I had big plans for filling this blog with a wide variety of posts this year. Obviously, that has yet to happen so far. Real life reared its' ugly head and I got sidetracked. First, we moved and the unlimited high-speed internet that we've had for the last 3 years and were assured would be available in our new location WAS NOT available after all. We have Internet and it's plenty fast but it's restricted. Second, I'm on the executive board of the local UAW 5010 and things have gotten pretty time-consuming in the last 6 months; it's required a lot of extra work but things are looking up in our plant now. Third, my wife had a cancer scare that I'm glad to say she made it out in the clear. I picked up a bunch of the slack around here with the kids, chores, and other duties while she was going through tests and getting everything in control. She'll be going to a hematologist and will be on some supplements for a while but she doesn't have cancer.
I will ease back into posting sometime soon but it will probably just be once or twice a week from this point on. If Jamie Hardy would like to contribute more posts in the future then I would definitely be up for that. I asked him for some guest posts and then all of this real life stuff accumulated and I took an unscheduled break on the blog. I appreciate him keeping some new content going here and hope he wants to contribute in the future. Thanks, Jamie!
A few posts to watch for in the future include:
1. More resources and ideas for SteamCraft.
2. Familiar rules for Swords & Wizardry.
3. Incorporating Arneson's old D&D house rules into a retroclone.
Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition PC/Steam Save Game
Tales of Vesperia is a role-playing video game developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the tenth main entry in the Tales series. The story focuses on Yuri Lowell, a former Imperial soldier who forms a guild called Brave Vesperia to aid Estelle, a Child of the Full Moon he encounters on a mission.
Tales of Vesperia Save Game Info:
Unlock All Skits Complete All Secret Missions Raise All Characters to Max Level Fill Out the Collector's Book Completely Fill Out the Monster Book Completely
Tales of Vesperia Save Game Installation:
1. Back up your original save data, in case something wrong happen you can revert to your old data
2. Extract "Tales of Vesperia Save Game.rar" using WinRar
3. Copy the files to: "<Steam-folder>\userdata\<user-id>\738540\remote\"
We are excited to kick off the new year with a stable release of Android Studio 3.3 focused on refinement and quality. You can download it today from developer.android.com/studio. Based on the feedback from many of you, we have taken a step back from large features to focus on our quality fundamentals. The goal is to ensure Android Studio continues to help you stay productive in making great apps for Android. Since the last stable release, Android Studio 3.3 addresses over 200 user- reported bugs. This release also includes official support for Navigation Editor, improved incremental Java compilation when using annotation processors, C++ code lint inspections, an updated new project wizard, and usability fixes for each of the performance profilers. In addition, saving snapshots on exit for the Android emulator is 8x faster.
Android Studio 3.3 kicks off the broader quality focus area for the year, which we call Project Marble. Announced at the Android Developer Summit in November 2018, Project Marble is the Android Studio team's focus on making the fundamental features and flows of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) rock-solid, along with refining and polishing the user-facing features that matter to you in your day-to-day app development workflows. In Project Marble, we are specifically looking at reducing the number of crashes, hangs, memory leaks, and user-impacting bugs. We are also investing in our measurement infrastructure to prevent these issues from occurring. Stay tuned for more updates and details as we progress on this initiative.
This release of Android Studio is a solid milestone for the product. If you want the latest in feature refinement and quality, then download Android Studio 3.3 today on the stable release channel. Watch and read below for some of the notable changes and enhancements that you will find in Android Studio 3.3.
Develop
Navigation Editor - The navigation editor is a visual editor which allows you to construct XML resources that support using the new Jetpack Navigation Component. With the Navigation Editor and the Navigation Component, you can build predictable interactions between the screens and content areas of your app. This editor was previewed in an earlier Android Studio release, but based on your feedback we held this feature to improve the quality of the feature. Thank you to the developers who gave us feedback. Learn more.
Navigation Editor
IntelliJ Platform Update - Android Studio 3.3 includes Intellij 2018.2.2. This is a significant platform release from Jetbrains, with new previews for the code editor, updated icons, MacBook Touch Bar support, plus enhanced version control integrations. Learn more.
Kotlin Update - This release of Android Studio bundles Kotlin 1.3.11, with support for Kotlin coroutines and contracts plus IDE support for the recommend Kotlin coding style. Learn more.
Clang-Tidy Support for C++ - Android Studio now has support for Clang-Tidy for C++ static code analysis. Similar to the current lint support for Java and Kotlin in Android Studio, Clang-Tidy helps those who have C++ in their Android app identify common coding errors and bugs. Enable the inspection by going to Settings → Editor → Inspections (Preference → Editor → Inspections for MacOS) . Learn more.
