The Weekly Gazette 08-11-2024

[DerVVulfman]

(August 5 to August 11, 2024)

Welcome dear readers to the latest issue of the Weekly Gazette! Here in the Gazette, we give you the news in brief of what occurred in the past week as well as provide any news happening in Save-Point itself

Official Area

Announcements and Updates

Near the end of the week Save-Point had its Forum Software Updated by Kirito. And not only that, but he fixed an issue whereby the forum could not add any new boards or categories. Still, he does warn to be on the look out for bugs and report them immediately.

General Chat

Simple thoughts of things that mix or don't was On the Mind of kyonides this week. Mixing food was fine, dealing with geometry was okay, but plane parts is not so good.

It was in Mid-Summer that ADOBE'S HEADACHES began when they released Terms of Serivce that caused a worldwide uproar, terms that suggested that the company could lay claim on any content created and use it for AI development. Whilst true that Adobe claimed they would fix the issue, more trouble for the company had appeared. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) of the U.S. filed a lawsuit against the creator of Photoshop, blasting it for the extreme fee charged for cancelling subscriptions, a fee the FTC claims was inadequately displayed or intentionally concealed.

Within this week's News of the World, there is plenty of troubling reports over Kamala Harris's pick for her Vice President in the upcoming 2024 elections, be it his immediate resignation before the Iraq war, his honeymoon and immediate ties to Communist China, and more. And more disturbing, Virginia's Governor discovered thousands of non-citizens registered to vote despite federal law. In the UK, media came together for a Peace rally organized to confront "far-right" activists, but Labour Party Councillor Ricky Jones instead chose to encourage violence and shouted ‘Cut All Their Throats’ He was arrested for encouraging violent disorder. And the apparent government intelligence about right-wing activists staging riots a hoax. Ukraine took the war back to Russia, launching an offensive into Russia’s western Kursk, a shocking move that forced Russia to create a so-named Counter-Terror operation. In the Middle East, Israel is closing in on Hamas's leader and mastermind of the October 7th massacre. Despite no proof and evidence to the contrary, Hamas claimed 100 dead at a school that IDF forces attacked and killed 19 terrorists, yet another school Hamas hides their military. A cargo ship explodes in a busy port in China, authorities claiming a container carried Class-5 hazardous goods, but gave no further details. Meanwhile Taiwan proposed their highest-ever military budget, increasing their military spending by 6.7 percent, the highest defense spending ever by the Republic of China (Taiwan's government being the original government befor the CCP coup of 1949). Bodycam from the Trump Assassination proving an officer warned the Secret Service to secure the area, the Mexican Lawsuit against U.S. Gun Makers thrown out by a Federal Judge, the narrowly averted Taylor Switf Concert terror plot, another politician abandoning the Democrat party, Hunter Biden's Romanian money laundering scheme, the Japanese 7.1 Magnitude Earthquake, the U.S./Russian ballerina left out of Biden's prisoner swap, and much more hit this week's news.
Reduced from 13.2K words to 314

Tech Talk

Probably unexpected, but Venezuela hit this week's News of the Cyber World like a brick. Not only had President Nicolás Maduro attacked WhatsApp to silence Anti-Socialist protestors, but had also banned X/Twitter claiming it and Elon Musk have been inciting civil war and death since Maduro's the July 28 sham presidential election. Meanwhile, Venezuelan Drug-Lord Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez, made it known he received an awared on YouTube for his channel receiving 100,000 subscribers. And regarding Youtube, Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki died this week following a two-year battle with lung cancer. Hackers still persist, Microsoft issuing warnings of Iranian Hackers targeting US officials during the Election Cycle. And a wave of text messages fraudulently claiming to be from the USPS have appeared, the intent to get victims to get credit card and personal information. Turkey banning Roblox over child abuse concerns, Dell firing another 12,500 employees, and a fatal Tesla Cybertruck crash also highlighted this week's cybernews.

Games Development

Development Discussion

If you were inquiring What's up among fellow RMers, you would find that DerVVulfman is delving more into the underlying code of the RPGMaker engine. He revealed an early beta of a script he later released within the Scripts Database that can look throughout a project for unused resources. And then he returned to his script database deciphering project, not only having extracted the content from the database files but placing the lines of code within arrays what he suggests as ease of use. But after some dicussion between he and kyonides on global variables, DerVVulfman revealed that he is now using his newly developed code to search through custom scripts for RPG::Cache modules.

Material Development

Scripts Database

For those who have been using kyonides's PlayMusik script to add a friendly optional Jukebox to their game, be aware that he updated his work adter discovering and eliminating a potentiial error if the script user incorrectly added songs within their jukebox's playlist. Along with that, he added more enhancements to the Jukebox's music selection window.

It has been some months since kyonides released KSteps2Doom, the feature that allows a game developer to script out the number of steps a player must take before a random encounter appears. But now, a new option has been added. This week, kyonides added the ability to temporarily increase the number of steps before being summarily attacked. This could give a game developer a means to make the party attempt to camouflage or cover their tracks when preyed upon by something stalking them.

For those using RPGMaker XP, DerVVulfman released the Resource Sifter. A tool for those nearing completion of their projects, this script can search through the resources within your project and discover what audio or graphic files are no longer in use and thus allow the developer to eliminate filesize bloat. However, it can only search the default RPGMaker XP system and cannot account for resources needed by custom scripts.

Creativity Section

Music and Audio

You are alone, attempting to reach safety. The sound of a tin can clattering upon the hard pavement makes you jump and your heart quickens. For a game that would deliver such ambience and an atmosphere of insecurity, you may find that the Original Music Shared by Eric Matyas might have something that may deliver such dread. His recent release, "In the Dead of Night" is for those who have characters who believe they are alone, and quite possibly... not.

Well, that's it for this week.

"The other night I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered, 'Where the hell is my roof?" - Steven Wright

PROSPECTIVE GAZETEERS!

If you are the creator of a thread in Save-Point, you have the option of sending/writing your own entry into the Gazette. The Gazette accepts write-in announcements (which will be doublechecked). Likewise, the Gazette would welcome other content such as a comic-strip series, ongoing story arc, or the like.

Just PM DerVVulfman with the submissions. Submissions must be in by 10pm EST.