Warframe connection issues...again...

Since last night, I've been having some pretty severe connection issues in Warframe, which is making it near-impossible to get anything done (having to complete the last Sortie mission twice just to get the rewards from it).  I might still attempt a stream if only to document the connection issues (while trying to make use of the 26-hour Affinity Booster I got as a login bonus yesterday), but if I can't stay connected, there isn't going to be much reason in playing the game, much less streaming it...  I might find something else to stream in the mean time, perhaps I'll see about getting Shadow Warrior 2 up & running again.

Warframe stream on hold due to connection issues

I was considering doing a Warframe stream tonight, however it seems the game is unable to stay connected & keeps logging me out, so I may need to find something else to play (and potentially stream) in the meantime.  The biggest problem with this is it's going to prevent me from getting Nightwave tasks done, so it will be a matter of technical issues that is going negate rewards in the game because dailies are already full & have a limited time to complete them.  I might try running it on my Nintendo Switch if I can get a USB keyboard & mouse to work with it (through the docking station, not something I have tried in playing games on the Switch yet, although I do know USB keyboards will at least allow for quick text entry), but I'm not expecting any difference in the connection issues even if use of those peripherals are an option...

I do have another game I'm intending on working on due to rewards for playing it on the Alienware Arena website (Paladins), however it uses the Unreal Engine, so this won't be a game I'm going to be streaming on Twitch because of the changes made in Fortnite that ultimately drove me off from the game (as well as from Epic Games, any exclusives on the Epic Games platform or any game that uses the Unreal Engine).  Paladins is a game I have played in the past, but took a long break from it (and ultimately intended on not going back to it again) because it has a hacker presence in the game, ultimately leading to the publication of this review.  I guess the question at this point would be if Paladins ends up having the same connection issues as Warframe, in which case I may just need to play (and potentially stream) something solo instead...

I might still attempt to stream Warframe even with the disconnect issues, if only to document the issue on Twitch (normally this would be something for YouTube, but given the recent management-supported attack on August 5th, YouTube activity is quite literally blocked through hardware firewalls, parental controls, browser security plugins & removal of YouTube apps in my home until 3 months after the last successful attack, so anything new on YouTube is currently on an indefinite hold; note that this most recent attack on YouTube isn't the latest attack however, another one happening on Steam on the 16th).  This won't be something people are going to want to watch (maybe possible to at least have a discussion over chat I guess), but at the very least I would have something I could export to YouTube later (Twitch also giving an option of direct downloading if I need to preserve a local copy on my old PC until I decide to give YouTube another chance...should I get to the point I want to mess with YouTube again...) to give a more permanent record of the issues.  As is already stated on my Twitch channel, this new computer does not yet have sufficient hard drive space for recording videos, nor does it have a second monitor or webcam yet, so this limits my recording & streaming capabilities until I can acquire the hardware necessary to get it up to normal streaming/recording standards (streaming is still possible, but responses to chat are delayed & limited because I can't actively monitor chat, a webcam feed would be lacking & voice responses only in rare cases)...  I do still have the old Windows 7 PC, however it's been overheating lately & with Steam's changes to their platform, the old version of the PC software still on that computer is doing nothing but corrupting everything installed on it through their client, so I'd either have to download official versions of F2P games or consider playing a version through another platform that isn't giving the proverbial middle finger to older OS users...

In regards to the corruption of games issue on Steam for older OSs, I've been testing some workarounds to this issue, however the 2 possibilities I've found do still have their limitations, so I'll need to do some more testing regarding this issue before I publish the new article about it to my personal site.  A bit of a teaser on the methods to get people started on it (should they want to spend time to see if it works for them), the theories that show promise are by using a shared network drive between computers or by downloading them to a PC where Steam still supports that OS (meaning a Windows 10 or newer OS is still going to be needed, but it may not be necessary to have to pay an extensive amount of money for a newer OS gaming machine) & using the client to transfer the game through your network to your older PC using the client (or just do it manually through shared directories over your network).  I will publish more details about this later once I have finished testing these options & have time to write the new article.  There's still the possibility that if this transfer works, Steam on the older OS could just corrupt those games again the next time steam is started on it, so I don't have a solid answer just yet...

First stream in some time, not great results...

