Play FREE Slots! - 6,000+ Free Slot Games (No Download)
Free Slots No download No registration: Play Free Online Slots
Monopoly Free Slot Game: No Download No Registration
Free Slots - Play Online Slot Games for FREE (No Download)
ᐈ Free Slots Online Play 7777+ Casino Slot Machine Games
Free Slots - Play Online Casino Games & Slot Machines for Fun
Free Slots No Download No Registration: Free Slot Machines ...
Play FREE Slots! ᐈ 2500+ Free Slot Games No Download 2021
Free Online Slots & Casino Games Play 9,500+ Games for Fun
slot games for free no download
slot games for free no download - win
Lockdown 3.0 Things to do, plus help and support.
DisclaimerI want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
I heard you guys like reading patch notes... So how about a fake one?
General / QoL
Dark Mode is now available as a setting and on by default. We also tied down the guy (who wrote the flashingly bright note about seizures) in a opthalmic speculum, in a dark room while opening and closing the said bright note for 3 hours.
Light Mode uses grayish / genshin-impact-blue color scheme.
Users can now map keys in settings.
New user center setting : Allow Teyvat Times to publish my in-game alias (not username) and last 4 digits of my UID (When you set a world record of hunting fowl and etc.)
Added setting for persistent aiming mode. If turned on, your character will try to get back to aiming mode even when you dash or you are knocked back.
Going in and out of aiming mode is now much smoother. You can still dash, cast skills and still keep the cursor on. Inspired by Tombraider? Idk why I wrote this.
When crafting an item and you run out of materials for it, the item selected stays in place and will not scroll all the way down.
When choosing characters for the abyss, the preview button to see which enemies you will face is also there.
When finishing an abyss floor, you can return to the abyss menu without ending the "run" to collect rewards or browse around.
Fixed a bug with sucrose/xinqiu bonus materials when crafting.
Fixed a bug with razor's c1 constellation not increasing his damage and not displaying a buff indicator.
All buffs are now grouped/stacked by icon category, attack/defense/regen etc. Hovering the cursor in the grouped icon will display verbose info. (e.g. thrilling dragon tales, character talent, gouba pepper etc).
Daily Login Bonus is permanent.
Claim All and Repeat Buttons are now available in Blacksmith, Battlepass, Expeditions and the Like.
VA/CV list is displayed instead of current selected voice language in character details. (e.g. if you go to a character screen, and have english voice language, you will only see english voice actor and you have to change language just to find out who the cn and jp voice actor is)
Hide ui/hud setting and dedicated hotkey is added for creating fan-made cinematics.
Unless it is an artifact or a weapon, an item previously recorded and consumed will no longer display as "new"
Added shield bar on top of health bar
Added party icon on the top right ui and a dedicated hotkey to switch parties
Added hotkey to switch to your saved Comps 1 to 4
Resin is now always visible at the top of UI (without needing to open up the map)
Moved UID a bit further down by 2px so it doesn't overlap with the buttons
Changed UID Opacity by 75% and has grayish text color, inspired by "windows is not activated"
Added a space character on the launcher download text (e.g. "Downloading75%" into "Downloading 75%")
Bonus damage from element-affected status (e.g. "deal 15% increased damage against cryo affected enemies" are enclosed in parentheses
Expedition Slot Remembers Last Character Used
Expedition Slot Remembers Last Hour Used
All map objects are navigatable for consistent experience. and are not overridden by quests. You will always be directed towards the one you choose.
Navigated Map Object Always Display Their Distance and Light Beacon (e.g. Leylines not having those)
Added enemy weakspot zones with varying degrees (green,orange,red) in the adventurer's handbook, if you kill 150 of a certain enemy type. Humanoid types generally have the head as a weakspot.
Fraction of Fraction of a bullet time effect and a red particle glows when you hit the weakest spot of an enemy.
Reading and Clearing Story/Voice Lines syncs across all devices you own.
Statues' Remaning Healing Energy now Visible on the Tower Itself. Dat Glowy thingies deplete when you use them.
Statue's First Healing Tick Revives Fallen Characters by 10hp%. Second Healing Tick is Full Restoration or until Remaining Healing Energy Allows it.
Critical strike Indicator
Enemies in the handbook are dynamically arranged by type , then alphabetically. All hypostasis are lined up.
All enemies are displayed in the handbook regardless of what region you currently are.
Journal (J) is now binded to (F1), since this is where you look commissions for rather than the Adventurer Handbook (F1)
Journal , Handbook and Archive are compressed and combined.
We bought a time machine and went back to the time when we did the hypostasis event. The last challenge in the event is now a new hypostasis after the three old hypostasis.
Andrius's Boss Fight is now properly a Trounce Domain, For consistency with other weekly boss.
Changing a Team Member in your active roster won't override that slot in your saved team comp
Active Roster and Saved Team Comps are now a seperate thing
Selecting a Saved Team Comp will replace the Active Roster (so you can replace one member before "deploying")
Clicking Deploy in a Saved Team Comps will immediately send you back to the game
Switching Party Members is smoother than an oiled tits smooth, regardless of network latency. Especially in Single Player Mode.
Resource and Player Position in the map has better visual clarity. (Imagine klee collecting wolf berries or philly mushrooms)
Option to adjust map size , and resource/player icons.
PC , map pin size collision reduced. If I clicked Taishan Mansion, I meant Taishan Mansion.
Mora , Artifact Limits and etc always visible in inventory screen regardless of which tab you are on
Blacksmith remembers the quantity of ores you refine
Adventurer's Handbook remembers the last filter you used when browsing enemies (all, elite ,boss)
Adventurer's Handbook points you the next enemy you are hunting (when you kill 1 ruin guard, you dont have to open handbook again to see the next one in the map)
Adventure's Handbook knows ALL of the elite enemy locations. The list seem to be manually added instead of dynamic, possibly due to chest concealment similar mechanic. If you hunt ruin guards, I think the book only lists 4 of them in the whole map.
Gameplay
Training dummy added near favonius hq. You have to do a story quest and spend resource to have it constructed.
Enemies now have a difficulty rating. The higher the difficulty rating is, the higher character xp/gold they will provide. XP scales off your adventure rank level. Extra Large enemies have a guaranteed chance to drop 1-4* artifacts. They will respawn longer as a consequence. It doesn't make sense that a huge lawachurl and smol hilichurl both give 20xp.
First and Second Dash now have different color indicators.
If you used 2 dashes consecutively, a subtle glow/indicator pops around your character for when you are able to dash again. Inspired by Deadcells.
Added Treasure Compass for Dragonspire.
All excess anemoculus/geoculus/dendroculus and crimson agate can now be traded in the antiques shop.
Treasure Compass will automatically change depending on what region you are on. If you don't have a treasure compass for that region, it will remain unchanged from what is the last equipped.
Treasure Compass search radius is increased region wide. It will point the "nearest" treasure chest's direction. The color of the direction changes the farther you are.
Treasure Compass will now consider puzzles as treasure, and display a different indicator. It won't tell you what steps to take to open it, though.
Added a domain for gladiator and wanderer's troupe artifact sets. Artifact drop rate from world bosses are FURTHER reduced. Weekly boss artifact drops are unaffected.
Prototypes will now drop at least once in the last weekly boss you face, if you are unlucky. The chance to acquire multiple prototypes within a week is unchanged. Drop rate is reduced consequently.
World Boss Artifact Drop Rates are now visible in the adventurer's handbook.
Prototype Drop Rates are now visible.
Domain Artifact Drop Rates are now visible.
1-3* Weapons are now craftable. They will require a shit ton of ores and materials. Cold Steel for instance will require 200 pieces of mint.
Added 6 new craftable weapons. Of course it will require prototypes you f2p piece of shit.
Craftables, Shops and Loot have higher priority versus signboards and npc.
Monsters and Enemies have higher priority (when attacking or casting skills) versus ores and flaming/freezing flowers and other resource objects.
You can now equip up to 3 gadgets.
New Action : long pressing a gadget opens up Gadget Wheel to switch gadgets without opening the inventory. Gadget goes into long cooldown.
Domains now consider your condensed resin before saying you are out of resin.
After completing a domain challenge, The start challenge object will respawn in the center of the arena. Game will no longer go into a loading screen. This is for the console peasants.
When claiming domain challenge rewards, it also displays how much condensed resin you have (so you know you can still do 1 more, or gtfo) when it asks if you want to continue or leave
Anemo Hypostasis will die if you manage to collect all the orbs, for a more consistent experience with other hypostasis.
Weekly boss timers are now consistent. (Some have none , some at top, some at bottom)
Dvalin's Mini Cutscene will hold your altitude (if you are gliding) when it triggers
Childe's Mini Cutscene is now automatically skippable (named "skip when already viewed once" found in settings).
Food is now sortable by type.
When choosing a revival food, the icon sizes are reduced and displayed in a grid rather than a long line. When in single player mode it slows down time. Like witcher 3 or tomb raider.
MRE can now hold all types of food, up to 3 slots.
You can long click/hold the MRE button and switch the food it holds. Goes into long cooldown.
Charged Longsword and Bow Attacks (for claymoreless comps) will now allow you to mine ores more effectively. This affects rock shield wall hilichurls as well.
No one uses claymore charged attacks, even with stunned enemies. Claymore charged attacks now deal increasing damage the longer it was charged uninterrupted. You will get staggered and take more damage as a consequence. The last attack of a charged attack deals more damage and wipes half of the planet's population.
Constellation can now be toggled on/off
Gacha / Shop
The first cheapest crystal top up (60+60) has been buffed to (80+80) crystals. We realized it wasn't even enough for a single pull and we laughed until our sides hurt. As a tiny token of goodwill this will retroactively affect everyone who purchased this item for n amount of times the person has purchased this item.
All in-game currencies (primo/fate/genesis/future except mora) are always displayed in the topright corner when wishing and shopping.
Pity Counter. When it reaches 75 it glows like christmas.
Gifting of purchase is now possible. In the case of chargebacks , the gifter gets banned. Gifts can only be sent after 60 days of purchase, and usable by the recipient after a week. Maximum of 1 gift per month.
Gifter must have a track record of >= $20 of purchase within the last 3 months.
Gifting is a sensitive topic. Chargeback scams fucks up game companies, banks and third party payment platforms.
Purchase history and total is added to track expenses.
Gambling addicition reminders when you rage spend. Also alerts a mhy employee when huge purchases are being made in error. It displays a huge red alert on the employees screen.