Clang-Tidy Code Inspection Settings
New Project Wizard update - To support the range of device types, programming languages, and new frameworks, we have updated the New Project Wizard for Android Studio. You can access the same project templates in a more streamlined user experience.
New Project Wizard
Delete Unused IDE Directories - To help you upgrade to the newest version of Android Studio, we have added a new feature to help clean up unused settings & cache directories. Past versions of Android Studio left these old directories that were hard to find and remove on your hard drive. When you first run Android Studio 3.3 and higher, the new dialog suggests directories that you can safely remove from past installations of Android Studio.
Delete Unused Directories Dialogue
IDE User Feedback - To help us to create a better product, we have started to include in-product sentiment buttons for quick feedback. For those who opt-in to sharing usage data, feel free to click on the icon that suits your sentiment while using Android Studio. To opt-in to give in-product feedback go to Settings → Appearance & Behavior → System Settings → Data Sharing ( Preferences → Appearance & Behavior → System Settings → Data Sharing for MacOS).
IDE User Feedback
Build
Improved incremental Java compilation when using annotation processor - This update decreases build time by improving support for incremental Java compilation when using annotation processors. The optimization requires Android Gradle plugin 3.3.0 or higher. Learn more.
Lazy task configuration -The plugin uses Gradle's new task creation API to avoid initializing and configuring tasks that are not required to complete the current build (or tasks not on the execution task graph). For example, if you have multiple build variants, such as "release" and "debug" build variants, and you're building the "debug" version of your app, the plugin avoids initializing and configuring tasks for the "release" version of your app. Learn more.
Single-variant project sync - Along with build speed, project sync speed can be a development bottleneck to for those who have large app projects with multiple build variants. In this version of the IDE, you can you can limit syncing to only the active build variant. In order for this optimization to work, your project needs to use Android Gradle plugin 3.3.0 or higher. You can enable this option under the Experimental preferences in Android Studio 3.3.
Single-Variant Project Sync
Android App Bundles now support Instant Apps - You can now build and deploy Google Play Instant experiences from a single Android Studio project, and include them in a single Android App Bundle. Launched last year, the Android App Bundle is the new standard Android app publishing format that you can build with Android Studio. This update streamlines and unifies the build artifacts that you upload to Google Play. Learn more.
Test
Multiple Emulator AVD instances - Android Emulator 28.0 now supports the ability to launch multiple instances of the same Android Virtual Device (AVD). Each instance of the AVD uses a minimal set of system resources. For those developers with continuous integration (CI) testing environments, this can be a convenient way to run tests in parallel off one AVD configuration. On the command line run the following commands:
Android 9 Pie Emulator System Images & Wi-Fi P2P - Alongside Android Studio 3.3, you can also download Android 9 system images for your emulator for your app testing. The Google Play emulator system images not only passe the official Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), they also include support for Peer-to-Peer Wi-Fi direct connections between two emulators. To start using this feature, launch the emulator (v28.0.22 or higher) via the command line and ensure the two emulators share the same Wi-Fi server and client port command line arguments.
Emulator Snapshot Save Speed - We have heard from you that you enjoy using snapshots and quickboot, but felt the time taken to close the emulator and Quickboot save a snapshot was slow. To solve this, we optimized the way snapshots are saved and managed, using a mapped file to save guest RAM. From aggregate metrics, we found that this optimization led to driving down the average quickboot save time from the last stable version to now from 27 seconds down to 3 seconds — a 8x improvement. Learn more about this enhancement and other recent improvements to the emulator here.
Optimize
Profiler performance improvements - Based on your feedback, we have dramatically improved Android Studio performance while using the profilers in this release. We've seen improvements on average of 2x in frame rates in our local tests. Please continue to provide feedback, especially if you continue to see performance issues.
Memory Profiler allocation tracking options -In previous releases, we have heard from you that, in some cases, your app performs significantly worse while profiling with the default settings. To address this, we have changed the default Memory Profiler capture mode on Android 8.0 Oreo (API level 26) and higher devices to sample for allocations periodically. You can adjust this setting in the Allocation Tracking dropdown menu. By default, we also now temporarily turn off allocation tracking during CPU recordings to minimize the impact on recording results. Learn more.
Memory Profiler: Allocation Tracking Options
Network Profiler formatted text -The Network profiler in Android Studio 3.3 now formats common text types found in network payloads by default, including HTML, XML and JSON. You can toggle between formatted and raw text by navigating to either the Response or Request tab, and click on the View Parsed / View Source link. Learn more.
Network Profiler: Formatted Text
CPU Profiler frame rendering data -The CPU Profiler now shows you the render time for each frame on the main UI thread and Render Thread when you record with Trace System Calls. If you are trying to investigate and understand the bottlenecks or the source of UI jank in your app, this data can come in handy to see where you can improve your app performance. Learn more.
