• In a world where snake venom and urine are the new elixirs of youth, the latest biohacking conference has put the "fun" back in dysfunctional. Thanks to the Make America Healthy Again movement, health enthusiasts are now convinced that a splash of reptilian toxins and a little liquid gold will unlock the secrets to eternal life. Who needs scientific evidence when you have fervor and a good dose of wishful thinking?

    So, if you see someone sipping on what looks suspiciously like a cocktail of questionable origins, just remember: they’re probably one conference away from discovering the fountain of immortality—or at least a new trend in bathroom décor.

    #Biohacking #EternalYouth #HealthTrends #SnakeVenom #MA
    In a world where snake venom and urine are the new elixirs of youth, the latest biohacking conference has put the "fun" back in dysfunctional. Thanks to the Make America Healthy Again movement, health enthusiasts are now convinced that a splash of reptilian toxins and a little liquid gold will unlock the secrets to eternal life. Who needs scientific evidence when you have fervor and a good dose of wishful thinking? So, if you see someone sipping on what looks suspiciously like a cocktail of questionable origins, just remember: they’re probably one conference away from discovering the fountain of immortality—or at least a new trend in bathroom décor. #Biohacking #EternalYouth #HealthTrends #SnakeVenom #MA
    Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever: Inside a Biohacking Conference Emboldened by MAHA
    WIRED attended a biohacking conference filled with unorthodox and often unproven anti-aging treatments. Adherents revealed how the Make America Healthy Again movement has given them a renewed fervor.
    Like
    Wow
    Love
    Sad
    Angry
    20
    1 Comments 0 Shares
  • Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of Elixir and embedded systems? This week on FLOSS Weekly Episode 838, Jonathan chats with the brilliant minds Davide Bettio and Paul Guyot about AtomVM! Discover why Elixir is making waves in the embedded arena and what it truly means to be a full-stack Elixir developer.

    Let’s embrace the future of technology together and unlock the potential of Elixir in our projects! Remember, every small step in learning brings us closer to greatness! Keep pushing those boundaries!

    #Elixir #AtomVM #FullStackDeveloper #FLOSSWeekly #TechInspiration
    🌟 Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of Elixir and embedded systems? 🚀 This week on FLOSS Weekly Episode 838, Jonathan chats with the brilliant minds Davide Bettio and Paul Guyot about AtomVM! 🎉 Discover why Elixir is making waves in the embedded arena and what it truly means to be a full-stack Elixir developer. 💻✨ Let’s embrace the future of technology together and unlock the potential of Elixir in our projects! Remember, every small step in learning brings us closer to greatness! Keep pushing those boundaries! 💪💖 #Elixir #AtomVM #FullStackDeveloper #FLOSSWeekly #TechInspiration
    HACKADAY.COM
    FLOSS Weekly Episode 838: AtomVM and The Full Stack Elixir Developer
    This week Jonathan chats with Davide Bettio and Paul Guyot about AtomVM! Why Elixir on embedded? And how!? And what is a full stack Elixir developer, anyways? Watch to find …read more
    1 Comments 0 Shares
  • AI is rotting your brain and making you stupid

    For nearly 10 years I have written about science and technology and I’ve been an early adopter of new tech for much longer. As a teenager in the mid-1990s I annoyed the hell out of my family by jamming up the phone line for hours with a dial-up modem; connecting to bulletin board communities all over the country.When I started writing professionally about technology in 2016 I was all for our seemingly inevitable transhumanist future. When the chip is ready I want it immediately stuck in my head, I remember saying proudly in our busy office. Why not improve ourselves where we can?Since then, my general view on technology has dramatically shifted. Watching a growing class of super-billionaires erode the democratizing nature of technology by maintaining corporate controls over what we use and how we use it has fundamentally changed my personal relationship with technology. Seeing deeply disturbing philosophical stances like longtermism, effective altruism, and singulartarianism envelop the minds of those rich, powerful men controlling the world has only further entrenched inequality.A recent Black Mirror episode really rammed home the perils we face by having technology so controlled by capitalist interests. A sick woman is given a brain implant connected to a cloud server to keep her alive. The system is managed through a subscription service where the user pays for monthly access to the cognitive abilities managed by the implant. As time passes, that subscription cost gets more and more expensive - and well, it’s Black Mirror, so you can imagine where things end up.

