The Weekly Gazette 01-15-2023

[DerVVulfman]

(January 9 to January 15, 2022)

Welcome dear readers to the latest issue of the Weekly Gazette! Here in the Gazette, we give you the news in brief of what occurred in the past week as well as provide any news happening in Save-Point itself

Official Area

Occasions

Announcing his entry into our community this week is EthanK, an RPGMaker user who wishes more experience and tutilage in the use of MGC's HMode7 system. Greeted he was by Kain Nobel and DerVVulfma who wrote the textures help document for MGC. But more generous was the greeting by JayRay who has worked with the HMode7 system quite a bit and offered some assistance and guidance, with EthanK relaying more specific what explanations he needs to the system.

Who here likes Birthday Cake. Here at Save-Point, we like to celebrate our members' special days by announcing their birthdays with a bit of sugary confections. As such, we started this week by celebrating the birthdays of gotinoni and jordiec. But that was only the start of the birthday celebrations this week as jbrist and sifero celebrated his birthday, as did both SleepingSirenx and TsunamiJurai the next day. And it became cake time for the members felicalexa, paulocoelhojr, schrmh and Pixi lastly to be followed later by the birthdays of The_Exiled_One, arandomperson, somemook and ItsTotallyJustMeClint.

General Chat

Though not a cellphone type of individual, thoughts about alert message apps were What's on the mind of Kain Nobel, applications such as LifeAlert notifying family members as well as hospitals, hospital alerts for loved ones injured, and more.

Metal was the sound of the week if you asked Kain Nobel What are YouTubing? First was an entirely instrumental piece from a keyboardist who not only worked with KISS, Billy Idol and Alice Coober, but formed Planet X and Sons of Apollo. The second piece was a vintage animated rock piece with Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy from Motorhead, a video that just it with the feel of the movie Heavy Metal. And the third piece was by a Japanese band who combined power metal with Japanese folk, their work having been both inspired by both Judas Priest and Ninpocho or ninja scrolls. However, not all videos were music based as kyonides posted another video where civilians volunteer to be in police simulation, one based on an actual ambush situation. And another video by kyonides was a history on how Russia lost the Crimean War (1853-56).

Ever the optimist, Kain Nobel announced that Save-Point Will Grow This Year, noting the friendly atmosphere, that search engines place the forum at the top of most search engines, the decline of other like sites while Save-Point has remained standing, and much more.

Finding Biden still in possession of classified documents when he was Vice President was bad for him last week, and in this week's News of the World it got worse as think tank they were found may have ties to Communist China. But after that, more classified documents were found in two other locations, including Biden'w own Delaware home where his son Hunter was still residing. Understandably, the Attorney General appointed an independent special council to investigate the situation. Strides were made between the U.S., Canada and Mexico to boost semiconductor manufacturing away from China while the U.S. and Japan forge agreements including a historic defence pact. Meanwhile Canada worked to supply over $400 million in Surface-to-Air missiles for Ukraine. But not long after that did the U.S. and Canadian Airline safety services suffer downtime. While tru that NYC nurses went on strike for days over the conditions of emergency rooms, a deal was struck. And while Covid was a medical emergency, the North Carolina school district chose to use the entire emergency relief funds to merely boost staff salaries. Russian forces claiming control over Soledar, a deer rampaging within a butcher shop, the death of Elvis Presley's only child, and much more hit this week's news.

Tech Talk

This week, critical airline failures both in the U.S. and in Canada, and cyberattacks hit this week's News of the Cyber World. But so did lawsuits such as the one where Meta (ala Facebook) is being charged for their targeted ad program, and courts clearing the way to sue spyware firms. After all this time, GitHub finally disables Pro-Russian hactivist DDos Pages. And of Russia, the latest release of Twitter Files showed that prominent Democrats pushed the Trump/Russia collusion story fully aware it was false. Carjacking by hacking, data breaches, and more hit this week's cybernews.

