#random subject

10/19/2023 My interest of darkwave took me longer to get into it that not many people have told me in the past.

For those who don't know what darkwave is, it's dark synthpop that doesn't progress to be popular in mainstream media. From the information I've read, it began with Clan of Xymox in the 80s and kudos to it that I've listened to their full discography and loved them.

The songs have no hooks from pop/rock/hip-hop musicians. It's listening to a score to get the vibe of something you want to or "my soundtrack playlist" that nowadays people are listening to like Taylor Swift or A$AP Rocky. (https://www.complex.com/music/a/bdandrid/no-hook-viral-rap-songs-structure-changes) Basically, it's the vibe music.

Before darkwave, I heard Sisters of Mercy's Floodland in 2016 and I loved it, but I've never been a nerd of it. Synthwave took me over in that year, thanks to Perturbator's Dangerous Days (heard of it in 2015), GUNSHIP, John Carpenter and Hotline Miami OSTs. I still listen to Synthwave, but I've been least active of that genre since it's kinda ubiquitous at this point.

I heard of a few darkwave albums in the past like Drab Majesty or Boy Harsher's Country Girl EP in 2018, yet that genre didn't grasp me fully. I love Perturbator's Lustful Sacraments. That is until I heard of Mareux's The Perfect Girl (The Cure cover) in February of this year, thanks to Zoolander's meme I saw. I loved that song. How come no one suggested me this song before? ehh…

Darkwave hooked me with Mareux's music in April this year and I've been enamored of searching for more bands like Mareux and so far, I've found plenty of bands I love and some didn't click me. Hopefully they'll keep making one darkwave album per year or tops. No pressure.

The unanswered question is how long do I keep listening to it. I don't know. The genres I heard like punk (The Stooges or Husker Du), hard rock (Led Zeppelin's third album or AC/DC), pop punk (Yellowcard or Fall Out Boy) heavy metal (Judas Priest or Iron Maiden), Alternative Rock (Story of the Year or Filter), Industrial (Nine Inch Nails or Vatican Shadow) metalcore (Bullet For My Valentine/Killswitch Engage), ambient (Plastikman's Consumed), thrash metal (Megadeth's Rust in Peace or Sepultura), grindcore (Terrorizer or Anal Cunt), death metal (Carcass or Death) and black metal (Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tat Oss) are stored in my brain. I'm not enthusiastic of discovering new bands (Spiritbox or Sleep Token) of an existing genre. People will find a niche to a particular band or a number of bands in one way or another.

I still like Queens of the Stone Age from time to time. xP

Will another genre get me addictive in the future? K-pop or noise music? Maybe. Or I'm just apathetic to hook me in a derivative music world.

Whatever. I'm listening to Hante. - Morning Tsunami.

As a kid from the late 90s, I got to listen to multiple bands from video game licensed soundtracks like Road Rash 3D, Wipeout 64, Test Drive 5, Sega Touring Car Championship and V-Rally 2. And Pokemon The First Movie's soundtrack. The catch was I wasn't very enthused about music back then.

Until I was in 2003.

Evanescence, Gorillaz, The Rasmus, The Darkness, Goldfrapp, Keils, Beyonce, Radiohead, Outkast were showing up their music videos on MTV or Much. YouTube didn't exist back then until 2005.

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What if I was a metalcore or metal nerd back in October 2005: Darkest Hour - Undoing Ruin Between the Buried and Me - Alaska Devil Sold His Soul - Darkness Prevails Chimaira - Chimaira Demon Hunter - The Triptych Still Remains - Of Love and Lunacy DevilDriver - The Fury of Our Maker's Hand (Melodic Death Metal) Norma Jean - O' God, the Aftermath Opeth - Ghost Reveries 10) August Burns Red - Thrill Seeker Atreyu - The Curse Mastodon - Leviathan

instead I got into Bullet For My Valentine's The Poison.

2006: Architects - Nightmares It Dies Today - Sirens Killswitch Engage - As Daylight Dies Underoath - Define The Great Line Atreyu - A Death-Grip on Yesterday Converge - No Heroes 7) Mercenary - The Hours that Remain (Melodic Death Metal)

2007: Devil Sold His Soul - A Fragile Soul Haste The Day - Pressure The Hinges Atreyu - Lead Sails Paper Anchor August Burns Red - Messengers Parkway Drive - Horizons The Devil Wears Prada - Plagues Soilwork - Sworn to a Great Divide 8) DevilDriver - The Last Kind Words

2008: Misery Signals - Controller Trivium - Shogun Haste The Day - Dreamer Bullet For My Valentine - Scream Aim Fire Opeth - Watershed 6) Mercenary - Architect of Lies

2009: August Burns Red - Constellations Architects - Hollow Crown DevilDriver - Pray for Villains Killswitch Engage - Killswitch Engage (2009) The Devil Wears Prada - With Roots Above and Branches Below 6) Converge - Axe to Fall

Honorable mentions: Hell (Woodsmoke) - I (Funeral Doom Metal)

2010: Alcest - Ecailles de lune Dark Tranquillity - We Are The Void Solution .45 - For Aeons Past Bullet For My Valentine - Fever Underoath - O (Disambiguation) 6) Soilwork - The Panic Broadcast

2011: Samael - Lux Mundi August Burns Red - Leveler DevilDriver - Beast Architects - The Here and Now Mercenary - Metamorphosis 6) Of Mice and Men - The Flood

Honorable mentions: Blood Stain Child - Epsilon Opeth - Heritage Darkest Hour - The Human Romance

2012: Alcest - Les voyages de l'ame (Blackgaze) Architects - Daybreaker 3) Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

2013: Atoma - Skylight 2) Dark Tranquillity - Construct

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My interest in metal wore down in 2012 and 2013, actually.