    Titled 'Common People', the episode is from series 7 of Black MirrorNetflix

    The enshittification of our digital world has been impossible to ignore. You’re not imagining things, Google Search is getting worse.But until the emergence of AII’ve never been truly concerned about a technological innovation, in and of itself.A recent article looked at how generative AI tech such as ChatGPT is being used by university students. The piece was authored by a tech admin at New York University and it’s filled with striking insights into how AI is shaking the foundations of educational institutions.Not unsurprisingly, students are using ChatGPT for everything from summarizing complex texts to completely writing essays from scratch. But one of the reflections quoted in the article immediately jumped out at me.When a student was asked why they relied on generative AI so much when putting work together they responded, “You’re asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn’t I use a car to get there?”My first response was, of course, why wouldn’t you? It made complete sense.For a second.And then I thought, hang on, what is being lost by speeding from point A to point B in a car?

    What if the quickest way from point A to point B wasn't the best way to get there?Depositphotos

    Let’s further the analogy. You need to go to the grocery store. It’s a 10-minute walk away but a three-minute drive. Why wouldn’t you drive?Well, the only benefit of driving is saving time. That’s inarguable. You’ll be back home and cooking up your dinner before the person on foot even gets to the grocery store.Congratulations. You saved yourself about 20 minutes. In a world where efficiency trumps everything this is the best choice. Use that extra 20 minutes in your day wisely.But what are the benefits of not driving, taking the extra time, and walking?First, you have environmental benefits. Not using a car unnecessarily; spewing emissions into the air, either directly from combustion or indirectly for those with electric cars.Secondly, you have health benefits from the little bit of exercise you get by walking. Our stationary lives are quite literally killing us so a 20-minute walk a day is likely to be incredibly positive for your health.But there are also more abstract benefits to be gained by walking this short trip from A to B.Walking connects us to our neighborhood. It slows things down. Helps us better understand the community and environment we are living in. A recent study summarized the benefits of walking around your neighborhood, suggesting the practice leads to greater social connectedness and reduced feelings of isolation.So what are we losing when we use a car to get from point A to point B? Potentially a great deal.But let’s move out of abstraction and into the real world.An article in the Columbia Journalism Review asked nearly 20 news media professionals how they were integrating AI into their personal workflow. The responses were wildly varied. Some journalists refused to use AI for anything more than superficial interview transcription, while others use it broadly, to edit text, answer research questions, summarize large bodies of science text, or search massive troves of data for salient bits of information.In general, the line almost all those media professionals shared was they would never explicitly use AI to write their articles. But for some, almost every other stage of the creative process in developing a story was fair game for AI assistance.I found this a little horrifying. Farming out certain creative development processes to AI felt not only ethically wrong but also like key cognitive stages were being lost, skipped over, considered unimportant.I’ve never considered myself to be an extraordinarily creative person. I don’t feel like I come up with new or original ideas when I work. Instead, I see myself more as a compiler. I enjoy finding connections between seemingly disparate things. Linking ideas and using those pieces as building blocks to create my own work. As a writer and journalist I see this process as the whole point.A good example of this is a story I published in late 2023 investigating the relationship between long Covid and psychedelics. The story began earlier in the year when I read an intriguing study linking long Covid with serotonin abnormalities in the gut. Being interested in the science of psychedelics, and knowing that psychedelics very much influence serotonin receptors, I wondered if there could be some kind of link between these two seemingly disparate topics.The idea sat in the back of my mind for several months, until I came across a person who told me they had been actively treating their own long Covid symptoms with a variety of psychedelic remedies. After an expansive and fascinating interview I started diving into different studies looking to understand how certain psychedelics affect the body, and whether there could be any associations with long Covid treatments.Eventually I stumbled across a few compelling associations. It took weeks of reading different scientific studies, speaking to various researchers, and thinking about how several discordant threads could be somehow linked.Could AI have assisted me in the process of developing this story?No. Because ultimately, the story comprised an assortment of novel associations that I drew between disparate ideas all encapsulated within the frame of a person’s subjective experience.And it is this idea of novelty that is key to understanding why modern AI technology is not actually intelligence but a simulation of intelligence.