In Consideration
Reworked Elemantal Mastery to also increase Elemental Skill Damage by 25% (base, some current/future characters might interact with less or more) of your total Elem Mastery. Consequently, Skill Damage from Attack Ratios are lowered. Think of ad/ap ratios in League of Legends.
Character skills to deal compound damage of physical+element when using a weapon (e.g. diluc smash bouncing off pyro slimes, despite his big sword being sharp and shiny)
Items
Wind Catcher Gadget now refills with anemo energy particles.
Prototype Aminus/Archaic's proc cooldown refinement is restored. (Used to be 15/14/13/12/10)
Boar Traps are now craftable and equippable as a gadget. You can leave it up to 48 hours to check if you caught something.
Cast net are now craftable and equippable as a gadget. Can be used to catch multiple fish and crystal flies.
Crab Traps , can be left in the wild for 48 hours and catches 3 crabs per trap.
Inflatable balloon for safe swimming. Requires anemo slime materials.
Portable towers no longer expire.
Portable towers max deployed count is increased up to 5.
Condensed Resin can now be used on World Boss
Condensed Resin cap increased to 5.
Artifact Inventory Limit increased to 5000.
Weapon Cooldown Indicator displayed as status icon (sacrificial sword, archaic, etc)
Seelie Companions give 1% passive bonus CharXP(Blue), CompanionXP(Purple), Mora(Gold)
Crafting Table no longer consumable
Portable Cooker no longer consumable (requires fuel , 1 fire stamen = 3 uses)
Portable Warmer no longer consumable (requires fuel , 1 fire stamen = 3 uses)
Items mined are ores
Refined ores are ingots
Option to refine Magical Crystal Chunk without resin, but with immensely increased cost and time
Coop
You can see the general direction and how far an ally is like in pubg.
In-game voice chat for random players in matchmaking
Battlepass / 12 Episode Anime
Battlepass can now have excess points up to 3000xp , for the times when you do your reputation bounty and missions earlier before the next battlepass comes out.
When a new Battlepass starts, it starts on mondays , so no mission gets left out. All excess days until the next new-battlepass-monday are dynamic and flexible.
When using a condensed resin in a domain, it counts as 2 domains cleared in the Battlepass
Cooking ingredients (sugar, bacon, cheese, etc) counts as cooking in the Battlepass
You don't need to switch tabs in the battlepass when using claim all. Clicking claim all, claims all.
New battlepass campaign for 12 episode anime. Milestones are displayed on website and forum. Sales earned are transparent in game and website. Inspired by dota 2 international.
Percentage of battlepass campaign sales will go to anime funding.
Having at least 1 season of anime puts mihoyo in the "mainstream" status in the leagues of Fate, Princess Connect, Grand Blue etc. It solidifies the IP.
Quests
Option to abandon story quests (restart from scratch) to prevent blocking of coop
Repeatable Quests Ideas below. Coop and matchmaking is enabled. 15~30 minutes long, walking pace. Not mandatory for daily activity/event/battlepass for people with little time to play. Gives worthwile rewards (3 pieces of adventurer's wit, 5k mora etc)
Long escort caravan mission, from Mondstadt all the way to Liyue. From Springvale to Liyue. People and Caravan must survive. Enjoy the beautiful world of Teyvat, optional pit stops, coop chat/discord, region guard checkpoints and enemy ambush. Multiple client routes available. Go through dragonspire for a shorter, but more dangerous path. Get harassed by Fatui at borders. Board a ship and load the caravan. Get checked by Border Patrol for smuggled goods and diseases.
Repeatable Town defense without towers. Defend the Town from hordes of invaders. Something fun with coop.
Fatui and Friends Battle Royale. All npcs and doors disabled. You and the fatui bots duke it out. Healing only comes from special food that you pick up. Matchmaking enabled.
Beach Defense. Prevent the Fatui from invading the coastline. Your friends rain arrows from starsnatch cliff.
Beach to Mondstadt/Springvale goods escort services.
Elemental Reactions
Vaporize's Steam deals aoe damage
Overloads damage (electro->pyro) now deals x1.5 (pyro) damage
Overloads damage (pyro->electro) now deals x2 (pyro) damage.
Overload's knockback decreased significantly
Superconduct's damage (electro->cryo) now deals 2x (cryo) damage
Superconduct's damage (cryo->electro) now deals 1.5x (cryo) damage
Superconduct's negative armor debuff is moved to Melt
Melt gains the negative armor debuff due to the sudden temperature change, making surfaces brittle.
Melt damage consequently reduced. (pyro->hydro) at x1.4% , (hydro->pyro) at x1.8%
Geo New Reaction : Smoldering Rock or something (pyro->geo)(reverse not applicable) deals x0.3 (pyro damage) on top of crystallize
Geo New Reaction : Mud or something (hydro->geo)(geo->hydro) deals x0.1 (geo damage) on top of crystallize, slows enemy movement
Geo New Reaction : Snow or something (hydro->geo)(reverse not applicable) deals x0.2 (cryo damage) on top of crystallize, slows enemy attack speed
Geo New Reaction : Seeds or something (dendro->geo) deals x0.1 (dendro damage) on top of crystallize, restores 3% of your hp. Or entangle. Prevents enemy movement (can still attacc and cast spells)
Enemies
Enemies inside domains and abyss have their return-to-spawn-point-then-regenerate-to-full-health disabled.
Enemy AI a bit smarter. Those with mobility skills (whopper, smol geovishap, cycin mages) won't follow you to drown in the water. The game will not check if you are wet , but if you are in a swimming state.
Hydro Abyss Mage's and Hydro Fatui Gunner's Hydro Barrier now takes the same damage rate/ratio from opposing elements (cryo,electro) for consistency.
Hydro barrier new opposing element : Geo. It makes it harder to maintain the water shield due to the mud soaking up the water and adding weight.
Boss Childe's Spirit Whale Attack generates water in the sides of the arena, pushing you towards the center. You must have enough stamina to keep dashing to the sides before he does this, or you will have to perfectly dodge the spirit whale attack.
Hydro SamaChurl now heals at a rate of +300/HoT per AR Milestone instead of percentage. This is for when you are hunting a LawaChurl Bounty that is near dead and healed to full health in 3 seconds. Having a fixed amount of healing ensures that it is big enough for the intended smaller enemies and portionally good enough for large enemies. The other option is to use different healing ratios for small and large enemies.
Queen of Pain , I mean Cycin Mages have a stagger window when they are about to cast their almost-undispellable shield
Zed , I mean Shadow Fatui Agent makes use of his shadows to dodge your attack sometimes.
Smol Geo Vishap now drops less geo shields
Smol Geo Vishap now uses his rolling attack near you, not 150m away from you.
Smol Geo Vishap now burrows a bit less frequently
Ruin Hunter doesn't stay in the air up and raining artillery forever , in consideration of bowless comps
Fatui Cryo and Hydro Gunner Turn Rate Reduced by 10% when on Spray Mode.
Primo GeoVishap now has a tired/exhausted animation, instead of standing still and looking at you and what life could have been for 10 seconds.
Primo GeoVishap spin attack now has a 0.2 dodge window (previously none) and Spin Radius Decreased by 100m.
Characters
Dvalin's Cutscene when you dispel his barrier is removed and much smoother. He just falls in place and no clipping.
Character's "Main Stat" is now visible in attributes. Previously you can only know it when ascending or when using google, or if you really have a big brain.
All characters passive talents are now combat related.
All characters now have their own cooking/exploration/crafting/smithing talents. It is possible not to have OR have multiple talents in each category. We get it , everyone can taste what a good gravy is, but not everyone can make a good gravy.
Ayaka
Alternate sprint binded to a different hotkey.
Yes I came from the future.
Albedo
Elevator can be activated to go up and down by using the F key.
C2 stack counter / indicator via particles (think of razor geo sigils)
C4 plunged attack covers albedo's sword in geo energy (like noelle, but smol)
C6 crystallize shield has a different shape (leaf)
Amber
Increased ultimate radius by a tiny bit.
Allow targeting of ulimate by holding the ultimate button.
If baron bunny is present in the ultimate radius, it will absorb all pyro damage and deal it as bonus damage when it blows up.
If baron bunny was "charged" with pyro rain and hit with a C2 charged shot, it will trigger a micheal bay explosion animation.
Barbara
Restored Barbara's Energetic Voice Lines
New Lines sold seperately as Dark Barbara™ , comes with a Dark Dress
C6 Revive indicator is now visible as a buff.
C4 now generates flying energy particles instead of instantly regaining energy. Mind you that this is a fucking nerf to this piece of shit healer that freezes you. It's just that there's no flying particles when you use this hero.
Beidou
Casting the elemental skill applies a strong taunt and re-initializes enemies attack loop.
Bullet Time effect added when triggering a perfect counter, when playing in single player mode.
The ultimate's chain lightning deals tiny spark damage if it didn't jump.
C2 chain lightning has a different color.
C4 buff is triggered when you do a perfect counter (Taking damage to activate a skill promotes bad gameplay)
C4 perfect counter grants the maximum damage bonus
C4 shield has a different color.
C6 has aura on the ground (inspired by Dota 2's Necrophos , but purple)
Bennet
C6 Ultimate pyro infusion just adds pyro damage to your attacks, and won't convert them fully into pyro.
C6 Ultimate restores up to 100% hp.
Childe
Improved manly posture when in aiming mode
C4 Riptide slash and flash uses different coloparticles/animation
C6 has an indicator when it works and when it is available
Chongyun
Cryo Field's Cryo infusion just adds cryo damage to your attacks, and won't convert them fully into cryo.
Diluc
What seriously? You really want more?
Fuck this guy in particular
Elemental Sword Duration Indicator added
C6 his flames has some bluish tint
Diona
Fixed shield duration bug and increased by additional 1.1 seconds per claw.
Shield ratio based off max hp increased by 10%
C2 reduces skill cooldown by -2 seonds (press) and -4 (hold). The coop shield is added by default out of the box. Anything coop should not be locked behind a paywall because it will hurt the game and fanbase.
C4 has been reworked to grant normal and aimed uncharged shots 25% chance to deal charged attack shots.
C6 radius is increased and uses a different color.
Fischl
Ultimate now deals tiny bit of damage per 0.2 seconds tick when making contact with enemies (aside from getting hit by lightning once)
Ultimate can fly/pass through thorn walls. I'm looking at you Dendro Samachurl.
Shadow Raven Let Night F---!!!
C4 Ultimate hp restored now scales off damage dealt by the ult.
