My Thoughts on the New OGL 1.2

I’ve answered the survey as requested but I’m putting them here to for completion’s sake.


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Hasbro Bought D&D Beyond – Thoughts

I saw this video in my feed and if you’re into D&D and especially DDB, you should check this out. 1. Right now, Foundry is the benchmark, king-of-the-hill of VTTs. Nothing comes close. Not Roll20, not FG, and not what DDB has to offer. And at current rate of development, with both Roll20 and DDB working with small teams and Foundry having a small base team but a ton of community developers, I don’t see anyone able to catch up to that. I’m currently at a point that I truly treat DDB as a convenient, digital, online source… to get my D&D material and that’s it. Pretty much everything else I do on Foundry, and with no added subscriptions. I buy the software, I buy the materials, my players just log in. It’s, as if we have one set of books that everyone share at a single table. The D&D 5E version on Foundry even recently added a better level-up mechanism so I only need to download the content (possible through an amazing community developer) to Foundry and that’s it. Unless WotC decide no one is allowed to use D&D in online tools (which will probably be against their SRD and start a huge outcry) it’s not gonna change. 2. With Demiplane on the field, soon Pathfinder, Vampire, even Marvel’s new game will have the same capabilities as D&D in the online space. 3. In the video game space, a lot of companies get bought because the buyer see the Continue Reading →


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Audiobook Narration and AI

Like everything related to AI, with the ability to mimic human-sounding voices coming to the forefront, audiobook narrators now also feel threatened and, while I understand being afraid of something new and misunderstood, I see it mostly as an extension of our existing abilities and doing more with less. First of all, I’m sad that the first thing I see in that article is “circling the wagons”. You can’t avoid new technology. It’ll come no matter what. Some form of legislation can be made to restrict research and development but if the technology is not immediately or excessively harmful (like nuclear weapons or engineered viruses), a lot of people will work towards it and, as a person affected, what you really should do is find how to adapt and where you fit in in the new order. Secondly, if we move towards an industry in which voices are largely AI generated, the voice templates will still have to come from somewhere. Those providing the templates will still be a part of the process. They will be licensing their vocal likeness, like you do with a visual likeness. It will be up to them and their agents to make sure the contract benefits them and that they may have some right of refusal on projects that might not align with their views. And those around the narration will still be required. A director will need to make sure the reading is what the client wants, an audio editor will be needed Continue Reading →


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News: Average User has no Concept of How Much Game Dev Costs

Recently, some clueless joe on Twitter said he will pay 10,000$ to the person who adds a multiplayer aspect to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If he was going to donate to a modder who was working on it, that would have been fine but it seems like he was thinking that he could hire someone to do something like that for that kind of money. Here is a long, detailed response to this which you should read but here’s the summary: 10,000$ would pay for about two work months of the average+ programmer. Also, networking is hard. The hardest networking challenges in gaming usually arise in fighting games because they usually need to be exactly per pixel and per frame accurate and, probably over distances where network traffic takes more time to go back and forth than it takes pro players twitch reflexes to react. You can see how important this is if you go back and read about the network woes of Street Fighter V. Now, the demands of a PvE, open world, action RPG would probably be a lot less strict but these are still difficult problems. Especially if you’re talking about tacking on something like this onto a game that was definitely not designed for it. You want a more current example? On the one hand, Battlefield 2042 is out now and it’s buggy as hell. On the other hand, Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is also out and it’s much better. Probably because the team is backed Continue Reading →


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Portugal just became nicer to employees

Portugal recently passed a law they fondly call “Right to Rest”. It contains various measures to help employees have a better work-life balance such as the ability to work remotely when you need to take care of a child or companies contributing to household bills when an employee is working remotely a lot. But the nicest thing about it is indeed the ban on contacting employees after work hours. I’m guessing there is a stipulation about emergencies or people like server administrators and doctors who are supposed to be on call but the fact it’s enshrined in law is just amazing. Kinda makes me want to move to Portugal. :)


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Far Cry 6, PETA, and are Games Educational?

Recently, PETA criticised Ubisoft for including a cockfighting mini-game in their recent franchise title Far Cry 6. And that got me thinking about what is ok or not ok to include in a game. I completely understand why Far Cry 6, which occurs in a Cuban-esque island country called Yara, includes that aspect. Cuba, a country under heavy sanctions, makes due with whatever they have at hand. And, as far as entertainment goes, while cockfighting is a horrible practice in your regular western-aligned countries, it is not exactly frowned upon in Cuba. So, Far Cry 6 appropriating this symbol for immersion purposes is understandable. On the other hand, I also completely understand why PETA would criticise this. Far Cry is a very popular franchise. At the time of writing, it has sold poorer than its predecessor but that still puts it above 10 million units moved. That’s a lot of people being exposed to this segment, engaging with cockfighting in a way that might be unhealthy in the future. In the game itself, you do play the cockfighting mini-game in a fighting game style, as a animal encouraged to viciously peck, rip, and tear another animal, both of which were probably forced into this against their will. So, think about that 13-year-old kid who just got his hands on the new, popular AAA title all their friends are playing and this is the first time they sees something like cockfighting. If that’s the first time they engaged with that sort Continue Reading →


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My Foundry Setup

I have been asked about my Foundry setup and what I did to make everything so smooth, easy, and cool. I decided to not do a video about it because most of the modules I use already do a very fine job explaining themselves and Encounter Library already has an extensive set of tutorial videos.So, here are the modules I use with a short explanation of what exactly they do.