    LLMs are a sophisticated language imitator, delivering responses that resemble what they think a response would look likeDepositphotos

    ChatGPT, and all the assorted clones that have emerged over the last couple of years, are a form of technology called LLMs. At the risk of enraging those who actually work in this mind-bendingly complex field, I’m going to dangerously over-simplify how these things work.It’s important to know that when you ask a system like ChatGPT a question it doesn’t understand what you are asking it. The response these systems generate to any prompt is simply a simulation of what it computes a response would look like based on a massive dataset.So if I were to ask the system a random question like, “What color are cats?”, the system would scrape the world’s trove of information on cats and colors to create a response that mirrors the way most pre-existing text talks about cats and colors. The system builds its response word by word, creating something that reads coherently to us, by establishing a probability for what word should follow each prior word. It’s not thinking, it’s imitating.What these generative AI systems are spitting out are word salad amalgams of what it thinks the response to your prompt should look like, based on training from millions of books and webpages that have been previously published.Setting aside for a moment the accuracy of the responses these systems deliver, I am more interestedwith the cognitive stages that this technology allows us to skip past.For thousands of years we have used technology to improve our ability to manage highly complex tasks. The idea is called cognitive offloading, and it’s as simple as writing something down on a notepad or saving a contact number on your smartphone. There are pros and cons to cognitive offloading, and scientists have been digging into the phenomenon for years.As long as we have been doing it, there have been people criticizing the practice. The legendary Greek philosopher Socrates was notorious for his skepticism around the written word. He believed knowledge emerged through a dialectical process so writing itself was reductive. He even went so far as to suggestthat writing makes us dumber.

    “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.”

    Wrote Plato, quoting Socrates

    Almost every technological advancement in human history can be seen to be accompanied by someone suggesting it will be damaging. Calculators have destroyed our ability to properly do math. GPS has corrupted our spatial memory. Typewriters killed handwriting. Computer word processors killed typewriters. Video killed the radio star.And what have we lost? Well, zooming in on writing, for example, a 2020 study claimed brain activity is greater when a note is handwritten as opposed to being typed on a keyboard. And then a 2021 study suggested memory retention is better when using a pen and paper versus a stylus and tablet. So there are certainly trade-offs whenever we choose to use a technological tool to offload a cognitive task.There’s an oft-told story about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It may be apocryphal but it certainly is meaningful. He once said he sat down and typed out the entirety of The Great Gatsby, word for word. According to Thompson, he wanted to know what it felt like to write a great novel.

    Thompson was infamous for writing everything on typewriters, even when computers emerged in the 1990sPublic Domain

    I don’t want to get all wishy-washy here, but these are the brass tacks we are ultimately falling on. What does it feel like to think? What does it feel like to be creative? What does it feel like to understand something?A recent interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, reveals how deeply AI has infiltrated his life and work. Not only does Nadella utilize nearly a dozen different custom-designed AI agents to manage every part of his workflow – from summarizing emails to managing his schedule – but he also uses AI to get through podcasts quickly on his way to work. Instead of actually listening to the podcasts he has transcripts uploaded to an AI assistant who he then chats to about the information while commuting.Why listen to the podcast when you can get the gist through a summary? Why read a book when you can listen to the audio version at X2 speed? Or better yet, watch the movie? Or just read a Wikipedia entry. Or get AI to summarize the wikipedia entry.I’m not here to judge anyone on the way they choose to use technology. Do what you want with ChatGPT. But for a moment consider what you may be skipping over by racing from point A to point B.Sure, you can give ChatGPT a set of increasingly detailed prompts; adding complexity to its summary of a scientific journal or a podcast, but at what point do the prompts get so granular that you may as well read the journal entry itself? If you get generative AI to skim and summarize something, what is it missing? If something was worth being written then surely it is worth being read?If there is a more succinct way to say something then maybe we should say it more succinctly.In a magnificent article for The New Yorker, Ted Chiang perfectly summed up the deep contradiction at the heart of modern generative AI systems. He argues language, and writing, is fundamentally about communication. If we write an email to someone we can expect the person at the other end to receive those words and consider them with some kind of thought or attention. But modern AI systemsare erasing our ability to think, consider, and write. Where does it all end? For Chiang it's pretty dystopian feedback loop of dialectical slop.

