Discuss Chill Chat Thread =)

[Venom]

What is everyone up to lately? I just moved to a new location, after moving to a new location, after moving to a new location, and will move again in a year or two, and then move again a year after that.  It is kind of cool but also a lot of work to move that many times, makes me want to start living minimalist style to not deal with moving things.  I saw that fixed wing aircraft finally got put into APB which is something of a miracle considering how many times this was attempted by past teams and then written off as impossible, so I am pretty excited about that.  It was almost implemented before, but it was a really creative way using invisible wheels, giant invisible springs on the wheels and using the recoil of a weapon to make the plane go forwards. Who knows, maybe we will see some other previously impossible things put in one day.

[ChopBam]

Nice thread.

Venom, why moving so much? Is it due to ICE's job, or..?

Since mid January, I live in a trailer with my wife because of extremely high cost of rent here in the SF Bay Area. We've gotten comfortable in such close living quarters. While I had some weeks of relief from wedding work, and could thus focus on APB and TSR a bit, work is now becoming extremely busy again, making my weekends full, and about as much photography editing work to do during the week. Home internet consists of tethering my desktop computer to my phone, and internet is still mostly usable. Would have been unheard of 10 years ago, or even 5 (if considering a replacement for broadband).

I am also glad to see such good work being done on APB. We really have pushwall to thank for that, and thanks to the phenomenal work danpaul has done on the launcher, the patch release schedule is unprecedented in comparison to APB's entire history, bringing activity and players en masse. At W3D Hub we are also experiencing less drama than ever before in the W3D modding community. Things are looking bright!

[Jeod]

Graduated college two months ago, got married, living in Virginia still looking for entry level IT work. My wife's a CJUS graduate and we're both working to pay the rent and bills, eat, and save up to make student loan payments. We're super lucky to only have about $30k in loans rather than $100k+. We're remaining vigilant and paying off as much as we can each month though.

I'm impressed with APB's progress and I think Pushwall is the perfect man to be a major part of the dev team. Thinking outside the box was always a necessity for this old engine, but it lacked proper implementation with BHP. I don't think BHP would have allowed this Yak patch without thorough bug testing, but sometimes releasing something new is what's needed even if there's a higher risk of new bugs. Look at the server activity now compared to two weeks ago and you'll see what I mean. Crowdsourcing crash logs and bug testing is the way of the future for the W3D Engine.

[Venom]

On 5/23/2017 at 3:30 PM, ChopBam said:

Nice thread.

Venom, why moving so much? Is it due to ICE's job, or..?

Since mid January, I live in a trailer with my wife because of extremely high cost of rent here in the SF Bay Area. We've gotten comfortable in such close living quarters. While I had some weeks of relief from wedding work, and could thus focus on APB and TSR a bit, work is now becoming extremely busy again, making my weekends full, and about as much photography editing work to do during the week. Home internet consists of tethering my desktop computer to my phone, and internet is still mostly usable. Would have been unheard of 10 years ago, or even 5 (if considering a replacement for broadband).

I am also glad to see such good work being done on APB. We really have pushwall to thank for that, and thanks to the phenomenal work danpaul has done on the launcher, the patch release schedule is unprecedented in comparison to APB's entire history, bringing activity and players en masse. At W3D Hub we are also experiencing less drama than ever before in the W3D modding community. Things are looking bright!

 

Oh wow, I remember hearing about how people have to pay an absurd amount just to sleep on someone's couch in the bay area. Did you have to downsize a lot of your stuff to fit in there? I am really considering downsizing a lot of things and donating them so we can pick up and move really easily. Late spring through summer is wedding season so you must be getting absolutely swamped with wedding photography   

I'm really glad Pushwall decided to keep APB alive and there is still development happening on it! Maybe some oldbies will notice the aircraft release and get inspired to return or even make some assets for the game.

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Venom

[Venom]

38 minutes ago, Jeod said:

Graduated college two months ago, got married, living in Virginia still looking for entry level IT work. My wife's a CJUS graduate and we're both working to pay the rent and bills, eat, and save up to make student loan payments. We're super lucky to only have about $30k in loans rather than $100k+. We're remaining vigilant and paying off as much as we can each month though.

I'm impressed with APB's progress and I think Pushwall is the perfect man to be a major part of the dev team. Thinking outside the box was always a necessity for this old engine, but it lacked proper implementation with BHP. I don't think BHP would have allowed this Yak patch without thorough bug testing, but sometimes releasing something new is what's needed even if there's a higher risk of new bugs. Look at the server activity now compared to two weeks ago and you'll see what I mean. Crowdsourcing crash logs and bug testing is the way of the future for the W3D Engine.