Ganyu
holding the elemental skill allows you to aim and won't make you backdash
C4 Freezing Field changes color intensity per damage increase
C6 free frost charged arrow now works with normal unaimed attacks.
C6 uses a different particle color. Sometime it turns into a bazooka.
Jean
Reduced Increased swaying of boobs by a tiny amount while holding the skill. You can kinda feel them slapping against your face. You can almost describe their softness and warmth in a minimum of 10 pages apart from you going sommelier describing how deep her sweat tastes like.
Jean's Charged Attack Launch Height is too damn high that you cant even hit the enemy, so - Reworked Jean's Charged Attack : Holding the attack button launches the enemy in the air. If you keep holding it down you will perform 3 slashes in the air. If you let go early you will stay on the ground.
Base Attack Increased by +5
Jean can now pick up the slimes dropped by enemies and use it against them for a bighead move
Ultimate radius is increased
Ultimate Wall Mechanic Reversed. Enemies are now trapped inside. When you use your skill (usually to regain energy) you can air-wall slam them. Block Projectiles from outside.
If any of you actually played jean support, a normal person would use ult to heal, cast skill to regain energy, then switch back to other characters. It doesn't make fucking sense to push them outside your wind arena because you want to fight inside the swirl/healing zone.
Ultimate swirls every 0.2 seconds , depending on what elements are inside. Field Changes Color Each Time Like a Disco Ball
Ultimate now slowly succs enemies to the center(without lifting them up)
Ultimate Damage is consequently reduced.
C1 Uses a different colored windblast
C2 Buff Indicator
C4 uses a different color wind field
C6 Ultimate is now an aura and moves with you. To break away from "buffed area" convention.
C6 Ultimate will get you to keep the windsaber for the ult's duration
C6 Shield Buff Indicator via Particle and Status Icon
Kaeya
Base attack incresed by 5
Elemental Skill (Hold) Sprays Ice , think of Igni but Ice in Witcher 3 or DND's Burning Hands
C2 Icicles light up when you defeat an enemy indicating that it really works
C4 Barrier is of different shape
C6 uses a different icicle particle for bling purposes
Keqing
Aiming mode feels a lot smoother. You can aim while moving and cursor immediately shows and the kungfu pose is only done when throwing the stilleto.
When in single player mode, casting your ultimate produces a bullet time effect.
C4 Buff Indicator
C6 Description is confusing as fuck.
C6 Buff indicator
C6 Makes your sword light up like a lightsaber.
Klee
Imroved Torch/Bonfire/Campfire and the likes Lockon (if there's any to begin with)
Throwing Jumpty Dumpty provides 0.1s iframe during her spin
Ult is now no longer greedy. Pyro satellites remain when you switch characters, making our lovable klee open up for support options. Child support.
C4 is now manually triggered, Pressing q again will make her explode, bigger damage based off remaining duration. less duration left, less damage.
C6 klee uses different bombs
Lisa
A lingerie shop is opened in Mondstadt to change her pantsu, socks and garter belt style and colors. Black Leather Tight Suit™ Sold Seperately.
Option to wear glasses as a Librarian added.
Climbing voice volume is re-mastered in asmr microphone, in all languages.
Requires "i am of legal age" consent in the user center
Elemental skill (press) aoe slightly increased.
Base attack increased by 15.
Mona
Alternate dash is now binded to alt key.
Hydro Puppet now deals half damage upon cast and half damage upon explosion.
C6 normal attacks use a different attack animation.
MC (Anemo)
Palm vortex can be casted in midair to break your fall (but not propel you up)
MC (Geo)
When you overlap geo boulders (aimed mode) it will trigger the geo explosion of the older rock, then replace it with a new one
Ningguang
Holding the skill button surrounds her in mini jade screens , unable to perform any action until it is released or ends. Useful for cinematic stuff. Imagine tanking childe's whale attack. Or someone wants to recreate triple rashomon scene.
C6 has a chance to use different attack animation.
C6 star jade now resembles a primo gem.
Noelle
Elemental Sword Duration Indicator added
C1 heals have a special effect and voice line when conditions are met.
C2 upgrade uses a different charged attack animation.
C4 uses a different barrier color
C6 upgrade uses different ult (possibly red with the same hue as her skirt) color.
Qiqi
C2 reworked as -15% attack debuff
C4 reworked as -20% elemental resistance debuff
C6 cooldown/availability indicator.
C6 has a different bling/color
Razor
Transformation Duration Indicator added
C1 increased damage now really works
C1 now has a buff indicator that it really works
C2 now has a special crit indicator
C4 armor shred now has a (claw mark) armor shred indicator that it really works
C4 (hold) has increased damage so it doesn't feel left out. It also has electro explosions similar to when you mine an electric ore as a special effect to indicate that you are C4 and have a big PP.
C6 covers your sword with electricity (like diluc) when it is charged and ready
Yes I play razor a lot.
Sucrose
Fixed crafting bug not producing any bonus when using large quantities (say 100+)
Improved lock on when blowing off dandelion flowers. Idk how she keeps missing them even at point blank range, Hell , at any given range.
C1 if you overlap the wind nukes the second one will be a 0.1s delay then it will go off with a slightly bigger radius
C2 ult has a different color
C4 has an indicator that it works
C6 buff indicator
Venti
Wind current generated by skill (hold) allows him to fall slower without gliding, and allows him to shoot wind lasers. Ehe
C2 Charged Shot produces a bullet time effect when shot at point blank or if all 3 arrows hit a single enemy. Sometimes he draws the holy lyre and it transforms into a primitive shotgun.
C4 buff indicator.
C6 uses different vacuum color
Xiangling
Ultimate deals additional damage when cast at point blank because you get stab and bonk while she is twirling her spear.
C2 last attack leaves a flaming trail special effect (inspired by kyo or iori from king of fighters)
C6 upon cast, Xianling automatically does a speed-up full normal attack combo and then releases the pyronado normally (while covered in flames or some shit). If you are in single player mode and there are no other enemies within 150 radius the ult will cause the screen to black out, like in legend of legaia.
C6 during the ultimate if it contacts with gouba's flames it produces micheal bay effects while raining carpet bombs and shit.
Yes flat is justice.
Xingqiu
Floating Swords Duration added
Fixed crafting bug not producing any bonus when using large quantities (say 100+)
C4 Allows you to hold the elemental skill for double backflips (inspired by law from tekken) cooldown is 1 month.
C4 Elem Skill leaves a faint rainbow (when ulted)
C6 Swords emit faint rainbow color. Rainbow power motherf-
Xinyan
Hitting large enemies counts as 2 enemies.
C1 buff indicator
C2's level 3 shield has some bluish flames
C6 charged attack uses a diffent attack animation or has an indicator that it works
Xiao
Transformation Duration Indicator added
C2 now leaves a trail of anemo energy that deals tiny bit of damage , trail lasts for 1 second and deals at 0.2s intervals.
C6 plunge attack counts large enemies as 2.
C6 plunge-attack-no-cooldown-empowered-dashes uses a different particle color and produces a bullet time effect when used for the 3rd time onwards. useful for cinematic purposes
C6 during the bullet time you can sneak in a normal attack once per dash
Bullet time is always disabled in multiplayer
Zhongli
Increased pillar aoe by a tiny bit
Generates energy particles per pulse, maximum of 1 enemy per pillar
Base attack increased by 5
Travelers can redeem promo code "WHOSYOURDADDY" for additional +5 damage, regardless if they have the hero or not.
Attack ratios increased by 3% per attack category.
C1 has a slightly bigger dong eherm statue
C4 Chaos Meteor errrr I mean Order Meteor has a different rock color
C6 shield uses a different color , come on you get the drift already.
C6 Meteor is affected by the element of the barrier you are wearing. The element is dealt as secondary damage, primary damage is still geo. (flaming space rock?)
Why different coloparticles/animation when you have C1-C6 upgrade?
It makes whales feels special, and it gives F2P players something to aspire for. It makes you want to spend with all the bling. Particle recolor is easy peasy and can be deployed within minutes. Attack animations on the other hand are time consuming. It almost always put smile in people's faces when a whale shows up in a ferrari. "Dude check this out a C6 GeoDaddy joined my domain run. Look at the size of his statue. Oh my what a BIG meteor."
Why are you doing this?
It's just for my amusement. I'm still adding random thoughts now that 1.3 has launched. I don't care if nothing gets implemented. I would nut hard in my shorts with QoL and alleged bug/bugfixes mentioned in this post more than anything.
Afterword
Leave your thoughts below. Sorry and not sorry for the broken engrish , feel free to copy and paste whatever, use it wherever idc as long as it doesn't annoy or harm someone. Translate it in your language etc. No credits needed etc. Let your mind flow
After-Afterword
Thanks for the awards and all kinds of reception
You guys are awesome and insane that's a shit load of awards thank you.
Basic Guide on how to configure your: interface, gameplay & graphics settings, ability bars and combat fundamentals.
INTRODUCTION
Hello There! Today i want to share with you a guide i’ve been making for the last couple months. The purpose of this guide is helping out new, returning and even veteran players navigate the user interface menu, the gameplay and graphics settings, along helping out new players configure their very own ability bars; wether they're in F2P or Member worlds and, help them undertand some of the fundamentals behind them, all that information who sometimes can get a little overwhelming due the sheer amount of it. "This is the default" new player interface" (image credits: The RS Wiki)". With that being said, this guide contains a couple of “Cheatsheets” along the way, carefully designed to contain as much information and visual examples as possible in order to enrich and make each section of this guide easier to understand. Now, without further ado, let’s get right into it.
USER INTERFACE
Undoubtedly, one of the most important things of any game; regardless of its genre, is the user interface, as this is where all your controls, buttons and vital information is found. As a new RuneScape player, you’re welcomed with a rather confusing interface where Everything seems to be all over the place (as seen on the image above) without clear indication of what it does. The majority of the time, when you arrive as a fresh player, the first hour or so is spent on “figuring out” what everything does by trial and error and, by the end of it, you end up even more confused, and with plenty of time invested. Now, if you take a look at the First Cheatsheet below, you’ll notice there’s a lot of windows and information scattered all over the place, but don’t be afraid as i’ll guide you through them in the next couple of paragraphs. "This is a general overview of your user interface and its many windows".
