The Mind Of OverlordTomala
Site Related

The Great Maketh Over

After sleeping on it last night, or attempting to sleep rather… I ended up having enough inspiration to tackle the blog. After looking through what felt like endless corporate type templates I decided to go back and look at the selection from Cryout Creations. I’ve used their templates for years, and had to part away from the old template after it hadn’t been updated in over a year. The good news is they finally updated all of their templates within the last couple of months! Which means fewer security issues and an Overlord giving their site a makeover.

It still needs some fine tuning in a couple places, but I think I’ll keep this one for awhile. Or at least until I find a template that doesn’t look like it’s for an e-commerce or business site. It feels like those are the majority of WordPress templates these days.

All in an Overlord's day

Branching Out!

I’ve decided on a whim to check out Bluesky. I’ll still post over on Mastodon, but I figured I’d give it a go since it seems fairly similar. It’s currently federated just like the fediverse, and you can even bridge your Bluesky account to Mastodon. But for now I figure I’ll keep and use both, just to see how things work. Mastodon has people there that I follow that aren’t on Bluesky, and vice versa.

Next I’ll have to see about showcasing my profile to my blog, like what I already do with Mastodon. That will have to wait for a night when I have free time to work on the blog. I still need to rethink the site layout in general… among other things.

Gaming / Technology

Is There a Steam Controller 2 In The Works?

If this is real I will buy it on day fucking one!

The original Steam Controller, which has been defunct now for half a decade, had a rocky history. Well, perhaps not so much rocky as controversial, it having a plethora of diehard fanboys and fangirls but also more than a smattering of detractors, including our very own hardware overlord Dave James. Now—someone shield Dave’s ears—there’s talk of a second iteration already being in mass production.

As an owner of the original Steam Controller I would love to see a refresh of this amazing controller! It’s the only controller that to this day I still play for 99% of my couch gaming exploits, and as someone who also has a Steam Deck I would enjoy seeing the advancements from that added onto a new controller. The Steam Deck allows gyro use not only via the touchpads but ALSO the thumbsticks, which have been great for FPS gaming. Adding two more grip buttons to the back is great too, the grip buttons on the Steam Deck are one of the reasons I have a hard time playing on other controllers. Plus, as much as I love the Steam Controller I would love a proper D-Pad, like they have on the Steam Deck.

If the rumors turn out to be true I’ll be happy to pre-order one. I pre-ordered the original Steam Controller with no regrets, and my OG Steam Deck has proven to get just as much use if not moreso.

BRING! IT! ON!

Gaming

The Rain Won’t Stop Me From Having a Good Time

We’ve been having to endure quite a storm tonight. One moment I was playing Horizon Zero Dawn and enjoying a friend’s livestream, and the next moment I was sitting in darkness. The power flickered enough that I decided to retire from my desktop for the evening, and spend it on my more portable devices. Actually did a bit of gaming on my laptop tonight! I installed the Castlevania Dominus Collection and played it for a few. It runs well, which isn’t a big surprise. I already knew it would run under Linux since I toyed with it a bit on my Steam Deck.

Now I can say that I’ve played a Nintendo DS game for the first time! AND IT WAS LEGAL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The multiple screens take a bit of getting used to, but for the most part it handles like any other newer Castlevania game. I actually like having the map on the screen while exploring, that way I don’t have to constantly open the map to see where I’m going every other room. I’ll write a more meaningful post for it on another night when I’ve played through more of it to write something more of substance.

Back to a little more playing before bed. :v

Gaming

The Powers Of Jesus & Dracula

My adventures through the Castlevania universe continue! I suppose I could have finished off Harmony of Dissonance tonight, but instead I advanced through Aria of Sorrow. Soma’s moveset takes a little getting used to, especially when I’m used to dashing around as Juste. Soma plays a bit slower, but he does have some interesting powers. Tonight I learned how to walk on water, slide on my ass and a few other abilities. My next boss battle will be with Death, he kicked my ass one too many times tonight which tells me it’s time to take a break. At least I polished off two other boss battles! Plus I can rest easy knowing I’ve covered a good chunk of the map.

Hobbies / Open Threads

Sunday Night Open Thread

Spent some time refining a bit of animation tonight while watching Yutram Stream Control to my second monitor. I’ve slowed down a bit on video production. I don’t want to get too into it since I do have plans to upgrade the system. I still need to order some NVMe drives, but I’m waiting to see if the prices go any lower before Cyber Monday. If not I’ll swoop in and make my purchase.

Then at the end of the night I decided to wander around for a bit in Yakuza Kiwami 2. Actually completed a couple of quests despite forgetting half of what I needed to accomplish. Too many games, etc, etc.

Gaming

Welcome To The Machine

We played one of the newer Quake campaigns tonight, and I have to admit that despite the bugs there is a certain beauty within Quake’s official and final campaign; Dimension of the Machine. We’re back on the hunt for runes, but at least one of the portals we took lead us to a place that isn’t totally boxed in and dark. It’s rare to find a level that looks like a nice sunny day, or as close to a nice sunny day as the game will allow. I kinda want to play this in the older versions of Quake to see how it compares. It feels out of place and yet at home at the same time. They also cram a bunch of enemies into each level, there were many deaths, both us and them.

There were only two realms remaining for us to traverse before opening the gates to the final battle, but it grew too late for us to finish. At least we can look forward to another evening where we are guaranteed to never be bored. 😉

Gaming

Achievement Hunting On The Shores of Hell

Did a small bit of achievement hunting in DOOM tonight. Went on a punching spree, shot a couple hundred bullets with a chain gun, and washed it down by chainsawing a hundred demons. I made it four episodes in before calling it a night. I’m not sure why, but I had a need for badass music and old school demon murderin’. So many other games in my collection, and yet I keep replaying the classics… I blame Bethesda this time. 😛

Gaming

Walking The Sun’s Path To Chaos

Finally got around to unwinding more of the plot for Horizon Zero Dawn. I almost thought I finished the game… but there’s more! Which is good because if it ended here it would still feel too soon, even after the several hours I’ve poured into the game. It has the same effect as Skyrim, once you start playing it’s hard to put back down. I have to keep telling myself there’s a real world to return to that may someday achieve the amount of sheer stupidity that human intelligence can pour into their autonomous creatures.

Hobbies / Open Threads

Evening Open Thread

Waking up is always difficult during the autumn/winter months. The rain and darkness make for a want to hibernate. I had to fight myself to get out of bed to get ready for another day of work. I don’t care much for the later shifts, but at least it does give me some extra time to eat a bit of breakfast. Also been preparing for an upgrade to my desktop build. Gonna swap out the motherboard and processor and RAM. I’ll be upgrading to the Ryzen 9 9900X. The GPU is currently a 6800XT, which I’m still fine with. I do need to replace a few hard drives, some of them are showing signs of wear and tear after several years of film abuse.  The new motherboard will be able to hold 3 NVMe drives – I’m thinking about getting a few 4 TB drives to really ramp up my storage. The more the merrier, especially since I have quite a few games that play nicer on faster drives. Plus SSD drives are great for rendering 4K footage on. My older 2 TB spinners take an eternity and a half to properly export 4K footage. I’ll probably restructure my files and programs once I have everything setup.

Either way I’m looking forward to it! It’ll be one of my winter projects.