Not a real subject

[Gaklek]

I log in here every year or so and think about the old days. I do actually miss a lot of you making my life a daily hell, even though at the time I wanted to reach through the pc and strangle some of you. I lost jobs over this game and missed classes, but the guild/community always made it feel OK(thanks for adding an extra year to my schooling, guild/community).

Some of you were hopeless, but I could usually depend on you to count to 5 before you cast CH on the tank - Please ignore that that is the only reason people talked to you. Others of you were so positive you were game changers and actually made a huge difference - I am not going to dispute that, but I hope that all of the people this applies to went into social services. Some of you were just rocks and refused to give up, even when I wanted to. I miss you most of all.

Thanks for all the very real moments and memories in a very fake but comfortable world we all once lived in.

This is my yearly check in and in it I hope that all of you still reading this, and that the other that aren't, are doing well in your lives and endeavors.

- Gak

[Aslanna]

It seems like a real subject to me!

I never lost a job due to EQ but I probably came close a few times. I can recall many raids going to 2:00-3:00 AM EST and having to be up at 7:00 AM for work. Those days were brutal as far as sleep schedules go. I probably should have joined an EST timezone guild and I could have gone to bed at a more decent hour.

It's weird that I still have events that happened in EQ just pop up randomly in my thoughts. And it's not vague thoughts it's specific times in EQ as if it were only yesterday. Those memories even go back to OG EQ prior to Kunark. But obviously I've forgotten much more than I remember.

As far as other aspects go I have a few regrets about things in-game with specific people but overall it was a positive time. As far as outside the game goes there may be a few posts here I regret but probably not. Even the whole Taly/BoW drama. I wasn't particularly personally invested in it but it made for some fun threads here. I have mellowed out since then though so I doubt I'd post in the same style that I used to.

Speaking of the Taly/BoW drama, I'm sad that a lot of the more spicy threads here are no longer available. It would be fun to feed all those to AI and have it write some new flames posts each day but sadly that's not a world we live in since with each board upgrade we seemed to lose a bunch of threads.

See you next year! If we're lucky.

[Winnow]

Oh man, I know I was a pain in the ass.

Specifically with you Gak, we had some good times and bad. Those single party trips to Necropolis etc were fun before most people could get there and some things we did in Legion were great as well. You took me in after I was booted from CT and were mostly just focused on having a shaman that had some skills. I was a pretty reliable shaman but as time went on, I kinda passed out during raids etc because was also mixing in going to the bars etc. Don't forget I helped guard your sleeping troll body when you fell asleep in that dungeon in Emerald Jungle!

As for almost everyone else, it was a roller coaster of good times and bad : ) I took the "We know drama" seriously.

I wouldn't blame EQ very early on for a divorce but I'm sure it didn't help! After that I was hitting the bars/nightlife a lot with friends and my head wasn't always in the right place back then. Flamevault was great for letting off steam.

With the amount of private chats I had going, I can't believe I never had a bad/tell to the group or /guild : )

Anyway, those I met in person at EQ Fanfaire in 2003 (21 years ago!) hopefully got a better idea of what I'm like when I'm not firing off flames in VV.

In those first 2-4 years when you could see the number of hours played, it broke down to more than 8 hours a day which is nuts and I didn't afk at night to sell stuff. My hours were all at the keyboard.

EQ was a special time/game. The amount of guild level and personal interaction between the players was amazing. From the huge guild raids down to the little Zeep/Aslanna groups in Howling Stones, to thank god I camped the Fishbone Earring for those Kedge Keep raids. At the same time there was always someone that was mad they couldn't be in the group due to limited space of those "special operations". I spent more time in DE (mask) form than as a barb.

It's the small things that make it great. I still remember the music in West Karana running from Halas to Freeport to sell chain mail I made for 20 plat for 40 plat in Freeport. Graphics so dated but it was magical back then. It was a hazardous 30 minute trip in the early days I think had to run through that place that had the Eye of the Beholders, dodge the giant near the bridge, etc

[Xouqoa]

I actually was/am playing EQ again on Project Quarm.

I'm not sure it will stick. I made a Cleric and got to level 17. I'm also trying to juggle adulting and FF14 so I'm not sure how much time I'll dedicate to it, but the experience was nice and it brought back a lot of good memories.

Good to hear from you, Gaklek!

[Funkmasterr]

It's cool to keep seeing old names pop in and say hi occasionally. I also picked FF 14 back up recently and while I can find the time to stumble through the normal mode raids at least, but they require almost no time investment compared to what EQ took to even just run dungeons. I don't think I could ever really get back into EQ again due to time (although I mangled my right hand/wrist so I'll have time the next four months:( ) - but I'll have fond memories of it forever.