The main chatbox
To get things started, you’ll need to focus your attention to the “Main Chatbox window” (that adorable yellow window on the corner of the cheatsheet), here you’ll be Reading all the information displayed in game, be it a Goblin Examine text, your friends flexing their Chickens Killcount, an in-game annoucnement, a rare drop, a skill level up or a message telling you about how you burnt those shrimps (again). This is where all of the wordplay comes alive, but don’t fret about receiving lots of spam because you can filter those messages by clicking on the first button of this handy header bar; for more information about these icons, refer to the mini-cheatsheet below "Here's the magic behind the Chat Message filters". Returning to the Yellow Window, there you can also drag and drop your friend’s, group or clan chat windows, the cool thing about it is that you can configure it to your heart’s content and see what works best for your playstyle; wether if you want to have only your friends chat window, or if you prefer to talk to your clan, the choice is yours.
The main action bar and secondary action bars.
Moving on, we have the Green and Purple windows, where you can see your Main Action Bar (who might be minimized, so click on the top right yellow icon to maximize it) alongside your Auxiliary action bars (more on that later, I promise), to not delve too much into what these action bars do, they allow you to cast your combat abilities, use items directly from them (if they have an associated keybind) use prayers/ancient curses to help you in combat and even use teleports to different locations. Sounds amazing right? That’s why it’s recommended to have these windows on the center of your screen and in your line of sight.
The Inventory window.
The Blue window contains your inventory, which also contains your items; such as food, potions, Weapon Switches, Logs, Raw fish and all those burnt shrimps you made earlier (yum!), this window should also be within your line of sight in order to keep track of all the items you’re carrying.
The Familiar and ability spellbooks window.
The Red window is equally important as it serves as an expansion for both your inventory; if you’re using a "beast of burden" familiar, or your ability spellbooks; if you’re not using a familiar. As you make your way through the game, you’ll unlock a wide array of useful familiars (through the Summoning Skill) which can help you with your skilling (by offering invisible boosts), with combat (by offering Passive abilities and Powerful special attacks) and, some of them are sworn to carry your burdens (namely the Terrorbirds, War Tortoise, Pack Yak and Pack Mammoths, known as Beasts of Burden), the latter can help you bring extra food to your Bossing trips, or even help you stay longer at certain skilling spots, so you can stay there a bit longer without needing to visit your bank as often. You can customize your familiar options by right clicking on the Summoning Medallion (That Blue Icon with a Wolf Head). When you’re not using a familiar, switch to the other tabs, as these will help you use abilities you couldn’t include in your main action bars. If you’re not doing any of the above, then drag and drop the Music tab here, that way you can enjoy some amazing tracks while you play (and i can’t stress this enough, give the RuneScape OST a try, is really, really, really worth a listen, after all it contains Sea Shanty 2, what else could you ask for!?).
The Ribbon.
The small Mint Green window is your ribbon bar, here you can unlock your interface (by clicking on the little lock icon) and this will let you re-arrange the interface windows to your liking, on the cheatsheet you can see a standard “Bottom right corner” style, which isn’t too terrible and a good foundation to change and improve progressively throughout your playthrough.
The Skills window, Prayers/Ancient Curses and logs.
The Orange window contains your Skills levels, Prayers/Ancient curses (useful when you’re in combat) and your Drop log/RuneMetrics stats, which helps you keep track of your items or damage/XP. During cerain Minigames or Treasure trails, the interface also goes here, so it helps you out by keeping track of those interfaces in a comfortable spot.
The Equipment window.
The Light blue window just above the orange one is your equipment window, here you can see a mini-you version of your character alongside the items you have currently equipped.
The Minimap.
Finally, the Golden window on the upper right corner displays the minimap, here you can see where you stand in the current area. And it helps you change skyboxes, filters, open the world hop interface (if you want to switch to a more active/quiet world) and Teleport to the various Lodestones you have unlocked. Once again, make sure you right click every single icon here, you’ll find plenty of useful and cool options to try out.
The Developer console.
Now, leaving all these interface windows to the side, there’s a useful tool known as the “Developer console”, which can be accessed by pressing the Keys [Alt] + [¬] (the key on the left of the number 1 key and below the ESC key) or the keys [Option] + [< >] if you’re using a MAC computer. The purpose of the Developer console is to display some performance information of your game, like the amount of FPS you’re getting, how much memory is the game consuming, how much of the Game Disk Cache has been downloaded; and if the game’s still downloading the cache files, and Finally, it shows your ping. In order for the Developer console to display all that information, you’ll need to type one of the following commands, keep in mind these are typed without spaces or caps:
Command
Action
commands
Lists available commands.
help
Lists available commands.
cls
Clears the developer console screen.
displayfps
Toggles the frames per second (FPS) counter and alll information above-mentioned.
displayfpsfull
Toggles the same data of the previous command, but adds expandable graphs.
displayfpssmall
Only toggles you FPS counter without any extra information
renderer
Shows information about your graphic card renderer and its capabilities
getcamerapos
Showls the location and the direction of the game camera; mostly used in bug reports.
deletejs5caches
Deletes the ENTIRE game cache, you will need to redownload all of it once again if you delete it.
enablesnow
Enables the snow particle effect in the developer console.
disablesnow
Disables the snow effect.
If you type the command a second time, the information window will be hidden and, in order to close the developer console, just click the same combination of keys used to open it.
LAYOUT WINDOWS
All of those windows shown on the bottom half of the Cheatsheet above, represent a different interface that will appear in the game at some point; like your bank interface, dialogue windows, xp counters, achievements, level up progress icons, loot interface, and many more. The arrangement showcased in the cheatsheet is just an example aimed to make each of these windows easier to find. You can resize some of these windows and re-locate them to an specific spot that suits your playstyle. Once you are done make sure to click [SAVE AND EXIT] and then on the [SAVE LAYOUT] option select the Custom interface of your choosing; called [MY CUSTOM 1/2/3/ETC], this way you can have multiple layouts for different activities. In order to access the layout windows editor, you just need to click the ESC key and click on the [EDIT LAYOUT MODE] option, from there, click the [ADVANCED OPTIONS] button, and check the various windows you want to display, overall it’s just a matter of resizing and rearranging them to your heart’s content.
GRAPHICS SETTINGS
You may have seen a couple of amazing screenshots on the subreddit or the Steam community page, yes, those screenshots that are “wallpaper worthy” and take your breath away. In order to make your PC run in such a beautiful fashion, you will need to understand what each setting does and how it impacts the game performance; because as you’d might expect, higher graphics can take a heavy toll on your PC, and in some old laptops, they can even match your frying pan’s temperature (ideal for some shrimp cooking/burning). By default, and once you run the game for the first time, it will run an “Auto Setup” to determine which option works best for your PC, however, you may still want to customize a couple of settings here and there, as some of these options may only provide minimal improvements at the expense of a smoother performance. On the following Cheatsheet, i’ll explain all of these options in detail alongside some visual examples. The Current available screen resolutions are: [950 x 540], [1920 x 1080] and [2560 x 1440], the [Fullscreen mode] will use the entire area of the screen and, [Windowed] mode, will let you resize the game window to your liking. "Here's where you can configure your graphics to look as good as they can, or optimize the performance of your PC by lowering them".
DRAW DISTANCE
One of the most impactful settings on the game is the [DRAW DISTANCE]; which can be helpful on some Bossing arenas (like Solak, Nex: Angel of Death, Raids, Araxxor, Elite Dungeons and The Wilderness; to see potential attackers on the horizon), paired with a camera set on [FREEDOM - CLASSIC] mode, will let you see your target’s a lot more clearly. Overall, i’d recommend something like Medium or High depending on your PC specs. But, If you have a bottlenecked PC or laptop, choose the lower setting.
Vsync
[Vsync] or Vertical Synchronization, will help you prevent screen tearing in your game by matching the frame rate of the game and your monitor refresh rate, for this feature keep in mind the following: if you set your game at 120 FPS but only have a 60 Hz monitor, you won’t be able to see any extra FPS, but, if you were to play on a 144Hz monitor, you will be able to see those 120 FPS. [Here's a quick video about this topic].
ANTIALIASING & ANTIALIASING MODE
On the other hand, [Antialiasing quality], will help you produce a smoother image quality, but, for the most part, this feature won’t be really noticeable unless you zoom your camera very close, and given how impactful this setting is, it’s adviced to turn it off if you’re having performance issues. The [Antialiasing mode] included in the game are the high performance option [FXAA] which is slightly less taxing than the [MSAA] option; which consumes a bit more of resources, and the combination of [FXAA+MSAA] which makes certain objects in the game blurry.
LIGHTING DETAIL & BLOOM
The next couple of settings are [Lighting detail] and [Bloom], in the most essential sense of the word, these settings will only help you produce a more realistic image, by simulating accurate light bounces on a specific areas and objects and “Enhancing light sources" (like suns, moons, fires and lava), keep in mind tho, the latter can be pretty aggresive to the eyes, so use moderately.
ANISOTROPIC FILTERING
[Anisotropic Filtering], what this setting does is add a little more of detail to far away objects by making them sharper the higher this filter goes, for instance, if set to [OFF], far off textures will look slightly blurry, whereas in a high setting [16x] these far off textures will look sharper and nicer. In a similar fashion to Draw distance, if the game performance starts to dwindle down, it’s recommended to set this setting to OFF.
FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND FPS
Your [Foreground FPS], will define the amount of FPS your game will output and, like mentioned in the [Vsync] setting paragraph, one must take the Monitor refresh rate (Hz) into consideration when setting the amount of FPS desired. Similarly, the [Background FPS] should be set to a low number, because this is the amount of FPS you game will run at when you’re not actively playing the game (or in other words, when the game is running in the background while you "AFK").
INTERFACE SCALING
The [Interface Scaling Setting] is mainly used for bigger monitors where your interface may look small, the higher this setting, the bigger your interface will be displayed at.
SHADOWS & SHADOWS QUALITY
The game [Shadows] setting is pretty self explanatory, as it will display the environment shadows of a particular area. Disabling this setting will make the game look “flat” and slightly similar to the Oldschool RuneScape graphics. it is also suggested to disable this setting if you’re experiencing performance issues. The [Shadow Quality] on the other hand, will only work if you have enabled the in game shadows and this setting will help define their “sharpness”, with [ULTRA] being the better looking one, or [LOW] which makes them slightly “blurrier”. The shadows setting can be somewhat taxing to your PC or Laptop, so disable this setting if you’re experiencing a poor performance.
LOADING SCREENS
Depending on your personal preference, you can either enable the game [Loading Screens] or just disable them entirely.
TERRAIN BLENDING
[Terrain Blending] is, in simple terms, a setting that allows the different floor textures to “blend together” in order to make them more fluid, if this setting is turned OFF, Textures will automatically get disabled aswell.