    “We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?”

    Ted Chiang
    #rotting #your #brain #making #you
    AI is rotting your brain and making you stupid
    For nearly 10 years I have written about science and technology and I’ve been an early adopter of new tech for much longer. As a teenager in the mid-1990s I annoyed the hell out of my family by jamming up the phone line for hours with a dial-up modem; connecting to bulletin board communities all over the country.When I started writing professionally about technology in 2016 I was all for our seemingly inevitable transhumanist future. When the chip is ready I want it immediately stuck in my head, I remember saying proudly in our busy office. Why not improve ourselves where we can?Since then, my general view on technology has dramatically shifted. Watching a growing class of super-billionaires erode the democratizing nature of technology by maintaining corporate controls over what we use and how we use it has fundamentally changed my personal relationship with technology. Seeing deeply disturbing philosophical stances like longtermism, effective altruism, and singulartarianism envelop the minds of those rich, powerful men controlling the world has only further entrenched inequality.A recent Black Mirror episode really rammed home the perils we face by having technology so controlled by capitalist interests. A sick woman is given a brain implant connected to a cloud server to keep her alive. The system is managed through a subscription service where the user pays for monthly access to the cognitive abilities managed by the implant. As time passes, that subscription cost gets more and more expensive - and well, it’s Black Mirror, so you can imagine where things end up. Titled 'Common People', the episode is from series 7 of Black MirrorNetflix The enshittification of our digital world has been impossible to ignore. You’re not imagining things, Google Search is getting worse.But until the emergence of AII’ve never been truly concerned about a technological innovation, in and of itself.A recent article looked at how generative AI tech such as ChatGPT is being used by university students. The piece was authored by a tech admin at New York University and it’s filled with striking insights into how AI is shaking the foundations of educational institutions.Not unsurprisingly, students are using ChatGPT for everything from summarizing complex texts to completely writing essays from scratch. But one of the reflections quoted in the article immediately jumped out at me.When a student was asked why they relied on generative AI so much when putting work together they responded, “You’re asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn’t I use a car to get there?”My first response was, of course, why wouldn’t you? It made complete sense.For a second.And then I thought, hang on, what is being lost by speeding from point A to point B in a car? What if the quickest way from point A to point B wasn't the best way to get there?Depositphotos Let’s further the analogy. You need to go to the grocery store. It’s a 10-minute walk away but a three-minute drive. Why wouldn’t you drive?Well, the only benefit of driving is saving time. That’s inarguable. You’ll be back home and cooking up your dinner before the person on foot even gets to the grocery store.Congratulations. You saved yourself about 20 minutes. In a world where efficiency trumps everything this is the best choice. Use that extra 20 minutes in your day wisely.But what are the benefits of not driving, taking the extra time, and walking?First, you have environmental benefits. Not using a car unnecessarily; spewing emissions into the air, either directly from combustion or indirectly for those with electric cars.Secondly, you have health benefits from the little bit of exercise you get by walking. Our stationary lives are quite literally killing us so a 20-minute walk a day is likely to be incredibly positive for your health.But there are also more abstract benefits to be gained by walking this short trip from A to B.Walking connects us to our neighborhood. It slows things down. Helps us better understand the community and environment we are living in. A recent study summarized the benefits of walking around your neighborhood, suggesting the practice leads to greater social connectedness and reduced feelings of isolation.So what are we losing when we use a car to get from point A to point B? Potentially a great deal.But let’s move out of abstraction and into the real world.An article in the Columbia Journalism Review asked nearly 20 news media professionals how they were integrating AI into their personal workflow. The responses were wildly varied. Some journalists refused to use AI for anything more than superficial interview transcription, while others use it broadly, to edit text, answer research questions, summarize large bodies of science text, or search massive troves of data for salient bits of information.In general, the line almost all those media professionals shared was they would never explicitly use AI to write their articles. But for some, almost every other stage of the creative process in developing a story was fair game for AI assistance.I found this a little horrifying. Farming