Meeroos Addresses It's Pet Issues

 

Longtime residents will likely remember the Meeroos, even if they never got one. Introduced in 2011, these cute virtual pets known for their wanting to snuggle were very popular then. Almost fifteen years later, they're still around, with a smaller but still active fanbase.  Recently a friend of mine who owned some started telling me about trouble. But after several days, there was finally a response from someone in the company behind them.

Read the story in Design. 

Game Review: Homescapes

 

Today's game review involves one that can be played on both the PC and smartphone: Homescapes. The player helps Austin the butler as he works to repair his parents' family home room by room, bit by bit. So how does it go?

 

Read the review in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games. 

 

*Updated with a link on where to get the game* 

 

Grand Theft Auto Online Player Gets $10,000 For Fixing Long Loading Time

 

Grand Theft Auto Online, like the previous games in the series, has proven a popular game since it's release in 2013. But there was a problem. The game has a long loading time. One 2020 Reddit poll of 271 players had almost half taking three to six minutes and some were needing over fifteen. Finally, one player calling himself T0ast decided to look into the problem. He found the cause was badly optimized code and bottlenecking from the came loading from just one CPU. After some fixes, he found he loading time was reduced by almost 70 percent. He uploaded the fixed code, though pointed out it was more of a "proof of concept" than a solution, and called on the game's producers at Rockstar to fix the code, "the problems shouldn’t take more than a day for a single dev to solve."

Word soon spread about T0ast's fix, and eventually Rockstar took a look, and concluded, "After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved. As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update."

T0ast would state he was awarded $10,000 USD from Rockstar, sayng amounts of this size were usually given out for helping with security and privacy issues, but were making an exception with him, "Thanks to R* for taking the time to look into this and the generous bounty!"

Source: PC Gamer 

Hat Tip: Spooked Dreamscape, Khyra Ares

Bixyl Shuftan

Video Game Collecting: Part 3 - Get Consoles For Cheap

Today, Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich Resident) has the third part of his series of video game collecting. The obvious problem with collecting older game units is that much of what's out there is broken. But instead of throwing away consoles that don't work or pay someone huge amounts of cash to fix one, another option is learning to reapair them yourselves. While some are no doubt beyond the ability of all but more experienced repair artists, once you set your mind to it and get the right tools, you'll find some are surprisingly easy to get working again once you learn a few things.

Read Cyfir's article in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.