Games Development

Development Discussion

Insofar as projects, working with factions appears to be What's up with RMers like kyonides, though Kain Nobel appreciated the visual displays that were provided. Meanwhile, Kain Nobel has been planning things ahead of time, and sometimes feeling like some plans need a re-do, leaning towards the music scene than most other things. Using music from various sources including Blizzard's 'Diablo', Remi-chan presented a video where a principle villain was called upon to act as a hired assassin, souls being payment. And JayRay decided to try his hand at using RPGMaker MV with Tiled for another project.

KasperKalamity ventured into the Maps and screenshots thread to show off the work he has labored upon, a coastal area with several ships at port, very much reduced in size to fit the screen. Steel Beast 6Beets appreciated the render, though felt there may be issue with some buiildings.

Upcoming Projects

A demo for Alterium Shift has appeared, a JRPG made with Smile Game Builder where you play one of three heroes who must take their final test before embarking upon their first mission. A contemporary turn-based battle system, and a rich environment to explore highlight this game by Drattzy Games.

Tutorials

For the Smile Game Builder, JayRay found the Octopath Traveler Series of tutorials by DrasssRay, a collection of video tutorials that cover working with terrains, working with blender to make objects, basic house exteriors, and much more.

Material Development

Tools

Once discovered, JayRay felt the MapMaker for RMXP was the perfect tool to export full rendered game maps to .png files. But he wondered if it would be possible to generate maps with missing tile layers and pictures drawn atop. The very next day, DerVVulfman announced that the tool was updated to allow for individual tile layers, but pictures would not be possible as it would be something evented and ever-changing.

Scripts Database

For those using the ruby editions of RPGMaker, kyonides gave one the ability to change weapons in-battle with each version of his Weapons Swap script. And be ready to use a feature which lets enemies trip up the heroes by disarming them.

Menus were updated within the KFactions RG & Menu scripts collection, though kyonides needed to revisit the thread as the download links needed repair.

With a minor update to Kuests Dynamis, you may now activate defined game switches when a quest has been completed.

Creativity Section

Music and Audio

The software that was used to render Kain Nobel's Music Videos has just been changed. And to showcase the new software, Kain rendered a demo of his music as background while simultaneously showing a figure running through an expansive cavern using DerVVulfman's pathfinding software. And a new video render of "Coastal Mist" was created, and comparatively better rendered than when he previously used Flashback Express.

Art and Design

Power given form, death, terror and control, all these may be found within Remi-chan's Neato Arty thread thing!. It surprised Kain Nobel who joked to have Remi-chan slow down on her work, while praising her for the render of a lethal fox demon she presented this week. It was later that she presented the art and a speed-render video of her embodiment of terror in a crouched position, this followed by both the speed-draw and render of an apparently innocuous figure surrounded by chains and magic.

Literature Section

Death, not a sleep one can ever awake, but a final torment for a military general within Remi-chan's Writing Snippets~, this as a malicious force smiles as she devours his soul... and much more.

Special Projects

ReGaL (RPG Game Lab)

Screenies

This week, Kain Nobel jotted down an idea for the REGAL Application that DerVVulfman suggested, one that allowed for a variety of different slip damage types and not just the old-fashioned hp loss style. Meanwhile, development on ReGaL's hardware will be slowed as Kain is working on finding additional income-providing employment while he also furthers his other love, music. And does Kain Nobel plan ahead? Well, he already has notes regarding 2024.

Well, that's it for this week.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone's imagination. - Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)

PROSPECTIVE GAZETEERS!

If you are the creator of a thread in Save-Point, you have the option of sending/writing your own entry into the Gazette. The Gazette accepts write-in announcements (which will be doublechecked). Likewise, the Gazette would welcome other content such as a comic-strip series, ongoing story arc, or the like.

Just PM DerVVulfman with the submissions. Submissions must be in by 10pm EST.