out certain creative development processes to AI felt not only ethically wrong but also like key cognitive stages were being lost, skipped over, considered unimportant.I’ve never considered myself to be an extraordinarily creative person. I don’t feel like I come up with new or original ideas when I work. Instead, I see myself more as a compiler. I enjoy finding connections between seemingly disparate things. Linking ideas and using those pieces as building blocks to create my own work. As a writer and journalist I see this process as the whole point.A good example of this is a story I published in late 2023 investigating the relationship between long Covid and psychedelics. The story began earlier in the year when I read an intriguing study linking long Covid with serotonin abnormalities in the gut. Being interested in the science of psychedelics, and knowing that psychedelics very much influence serotonin receptors, I wondered if there could be some kind of link between these two seemingly disparate topics.The idea sat in the back of my mind for several months, until I came across a person who told me they had been actively treating their own long Covid symptoms with a variety of psychedelic remedies. After an expansive and fascinating interview I started diving into different studies looking to understand how certain psychedelics affect the body, and whether there could be any associations with long Covid treatments.Eventually I stumbled across a few compelling associations. It took weeks of reading different scientific studies, speaking to various researchers, and thinking about how several discordant threads could be somehow linked.Could AI have assisted me in the process of developing this story?No. Because ultimately, the story comprised an assortment of novel associations that I drew between disparate ideas all encapsulated within the frame of a person’s subjective experience.And it is this idea of novelty that is key to understanding why modern AI technology is not actually intelligence but a simulation of intelligence. LLMs are a sophisticated language imitator, delivering responses that resemble what they think a response would look likeDepositphotos ChatGPT, and all the assorted clones that have emerged over the last couple of years, are a form of technology called LLMs. At the risk of enraging those who actually work in this mind-bendingly complex field, I’m going to dangerously over-simplify how these things work.It’s important to know that when you ask a system like ChatGPT a question it doesn’t understand what you are asking it. The response these systems generate to any prompt is simply a simulation of what it computes a response would look like based on a massive dataset.So if I were to ask the system a random question like, “What color are cats?”, the system would scrape the world’s trove of information on cats and colors to create a response that mirrors the way most pre-existing text talks about cats and colors. The system builds its response word by word, creating something that reads coherently to us, by establishing a probability for what word should follow each prior word. It’s not thinking, it’s imitating.What these generative AI systems are spitting out are word salad amalgams of what it thinks the response to your prompt should look like, based on training from millions of books and webpages that have been previously published.Setting aside for a moment the accuracy of the responses these systems deliver, I am more interestedwith the cognitive stages that this technology allows us to skip past.For thousands of years we have used technology to improve our ability to manage highly complex tasks. The idea is called cognitive offloading, and it’s as simple as writing something down on a notepad or saving a contact number on your smartphone. There are pros and cons to cognitive offloading, and scientists have been digging into the phenomenon for years.As long as we have been doing it, there have been people criticizing the practice. The legendary Greek philosopher Socrates was notorious for his skepticism around the written word. He believed knowledge emerged through a dialectical process so writing itself was reductive. He even went so far as to suggestthat writing makes us dumber. “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” Wrote Plato, quoting Socrates Almost every technological advancement in human history can be seen to be accompanied by someone suggesting it will be damaging. Calculators have destroyed our ability to properly do math. GPS has corrupted our spatial memory. Typewriters killed handwriting. Computer word processors killed typewriters. Video killed the radio star.And what have we lost? Well, zooming in on writing, for example, a 2020 study claimed brain activity is greater when a note is handwritten as opposed to being typed on a keyboard. And then a 2021 study suggested memory retention is better when using a pen and paper versus a stylus and tablet. So there are certainly trade-offs whenever we choose to use a technological tool to offload a cognitive task.There’s an oft-told story about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It may be apocryphal but it certainly is meaningful. He once said he sat down and typed out the entirety of