#but someone said this in FO76 and this was all I could think of

[slmcreative]

#meme art #anja #cuthbert beckett #vtmb #gangrel #this is probably only funny to me #but someone said this in FO76 and this was all I could think of

[the-laridian]

Fallout 76 journal start and The Outer Worlds journal work

So I briefly thought "hm could I do this as a video" and the answer is no, i can't, because there are 5 other people in this house and also I am more or less constantly interrupted by myself or others, which is OK, but it means stuff happens v randomly sometimes.

That said! Here is what I have managed in the past hour.

FO76 journal. I have a bunch of small book covers that I razored the pages out of. All of these were culled library books for a reason. Smaller books make for much easier journals. I really like the size of Scroogeonomics, and Huck Finn has a real vintage feel to it (sometime midcentury iirc), but I decided to go with the Worst Places in America because that felt better size-wise.

Speaking of size, none of these covers is taller than 7". And yes you theoretically can make your own covers, but let's be real, it's easier to use one already made.

Another factor to consider is the inside covers. Lower right is Paradise Lost, and those illos are cool, but not appropriate to FO76. The red one is from library bindings and I'd have to cover those, which isn't a problem, but I don't feel like it right now. ;) The Huck Finn one is struggling to hold together (which is a consideration) but does have someone's penciled inscription. Upper left is the Worst Places book and it's pretty bare so I can use that easily enough.

Now, another reason to use smaller covers is page size. This ruler is 6" tall, and we can see overlaying it that 6" tall fits just fine. Width, looks like I don't want any pages wider than 9", and probably 7.5" is a good inner range. Many scrapbook pages are 6" or 12" square. A 12" square will cut down nicely. The 6" ones are going to be real skinny (you can see I'd get only about 4" of one on one side of a page) but I can maybe still use those. 6" pages also work well for cover interiors.

Since I was informed I only had about an hour before helping take down the Xmas stuff, I switched gears to work on these for the TOW journal. (See what I did there?)

The wooden gear-thingy and little flexible wooden chain bits are leftovers from a project AngryDandelion finished. The "chain" is actually just a little flexible, considering it's all one piece of wood, but also fragile, because same. I thought the chain pieces could be bit cartridges in The Outer Worlds (bits are the currency).

First coat of bronze paint on the gear and silver & gold on the bits.

Now, one thing I did after a few coats of paint, was take a straight pin and clear out the engravings (you can see I started it in the above pic). It helps keep the definition and is easier than trying to re-ink it.

I like how the bits came out, they look like little circuit board components. The gear needs some paint on the edges, and then either an ink wash or maybe some grease to age it a bit. It will never look 100% like a piece of metal, but metal would be so heavy on one of these pages. The next thing I have to decide is, how to glue these to a page, because let's face it, these are kinda chunky. I *might* have a glassine or plastic mini-baggie to put the bits in and staple to a page, which solves that problem, but that gear has to be attached with glue, I think.

So, there we go, first hour on projects! :) Let me know if you have any questions/comments!

#the outer worlds #fallout 76 #art journal #handmade #my art #how i did it

[lhs3020b]

The Other Fallout 76

Despite all the many, many problems, there are some interesting things in Fallout 76. (This is probably the real tragedy of FO76 - it feels like there is a good game trying to squeeze through the cracks. I reckon another six months in development, and Bethesda could have had something quite decent on their hands. As it was, well ... yeah.)

Two things stick out for me...

1. FO76 implictly-confirms that the pre-War US was fucked.

What I mean by this was, from the previous installments, it wasn’t entirely clear if doom was fore-ordained. The wind turbines and the solar power plant in FNV - owned and run by Poseidon Energy, no less! - had seemed to imply that there had been an attempt to pivot to a low-carbon economy. Also there were a few bits in FO4 that seemed to imply that the outside world, pre-War, may not have been quite as bad as we’d been led to believe. (The Norwegian container ship, the terminal talking about holidays in Ireland, and so on.)

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps if the US had a few more years, they might have made the transition ... except there were never going to be a few more years.

The economic situation in Appalachia was very clearly self-destructive, and self-inflicted self-destruction as well. The local government were pushing dysfunctional automation, without making any effort to alleviate the resulting mass unemployment. The area also clearly had an exploding problem with inequality - compare the luxury of the Mega Mansions to any of the cities. Predictable consequences of this included widespread social unrest, combined with some dysfunctional law-enforcement.