I wish I could've abandoned metal in 2010 and get into Crystal Castles music, instead.

I don't have a good essay about this early access game, but I've been playing this game on Steam (PC) almost one month now.

So far it's been pretty nice for Pocketpair (indie game development in Japan), coming from Craptofia. ^^

There's no story mode, but you can play by yourself, most of the time. The online coop mode (or servers on Steam) is optional. PvP mode and crossplay will come later.

Basically, you do what a survival game will do. You start with nothing but Neanderthal clothing. Cut woods, mine stones, get materials and Pal Spheres. Capture some pals (monsters), level up your character as much as you can and beat some bosses.

Issues? Well, if you don't have 32GB RAM, the game will more likely to crash. 16GB RAM wasn't enough.

Other than that, bugs and glitches tend to happen. So, it's not a significant impact, but Pocketpair is still focusing on it to this day I'm writing this post.

Survival games like ARK or Rust didn't click me, but Palworld convinced me otherwise.

So yeah.

Some AAA game companies would be taking notes of Palworld to make their derivative "Pokemon with guns" game, but right now they're making live-service games to make profit ASAP in short-term.

Random people and journalists have been claiming these things in the past, and Palworld got the attention of Pokemon with guns in mid January this year.

I didn't buy their narratives that it was made by an AI bots, according to Twitter's users. Even though, it was made by around 70 people working on Palworld.

The fact that people panicked about AI controversy, even though the character designs were introduced in a trailer that was released years ago before generative AI could have been capable of making anything close to resembling them, is nonsense.

I know that Saints Row took Grand Theft Auto's inspiration and was it a GTA killer? Nah.

Or was it Haze a Halo killer? (according to some media sources) Nah.

What about Genshin Impact's art style that it took from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? I don't think Genshin butchered Zelda.

I mean Overwatch didn't kill Team Fortress 2 and people still play it to this day.

There were a number of examples of the next "Pokemon" thing in the past that Digimon, Monster Rancher, Temtem, etc. would become popular.

I didn't have high expectations of those games.

As for Palworld, the "Pokemon with guns" game is still early access, it's pretty nice and I'm having fun at the time I'm writing this post.

The next question is…will I be obsessed with like Apex Legends? Maybe.

Will this derivative "clone" game be remembered? I don't know. Art is subjective to every individual.

Minecraft, ARK: Survival Evolved, Project Zomboid, Rust……it's fair to say I'm not a fan of survival games.

I'll keep playing this game.

When I was thinking of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer in-game currency, I was a little curious if games from consoles has been introduced in-game currency before live-service games has fully established. Even though, you can earn "credits" by playing the game than buying the Bioware Points by real money

I did my research and I found some examples here:

The Sims 3 (PS3/Xbox360) (SimPoints) (2010) Free Realms (Station Cash) (2011/PS3) DC Universe Online (Marketplace Cash on PS3) (2011) Gotham City Impostors (PS3/Xbox 360) (Black Market) (2012) Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer (PS3/Xbox 360) (2012) -2013- Defiance (PS3/Xbox 360) Dust 514 (PS3) Blacklight Retribution (PS3) (PC was released in 2012) GTA Online (PS3/Xbox 360) Warframe (PS4) Injustice: Gods Among Us (PS3/Xbox 360-PS4/Xbox One) (2013) Power Coins

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As for PC, they already have games with in-game currency to pay real money optionally: Battlefield Heroes (2009) The Sims 3 (SimPoints) (2009) Free Realms (Station Cash) (2009) APB: All Points Bulletin (2010) DC Universe Online (Daybreak Cash is on PC) (2011) Super Monday Night Combat (2012) Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (2012) Blacklight Retribution (2012) Defiance (2013) Hawken (2013) Warframe (2013) Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013) Power Coins

or subscription per month like Ultima Online (1997), EverQuest (1999), Motor City Online (2001), World of Warcraft (2004)....well, most of the MMO games.

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There should be more games that I missed in the list. Nonetheless those are the examples.

Then 2 years later, Evolve came out, the in-game currency and microtransaction were baffling and meh.

And the game didn't work with the low playerbase.

Even they literally shut down the servers this year: Link

10/21/2023 I'm sure I've heard of other genres of underground dark music like Darkwave or Goth Rock. I've been able to discover albums that are obscure in the past years. The ones you don't see in MTV or in your local music store.

Here are the ones I've discovered and liked. The list is not perfect:

Dark Ambient with Industrial/Techno: Techno Animal - Ghosts (1991) Locust - Weathered Well (1994) Black Rain - 1.0 (1995) Techno Animal - Re-Entry (1995) Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999) Sin - Errare Digital Est (2002) - Sandwell District - Feed-Forward Necro Deathmort - Music of Bleak Origin Vatican Shadow - Remember your Black Day Shifted - Under a Single Banner Black Rain - Dark Pool / Now I'm Just A Number: Soundtracks 1994-95 (ambient songs are the same as 1.0) Not Waving - Animals / Redacted Demdike Stare - Elemental Mondkopf - Hades Alessandro Cortini - Risveglio Worriedaboutsatan - Revenant - O C O S I - MACULA

Dark Ambient with Abstract/IDM/Downtempo: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994) Lorn - The Maze to Nowhere Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest Ital Tek - Hollowed Forest Swords - Bolted Andy Stott - Too Many Voices