[Winnow]

EQLATE5.png

Polaroid 2000s of a woman sitting at a computer at night, asleep, messy hair, wearing pajamas with her head lying on the keyboard, passed out, an emty plate with crumbs is on the table, crumbs littering the table, the game EverQuest game screen with the game world in the background says "EverQuest Disconnected", a half empty glass of coke is on the table, a digital clock is visible on the wall that reads 3:00 AM, a cat is sleeping on top of computer case

EQLATE2.png

Photo of a man sitting at a computer, asleep, messy hair, wearing sweatshirt with his head lying on the keyboard, partially eaten snacks litter the table, the game EverQuest loading screen displayed says "EverQuest Disconnected", a bottle of coke is on the table, a digital clock is visible on the wall that reads 3:00 AM

EQ-old.png

closeup of an old woman in wheelchair, in a computer software store smiling, holding a computer game box with an old wizard fighting a dragon that says "EverQuest Veeshan Vault", the box says "1000th Expansion" at the bottom

EQ Forever!

I've been playing around with a newly released 12 billion parameter diffusion model named flux1-dev. It is amazingly good at following natural language prompts to create images. I created a couple variations of what most of us were doing at 3AM (well probably even later than that!) back in the prime EQ days.

[Spang]

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[Winnow]

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Don't try and deny the pictures of Aunt Jemima were faked!

AI is just another extension of all the tools humans have used over the years to improve what they can produce. Hands, rocks, charcoal, paint, pencils, computers, Photoshop, and on it goes.

AI everything, text, images, videos, etc is improving incredibly fast. There may be a small window of time where people whine like the people riding horses whined about cars but it will pass quickly.

[Spang]

Amazing! With very little effort, you can create mediocrity!

[Winnow]

Amazing! With very little effort, you can create mediocrity!

Give it a go. I'd love to see you top it with your own "god given" talents. I suppose you need to only use your hands and maybe your own blood as paint because anything else is technology and would be cheating. I will allow you to take a cell picture of it and post it even though , you know, another thing humans did to make life easier.

Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software.

It joys my heart to know we still have people fighting advancements every step of the way but only fall back to the previous step that they would have objected to just a few years ago.

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Think of it this way. Most of us are no talent ass-clowns when it comes to creativity and art. That includes myself and you and 99% of the rest of the people on the planet. With that said, if I want to see a Giraffe fucking a donkey in the style of Norman Rockwell...

1. Norman Rockwell is dead so no matter how much money it would take for him to agree to paint that, it's not happening.
2. He's one person. Talented but he can only paint so many pictures and usually one's he likes, not giraffes fucking donkeys.
3. AI (at least the models I use) are for non commercial use. I can't make money off them, they are strictly for self entertainment.
4. Nothing matters as far as I can tell so enjoy your few years alive. It's wasted sulking about shit like this. At least I'm learning and refining my techniques while making these images. You're just playing Elden Scrolls again for the 10th time...which is a good thing because it probably keeps you away from joining whatever the popular woke protest of the day is.
5. "IF" I had artistic talent and created things people enjoyed I wouldn't expect payment. Art is to be enjoyed by everyone and all artists learn by stealing techniques from other artists they learn along the way. Quit thinking these people deserve money or that their styles are sacred.

As for photo type AI, it will be putting a lot of weird models out of work which is also a good thing. Cheaper ads = cheaper costing products due to less marketing spent. Weird models out of work = less plastic surgery. Less celebrities = less morons thinking they know about politics saying stupid shit on social media.

[Spang]

I’m never going to appreciate your AI “art”. If you can create it with actual skill and talent, your Aunt Jemima fan faction will still be weird, but at least I can respect the effort that went into making it.

There have been many advancements in technology that make creating art easier, but it still requires a level of skill to make it good. You will never create great art using AI, because it eliminates the skill, talent, effort and passion necessary to do so.

[Winnow]

I’m never going to appreciate your AI “art”. If you can create it with actual skill and talent, your Aunt Jemima fan faction will still be weird, but at least I can respect the effort that went into making it.

There have been many advancements in technology that make creating art easier, but it still requires a level of skill to make it good. You will never create great art using AI, because it eliminates the skill, talent, effort and passion necessary to do so.

You will appreciate AI art because you won't know it's AI art fairly soon. All the art assets in future PC games you play will also be at least partially assisted by AI, the dialog certainly will as well.

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As for realism. How's that? Two people looking at their phones. Doesn't get more real than that! There's one obvious flaw in that image you can pick out pretty easy though. Decent chance you wouldn't know that's real or not otherwise.

[Aslanna]

Why does that sink have two faucets?

[Winnow]

Why does that sink have two faucets?

One has a filter for drinking water : )

Not unusual for 2. One you can pull out and use, the other fixed. That's not the obvious flaw : ) Something has 5 legs.

[Spang]

I don’t think AI is going to do what you think it’s going to do. On paper it seems like a great idea: create any kind of content you want whenever you need it. But who’s going to buy your Aunt Jemima fan-fiction graphic novel? Or any AI novel for that matter? Why should anyone bother to read a book that you couldn’t be bothered to write?

Many of the voice actors in our favorite video games are beloved because they’re just so good at their craft and they truly elevate the games that they’re in. If you replace them with AI, not only are you going to piss off all the voice actors, you’ll piss off gamers, too. Unless they’re a soulless scumbag, no one’s going to buy your AI-generated nonsense.