The Great Gatsby, word for word. According to Thompson, he wanted to know what it felt like to write a great novel. Thompson was infamous for writing everything on typewriters, even when computers emerged in the 1990sPublic Domain I don’t want to get all wishy-washy here, but these are the brass tacks we are ultimately falling on. What does it feel like to think? What does it feel like to be creative? What does it feel like to understand something?A recent interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, reveals how deeply AI has infiltrated his life and work. Not only does Nadella utilize nearly a dozen different custom-designed AI agents to manage every part of his workflow – from summarizing emails to managing his schedule – but he also uses AI to get through podcasts quickly on his way to work. Instead of actually listening to the podcasts he has transcripts uploaded to an AI assistant who he then chats to about the information while commuting.Why listen to the podcast when you can get the gist through a summary? Why read a book when you can listen to the audio version at X2 speed? Or better yet, watch the movie? Or just read a Wikipedia entry. Or get AI to summarize the wikipedia entry.I’m not here to judge anyone on the way they choose to use technology. Do what you want with ChatGPT. But for a moment consider what you may be skipping over by racing from point A to point B.Sure, you can give ChatGPT a set of increasingly detailed prompts; adding complexity to its summary of a scientific journal or a podcast, but at what point do the prompts get so granular that you may as well read the journal entry itself? If you get generative AI to skim and summarize something, what is it missing? If something was worth being written then surely it is worth being read?If there is a more succinct way to say something then maybe we should say it more succinctly.In a magnificent article for The New Yorker, Ted Chiang perfectly summed up the deep contradiction at the heart of modern generative AI systems. He argues language, and writing, is fundamentally about communication. If we write an email to someone we can expect the person at the other end to receive those words and consider them with some kind of thought or attention. But modern AI systemsare erasing our ability to think, consider, and write. Where does it all end? For Chiang it's pretty dystopian feedback loop of dialectical slop. “We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?” Ted Chiang #rotting #your #brain #making #you
    NEWATLAS.COM
    AI is rotting your brain and making you stupid
    For nearly 10 years I have written about science and technology and I’ve been an early adopter of new tech for much longer. As a teenager in the mid-1990s I annoyed the hell out of my family by jamming up the phone line for hours with a dial-up modem; connecting to bulletin board communities all over the country.When I started writing professionally about technology in 2016 I was all for our seemingly inevitable transhumanist future. When the chip is ready I want it immediately stuck in my head, I remember saying proudly in our busy office. Why not improve ourselves where we can?Since then, my general view on technology has dramatically shifted. Watching a growing class of super-billionaires erode the democratizing nature of technology by maintaining corporate controls over what we use and how we use it has fundamentally changed my personal relationship with technology. Seeing deeply disturbing philosophical stances like longtermism, effective altruism, and singulartarianism envelop the minds of those rich, powerful men controlling the world has only further entrenched inequality.A recent Black Mirror episode really rammed home the perils we face by having technology so controlled by capitalist interests. A sick woman is given a brain implant connected to a cloud server to keep her alive. The system is managed through a subscription service where the user pays for monthly access to the cognitive abilities managed by the implant. As time passes, that subscription cost gets more and more expensive - and well, it’s Black Mirror, so you can imagine where things end up. Titled 'Common People', the episode is from series 7 of Black MirrorNetflix The enshittification of our digital world has been impossible to ignore. You’re not imagining things, Google Search is getting worse.But until the emergence of AI (or, as we’ll discuss later, language learning models that pretend to look and sound like an artificial intelligence) I’ve never been truly concerned about a technological innovation, in and of itself.A recent article looked at how generative AI tech such as ChatGPT is being used by university students. The piece was authored by a tech admin at New York University and it’s filled with striking insights into how AI is shaking the foundations of educational institutions.Not unsurprisingly, students are using ChatGPT for everything from summarizing complex texts to completely writing essays from scratch. But one of the reflections quoted in the article immediately jumped out at me.When a student was asked why they relied on generative AI so much when putting work together they responded, “You’re asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn’t