SMOOTH CAMERA FADE
The [Smooth Camera Fade] is a setting only visible when certain objects get “cut” by your camera zoom; like walls, trees, rocks, buildings, etc.], the purpose of this setting is to “smoothen” the look of these cut objects, but other than that, it doesn’t really change anything important.
MOUSE OVER ENTITY HIGHLIGHTS
[Mouse over entity highlights] this setting consists of an “outline” that appears around anything “clickable” when hovering the cursor over it. Depending on the object (item/npc/players/etc.), it will appear as a different colour, e.g: for the majority of NPC’s, it will appear as a Yellow outline, for interactable objects like Fishing Spots, Trees, Archaeology Hotspots, etc, the outline colour will be Cyan, on the other hand attackable NPC’s will glow with a Red outline when clicked.
REMOVE ROOFS
[Remove roofs] is a setting that will remove the roofing and first floors from the buildings in the game, you can either set it to [ALL] to remove it from all buildings, or [SELECTIVELY] to remove them only after entering these buildings.
WATER DETAIL
[Water detail] in short, the [LOW] setting makes the water look like a flat surface, without reflections or depth and it gets progressively "realistic" by adding more reflectivity: [MEDIUIM] to [ULTRA], keep in mind this setting is also taxing, so adjust according to your preference.
AMBIENT OCCLUSION
[Ambient occlusion] simply put, this setting determines how much lighting should a space have depending on its features in order to make it more realistic. [SSAO] (Screen Space) is the least demanding, while [HBAO] (Horizon Based) has a higher performance hit. [OFF] would be the best option if you don’t mind losing this little feature in order to maximize the performance.
TEXTURES
[Textures] this setting only has two options available, with those being [OFF] and [Compressed], disabling textures in the game will make everything look like a mesh of polygons without depth or detail, therefore, this can also greatly improve the performance of your game.
VOLUMETRIC LIGHT
[Volumetric Light], this setting adds more realism to light emitting sources on certain skyboxes (like the suns or moons); similar to the Bloom setting, this feature depends, mostly, on personal preference and only if the brighter effects are desired.
GAME RENDERING SCALING
[Game rendering Scaling] the higher this setting goes, the higher the overall image quality will look, however, this can be somewhat taxing for your computer. On the other hand, a lower setting will make the overall image quality look blurred out, but will increase the performance. Therefore, it’s recommended to leave this setting at 100% and adjust based on your performance and preference.
CUSTOM CURSORS
[Custom Cursors] to keep it simple, these custom cursors are the iconic RuneScape icons displayed when hovering your mouse over literally anything in the game, like the attack icons, the food icons, the “use item” icon, among others.
GROUND DECORATION
[Ground decoration], the purpose of this setting is to add more elements to certain areas of the game to make it more “rich looking”, things like Grass, Pebbles, Flowers, etc, are added to the ground.
DEPTH OF FIELD
[Depth of field], this setting is often seen in photography, and what it does in RuneScape is blur far off objects in order to make them look less “Sharp” on the horizon and, provide a more pleasant effect. Keep in mind tho, this setting is only available if you have your draw distance setting on [ULTRA] or [HIGH].
TREE CANOPY FADE
In short terms [Tree canopy fade] will fade out any and all Tree canopies around the character, in order to prevent the canopies from obstructing the visibility of the character.
Finally, now that your user interface is stablished and, you understand what each of the graphical settings does in your game, let's move on to the Combat abilities and their fundamentals. Keep in mind though, the ability bars shown on the cheatsheet require some levelling up and questing in order to fully unlock their potential and, as a new player, you'll have access to their "lesser variants" but, as you level up, these lesser variants will be replaced by the actual abilities. Anyways, i highly recommend one of your early goals in the game becomes unlocking as many combat abilities as you can by levelling up and doing your quests, as these ability bars will allow you to get into bossing later on.
There's a couple of abilities you can unlock naturally while levelling up (as shown on the cheatsheet) and some of these are exclusive to a certain combat style and weapons (namely Two-Handed and Dual Wield Weapons), some of these abilities are unlocked by doing quests, and some of these are bought at the Grand Exchange or from other players, but some may be more expensive than others, [so always do your research on the current market prices], ALWAYS, DO, YOUR, RESEARCH before buying or selling items, because some prices shown in the Grand Exchange or Trade Offer price window may not be 100% accurate, specially for new or low volume items. "Getting to know your abilities, and your ability bars". You may notice these bars are “Revolution bars”, but what is Revolution Mode? Well, in the most basic sense of the word, Revo will automatically trigger your combat abilities as soon as they become available, going from left to right, and after the Global Cooldown has lapsed. However, there's 3 ways of using the Revolution combat mode, you can customize if you want Revo to activate your Basic, Threshold or Ultimate abilities in the combat settings menu (more on that later):
The first one is used if you want to cast your Threshold abilities manually (making combat slightly more engaging), this means, Revolution will only activate your basic abilities (inside the yellow outline), any Threshold ability included inside this yellow outline won’t get activated as you will need to activate it yourself.
The second one, is allowing Revolution to use Threshold and Basic Abilities, This method is preferred in order to let the game do its own thing while you just manage your HP Points, Prayer Points, Prayers or curses and manually activate your Ultimate Abilities.
The final method is letting Revolution activate all kind of abilities automatically without any kind of manual input, however, sticking to this combat mode of Revolution can make it harder for you to progress further into “Full Manual” later on.
On that note, Revolution Mode exclusively for basics is quite good and a perfect middle ground as its learning curve should prove engaging and exciting, while also making room for improvement in the long run and transitioning into full manual. With enough practice you'll reach a point where you may want to actively use all your basics abilities and jump naturally into full manual or, you could keep using revolution for basics whilst you activate some of the basics and threshold abilities yourself. Invariably, it really depends on your playstyle but keep this in mind:
“There is no correct way of playing RuneScape, there's just efficient methods, but even these keep changing and evolving over time, that's the true beauty of the game. It's an ever evolving game that you can play any way you want.”
[Alrighty then, with that being said, feel free to try out all of your abilities and build some ability bars, step by step, little by little]. On a similar topic, you have the Global Cooldown, which is divided in 3 sections (as shown in the Cheatsheet GCD Diagram), and the Ability Queueing. With [ABILITY QUEUEING] enabled (in your Combat Settings), you can hit any Ability anywhere within the #1 and #2 Global Cooldown sectors; shown above, and it will fire once the GCD is done (you’ll know it’s done once all of your abilities “blink”). If you were to cast your abilities once the GCD is at the beginning of Sector #3, and you had [ABILITY QUEUEING] enabled, your abilities will fire automatically without being queued. Without [ABILITY QUEUEING], in order to fire your abilities you’ll need to cast them once the GCD timer is at the end of Sector #2 (or 2/3 of the way), as this will make your abilities fire once the GCD ends.
WEAPONS AREA OF EFFECT
Dual Wield Weapons are worn with both hands, Main Hand and Off-Hand, also, all shields and defenders are always worn in the Off-Hand Slot.
For ranged, the difference lies in the type of ammunition each weapon can use:
2H Bows & Longbows use arrows and some special bows (dubbed chargebows) generate their own ammunition, so you don't have to worry about it. There's also "Shieldbows", who allow the usage of defensive abilities aswell as offensive abilities. On the other hand, 2H Crossbows use bolts instead of arrows and this opens up a lot of cool bolts called Bakriminel bolts, which can be enchanted in order to activate some amazing and useful effects. These bolts are what make 2H Crossbows a better pick than 2H Bows, as there's no special arrows for these Weapons; besides the "Blackstone Arrows", that applies a defense debuff to the target for 12 minutes or until it gets defeated. On a similar note to DW Melee, Defenders (called reprisers for their ranged variant) help a lot with weapon switching, but also it benefits from a weapon called mechanized chinchompa, which makes each ability an AOE ability.
For the Magic weapons:
Mage follows the same rules but the 2H weapons are called Staves, on Mage's case, there's no big difference on the AOE damage abilities as both 2H and DW share the same ones (with a difference in certain thresholds abilities), and both weapons use the same spellbook abilities, so it boils down to each weapon effect and if you want to use a versatile playstyle by using a Wand + Defender (called rebounder in Mage's case), or a Shield. Sadly there's no chinchompas for magic but you there's a wide array of disruptive spells than can aid you in battle. Each set of weapons enable the usage of specific Abilities and each weapon comes with their own subset of special effects, some weapons don't have them though. For instance: 2H Swords are good for AOE Damage and when facing multiple foes at once, you can benefit from the Abilities: Hurricane, Quake and Meteor Strike to deal damage around you, but if you want to maximize the amount of targets you'll hit, you may want to use a Halberd Weapon. If you're interested into more in-depth information about quests, game progression, tips, tricks & guides, feel free to visit the links below, to read more about these topics:
The Settings menu is divided into 5 different groups: [GAMEPLAY], [GRAPHICS], [CONTROLS], [AUDIO] and the [RIBBON]. On the following cheatsheets i'll showcase each option found on the [GAMEPLAY] tab and their function. Some of them will be images (as they're self explanatory and explain what they do) and others will be brief explanations on what each setting does, in order to make all these options easier to read and follow. Under the [GAMEPLAY] Tab you'll find 8 Different subgroups (7 in the NXT client and 8 on the Steam Client), in the following table i'll explain in detail what each subgroup does: "The various settings tabs".
Subgroup
Description
Interfaces
Fundamentally, this setting allows you to customize the look of your interface windows, filter which interfaces and warning screens should appear in game, how certain items will behave when using them (like keeping vials after decanting potions or emptying buckets when using the farming skill), you can choose which buff bar icons show up and if you want to display the Game Clock or not.
Combat & Action Bar
Here you can change your combat modes (like Revolution and Full Manual, or the Legacy Combat Mode similar to the Old Fashioned combat mode), you can change your action bars visibility and ability queueing, alongside your action bar binding (which automatically changes your main action bar depending on the style of weapon you’re wielding), you can also change what kind of XP you get from combat, the way you attack other npc’s and your targeting settings along the colors your hitsplats (for aesthetic purposes).
Camera
Another essential feature you will find here is the camera mode, here you can choose the camera zoom modes which are extremely beneficial when fighting large Monsters (so you can see them better) alongside the sensitivity of your camera.
Skills & Experience
A lot of skills come with their own set of mechanics; from finding specicif parts of a mattock, to the amount of bosses you’ll be assigned for your reaper task and if they’re solo bosses or group bosses, all of these settings help you customize the way you interact with these skills.