First attempt to stream using the new PC (Windows 10) and the latest version of OBS...and the short version is quality came out pretty bad...  I got a mere 300p out of this stream, so unless it's my unfamiliarity with OBS Studio (using an old beta version on Windows 7, which is capable of at least 720p) & the settings may have been wrong, I'm going to need to get this resolved before I do any more long streams.  The last one can be found here (not going to attempt to embed it, this has been broken for close to a decade) & is over 6 hours, but ultimately it's something I'm going to have to research & see if I can get it resolved.  A possibility could be the screen ratio, which I know can sometimes drop quality when livestreaming (depending on the service streamed to), so I may need to spend some time redoing what I have to make it more compatible with Twitch's streaming expectations (or maybe consider installing the old beta version on this new PC using my backup of the isntaller & using that rather than the newer OBS Studio)...

Limited streaming will be starting again

As has been stated in the last post, my main PC is currently overheating & my newly-built PC (Windows 10) is still not up to my standards for streaming, but I'm noticing continually increasing toxicity in Warframe (the game I've been playing the most of lately) that often times results in solo missions when most of the team has dropped out, so I determined it's going to be necessary to start streaming so that toxicity can at least be made public to some degree (whether they are permanent additions to the internet or just temporary until they expire is still undetermined, however it will at least give the option to save them through one of two different methods if I need a more permanent documentation of something that happened in game).

There are currently 3 different things that are keeping this PC from being a normal streaming machine:

• Insufficient hard drive space:
  This means there is a lack of space to keep games installed, as well as recording of videos.  I should at least be able to stream to Twitch, but will need to find a way to disable consecutive recording while streams are running.  This ultimately means that if a more permanent version of a video is necessary, the video won't be as high quality as if I had uploaded a recorded video.  This PC currently only has about 2.75 TBs of space on it, I will need to purchase at least 2 decent sized hard drives (or 1 really large hard drive) to get it up to par for normal streaming/recording of games or leaving games installed for more variety (as it is now, I'm having to remove & reinstall games every so often when I run out of space).
• Single monitor:
  I currently don't have the preferred monitor set up, meaning at least 2 monitors so I can monitor chat on the same PC (although using my laptop might be an option for this, it doesn't mean it's going to be in my line of view while streaming games).  Without that second monitor & the ability to actively monitor chat while streaming, responses to chat will be limited to between missions.  I will still be embedding chat into streams regardless so I can still document harassment that is to be expected while streaming (especially with new followers that joined when the organized attacks from Steam trolls started in 2023; this seems to have mostly died down, but I don't expect it has fully stopped yet, especially when comments are still being made in that thread on Steam after Steam staff unlocked it & is allowing showing of those comments again).
• No webcam:
  While it might be possible to use the webcams I have on my Windows 7 PC (although I don't know I have a driver that will work with them on Windows 10), use of that webcam still won't be an option until I can get my PC where it should be (in the home office, on a desk; not in the front room using the frontroom TV as a monitor...although I will admit playing games on a 58-inch widescreen TV is a nice change once in a while).  This probably isn't going to be something that will keep me from moving the PC to my home office, but it will affect my ability to have a webcam panel in those streams until I can get one that will work with Windows 10.

Note that while chat won't be actively monitored, it will still be actively documented, still using an IRC client to log chat even when the channel isn't active (this also logs users that enter the channel in most cases, even if they don't chat while they are in it).  Embedded chat may be somewhat blurry in recorded/exported/highlighted videos, but I'll still have the IRC logs to back up what is said, with timestamps down to the millisecond of it being made if needed.

I expected a minimum of 2 more months (possibly longer, seeing as I have a yearly phone bill coming up next month) before I will be able to start streaming & responding to viewers as a normal streamer would, this will be when I have the hard drives & monitors on the new PC as necessary for streaming & recording.  I might consider using the laptop to be able to monitor chat, but I still don't expect that to be a normal standard, just a temporary workaround to not having active viewing of chat while streaming (if it's done at all).  The other option might be going back to the Windows 7 PC for streaming if I can get the overheating issue resolved (I have a new liquid cooling unit already delivered, I just haven't gotten around to installing it yet to see if it resolves the issue).

I may consider adding new information to the channel (possibly through a goal, not that I expect to gain enough to even make a dent towards finishing the PC any sooner) to give a status on where I'm at in regards to getting this Windows 10 PC up to my streaming standards, at which point I'll be able to have active discussions with viewers again (not just limited discussions between missions).

Switching Warframe clan & cleaning up of friend lists

This wasn't widely known by people that follow me on Twitch because I have yet to actually stream Warframe on Twitch, but I was accepted into the Aurora Gladiators clan roughly the end of March in 2023.  As of 9/8/2024 (possibly the day before, after I logged out; I wasn't given any notice about it when it happened), I am officially no longer a part of that clan & have since moved on to another clan.  Seems they are twisting statements I was saying in clan chat (in-game) to make it an offense to their clan rules, thus resulting in being booted from the clan...  I would suspect with the toxicity I got in a off-hand explanation, there's probably ban against my account in their clan as well (not that this is going to matter, I wouldn't be attempting to rejoin after the way they dealt with it anyways, much less recommending them).