Congrats on your graduation and wedding! What sort of wedding theme did you two have? It's crazy how high student debt can be in the USA. I heard some people from other countries talk about it like it's a major alien concept to them (then again, a lot of things about the USA are strange to them, haha). However, you can make pretty good money in the end once everything is paid off and you have a lot of years of experience, projects you've done, etc and end up pretty well off and with good job security.

Ahh, I didn't know APB isn't following the strict bug testing sessions anymore. I guess now it more relies on players submitting feedback?

[Jeod]

10 minutes ago, Venom said:

Congrats on your graduation and wedding! What sort of wedding theme did you two have? It's crazy how high student debt can be in the USA. I heard some people from other countries talk about it like it's a major alien concept to them (then again, a lot of things about the USA are strange to them, haha). However, you can make pretty good money in the end once everything is paid off and you have a lot of years of experience, projects you've done, etc and end up pretty well off and with good job security.

Ahh, I didn't know APB isn't following the strict bug testing sessions anymore. I guess now it more relies on players submitting feedback?

It's still strict as far as I know, just not "omg we won't allow community feedback and community proposed bugfixes" anal that was 2010.

It was a beach wedding, pretty minimalist. Neither of us wanted to go all out. We are definitely thrifty.

EDIT: In case what I'm saying is confusing, it's better than 2010 when I tried to make the edits to Fissure. Fixing bugs and rebalancing in currently playable maps takes priority over development of other features in most cases, as evidenced by the removal of Hostile Waters until Raap revamps it.

[Nodlied]

Just now, Jeod said:

It's still strict as far as I know, just not "omg we won't allow community feedback and community proposed bugfixes" anal that was 2010.

Beyond that, Pushwall is fully capable of doing the current testing on his own.  Haven't heard him call for some help pretty much ever since release.

[ChopBam]

Rigorous testing isn't quite as important now because of patch release frequency and the consistent manner in which patches are released. Back in the day we had to rely on Pointlessambler's consistency (which was pretty shoddy tbh) and packaged EXEs downloaded manually from the website.

52 minutes ago, Venom said:

Did you have to downsize a lot of your stuff to fit in there? I am really considering downsizing a lot of things and donating them so we can pick up and move really easily.

If you can manage downsizing, I really recommend it. Louisa has become much more low maintenance since the wedding and we're just trying to keep essentials and dumping or selling everything else.

[Killing_You]

I just recently moved into an apartment with my wonderful fiancee, with me working full time as a cook and her working full time at a call center. Fairly cheap rent and decent pay means living is somewhat simple.

I've also began an epic journey. I am campaigning for a role in the CW's Arrowverse (a collection of DC shows that include Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning), as my dream is to become an actor. Hopefully this goes well!

[ChAoS]

Just working and raising my beautiful daughter. Starting to try for a second one.

Been using Amazon web services a lot and am working on certifications for it.

[Venom]

On 5/23/2017 at 4:32 PM, Jeod said:

It was a beach wedding, pretty minimalist. Neither of us wanted to go all out. We are definitely thrifty.

Ahh, nice! I love beach weddings =) beach, outdoor and destination weddings are my favorite types.

 

On 5/23/2017 at 4:35 PM, Nodlied said:

Beyond that, Pushwall is fully capable of doing the current testing on his own.  Haven't heard him call for some help pretty much ever since release.

Hahaha, I guess he has things going pretty well so far then?  I guess having smaller releases would help with that in terms of not needing too intensive of testing

 

On 5/23/2017 at 5:10 PM, ChopBam said:

If you can manage downsizing, I really recommend it. Louisa has become much more low maintenance since the wedding and we're just trying to keep essentials and dumping or selling everything else.

We just moved a ton of stuff to our new place with a big moving truck and are waiting on a storage unit to become available to store it in, and then we will go through the items at the storage unit and probably get rid of or donate some of it.

 

On 5/23/2017 at 11:52 PM, Killing You said:

I just recently moved into an apartment with my wonderful fiancee, with me working full time as a cook and her working full time at a call center. Fairly cheap rent and decent pay means living is somewhat simple.

I've also began an epic journey. I am campaigning for a role in the CW's Arrowverse (a collection of DC shows that include Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning), as my dream is to become an actor. Hopefully this goes well!

Awesome! I remember you saying you moved on TS =) You sound so much happier now that you have your own place with your fiancee! How is the cook job? I've always been curious what being a cook is like, though I heard it can be pretty extreme at times with the work load and how fast you have to get stuff out.  Do you get tired of cooking and just want to order take out when at home?

Oh nice about the actor role. I really hope it goes well!

 

On 5/24/2017 at 12:33 PM, ChAoS said:

Just working and raising my beautiful daughter. Starting to try for a second one.

Been using Amazon web services a lot and am working on certifications for it.

Aww cute =) Are you hoping for a brother or a sister for her?  She is getting so big in the pics already, it's crazy how fast they grow up!

Edited May 5, 2020 by Venom