Messages & Social
On this setting you can customize what kind of messages you’ll receive on login, during your game sesión, from your friends, clan, private and groups chat. You can also customize the colors of each message, the broadcasts from your friends, clan chat, or anyone in the same world, and also, you can customize the events that will be tracked by your “Runemetrics” profile.
Item Drops
This setting allows you to customize your Loot System interface (along various filtering options), you can also customize your lootbeams (pillars of light that let you know when you got an expensive item; defined manually, or a rare/unique drop), on the other hand, you can also customize if you want to receive Clue Scrolls or not, i’d highly recomment checking all of the checkboxes, as “Treasure Trails” are an amazing activity (and very profitable too) you can also enable lootbeams so you don’t miss out any of them.
Legacy
This option lets you customize your interface colors, minimap icons, skillcape models, and combat mode, to make it reminiscent of the old version of the game (the one you may remember from 2011).
Third Party
This is an exclusive option for the Steam Client, what it does is show the world you’re currently playing on (for instance World #2 or World #84) in your friend’s list status.
RuneScape is a game built around “freedom”, and all of these interfaces, ability bars and settings reflect that, while there’s no absolute best configuration, keybinds or interface, it’s always a good practice to try everything out and learn through testing, in order to find out the best results for our needs. Whether you’re a new player strolling around the Free to Play towns, or you just bought your membership and are stretching your legs around the member’s only locations, everything you learned from this guide will help you. One of the commonly asked questions i’ve seen posted on the subreddit and the discussion forums are: how to make as much GP/Hr? What kind of gear to buy, and in which order? What kind of bosses to fight for a given set of Levels? and, while the answers are changing constantly (as prices shift all the time and the Metagame evolves), invariably it comes to the same conclusion, which is:
“What you can do and how consistently.“
On the following links you can find complimentary information like Gear & Bosses Progression and a plethora of useful links, tips & tricks:
However, before trying out these methods and finding out how consistently you can do them, one must start from the very basics of the game, understand how the game works and how to make it as reliable as possible whilst also looking as best as it can, and that’s the purpose of this guide, to teach you, the player, what every setting does, how does it impact your game experience and, showing you the fundamentals of the ability bars. The other half will come from your own experiences and how you expand on these foundations. With that being said, Thank you for passing by, i wish you the best of luck and i hope you found this guide useful, see you all around and take care!
[Mobile Gaming] How the Nyan Cat led to the death knell for a popular mobile game- the downfall of RWBY Amity Arena.
Note: Many of the links are to the Amity Arena Library, a website devoted to the game which includes tracking the history of it through patchnotes and a running history of what cards entered and left the meta. Their website was a valuable resource for this post.
Mobile gaming has taken off like a wildfire since the advent of the smartphone boosted the average processing power a phone could carry. Initially it took the form of crossing over older, more easily runnable games onto the mobile market to... mixed success, but in recent years we've seen both the West and East use mobile gaming to replace the old fashioned movie tie in game. It's easily accessable, has a much wider reach than consoles or PC, you can take it on the go and standards are inherently lower for mobile games than they are a full 60 dollar game. Since the 2010s, mobile gaming has shifted to what's called the "Freemium" module. The game itself is free to download and start playing, but is insideously designed with obnoxious paywalls or artificial limiters put in place to limit how much you can play each day. If the game is part of a pre-existing franchise, additional money can be made through a premium currency or a chance to obtain high-powered units by rolling a slot machine random chance mechanic. And thus, gacha gaming was born. This sub has had several threads in the past on high profile gacha games, such as the monolithic Fate Grand/Order, Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact. One of the more popular things to roll for in gachas as a consequence is wallpapers for your homescreen, especially for high-grade units as they're usually animated to move a little bit on the homescreen. Today we're looking a low to mid-tier gacha game that rose and fell with the advent of one catgirl. Let's talk RWBY. RWBY is an online web anime made by Rooster Teeth focusing on four prospective monster hunters who get embroiled in a world-spanning shadow war. It's of debatable quality in matters of animation, combat, voice acting, story, worldbuilding, romance, and it's kind of a little racist if I'm being honest, but one of the major positives of RWBY is that the series tends to have good character design. Series creator Monty Oum set in the guidelines for the show while making it that most if not every design should be made to be cosplay friendly, hence why most of the outfits have things most costume designers haven't heard of like... pockets. And Rooster Teeth, above all else, likes making money. So they know people like RWBY's character designs, enough so that in 2017 plans were made to release a gacha game themed around RWBY called Amity Arena, which would be developed by Korean company NHN Entertainment. Amity Arena is a PvP tower defense game. Each player controls two turrets and a tower and has three minutes to use units themed from the show to destroy the other player's structures. Whoever took out more wins, destroying a tower is an instant victory. When the game launched, it had three tiers for units- Common (generally held for mooks or low-tier characters in the show), Rare (roughly protagonist-level or elite mooks go here) and Epic (High tier characters usually with an active ability that did lots of damage or stopped enemies in their tracks). The game launched in October 2018 to generally positive reviews from both mobile game players and RWBY fans alike. Fans were happy to get a lot of new official art for the characters in the game and the base gameplay loop was fun. Criticism at the time was largely themed around the lack of content besides PVP matches and some issues with the meta but overall, the launch went well. Each month, the developers would add new units, including popular characters like Neopolitian, Cinder Fall, Zwei the dog, and more. But everything changed with February 20th 2019, which introduced Neon Katt, the titular catgirl (RWBY characters are themed around fairytales, except for Neon, who is themed around Nyan Cat, and her partner Flynt Coal, who is themed off a potentially racist joke made by Rooster Teeth). Neon is a character from RWBY Volume 3 who's part of a team that RWBY face during a tournament arc. Her partner, Flynt Coal, was part of the game at launch, and Neon would join him a few months later. Neon in the show is a cocky fighter who taunts the heroes and zips around on rollarskates, which in-game is represented by Neon skating towards the nearest enemy structure to her and hitting it, while all units within a radius of Neon are taunted and provoked into attacking her above all other targets unless they-selves are coded to hit structures. On its own, not a bad idea for a unit, but Neon came with four big caveats:
Neon was the fourth corner of the square that became known as the Artillery Arena meta, which saw Neon, Cinder (who had an AOE ability she could use which was wide enough to hit a turret and tower and single-handedly killed the entire launch meta of using fragile swarm units), Zwei (an on-summon high damage AOE on any part of the map) and Penny (another AOE ability that instead did chip damage and locked a location down) turn the game's meta into a chip game. Every player ran at least one of the above cards, if only to counter the others. Neon was the universal counter in being anti-swarm and the hardest to stop, especially at launch where her taunt range was so large, it could grab units from the other lane.
Neon launched with a unit weight of "Heavy", which meant that if she was behind a unit she could push it on her way to the turret. This launched a sub-meta where Neon was placed behind a larger unit such as the Ursa (which like Neon was a unit that focused on structures but was made slow to cover its tankiness), to push them towards the turret faster. This was called Disco Bear. They eventually patched this so Neon phased through units by making her a lightweight.
Neon couldn't die. She was invincible until she hit a structure, which combined with her taunt meant that Neon was very annoying to fight and could lock down an entire lane of the battlefield by being placed well and taunting enemies to let you prepare a counter.
Neon was a very cheap unit to summon. Amity Arena uses a mechanic called "Aura" where all units cost a certain amount and it recharges over the match- for instance, protagonist Ruby Rose has a Rare card that costs four Aura to summon, while Weiss Schnee has two rares that cost three and five. Neo only cost two Aura, which made her one of the cheapest units of the game and thus disproportionately powerful for her cost and easy to cycle through your deck so you could spam her.
From the word go, Neon is an unpopular unit; she's clearly overbalanced and elements such as the Disco Bear glitch have players thinking she'll have to get knocked down in a nerf- she'll either be made slower, more expensive, or able to die pre-hitting a structure, right? Neon doesn't show up in the next patch. Instead, before she's fixed, an entire new class of units called Legendaries are introduced, and this is where the game goes full gacha. Legendaries were meant to represent the highest tier characters in the game, the ones who were either the most popular characters or the highest-tier fighters in the show. Or in some cases, the popular ships such as combo cards for White Rose (Ruby/Weiss), Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) and Flower Power (Ren/Nora). Legendaries, representing their value, were impossibly rare and had an infinitely small chance of actually appearing (The most reliable method was to buy the premium chests and hope you'd roll a Legendary, which often cost tons of money), and if you did get one, there was no way to guess which Legendary you'd actually get. Some such as White Rose and Adam were high tier units, others like Hazel or Checkmate were... kinda broken at launch. The playerbase isn't happy at this, especially as free to play players are left out in the cold and reliant on the game giving them high tier units effectively out of pity. Neon would get a small nerf in the April patch which lessened her taunt range and killed the Disco Bear meta, but her invincibility would be left untouched, even as players submitted feedback regarding how to make it more efficient. The official Amity Arena discord has a weekly feedback section on Tuesdays where players could submit up to four suggestions on how to nerf/buff units and general requests for quality of life such as "Can this character get a new skin from this part of the show," or "Can we have an option to lower music volume that's not just muting all music?" (they never did add that second request) Neon would then remain in this state until the November patch, despite constant weekly requests for a Neon rework, and all it would do is make Neon functionally mortal, in that she had a flat shield bar of 20 that would be lowered by one for each attack before the next hit would kill her. Neon could now die... but your chances of actually doing enough damage to stop her were slim, and regardless, you were now at a serious Aura defecit. It took seven months for this one unit to get a substantial nerf, all while the game added new units every week and the number of units being affected by patches each month began to gradually sink. To round up some of the major issues people had with Amity that developed throughout 2019 alongside Neon's general existance making life hell:
Common units were meant to be chump fodder, but could level up the most amount of times with a level cap at 13. This meant longer-term units that had a long time to level such as the Xiong Family card, the AK-130s the Beowolf Pack, or the White Fang gunners, could become shockingly strong if players grinded the money up to reach max level.
A pre-existing divide between free players and players willing to burn money IRL to get access to premium currencies led to a huge disparity in play. Free players have long complained about how hard it is to scrounge money together to level up units at higher costs as even the basic currency of Lien is hard to get large quantities of (you get a certain amount every match win but otherwise you need to burn the Schnee Premium Dust currency for the highest payouts, but SPD is also needed for shop resets, buying crates or unlocking cosmetics). The developers used to do frequent double weekends where all gains were doubled for a weekend, but these became less and less frequent as time went on. Legendaries only added to the divide, as their rarity was bad enough for players willing to spend money (one player, known as one of the largest whales in the community, in trying to get Sienna Khan, reported burning nearly nine hundred dollars on her, while taking nearly six hundred to get the Ice Flower card).