One person in the clan that was still on my friend list (who I contacted to try & find out why the actions were taken on their part) ended up needing to be blocked based on accusations being made of my personal site while they were explaining why they believed I was kicked (the assumption on why I was kicked was an acceptable misunderstanding, but the toxic comments towards my site was what warranted I cut ties with him), but they told me to contact another Officer in the clan.  This officer was Deathrow, which unsurprisingly I couldn't contact over DM anymore, nor was I able to whisper them in game (not sure if I was typing their name wrong, all I know was the message wasn't going through & I wasn't able to pull their profile using chat commands).  I made sure to take screenshots of the discussion (should it be needed at a later date, possibly in a review of personal experience while I was in the clan) before I removed them as a friend & added them to my Ignore list (unfortunately Warframe doesn't have proper blocks, so I'll probably still run into them in the future); they were also removed as a friend & blocked on Discord shortly afterwards.

While I received no notice of a removal or even a warning, after speaking with Mike (shortened in-game name, not the full name), it seems the accusation is that I was self-promoting my Twitch channel (among other false-accusations about my site similar to the same degree of what was being stated when the mass-attacks from Steam trolls started).  Just because you say you have a channel, doesn't mean you are promoting it, however given the fact that I made a statement that I would be redirecting any giveaways through the clan (not actually doing giveaways in the clan yet, but it was a consideration when I had something decent I could give up) through my Twitch channel instead, I guess I could see how they could make a mistake of thinking it was a promotion (regardless of how it may have looked, it definitely wasn't intentional).

This could have also been retaliation to the statement that I wasn't going to be donating to the clan anymore (a decision that was decided roughly 4 months ago when it became clear a lot of people couldn't see my posts in clan chat), they were still gaining taxes on trades in the Dojo regardless.

An additional possibility could have been a discussion with Deathrow (again, not the full in-game name) the night of 7/28/2024 (I took screenshots to document the discussion), where I was offered an officer position in the clan (stating they had noticed my willingness to be helpful towards other newer members & even getting some positive statements about it, something I didn't expect with the negativity I was noticing), however I rejected the position, stating that I knew that a number of people already didn't want me in the clan & that I didn't feel I could be proficient as an officer if people couldn't even see what I was saying in clan chat (the lack of responses being a normal issue, particularly at night).

As stated before, I was already considering leaving the clan due to toxicity in it anyways (not to mention a negation of one of their Discord giveaways literally the day before; I'm guessing they thought I wouldn't notice it, but that's kind of hard to miss when I get notifications of mentions on my phone), so their actions just forced my decision to find a better one much quicker (I was probably going to leave before another week had passed anyways).  The individuals that I was intending on getting invites to the clan (friends I was trying to get into the game), obviously I won't be able to invite to that clan anymore (nor would I even recommend them at this point, I'd be more recommending against joining that clan), although I might be able to get invites to the new clan once those friends meet the requirements (I'll have to inquire on what is required later; I only joined a new one today & details are still not entirely clear, outside of it appears that taking part in events is mandatory).

In response to the forced-migration to a better clan, I've cleaned up my friend lists on Warframe & Discord (as well as placing a few blocks/ignores where necessary) to remove anybody I didn't recognize their names or recognized as added in Warframe (those that were a part of the toxicity in the Clan also got added to my block list if I had a discussion over DMs with them).  Many of those that were Twitch streaming buddies are still on the list, however I've removed a few that I added back during my Fortnite days (not specifically remembering much beyond what was in the DM), no blocks were issued against people that didn't deserve it however (I think only 2 blocks were placed on Discord after being booted, both a part of the former-Warframe clan).  If you've been removed from my friend lists & weren't a part of that clan, then I may re-add you on request (I should be able to start streaming again after the 17th after fiber is installed at my home, requests can be made in chat during streams, however due to the channel being on high alert from the Steam attacks, I may not add people if I don't recognize them as being on the list prior & not a part of that clan).

I will also be cleaning out messages I was keeping in my Inbox in Warframe (which were kept as reminders of when I receive a gift), seeing as pretty well ALL gifts in Warframe were from clan members & after their misguided removal, it's not going to be something I want to be remembering, nor does it have any remaining relevancy on friendships if they are still a part of that clan.