[Winnow]

I don’t think AI is going to do what you think it’s going to do. On paper it seems like a great idea: create any kind of content you want whenever you need it. But who’s going to buy your Aunt Jemima fan-fiction graphic novel? Or any AI novel for that matter? Why should anyone bother to read a book that you couldn’t be bothered to write?

The point isn't for anyone to buy what I make, it's to entertain myself and have the freedom to create exactly what I want to consume. Is the end goal making money or providing the best entertainment you can for yourself? I've now been playing around pretty much non stop with AI image generation with no end in sight, purely for my own entertainment.

Many of the voice actors in our favorite video games are beloved because they’re just so good at their craft and they truly elevate the games that they’re in. If you replace them with AI, not only are you going to piss off all the voice actors, you’ll piss off gamers, too. Unless they’re a soulless scumbag, no one’s going to buy your AI-generated nonsense.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the BEST audiobook narrator. Edward Herrmann. deceased has already licensed his voice (well his estate has) so they can make as many books as they want paying his estate while mediocre narrators are not needed.

I would encourage you to watch this video:


I bookmarked it to the part where ChatGPT creates sound effects on the fly for for a story:



If you keep listening, right after that it creates bedtime stories on the fly in voice, tone, etc that you request. You can load up and entire ebook and have the voice you want read it with all the emotion, etc as your precious human narrators do but now you can tell that voice to go into whisper mode or even better split out the male/female parts so you don't have to listen to a man try and sound like a woman.

No one gives a shit about the voice actors... People lose jobs all the time. Occupations come and go. If you really like an artist that stole all their talent from whoever they learned it from, go ahead and pay them. They learned just like AI learns by taking what others have done. That's why you see no (successful) lawsuits against AI art. It's not copying that artists exactly, it learned how to create similar images just like flesh and blood artists do. You're giving artists too much credit. They are replaceable and if they want to continue to do what they do, it will be as a hobby, not to make money.

What you see currently with AI art/video/audio is the worst it will ever get because it's improving at and incredible pace so any flaws you point out are temporary and just waiting your breath because they won't be there in the following generation.

The end result is more art/videos/VR experiences more and more exactly like you want them to be for next to no cost except your electricity bill.

It's a losing battle to fight the "good fight" to try and save the starving artist/voice actor/whoever. It's like fighting for the mailman. The government wastes so much money keeping the postal service going when it's not really needed anymore.

If you don't know the technical details behind stable diffusion, large language models, etc, it might be worth learning about them. If you recall the actors guild trying to get agreements not to use AI to write scripts etc, its because they know they are like the postman, really won't be needed soon. There will always be a place for in-person performance, people that like to watch live plays etc. As for AI, it will make some amazing stuff and the best part is it will be free for everyone to enjoy.

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I am entertaining myself for free!

[Winnow]

Sorry to hijack "Not a real subject" but Black Forest (makers of the FLUX model) is available on Grok on X

https://x.com/LinusEkenstam/status/1823598003459965394

Anyone with X (twitter) can make images (uncensored it appears) with high quality for free. It's probably using FLUX Pro which same or better than FLUX Dev

I know X isn't popular with the leftists but I have a fake account on there. It's worth giving it a try! X/Grok integrating FLUX is awesome as it means they probably secured funding to keep improving their diffusion models.

[Winnow]

Regarding AI creativity, take a look at this video of someone using FLUX and Kling.AI to design women's high heeled shoes.

That's all done with easily accessible AI models that anyone can use. Basic non professionally created and it looks good.



This is probably the AI type video you see and think it sucks (funny video anyway)

Edit: last AI post on this thread. I'll take it back over to the Computers/Technology topics.

[Aslanna]

Sorry to hijack "Not a real subject" but Black Forest (makers of the FLUX model) is available on Grok on X

No thanks. I had zero desire to go on Twitter pre-Musk and have even less of a reason now to go anywhere near that dumpster shitpile. Not even with a 'fake account.' Twitter can fuck off and die.

[Winnow]

Sorry to hijack "Not a real subject" but Black Forest (makers of the FLUX model) is available on Grok on X

No thanks. I had zero desire to go on Twitter pre-Musk and have even less of a reason now to go anywhere near that dumpster shitpile. Not even with a 'fake account.' Twitter can fuck off and die.

Well I can't argue with that. X is a mess but I do need to go on there once in awhile so have the fake account. Interestingly, Grok's latest release has been setting some high marks in the AI intelligence ratings. The positive for Grok is it's uncensored (relatively speaking) while Google/Microsoft/etc are over censored. Meta's LLMs are censored but they are open source and can be uncensored quickly so Zuckerberg is still winning by spending billions and still open sourcing his models. I get the hate for practically every billionaire but Zuck has done the most to improve a little the past few years. For my interests, the things he's done with VR and LLMs has been outstanding.

The intense competition between all the big companies/billionaires when it comes to AI is a win for us all.

[*~*stragi*~*]

[seebs397]

Mother of God - a newish VV thread. Glad to see many of you have not changed, much, in 25 years.

I am trying to see if Pantheon will capture some of the old EQ feeling. It killed Brad, so let's see if it can take the rest of us.


Seeber