CPU Profiler: Frame Rendering Data
To recap, Android Studio 3.3 includes these new enhancements & features:
Develop
Navigation Editor
IntelliJ 2018.2.2 Platform Update
Kotlin 1.3.11 Update
Clang-Tidy Support for C++
New Project Wizard update
Delete Unused IDE Directories
IDE User Feedback
Build
Improved incremental Java compilation when using annotation processors
Download the latest version of Android Studio 3.3 from the download page. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio as well. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio at the same time. Learn more.
To use the mentioned Android Emulator features make sure you are running at least Android Emulator v28.0.22 downloaded via the Android Studio SDK Manager.
We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
At one point, I was thinking of writing down steps that will guarantee increase in your Twitch viewer numbers, but the problem is these steps may lead to burnout. Once you burnout and take time off from streaming, your viewer numbers will decrease, so following the "fastest" techniques of gaining viewership may in fact backfire.
Sadly, it seems to be true that if you take 1 to 2 weeks off to refresh in a sudden and unannounced manner, your numbers may drop when you return. The other unfortunate news in focusing on viewership numbers is if a crisis happens and you have to take time off, your numbers will drop. The conclusion is not to worry about the numbers, but if you really want to grow without burning out, this post is for you! In other words, we need to find ways to avoid the inevitable burn-out of streaming so that you necessarily do not need to take too much time off from streaming, as consistency in following a schedule is the best way to gain and increase viewership.
These steps may lead to very slow viewer number increase, but it's better than crashing and burning like what happened to me. Indeed, coming back after a few weeks of re-evaluating things, my viewership numbers dropped by a whopping 50%. Note how it says -9 from last stream, total of 9 (exhibit A)! Enjoy The Game The first step is to play a game that you truly enjoy and find fun to stream. I decided to stream Borderlands 2 as a challenge to myself as I never succeeded in FPS games, and my community loves this game (a lot of Dark Souls fans also love Borderlands 2). Also the game has perfect Twitch game statistics (see below for details). However, Borderlands 2 was a struggle to play, leading to many deaths and cringe-worthy gaming, and I wasn't enjoying streaming the game. My streams call to mind the unjust stereotype of women being bad at games. Although I recognize it as a masterpiece, it was not fun to stream for me, because of the demanding nature, and definitely a game that's more fun to play off-stream, which I intend to do. Therefore, if you're a new streamer, it's so hard to focus and concentrate, not to mention on a game you're not familiar with. In other words, chose 5 games that you're really good at and that you love playing to start out with, and that your community would enjoy watching. If you're a seasoned streamer, ignore this step and play whatever game you want as long as it falls in the "correct" Twitch game statistics if you want to continue to gain viewer numbers. Twitch Game Statistics Next, go to Twitch and type in the title of your games in question. If it's Fortnite Battle Royale that you're thinking, you'll see that all the large streamers will be on the first 20 pages, and then we relatively small streamers will be buried in the 5 trillionth page. No one is going to scroll through all those pages, rather, they'll click on the top page of streamers. You want a game where you will be near the top of the list. Now, if the game you want to stream is Duck Tales Remastered, you'll see that there's a total of 0 viewers, so no one's looking for this game, except if a well known streamer like Shroud is somehow playing the game then there might be 30,000 viewers plus. But they're just watching the game coincidentally because it's Shroud, and not the game for itself. That again is a bad choice. However, if the game you love and know very well like the back of your hand is Borderlands 2, that's a superb choice because it has a good number of viewers who actively look for the game. If you go to Twitch, you'll see that the top 2 channels will have about 50 to 75 viewers, then the next few channels will be around 20 to 30, and then your channel will be in the first page. Therefore, viewers looking for the game might chose your channel. If they like your stream, you'll most likely get a follower and possibly loyal viewer. That'll surely increase your views, albeit very slowly. Facecam If the viewers looking for Borderlands 2 are looking at channels and see you on Facecam, they'll more likely click on your channel then a channel without, all things being equal (obviously a streamer like Lirik who doesn't use Facecam will get almost all the viewers, but Lirik is the exception). Schedule I thought an afternoon schedule would be just as good for me and my viewers, b/c it's a good time for the UK/EU audience who'll watch after work. However, I'm more of a morning person, and prefer to get all my "chores" done so I can have the rest of the day off. It may seems like a red flag when I call streaming a "chore" but the reality is, even though it's fun (as long as I don't worry about viewership numbers), streaming is workbeing so demanding. It takes so much effort to play the game well, and read and talk to chat, being entertaining. Indeed, engaging your audience will keep and increase viewership numbers. You can't expect to play a game without discussion, unless you're one of the few absolutely incredible challenge runners, and even then, they talk to chat. After moving to morning schedule, it worked better for me because I don't have to fret and worry until 1 PM EST (that was my past schedule) about