G'day you little shits, hope everyone is travelling well lately! I know I've been absent in April because we've just had a lot of life stuff happening. Been a pretty major time for my partner Donnie and I, had family visiting and some major things going on. Now that May is here, we can finally start relaxing and getting back into the regular routine, so I'm really excited to get into what's on the horizon for the channel! 😄
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What's been happening?) The big thing we've been excited about for ages was Donnie's surgery, which all went excellently! We were able to have a bit of fun chill time with our family and friends beforehand and despite what was supposed to be a rather intense recovery, things were great from day one and he has been a lot more able than we'd first anticipated. So we've been able to enjoy the time a lot more, done a lot of thrifting, spent time with family that was visiting. Also got to catch up with an old friend I haven't seen in 5 or so years. So it's been a really good time but I think everyone involved is ready to get back to some sort of normal which... after a month of fun is really difficult!
Cat) With everything else going on, it's been an additional thing on our plate having this stray cat come into our lives. She's been a regular around here for a year but finally she warmed up and we got her fed, provided her a warm bed now that the weather is turning brutally cold. Nicest cat I've every met in my life (I'm much more of a dog guy) and we just yesterday got her to the vet to be checked. She is registered and will be returned hopefully to her actual owner, but it's been a nice little thing to happen lately. Was about a year ago we lost our previous pet and this little run in has shown we might be ready to open our heart to a new little creature soon!
Look at how gorgeous this little baby is! 🥺
What is next for the channel?) So I've got a big trilogy in the works: Early 3D GTA, kicking it off with 3, Vice City HYPE and then San Andreas! Of course these videos are going to be a lot bigger than normal given the amount of history and content there is to discuss but I've already got a script for GTA 3 drafted waiting for some revisions and tweaking. All 3 games were played and captured a while ago so I've just been messing around and doing some more of the side content to refamiliarize myself (not that I really need too, it's still defo got me in the mood to talk about it on the channel).
I'm not gonna provide any sort of ETA for these videos, I would like to have the GTA video up in perhaps 2 weeks or so, with the Vice and San Andreas episodes most likely landing in June sometime. I'm feeling a bit of pressure to make sure these videos feel... extra! This is such an important franchise and even though it's been discussed to death, I'm hoping to do what I can to help my videos stand out just a tiny bit. The GTA 3 episode has been structured moreso on how/why the game became so influential within the industry, based on what it learned from other games and what Rockstar strived to do differently, which would then become the norm. It's still a review but going in with a certain hook felt like a little more of a challenge during that first writing period. So yeah, get keen for that!
Livestreams) Last time I did a live stream, there was some tech issues given the nature of my game capture setup needing to be constantly reset. I've got a few ideas of how to resolve this, I've got a few new cables I need to have a play with so once I've got that fixed, I'm very keen to pick up where I left off in trying to get the streaming back to a semi-consistent schedule.
A long awaited tech upgrade!) So given that I record everything I play and archive my own gameplays that I use for videos, I've always had an issue with hard drives. Currently I've amassed about 7-8 different external drives, all of varying ages and quality, which is a concern. I lost my first drive in 2021 which sucked because it had a lot of core games on there I'm always referencing, Crash Bandicoot being the main one. But the big thing more than that is having so many different drives setup functionally within my work station. All these extra drives hog so much power and PC ports, it's ridiculous. It slows down my work flow and disrupts what I'm doing having to switch things in and out all the time. Plus with the different ages and transfer speeds, often I find file browsing a headache while editing which has also led to countless program crashes and again, disrupted work flow.
So I've done a bit of research and finally put out for a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) Drive. Think of a server but without all of the networking stuff, it's basically just 4 huge drives in a single device that only needs one power supply, one connection to the PC that I can put EVERYTHING onto. That way it's all in one place, one transfer speed (which is about 3x what I was getting before) which is just going to streamline the entire process. I spent some Patreon money on it so maybe if people are interested, I might do a little video going over the process if you're interested? Always enjoy making tech stuff, like my old Framemeister videos and what not. So yeah, I've still got quite the job of transferring everything over to the new drive but I've already cleared 2 entire drives (for a total of about 10tb) so I'm really looking forward to having all of that done and no longer needing to wonder where a certain game file is saved and swap all my shit around.
Plus it should overall be less taxing on my actual PC which is about 7 years old, not having so many little blood suckers leeching off of it. But on that note, I'm also planning some minor upgrades to the actual computer as well, again to increase it's lifespan and get the most out of it. Mostly just an additional internal drive for extra storage and a new case, currently only one of my front USB ports works which is a headfuck. Can't even charge my phone AND plug a controller in at the same time. So yeah all some long awaited upgrades but ones that should make everything run a lot smoother going forward!
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Closing Thoughts) I hope that's all good news for you guys, stuff is definitely in the works as always. Now that life is back to normal, routine will quickly return and we can get down to business. Thanks for your patience and support as always! Currently taking suggestions for GTA EXCLUSIVE ideas for Patreon members! Let me know what you'd like to see!
And until next time, I hope you all have a great fucking day. Cheers guys!