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Is there such a thing as a Super Perceptor?

A while back, a good friend of mine told me they’re a super-taster. I’m not sure if he’s officially diagnosed but what he described to me is that everything he tastes is very vivid and he can’t stand any kind of spicy food because even the mildest one is very spicy. Recently, this got me thinking: Is Super-Perceptor a thing? One of the things about me that I find is quite out of the ordinary is my really high perception. I can come back home and, even unintentionally, see what changed in the kitchen and know exactly what my wife had for lunch and sometimes even roughly when. I think this might be something borne out of my martial arts experience. When you train, you’re taught to notice even the subtlest muscle movements so you can counter appropriately at the right time, not too early and not too late. You’re probably thinking to yourself that this sounds like Sherlock Holmes and, yes, what is portrayed in the miniseries with Benedict Cumberbatch comes very close and what defines Sherlock, especially in that series, is that he is the best there is at percieving and analysing evidence. Unfortunately, it’s not all good. I think the same core cause is what also makes me very susceptible to motion and simulation sickness, it’s why touching most organic matter feels very uncomfortable for me, why Mindfulness Meditation just doesn’t work for me, why any subtle movement of the screen I’m looking at feels like a Continue Reading →


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קנאה במקום העבודה

אני חושב שמשכורות זה משהו שצריך להיות פומבי במקום העבודה. בדרך כלל, התגובה שאני מקבל היא שזה יגרום לאנשים לקנא. לדעתי, זה דבר טוב. כי רוב האנשים לא חושבים על זה אבל יש שני סוגים של קנאה. השפה העברית פשוט לא מכילה את המילים בשביל זה. באנגלית, אפשר להבדיל בין Jealousy ל-Envy (למרות שגם דוברי אנגלית לרוב לא יתייחסו להבדל הזה). כשאומרים קנאה, רוב האנשים חושבים על Jealousy. זאת המחשבה שלמישהו לא צריך להיות משהו בגלל שלך אין אותו. זאת מחשבה מאוד שלילית ועוינת ואני מבין למה עדיף להימנע ממנה, במיוחד בין אנשים שאמורים לעבוד ביחד. אבל זאת הגישה הנמוכה והשלילית ואני מעדיף לנקוט בתער של האנלון. Envy היא הרצון גם להשיג משהו שלמישהו אחר יש. ואלא אם כן מדובר במשהו ייחודי (כמו בן זוג של מישהו), רוב הזמן לא מדובר בלקחת לאותו מישהו את מה שיש לו. איך שאני רואה את זה, אם אני רואה שלמישהו יש משהו מגניב שאני אוהב, אני אחפש איפה אני גם יכול להשיג כזה. אם למישהו באותו תפקיד כמו שלי יש זכויות מסוימות או משכורת טובה יותר ממני, אני אבדוק מה אני יכול לעשות כדי שגם יגיע לי, אני ארצה להשתפר. ומה רע בזה? בכלל, מה רע בלשאול את הבוסים ישירות, “מה אני יכול לעשות כדי שיעריכו אותי יותר? מה המדדים פה? תפוקת קוד גבוהה יותר, יותר יוזמה, הצעות ייעול, הדרכה של חדשים? אני רק רוצה לדעת מה חשוב פה כדי לדעת איפה לרכז מאמצים.” אז תזכרו להבדיל, קנאה (Jealousy) זה לא דבר טוב אבל קנאה (Envy) זה סבבה אם זה גורם לכם לרצות להשתפר Continue Reading →


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How to Make a Unity Package (For the Unity Package Manager)

Let’s say you have a bunch of code you want to drag around with you to every new Unity project, or maybe just the next project you’re doing for the same company. Don’t just copy and paste the same directory over and over again forcing you to also copy changes and updates. Create a package instead! Unity has switched over to a package model for a lot of the engine’s capabilities. And it also allows you to import non-Asset Store packages straight from GitHub or even locally. So how do you take what you have and make it an easily distributable package? Follow these steps. In your Project window, below all your regular files is a Packages folder. Right click on it and select Show in Explorer. In that Packages folder, create a new directory and name it however you like. This will be the root of your package. Do remember that the folder name can not contain spaces. Create a new “package.json” file. This page right here explains everything about the structure of the file. And here is an example file. Back in Unity, your new package should be visible with the name you gave it. Clicking on package file will open it in the Editor UI, allowing you to edit it more conveniently so you don’t have to go back to the JSON. In that Inspector window, you can also easily add Dependencies if your package requires it which is a much easier workflow than typing them out. Continue Reading →


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