And there’s that letter you find in the Charleston capital building, from the President of the United States, who is gushing about the Governor’s automation program - and wanted to extend it to the rest of the country.

If that had happened, it would have killed them off, even without any bombs falling. Unemployment means reductions in consumer spending, which means fewer people buying all these hyper-automated companies’ products. Said companies start going bankrupt, adding to the unemployment and poverty. Also then, faced with a collapse in their own consumer demand, the companies who make the bots will start going bust - and, suddenly, no more robots. So all the automated goods and services will no longer be available, at any price.

We know from FO76 that this would have included “floor-level” services like agriculture and raw materials. When the thing that stops being available is food ... yeah, your economy is fucked.

Essentially, the US was about to give itself a sort of Keynesian death-spiral. The problem was the system itself - and also the pursuit of short-term self-interest by the people at the top, which was diametrically-opposed to the collective good of society.

TL;DR they were fucked. They couldn’t save themselves because they didn’t want to.

(While the parallel isn’t exact, the miniature social implosion of the Enclave bunker near Whitespring does echo the above cycle - and, significantly, the bunker ended with everyone in it dead.)

((It’s also, uh, exactly what we’re doing right here with climate change. So there’s a cheery happy fun-time thought for you.))

2. The Overseer

The other little thing I like is the Overseer. Because FO76 is basically the first time that a Vault Tech Overseer has been presented as an actual, sympathetic human being with complex motives and a believable personality. (Well, there’s also Vault 81 in Fallout 4, but that’s a bit of a special case.)

As you find and listen to her holotapes, the Overseer basically does come across as a reasonably-decent human being. She’s not a perfect person - while she sees through it eventually, her apparent blindness to Vault Tech’s flaws does stretch belief a little. There’s a definite sense that she may have been good at picking the right time to “look the other way” - particularly given all the skeevy stuff they were doing semi-openly at VTU, which was also her alma mater.

However, she’s not the cartoon monster that a lot of other Overseers have been, and the change is welcome. She’s someone who is trying to do what they think is right, and has paid a price for many of the decisions she made. She clearly regrets what happened between her and Evan. She also develops distinctly mixed feelings about Vault Tech - it’s clear that she’s learning things too as she journeys across Appalachia.

It’s all the more impressive because this is done through random recorded holotapes that you find, rather than through normal interaction.

(There is also a small glimmer of hope that the Overseer might have survived. The last tape, that you find at Mountainside Bed and Breakfast, sounds quite ominous - but, there’s no body. She might still have got away.)

#LHS plays new games #Fallout 76 #idle speculation

[babyfacekillamusic]

So I had taken over Gorge Junkyard yesterday before shutting it down for the night. I opened it up today and noticed a level 3 player mingling and acting confused about what to do at a workshop.I waved to him and waved him over as I dropped some stimpaks and grilled radroach for him. I don’t usually use my mic, but for some reason I decided to today. That’s when I heard this little kid say, “Excuse me, how do you wave like that?” I began explaining to him how to do it, the options you have and told him I dropped some good for him. He asked how to eat things and I explained how to do it.In the background of his mic I could hear someone say, “Make sure you tell him thank you.” This is when I began to think about playing video games with my dad and how much fun it was. We had to defend the junkyard and I told him to wait inside the house until it was over. I asked how much ammo he had and he said his pipe pistol only has 8 shots left. I had no need for .38 ammo and decided to give him the 480 round I had.He came over and began cheering and thanking me for giving him ammo. After this he asked if he could follow me and fight “bad guys” with me. I said sure and he followed me to a couple spots, helped me fight some scorched and seemed to have a genuine good time.I had to leave and he thanked me over and over and gave me some blackberries before I left.I got a message from his account a couple hours later saying, “Thank you you for helping my son and teaching him some things. He couldn’t stop talking about you. He has a hard time making friends and you showed him what a true friend looks like.” These little moments are why I love this game.Holy cow 2 gold! Thank you mysterious strangers!Edit 2: okay you all are amazing! The first time I have ever received gold! I never intended for this to get so popular, just me telling of a cool moment I had. Kindness is our gift that needs to be shared with everyone. via /r/fo76

#IFTTT #reddit