One actual counter was born to fight Neon in the Argus Shield, a stationary unit that existed solely to stall units and take damage. At 2 Aura, it was the first structure to counter Neon, which allevated one of the primary problems with Neon in that no way to counter her was cost-efficient for an enemy player. They buffed the Wall to 3 Aura eventually which killed that hope, and all this happened before Neon's November nerf.
The Summer of 2019 saw a large number of defensive units released; alongside the Argus Shield, several different units were released themed around turrets for the technological kingdom of Atlas, such as the Beam Turret. The Atlesian Burrow Gun was the straw that broke the camel's back and made for a miserable meta as the Burrow Gun would only appear (and be available to take damage) when a unit entered its range. These three units together were all very overpowered on launch and led to a large exodus of players sick of defensive and chip-based metas, especially as what few offensive units that were good enough to counter these metas (such as Professor Port and Adam Taurus) were often nerfed into the ground within a month of release.
Also around this time it became apparent that the developers were unable to meet the quotas that Rooster Teeth was forcing on them. The social media team admitted that a certain number of units needed to be in the game in time for Winter 2019 when Volume 7 was set to start, and as the year went on more and more game-breaking bugs were being found in units, or they were at best horrifically undertuned or overpowered. The Apathy was perhaps the largest case of this, as an unfound bug pre-release meant that the Apathy (who have a passive ability that let them self-duplicate) had no cap on their power, meaning that they could immediately overwhelm defenses and in the case of some phones, be such a resource hog the phone would crash. Many Legendary units were especially guilty of being under-tuned due to low Legendary availability meaning they were simply weren't powerful enough to compare with high-levelled units. Checkmate's ability simply didn't work at launch, and Neon made several more such as Hazel Rainart a joke. May Marigold's invisibility bubble would have been an interesting game changer... were it not for a bug that made it that units placed in the bubble still played their sound lines, meaning players knew what to expect. Things were so bad that when Flower Power launched and wasn't broken or needed an emergency patch, the playerbase were shocked.
Unfortunately, the Novemember patch did little to stop the problems with Neon, and a new problem would rear its head for Christmas: Jinn. This unit embodied many of the problems players had: She was a Legendary so it would be hard for free players to get her, and only added to the sheer number of Legendaries that were out there. She was another structure card, and she was horrifically broken. Stopping time for seven seconds in an area around any friendly units, Jinn broke the game overnight, with players horrified at how little playtesting she'd clearly had. Most chip units now couldn't damage structures as Jinn simply could stop time and freeze the turret for the duration of the attack. And to make matters worse? She cost two Aura, meaning it was very easy to cycle a deck and start Jinn spamming. And yet at two aura she was still one of the only cost-efficient Neon counters... until they patched her to be worth three Aura instead. Talking of the feline menace, January saw Neon get a HP nerf that set her shield at 14. Finally, Neon could be realistically be taken out, still at an Aura defecit but at least it can be countered and now they just have to raise her Aura- why are you buffing her game? Less than a month later, Neon got, of all things, a buff. Her HP shield was set at 20, and her attacks now did double damage. This is around the point where a lot of players begin to suspect the developers aren't listening to feedback and more long-term players dip out or drop the game. Neon got touched one more time in April, which slowed her down (which itself was a problem as Neon's lessened speed on spawn simply made her better at generating aggro), she dealt 10% less damage and made it somewhat easier to hit her enough to kill her, but a new problem was on the horizon. Because Neon was now no longer the game's White Whale for patches. Meet the White Fang Gunner Barracks. Added in September 2019, the Barracks fell under many player's radar simply because they were horrifically undertuned. Their gimmick was that every few seconds, a White Fang Gunner would spawn, with three spawning on death. In April, as Neon got her last appearance in the patches, the Barracks got a huge buff and became the centerpiece of the meta; they now spawned two Gunners, which made them immensely valuable for just five Aura. You could overwhelm many anti-swarm units before they had a chance, and shred your way through turrets. The Barracks would then go six months before this overtuning was rectified, barring one nerf in August that lowered their health to try and stem the tide of units. To sum up every other thing that went wrong during the year meta-wise:
The playercount was getting so low that players were able to make lists of the AI bots the developers had in place so lower-level players had a challenge (Amity breaks up players by a trophy system where you gain trophies with every win, and by this point most of the active players were in the 2500 to 3500 range. This also meant new players steamrolled through the lower levels only to hit a brick wall in the 3000 range, with the only reliable solution being to willingly lose matches until you were in your optimal range and grind victories until you reached a certain level.
The patches became more and more threadbare, going from 8+ units getting changed each month in early 2019 to three units at most getting changed in 2020 patches outside of the anniversary patch going back to the golden days of eight. The only area where they didn't get more threadbare was in the cosmetics and emotes that the developers were cranking out, all of which were only available through hours of grinding or premium currencies. This was despite the fact that the units were being released slower, going from once a week to once a fortnite.
The majority of units added in 2020 were Epic or Legendary tier, which were the hardest to get for free players unless they got lucky and they were added to the store (and if they had the lien as a Legendary in the store costs a flat 40,000 Lien). One Common and four Epics were released compared to twelve Epics and seven Legendaries. The release of Moonslice Adam especially was annoying for this regard, as Adam already had a Legendary released (at least for Team RWBY, each of them headlined a Legendary when it came to the team attack cards), and this was clearly done to pander to Adam's fans again as his first unit saw a spike in interest in the game. The math was done and showed how artifically scarce Legendaries were made.
The undeovertuning was still in play. Colossus is seen as one of the worst cards in the entire game because of its gimmick. I have literally never seen anyone play it. Flynt became overtuned and now he's a staple thanks to his trumpet's AOE attack being able to hurt turrets and shred most units. Launcher Nora was an especially overtuned unit thanks to her high-damage constant AOE barrage and long range meaning she could annhilate most anything if given enough cover. Even after patches she's still dangerous. September saw the White Fang Dropship Formation added, which was widely seen as a terrible unit and done as an emergency addition because the planned unit for September in the Grimm Seer had to be cut last minute for technical reasons.
The game has barely had significant content added since launch, with the primary gameplay still just being PVP. Barring Battle of Beacon (a mode where you can play as Ruby and Weiss and fend off Grimm which most players just use to grind chests, and no, they still haven't added Blake or Yang) and Plaza (a lobby where you can dress up as a character and run around Beacon), the game has added no new features and quality of life content players have requested since launch (rerolling in the shop, Superior Crates having guaranteed Legendary spawn rates) have been released at a snail's pace (you still can't reroll Legendaries if you're looking for a specific unit). Academies where players can unite to trade units and chat still lacks features that have been requested for years such as the ability to delete messages. And Plaza immediately went to hell because players were doing erotic role play in the chats and after people came forward with proof that minors were being sexually harassed in the Plaza or being coerced into side-channels, the dev response was to... just turn off the chat entirely instead of banning the accounts or implementing moderation. This also removed the chatlog which deleted a lot of the evidence of said harassment.
As OctobeNovember comes in, the players are getting more and more furious. The weekly feedback includes a near constant demand for an acknowledgement from the developers given how often it feels like the feedback is being ignored. The social media team get caught several times hyping up how the coming patch would address player concerns, only for said patch to lack those units. The meta has been locked down to the Xiong Family, Flynt, Launcher Nora, Spider-Mines and the hell-cat herself in Neon. Everyone runs at least one of these, people run meta decks not because they want to, but because it's the only way to have a chance of victory. And then in December, things implode. The patch for the month was set to launch on December 10th with the monthly event missions. But when the clock rolls around, the event missions (which usually take about two weeks to do if you're doing as many as you can a day)... has a six day timer. And the update doesn't come out. The art team doesn't release new unit art. The shop has no special timed bundles. There's no patch notes. And then the Twitter team who've been hard carrying the game through... actually talking to the players and acknowledging the grievances they have... admitted that they don't know what's going on either. The best guess is that the devs have come down with Covid, but no statements to confirm or deny this leave it as guesswork. The timer eventually got reset and people could do the event, but then on Christmas itself, another issue. Ruby has appeared in the plaza on Halloween (her canonical birthday) and Christmas, and if you go talk to her you get free stuff. But on Christmas people, people discovered that Ruby was talking as if you'd already talked to her. Because they hadn't updated Ruby yet for 2020. She still thought it was 2019 so if you'd talked to her then for goodies, she had none now. They patched it eventually but a lot of people didn't see this fix before the timer ran out to get the free stuff. Some have resorted to memes to cope with the fact that the game just seems to have died out of the blue. Others have been trying to desperately rally the players and find a way to save it. Some resorted to friendly mockery of the whales who'd spent thousands on a game that seems to be dying (seriously though gacha games need to curb this shit but they won't because whales are godsends for their bank balances). If the game doesn't get an update in January then two months without new content will mark the end, and the already significant playercount drops will only increase. And it's hard to say if any one thing could have turned Amity Arena's fate around beyond just "Have a better balancing team who can respond better to feedback." Neon began the time of death, but by the time December rolled around the meta was in a horrifically toxic place where if you wanted to make any progession, you had to get down and dirty with the pigs. The team just constantly failed to balance problem units outside of their emergency hotfixes of Jinn, and more often then not they went after units and buffed or nerfed them at random going off playcounts to determine what needed fixing instead of the actual written feedback they were getting. It's clear from the references to the show and some of the attempts to reach out to the community that at least one person in the team genuinely wanted to make the good appealing to RWBY fans, but somewhere during the game's lifespan, they lost their way. Less focus needed to be put on how to milk the players, and instead focusing on making a game sustainable and enjoyable enough to warrant the cosmetics and emotes. The game's failure ultimately isn't on the playerbase. It's on the people who were actually making the game who chose to slack off because they thought it acceptable to do so. Thanks for reading. EDIT: HOT OFF THE PRESSES, I JUMPED THE GUN Had I waited one more day, my story would have had a far more sudden ending, as the game just announced its shutdown for January. RIP.
GREAT QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATES THAT DOKKAN NEEDS!!!!!
Daily Discount Summons -WHY IS THIS NOT A THING!!? On Legends there is a daily single summon that costs 20 cc which is 1 stone in Dokkan. This would further promote players to log in daily as there is basically no other reason except if you have the subscription. (Plus it could bring back those clutch yolo singles).
