January 6: Megaupdate 1: A sudden slight change in plans, and several other things.

Sorry for not updating this site for so long. Honestly, it was for several reasons, including not really having much warrant an update until now, wanting to take a short break from working on the site to work on other things, and a few other things that I talk about below. The TLDR of it is that updates will likely be slightly more sporadic as I focus on other things, but updates ARE planned and will happen soon-ish maybe. Probably within a month or two?

First off, I'll give some updates related to the site.

Site-Related Updates

Honestly, I've been putting off working on the Computercraft tutorial, so long in fact that I ended up moving on to a new Minecraft modpack that I've been playing in my spare time (mainly because the world in the modpack I was playing before got almost unplayably laggy for some reason so I was basically forced to abandon it). Honestly, at this point, I'm tempted to redo the little work I've done on the tutorial and basically make my own small modpack that focuses mostly on Computercraft and a few addons (along with some decor mods so I can pretty up the screenshots).

As for the review section, I'm honestly tempted to semi-scrap it. I'll probably instead integrate the reviews into the blog, that way I'd have more to talk about here than just site updates, updates on me learning game development, and just some general stuff that's been going on.

Errorgrove Isle Stuff

Next, I've actually have been coming up with many more ideas for my dream game, Errorgrove Isle. I've been trying to come up with names for more characters. Among the names I've come up with are one of the antagonists, whose name I don't want to spoil yet, and the player character, Milo Hilderfurth. I've also fleshed out Milo's characterization and backstory a lot more. Before, he was honestly kind of a flat character, but now I've made sure he has a more interesting personality and backstory and even gave him a couple of flaws. Another character I've fleshed out more is a character I've still yet to name, a scientist. I won't spoil what's going on with him, just that he (very) indirectly ties into Milo's backstory and that befriending him in-game is quite a bit harder than the other town NPCs and even has a prerequisite until you can gain "points" with him. Anyway, I'm trying to make sure every character in the game is unique in their own way, and the scientist character is honestly probably going to be one of the most unique town NPCs in the game in regards to their "storyline".

Another thing I've done in regards to Errorgrove Isle is actually flesh out one of the game's final bosses (yes, final bossES, there's going to TECHNICALLY be two seperate final bosses by the way, one for each main ending). I don't want to spoil it too much, as it's a massive spoiler for one part of the game's plot, but I will say that I'm planning it to be a lengthy 5-phase fight where each phase fights almost completely differently, and that the boss's design is slightly more horror-focused than the rest of the game.

Next up, is probably one of the main reasons for this delay

Getting a New Computer

Don't worry, my computer still works, it's just that I've kind of wanted to upgrade at least the CPU for a while now, as I've been using a fairly old 3.7GHz 2 core CPU for a while now, and need to upgrade the CPU to upgrade to Windows 11 before support for Windows 10 ends in October. The only problem is that, in order to upgrade my CPU I also need to upgrade my Motherboard and RAM too, since most new CPUs don't support my Motherboard, and most newer Motherboards don't support my RAM, so I have to upgrade all 3 at once. At that point, I figured I would be better off just building an entirely-new computer, mainly so I wouldn't be out of a computer for a while if things go wrong. My current one's good and all, but several of the parts are starting to get pretty old, like the Graphics Card (an Nvidia Quattro), the CPU (an Intel Pentium G4620, a 2 core 4 thread 3.7GHz CPU), and the power supply. My current computer also doesn't even have an SSD, as it was built in 2018, which IIRC was right before when making a computer with just SSDs for storage started to actually be more viable for low-mid gaming builds.

As to which parts I've currently picked out, as you may be able to guess, I've decided to go with a SSD for this computer, mainly to improve boot times and update speed (two things that are kind of long with my current computer). The CPU will be an AMD Ryzen 5 8600G (a 6 core 12 thread 4.3GHz CPU), as one of my main points of this upgrade is to upgrade the CPU and RAM to generally be better for more modern games, and I also wanted to go with an AMD CPU as I heard Intel's newest CPUs have been having stability issues. Speaking of the RAM, I'm upgrading to 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, mainly to future-proof the build so I won't need to upgrade again for a few years at least. I've also picked out the Motherboard, but the specific Motherboard isn't really that important, as I basically just picked out the first one I saw that was both a decent price and compatable with everything else I picked out. I will need to flash the BIOS for it, though, as it doesn't support my new CPU out of the box (it does let you flash the BIOS without a CPU, though, which is important since I don't have a compatable CPU for it).

The other parts I'm less sure about what to get. The only real thing I've decided on is to get a better Graphics Card than the one I have, but I'm unsure of the specific card I'll want to get. I also want a Case with much better airflow, as my current Case only has a single fan and my current Graphics Card has always run pretty hot ever since I got it, to the point I've needed to lower the graphical settings in a few games just to make sure it doesn't overheat.

On top of that, I've also already replaced my desk with a better one. My previous desk has seen better days and was honestly pretty cheap. The top surface was starting to chip, some of the edge was peeling off, it's been slightly wobbly for a while, and the desk itself was fairly small, though that's mostly because the space I had it in was kind of cramped as it's in my bedroom, in the corner with my bed pretty close by (I measured and I only really have about 32 inches of space to fit it between the bed, surge protector & modem, and the wall). My current computer also didn't quite fit in the shelf under my old desk, as there was a metal plate there that's just BARELY too low. I also replaced the casters with better ones, as the reviews mentioned that the ones the desk came with were pretty cheap and flimsy, and I didn't want one of them to break or something.

Anyway, I'm probably going to wait to start learning game development again until the new computer's all set up. That way, I can focus on backing everything up and preparing for the switch, then getting the new computer set up. Then, I'm probably going to spend a few days really putting the new computer through it's paces to see what it can do. I remember my current computer can BARELY run No Man's Sky, and I haven't played it in a year or two, so I might crack open that game again after the new computer's up and running as a stress test.

Also, I have a bit of a funny story. A couple of months ago I decided to check on a whim if my current computer was set up to automatically defrag my computer's HDD, but apparently it isn't. The last time my computer was defragged was in like mid-2021, around when my computer's previous Graphics Card died. My guess is that the guy at the repair place I took it to defragged it after replacing the Graphics Card. To be honest, as I said, I thought my computer already was defragging it automatically every month all this time, but apparently not. So that's why Windows updates have been taking an eternity... I've already defraged it by now, and it took about 4 and a half hours and my hard drive was 14% fragmented beforehand. I WOULD keep this in mind, but my new computer is going to have a SSD, and I know that defraging those can lower thier lifespan.