TechAngel85

Reading these, I take it that we're going forward with Patch compatibility being specifically to complete STEP installs only? The reason I ask is because when you start merging entire mods and ESP changes into the Patch that is what you're going to get. Users will have even less of a choice in flexibility of whether or not they wish to install certain mods because those mods will now be merged into the patch. Essentially, if they use the patch they're also using these merged mods without choice. I would rather see a third patch made that has these merged mods and ESPs instead of incorporating them into the two patches we have now. This will allow the users that do not wish to install all or some of the merged mods to be able to still benefit from the patches while at the same time retaining their freedom to pick and choose mods. This wouldn't be catering to individuals. It would just keep STEP a bit more flexible in regards to the patches. I'd rather get some of the mods in MT tested out before we release 2.2.8. This will take about a week (maybe two). We don't have to but I'd rather clean out that forum completely with 2.2.8. Some of those mod have been in there a good while. I'll get into contact with the MTs on getting the testing started. I haven't had much time to even scan for some new testing candidates. Most of the "popular" threads in MS aren't STEP candidates though. I will get the release procedures updated tonight or tomorrow and will download the readme for the patches so that I have that content. As for the rest, read my comment above about my feelings in merging mods into the patches. Most of these authors will need to be asked. When I didn't my evaluation a while back I noticed most authors don't even bother setting up the permissions on Nexus.

I've been monitoring. I think it would be best to provide them via Nexus. That way we can provide something else for users to download and endorse us there. This can be added to list of Release Procedures; to update the patches and upload the new files to Nexus. Potentially, this would also mean we could finally do away with the PDF. We do need a detailed outline of what patches ARE still needed and thus not covered by the STEP Patches. This will be the first question anyone will be asking and it's information that will have to be added to the Guide along will the patches. "Patches not required if using the STEP Patch" added to the relevant mod pages should suffice for the individual mods. For the patches, I'd add them to the Guide just below the mod tables or create a new table at the bottom of the tables called "Patches". Either would work.

Your post reminded me of Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins. RPGs fulfill me. Haha! Both were great game with great stories. I never got to finish DA:O. Maybe I'll attempt that in part of my free time. Those first-person shooters filled part of my time as well. We had a lan party group in high school that played Quake, Half-life, Counter Strike, Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. Good times indeed! Additionally, I forgot to give my shout out to Freelancer. I still have this game and still play it on occasion. The model graphics old but the space scenes are still beautiful and the gameplay can be additive. I count this as a pre-Eve Online game.

Mine has to be Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. This game was absolutely amazing! The game-play was good as you'd expect from most Ace Combat games; however, this particular release had an amazing story attached to it. The story pulled me into the game so much that I felt that I "needed" to play because the characters of the game "needed" me. It pulled me in so much that I actually had tears in my eyes the first time I played it through. That is rare for a game! I played it through many times and that same feeling and getting sucked into the story happened every time. I was crushed when the PS3 took away backwards compatibility and could no longer play this game. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon was a joke in comparison. Only three other games have sucked me into them in such a way, but to a lesser degree: Final Fantasy VIII, Wild Arms and Zelda: A Link to the Past ...in that order. Final Fantasy VIII was the first Final Fantasy I ever played and though I am a fan forever, I have not enjoyed a FF release since as much as I enjoyed FFVIII. It was 4 disks on the Playstation and well worth the 100+ hours I put into playing it. FFVIII had the challenge of the series as well as a story that I would say only comes in second in the series to FFVII (from what I've read of FFVII story). I also highly enjoyed the card mini-game in FFVIII and spend more hours than I should have playing it. Wild Arms was a great game during it's time. It has a good story and the game-play was well put together and could be compared to FFVII. Zelda: A Link to the Past is from my childhood on the SNES. I played this game for hours upon hours and never grew bored of it. As for PC games, the Mass Effect series has been thoroughly enjoyable and I would say it's one of my favorites since I've been gaming on the PC. This series would only come in second to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (1 & 2). Both had great stories behind them as well. You've might have noticed, for me to thoroughly enjoy a game it was to be coupled with a good story. The only exception to this in the above might be Zelda: A Link to the Past but back then as a child, that was probably a good story to me.

It should work to just install the blacksmith water fix optional from WATER and then install RWT2 as your main mod. I don't think they conflict but that would need to be tested so don't quote me on that. As far as particle patch, that is mainly for ENB and STEP has no standing with ENBs so there is no official "verdict" on those meshes fixes. They are good to use though. Particle Patch should most likely be installed at the top of your load order so most mods overwrite it. The conflicts from the other mods usually contain corrected meshes so doing this will allow you to keep only the mesh fixes that aren't covered by the other mods.

From his page:

I updated with a quick note.

I've only ever used Gnome. I've never tried KDE; however, have read it has a bit of a learning curve to it...even for savvy techs.

Yeah, it's only available there now. If you want it, you'll just have to use what the author uploaded there. This might be up for being dropped if the author will not reupload elsewhere because we can't be asking own members to sign up on another site just to download one mod. PM and I'll send you the RW version if that is what you need. Else, just use what the author uploaded.

I've not had any time for testing and probably will not until after Thanksgiving.

Something that goes hand-in-hand with the Linux choice that hasn't been discussed yet is also the Desktop Environment choice. Which is better and which do you guys/gals prefer? Gnome or KDE?

I've been wanting to try out this one: https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=2753

+1

50-150 Tabs... Sounds like someone needs to utilize the bookmark feature. Haha!