For the time being, I am going to hold off on giving the name of the new clan I am in, although it's possible to pull a user's profile in-game using chat commands, so I wouldn't be surprised to see members of that clan looking to cause problems with the new clan I have joined; Warframe permissions unfortunately are just too open when it comes to access & manipulation of information in their game (not to mention a limited ignore system rather than a proper block system).  I'm expecting I will be letting viewers on Twitch know what clan I have joined when I start streaming to Twitch again (estimated to be some time after the 17th when I have fiber transfer rates).  I may also end up sharing/publishing some of the screenshots of discussions I have backed up from when I was in the clan (possibly in a review of the clan on my personal site), but for the time being, I don't see it as necessary (that may change in the future).

Ultimately, I think the safest bet would be to create my own clan, even if it doesn't have a lot of members.  Getting booted from guilds/clans over misunderstandings is nothing uncommon & it's not something only I've become a victim of either, I've heard many other people state the same thing.  There's a reason why I would only ever play on my own Killing Floor server when I played the game, it avoided drama like this because I could deal with people that were causing problems (very rarely needing to, but there was those rare griefing cases).  Who knows, I might even manage to get it into featured clans, however any attempt to do this is going to be a very long ways down the line (not even sure Warframe will still be running by the time I attempt it), I have a long ways to go in the game before I can really even consider it...

UPDATE:  I ultimately decided to take this a step further, that being that now ANYBODY in the Aurora Gladiators clan or any other clan under it's alliance (The Gladiators Legion) are no longer welcome in my channels.  Between 2 to 5 AM after I had logged off, my IRC client picked up 3 of their members joining my channel, I would expect this is while they were deciding to boot me from the clan.  Note that I did not give a link when I mentioned I was going to be doing the giveaways on my channel rather than in the clan, these users must have looked it up themselves & the first one to have joined (not once, but twice, coming back roughly a half hour after they left the first time) has been verified as an officer of the clan based on comments left on the official Warframe forums (promoting their clans).  All 3 of those users were banned from the channel giving a reason showing that their clans & alliance are no longer welcome in the channel (this will also be public in the Now Playing section when Warframe details are in there).

Provided their clan members are only watching, not causing problems in chat & (DEFINATELY) don't disclose that they are in one of those clans, they won't be banned from the channel.  If it is determined that they are in one of the clans in that alliance however (currently including Aurora, Celestial, Darkfall, Lunar, Nightfall, Quantum, Radiant, Solar & Tempest from what I can find online) they will be banned from the channel on association with it as a result of the actions by their officers on 9/8/2024.

I was booted from the clan under the accusation that I was promoting my channel.  Given I'm currently banning all members of their alliance (one of the largest alliances in the game) spotted in my channel (and verified as a member of it), can they really still make that claim?

Possible Warframe videos coming to YouTube channel

Considering I've been playing a lot of Warframe lately & have had an increase in running into Warframe leechers, I've decided to start recording my gameplay again.  These recordings could also result in Warframe highlight videos being uploaded/published on YouTube (unfortunately not on Twitch as I have had issues with audio desyncronization when trying to upload longer videos to Twitch, one of the reasons Twitch channel update videos are mostly exclusive to YouTube when previously recorded).

When I started playing Warframe regularly, I started using the SteamLink app on my nVidia Shield TV Pro (and older model, not the newer ones).  Unfortunately after the last Steam overhaul update a few days ago, performance over the SteamLink app took a serious turn for the worse, so I'm back to playing on the actual PC again.  It was determined after running into 2 leechers in 2 consecutive missions (1 per mission) that it was time for me to start recording missions in case I needed to start publishing videos of violations to go with reports again (again running into a third leecher in the third mission, which only destroyed my interest in continuing to play it for that day).  The 2 leechers previously stated were not recorded, but screenshots of their information was uploaded to my Steam profile, so the information is still out there regarding their disgraceful actions (or more accurately, inactions); I didn't even feel like messing with processing & uploading the video or reporting the third leecher, this was just the "I'm done with it" point for Warframe for the day...

Unfortunately I am still stuck with CenturyLink & a lower upload rate not capable of streaming online games (only offline games are possible with my current upload rate, the bandwidth from steaming interferes with online gameplay too much), so streaming to Twitch still is not a viable option.  Also as much as I want to get back into streaming, health is still an issue & I am unable to get a date set on my operation (which will require more recovery time as was the case when I last had this same operation done, something I didn't take seriously after the first surgery, which is likely why it has to be done again).

The plus side is my father told me that it appears that Xfinity/Comcast (my parents going back to being a customer of theirs) may have a disability discount, so I may start looking into going back to Comcast (at least for internet, if nothing else) in the near future.  Unfortunately with the lack of preferable health to do extended streams, any streams that might be done after the switch will still be limited to "as my health permits" & likely be no longer than a few hours (at the most)...