Mission Plans -Legends really hit this one on the head on their past update. You could choose any one of the 3 mission plans that have varying difficulties (Easy, Medium, Hard). The harder the plan, the greater rewards. Easy Plans could be beat a certain event story with a specific team. Medium could be the same but with Dokkan Events. Hard could be the same but with LGE. These plans could further promote players to play the game as it adds replay value.
Music Player -Listen to different OSTs from Dokkan Events in the main menu. This would be great so we could listen to all the different OSTs and it could bring back those great OSTs that don’t have some sort of active, exchange, or transformation that we could never revisit (Teq Hit, Phy Future Gohan). You would have to pull the unit to unlock their OST to play in the menu.
Wallpaper Unit Art -This basically means on the main menu, you can select a unit and you would be able to see their full art on the menu with their background and everything (kinda like legends).
Old Dokkan Fests Banners -You know the Master Pack Banners on Legends? This is pretty much the same thing. All of the old leads like Phy Full Power Frieza and Teq Perfect Cell are put in a Master Pack 1 Banner. The 70% leads are put in a Master Pack 2 Banner. There are tickets which would be a daily mission to further promote players to log in daily or you could use stones and it would be a guaranteed feature. This would help with the clutter of bad, old units in future banners as they could be sheltered off to their own banners.
World Tournament -Do I really need to talk about this one??? The World Tournament barely received any kind of update to make the mode any fun. How do they expect us to play arguably the most grindly mode in the game when it’s the most braindead boring mode? I didn’t even play the past World Tournament because it just felt like a boring tedious procedure over and over again.
Friend System -Again, do I even need to bring this up??? The devs shown us plenty of times that they can put up special friend leads on different events. Why can’t they update it so that the leader on the team has a 55% friend lead at LEAST!!?
Diamond Backgrounds -WHY HASN’T THERE BEEN A OPTION TO REMOVE THEM!!? ITS CRIMINAL TO HIDE SUCH BEAUTIFUL BACKGROUNDS LIKE THE TURS OF BOTH PHY LR GOGETA AND INT LR VEGETO!!!
Sprites -For a game that’s approaching it’s 6th anniversary I would expect to see higher quality sprites, not the same ugly ones from the game’s launch(Super Buu). They could’ve easily replaced all of the same unit’s older sprites with their updated ones like movie Gohan and Buuhan in the meantime until they fully update all of them.
HD Card Arts -In 2021, I’m shocked that I’m still looking at card arts that aren’t even HD. Just like Legends, they could have a option to download all of the cars arts in HD to help people either decide to have it or not depending on their phone storage. The more options the player has, the better.
Hidden Potential -Please put a upgrade all nodes option like Legends did, I’m tired of pressing all the nodes when I could just press them all with a single button. This would be a huge time saver.
Hidden Potential (Crits, Adds, Dodges) -Please upgrade dodges in the hidden potential so it could actually keep up with Crits and Adds. At this point, every unit (with an exception of some) best routes are ones that are full Crit then Add. This automatically makes INT units feel much weaker than other typings. And if that’s too much, then at least make us be able to choose our first free dupe node as either Crit, Add, or Dodge to help balance out typings.
Hidden Potential One Dupe Unlock -Okay, now this could be a item than you could get by buying a super big expensive pack (only available once during the worldwide celebrations and anniversaries) and from the Pilofs Trove as it has a insanely high value and it could also be a item they give out once during anniversaries only. It unlocks one path from any unit in the potential system (it could be a Grand Priest or Zeno item). This item wouldn’t hurt the players (unlike Legends or any P2W PvP game) or the devs (they could make a big profit off this) and it would be beneficial for everyone.
Items -First off, put out WAYYY more challenging modes so we could actually unlock those last 2 item slots. Second off, release more better and unique items. It could be items that lower your health, give you damage reduction PLUS defense, let any one unit transform but it’s really rare and hard to obtain, or something that lets all your units on one turn Crit but again, it’s really hard to obtain. More complex items could be funnier and add more strategy to the game rather than the usual ghost usher, whis, princess snake, android 8 combo. Third off, upgrade those super weak items that gives flat boosts just like the link update, I never found anyone use them after they obtained senzu beans and dendes.
Support Type Banners -There is no reason why these have took so long to even not return yet. Just make each type banner available on each day then all of them available on the weekend (Like the daily potential orb stages).
Battlefield Gems -Ok this has been bothering me. Each new LR that they release on the mode has a higher cost each time, but the amount we earn stays the same??? An easier solution would to have the difficulty that we have now on the mode would be the easy mode. Then we would have two others modes (medium then hard) that we could select before we start the battlefield rounds in order to have more rewards if we win all the battles.
Friend Box -Now I don’t know if this would cause issues or not, but please let me see the box that my friends have on the friend list. It could really be beneficial in chainbattle as I can see their whole box.
Stages -Please make roaming the stages actually useful. In budokai 2, while roaming you could also get a def or att boost item. By placing these items and more other kinds of items, exploring the stage before battles could actually be useful (besides the Ki space).
Selling -Please make us have an option to automatically all sell n, r, or even sr units. With the leveling up update, units no longer have to have a training partner, making low rarity units useless (besides the occasional level up super attack fodder).
Endgame Content -Finally, this one should be a no brainer for everyone. SBR and LGE release WAYYYY too far apart. As a game that is fully PvE, I fully expect for there to be some sort of Endgame content (or content in general) more often than PvP games as those games have that aspect to fall back on as content.
Please Dokkan Spy if you are seeing this, put this into consideration. Leave any feedback if I’m missing something that you would like to add.
Old Austin Tales: Forgotten Video Arcades of The 1970s & 80s
In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day. There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters. But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade. I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction. If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student. But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades. It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples. Forgotten Arcade #1 Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe June 15, 1975
ARCADE ENTHUSIASM A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.
ARCADE ROBBED A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.
First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years. Forgotten Arcade #2 Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road May 15, 1984
A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.
I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool. Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4 Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St August 23, 1983
Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe. AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick." VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 . Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants. WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle. "After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating. IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old." Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped." TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them. SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse. "I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products." THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked. Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."
Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd. Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade. We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants. Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7 Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall) The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf March 4, 1982
'Quartermania' stalks South Austin School officials, parents worried about effects of video games A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest. So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School. Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need." A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced. The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider. Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."
Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. Forgotten Arcade #8 Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway February 25, 1982
Arcades fighting negative image Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life. Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County. In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk. In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said. Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol. Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner." While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom. Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley. He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.
This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s. But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area. At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story. I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:
Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m. Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around." "I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops. "I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.
The gameplay looked like this. Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982 Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982 Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984 Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989 Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003
The free slot machines with free spins no download required include all types of casino games like video slots, classic slots, video poker, blackjack, roulette, 3 reels slots, 3D slots, fruit machines, and offline slots. Free slots no download games are available any time and anywhere as long as you are connected to the internet. Your email address and other registration details are not needed to gain access. Once you are live on the platform that offers the game, you are good to go for an ... The number of free spins awarded varies and some games allow players to re-trigger the feature, which means they enjoy additional spins for free. Slots can also have bonus games. These 'mini games' are played within the slot itself and add another level to the player's participation. Pick and Click games present the player with a number of ... Play 5000+ free slot games for fun - no download, no registration or deposit required. SlotsUp has new advanced online casino algorithm which is developed to pick the best online casino where players can enjoy playing online slots for real money. Blog; Online Casinos Worldwide; Casino by Deposit; Casino by Currency ; Online Casinos by License; Sitemap; Contact Us; Terms and Conditions ... No pop-up adverts – Play with zero distractions or interference, as our free slot games run uninterrupted by pop-ups and advertisements. No email requests & no spam – We don’t ask you for your email address, so you never have to deal with spam. Mobile Slots. Free online slots are not just available on desktops anymore. Nowadays, the best free casino slots are supported by mobile device ... Don’t forget to play any free slot games with no download no registration anytime without download needed and no registration required oblivious you choose the fun or real money mode. Here are the main features: Standard Reel. The most common marks that are known worldwide. Everyone played a round or two in a fruit-based pokie with Oranges, Cherries, Lemons, Melons and Grapes. Other famous ... Unlike slot machine games of the past, slot games now feature incredible themes, features, winning opportunities, characters, and even backstories that will appeal to a wide range of players. Sometimes, it can be even more fun to play for free, as there is no stress associated with losing money and no pressure to win. Try out hundreds of online slots for free at CasinoWow: No Sign-up & No Download required! Find the latest casino slot machine games! Play Now! Over 6,192 FREE Online Slots Games to play (2021) - Play free slot machines from the top providers. Play Instantly, No Download or Registration required! Play slot machines and other types of casino games for free. No download and no registration required. Risk-free play in demo mode. Game Filters. Game types, providers, themes. Game Type . Slots, Roulette, Blackjack, Video poker, Bingo, Baccarat. Slots 0 Roulette 0 Blackjack 0 Video poker 0 Bingo 0 Baccarat 0 Craps 0 Keno 0 Scratch cards 0 Other games 0 Game Provider. Realtime Gaming, NetEnt ... Online players can get free spins, no deposit bonuses, and free coins by applying promo codes to claim prizes after registration on mobile casinos. A winning trick in this game is a bonus hunt; Monopoly free no download slot has several bonus features that can increase your payout rate. The bonus features appear at a fairly frequent interval in ...
free slot games with bonus rounds no download for fun! http://goo.gl/ZAWj4O free slot games with bonus rounds no download I love it. I enjoy playing all the ... You can play Black Widow – one of the best online slot games ever – for FREE, on https://zzzslots.com/ There is no download nor registration required!We kno... free online slot machines bonus games no download for youhttp://goo.gl/ZAWj4Ofree online slot machines bonus games no download I bought one of these to be pa... We show you witch slots to play online or offline. Get Casino Promo Codes: http://tiny.cc/casinoslotsGive this slots a like.Casino Online Slots Play Here h... Play free slots for fun. No download, no registration is required with instant play feature.Top 10 Free Slot Machines:10. Ariana9. Cool as Ice8. East Of The ... Play 4 free online video slots and slot machines for fun online on Slots4play.http://www.slots4play.com/ free slot games with bonus rounds no download for you http://goo.gl/ZAWj4O free slot games with bonus rounds no download I download about every slot game ava... The biggest collection of FREE slots to play online (NO DOWNLOAD). List of games: http://www.slotozilla.com/free-slots/no-downloadfree slots no downloadfree ... If you want to learn free slot machine tips, then read this. You will learn why it is important to play free slot machines online especially when you are sti...