streaming. I can get it over and done with and move on. When you start out, feel free to experiment which schedule works the best foryou which may take a couple of weeks or so, and then try to pin down the exact hour you want to stream and stick with that schedule if possible. Indeed, anytime you change hours, your viewers will drop, so it's okay to experiment with your schedule when you start out with streaming. Certainly, once you really like your schedule and you feel comfortable with it, keep that schedule until something comes up such as new job and the like. In your channel panel description, I would recommend adding the stream elements or streamlab schedule countdown. Mention in a "Schedule" channel panel that you'll stream one hour for the day(s) you're interested, in case there are days when you don't feel like streaming the "ideal" 4 hours or more. The mistake I made was starting out 4 days/week at 4 hrs/day. However, even though you note you're streaming 1 hour, you can always stream longer than 1 hour. Once you feel that streaming 1 hour is "easy" then you can advertise that you'll stream 1.5 or 2 hours and so forth. The rationale is that you can always stream longer, but you can never stream shorter than what your viewers expect per your schedule. The reason why you want a set hour is so your viewers will know when to tune in when you're streaming, much like television shows. Even TV has recording and your videos can be re-watched (on Twitch dashboard, channels, turn on store past broadcasts), but the issue is you need live viewers for them to count in the demanding Twitch world. Time Off? Once you notice that you have a few viewers (or more) who chat in your channel and are at your streams faithfully, I think you can take time off, maybe 1 week at most, and your viewers might not drop that much when you return, because your faithful viewers will return to see you. "But it's only 1 week," you ask, but in the world of Twitch, taking a week off is like an eternity. Make sure you announce in advance that you'll be taking off and you'll be fine when you return. Taking time off is crucial in preventing burn-out and then quitting streaming entirely, so if you feel burned out the 2nd or 3rd month of streaming, make sure you announce a 1 week vacation to your chat constantly so they're aware. Again, the fact that maximum of 1 week off may be considered even "too much" if you want to keep your viewers, demonstrates the ultra-competitive nature of Twitch streaming. Conclusion:
Find a game that is easy for you to play and that you absolutely love so your enthusiasm shines through in your streaming.
Make sure this game will have your channel in the top of streamers streaming the game, with adequate number of viewers watching the game (type the game title in Twitch search bar).
Facecam
Set schedule that works for YOU.
Time off when you notice you have a handful of faithful viewers, but if you start burning out before then, take time off, maximum maybe 1 week.
I'm hoping that these relatively painless steps will improve your viewership numbers but without the burn-out. I can write about how to network to gain viewers, but I find it unhealthy so if I ever do, it'll be a huge caveat for that post. However, the best advice I can give is to not worry about your viewership numbers, but rather enjoy the process of streaming, improving content, and being with your community, which is what I'm focusing on now and loving it! Are you a streamer, and what other painless tips will help improve viewership numbers? Do you want to read about networking to increase your numbers in a future post? The How of Happiness Review
For my tips to work you first need a foundation which is put into place when building your fighter. Size is overrated. I beat maxed out fighters with tiny guys just to prove a point. Actually a maxed out fighter will get tired faster anyways. I keep my fighters between 6′-3″ and 6′-5″ with a weight between 225-235 pounds. I also keep my reach between 77-82 inches which gives you all around power with straights and uppercuts. After this comes the important part. You want to stay away from
This set of Lizardmen counters replaces the set that I did over a decade ago while I was active on the Warmaster Yahoo email list. Unlike the old set, which was slightly undersized, this set will print to the full 20mm x 40mm counters.
"The Lizardmen are the oldest race of the world. Staunch opponents of the powers of Chaos, they follow the Great Plan of the Old Ones. Since the days of their creation, the Lizardmen have been at the forefront of the battle for the world's survival. Their armies are anchored by savage warriors spawned for the sole purpose of war and augmented with titanic reptilian beasts whose tread shakes the earth. Their enigmatic leaders are powerful wizards and wield magics beyond the ken of mere mortals. While much has been lost over the long ages of warfare against the many foes of order, the Lizardmen still fight on - unleashing their cold-blooded savagery upon any who would stand in the way of their sacred mission. As carved upon the pyramid blocks, this is the tale of the Lizardmen and their defence of the world. " -- Warhammer Wiki
Printing the Counters I hope some of you find these counter sets useful.You can print these at office printing places, like Staples, using heavy card stock paper printed at actual size. You can also print on regular paper and then glue the counters to wooden bases. (Check the older posts on how I did this with my Empire army.) Currently, I'm printing the counter sets at Staples using regular paper, spray gluing the back of each sheet with Super77, attaching each sheet to an old comic book backing board, and then cutting out the counters using a sharp Xacto knife with steel ruler. Using the backing boards makes for cheap, sturdy counters.
Click on the counter set image above to download the complete army counter set in PDF format.