Sorry, but Ubuntu is not the "cowards way out". It's quite good for a beginner and non-beginners, alike. Not everyone wants to jump right in and learn all the commands and advanced stuff from the get-go as you suggest. Most want something that they can easily transition themselves into. Only users that enjoy such things should jump straight into the advanced stuff on Linux. For the vast majority, it's best to transition users gradually and Ubuntu is a "no-fuss" distro that is very easy to learn on. Personally, for beginners I would recommend Ubunto and from there, you can branch out once you get more use to how Linux works. Zorin OS looks like it's meant to be a Windows replacer since it's desktop has a familiar Windows feel. This would also be good for beginners to transition to Linux. Good advice on just using Linux software rather than bothering with Wine, Mothergoose. There is undoubtedly replacement software for just about every Windows program out there and most are free and most are just as good; some are even better.

As shockz says, everyone's answers are going to vary based off their needs. Personally, I prefer a browser that is as much "all-in-one" as it can be for my specific needs. This is the main reason I use Firefox. You can tailor it based on your needs via plugins. The plugins I listed allow me to have a very pleasant and safe browsing experience while still allowing Firefox to be useful for more than one task. Such as being my FTP program and working for web designing purposes. I could integrate more of my programs into it; however, I don't like to load a lot of plugins.

Yeah, mothergoose can't keep us updated. If they found out he is sharing information about it they could, at minimum, kick him out of the beta and at worse, sue him. You're not allowed to share info from Betas. I didn't sign up for this one unfortunately. I was in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta for a good long time. I wasn't allow to share anything either. Had to consent to a huge terms and conditions letter before they'd let me in. Enjoy the beta Mothergoose!

I know all about Norton's products. 360 started coming out when I worked at Staples and it was the main AV we pushed on customers. Problem is we had a constant supply of business in virus removals (which not done by Staples...it's done via remote support via a third-party...I'm telling you...Staples technicians are monkeys!) from customers who had Norton 360 installed. I'm not trying to start a riot. It's just in my experience McAfee, Norton and Trend Micro are all crap. McAfee being by far the worse of the three. I once had a computer that came to me that was so riddled with spyware that the only logical solution was to wipe the drive and start over. Guess what was installed, running and up-to-date...yep...McAfee. MSE is NOT recommended for anyone that doesn't know what they're doing on the internet. In fact, I'd only install it on a technician's computer! A technician is going to know enough to stay away from viruses/spyware without really even needing an antivirus. That is why I use it. It provides very minimal protection without causing any system slow-downs. I've ran MSE almost since it's been out and have never had any spyware or viruses on my systems. Again, this is because I know what I'm doing and how to avoid them. I would never recommend MSE for any normal computer user and would never install it on one of my client's systems! It's just my personal choice for minimal protection. Back on topic... No one else uses or has used Dolphin on the android? @Chrome users: How bad is Chrome's memory usage really? I rarely have fewer than 5 tabs open at once and often more than that. For instance, right now I have 11 tabs opened...though they're not all loaded. One of the features I like about Firefox is able able to have tabs stored and present but not loaded until you click on them. Right now my Firefox is using 770,000K (roughly 750Mbs). This is normal usage for me.

On android I currently use Opera because I prefer a light-weight browser on my phone. I highly prefer Dolphin; however, it's last major release that came with some new fancy features caused me to not be able to use it on my Galaxy S2 for some reason. It just wouldn't work right and I think I might have cried a bit because I love Dolphin for android. I just choked on my lunch... Norton is terrible as is Mcafee and Trend Micro. As a computer technician, if a computer came across my path that required virus/spyware cleaning it ALWAYS had one of these three antiviruses installed on it. When I worked for Staples, I died inside when selling computers because I was required to push Norton since Norton and Staples are partnered (Staples tech repair software is provided to the company by Norton...I didn't tell you that! You press a few buttons and let it go. A monkey could be a repair tech at Staples!) I only run Microsoft Security Essentials but I only recommend it for those that know with they're doing as it's a light antivirus. For my clients, I always install Avast! Free Antivirus or the Pro or Internet Security versions if they want to upgrade. In my years of experience this has been the number one antivirus. It's light-weight, has a "gaming mode" feature for when you're gaming and, in all the years that I've been putting it on client systems, I've never had a single one return to me due to virus/spyware issues. For clients who aren't knowledgeable, there is no better antivirus, in my humble opinion. I was surprised to find that even some of my tech books in college claimed the same thing. That just solidified my choice in Avast!.

I used to use Speed Dial for Firefox.

I have both Firefox and Chrome installed; however, my main browser is Firefox. I'm planning on testing chrome to see if I would like it and if so, be able to switch to it. Firefox plugins are what make the browser for me. If Chrome doesn't have the plugins then I will not switch. These include: Super Start - My start screen that holds all my websites FireFTP - my FTP manager StumbleUpon - For boredom AdBlock Plus - to stop all the ads all over the internet Cookies Manager+ - to have full control over my cookies Download Statusbar - moves the downloads to the status bar. Foobar - to combine the address and search bars into one. HTTPS Everywhere - for security Firebug - for when I'm doing web design

I do quite like it as well

Overclocking has never been worth the tiny bit of performance increase you get from doing it, IMO. I'd rather keep my warranties. @Deathneko There's not much you're going to be able to do unless you're will to drop the ENB, drop the game settings (such as AA) a little or the resolution you play at.

Yes, but I can't recall which at the moment. The hens are provided by Bellyache's mod I think.