chemicals.
  

The intrigue: "White Noise" was shot almost entirely in Northeast Ohio where several East Palestine residents worked as extras in the movie.

• The film is based on author Don DeLillo's 1985 novel of the same name, which won the National Book Award for fiction.
  

What they're saying: Ben Ratner, an East Palestine resident who played an extra in "White Noise," told CNN the film "hits too close to home."

• "The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what's going on here," Ratner said a week after the derailment. "Everybody's been talking about that."
  
• No one associated with the film nor DeLillo has commented on the East Palestine derailment.
  

State of play: Since the train derailment, the trailer for "White Noise" has been viewed on YouTube more than 325,000 times, more than double the number of views during the previous two weeks.
Threat level: The East Palestine derailment forced hundreds of people to evacuate and caused alarm about toxic fumes and water contamination from spilled materials.

• Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday that water in East Palestine's municipal system is safe to drink.
  

Meanwhile, the ending of "White Noise" veers into Hollywood fiction territory with violence and a strange dance number.