I use a car to get there?”My first response was, of course, why wouldn’t you? It made complete sense.For a second.And then I thought, hang on, what is being lost by speeding from point A to point B in a car? What if the quickest way from point A to point B wasn't the best way to get there?Depositphotos Let’s further the analogy. You need to go to the grocery store. It’s a 10-minute walk away but a three-minute drive. Why wouldn’t you drive?Well, the only benefit of driving is saving time. That’s inarguable. You’ll be back home and cooking up your dinner before the person on foot even gets to the grocery store.Congratulations. You saved yourself about 20 minutes. In a world where efficiency trumps everything this is the best choice. Use that extra 20 minutes in your day wisely.But what are the benefits of not driving, taking the extra time, and walking?First, you have environmental benefits. Not using a car unnecessarily; spewing emissions into the air, either directly from combustion or indirectly for those with electric cars.Secondly, you have health benefits from the little bit of exercise you get by walking. Our stationary lives are quite literally killing us so a 20-minute walk a day is likely to be incredibly positive for your health.But there are also more abstract benefits to be gained by walking this short trip from A to B.Walking connects us to our neighborhood. It slows things down. Helps us better understand the community and environment we are living in. A recent study summarized the benefits of walking around your neighborhood, suggesting the practice leads to greater social connectedness and reduced feelings of isolation.So what are we losing when we use a car to get from point A to point B? Potentially a great deal.But let’s move out of abstraction and into the real world.An article in the Columbia Journalism Review asked nearly 20 news media professionals how they were integrating AI into their personal workflow. The responses were wildly varied. Some journalists refused to use AI for anything more than superficial interview transcription, while others use it broadly, to edit text, answer research questions, summarize large bodies of science text, or search massive troves of data for salient bits of information.In general, the line almost all those media professionals shared was they would never explicitly use AI to write their articles. But for some, almost every other stage of the creative process in developing a story was fair game for AI assistance.I found this a little horrifying. Farming out certain creative development processes to AI felt not only ethically wrong but also like key cognitive stages were being lost, skipped over, considered unimportant.I’ve never considered myself to be an extraordinarily creative person. I don’t feel like I come up with new or original ideas when I work. Instead, I see myself more as a compiler. I enjoy finding connections between seemingly disparate things. Linking ideas and using those pieces as building blocks to create my own work. As a writer and journalist I see this process as the whole point.A good example of this is a story I published in late 2023 investigating the relationship between long Covid and psychedelics. The story began earlier in the year when I read an intriguing study linking long Covid with serotonin abnormalities in the gut. Being interested in the science of psychedelics, and knowing that psychedelics very much influence serotonin receptors, I wondered if there could be some kind of link between these two seemingly disparate topics.The idea sat in the back of my mind for several months, until I came across a person who told me they had been actively treating their own long Covid symptoms with a variety of psychedelic remedies. After an expansive and fascinating interview I started diving into different studies looking to understand how certain psychedelics affect the body, and whether there could be any associations with long Covid treatments.Eventually I stumbled across a few compelling associations. It took weeks of reading different scientific studies, speaking to various researchers, and thinking about how several discordant threads could be somehow linked.Could AI have assisted me in the process of developing this story?No. Because ultimately, the story comprised an assortment of novel associations that I drew between disparate ideas all encapsulated within the frame of a person’s subjective experience.And it is this idea of novelty that is key to understanding why modern AI technology is not actually intelligence but a simulation of intelligence. LLMs are a sophisticated language imitator, delivering responses that resemble what they think a response would look likeDepositphotos ChatGPT, and all the assorted clones that have emerged over the last couple of years, are a form of technology called LLMs (large language models). At the risk of enraging those who actually work in this mind-bendingly complex field, I’m going to dangerously over-simplify how these things work.It’s important to know that when you ask a system like ChatGPT a question it doesn’t understand what you are asking it. The response these systems generate to any prompt is simply a simulation of what it computes a response would look like based on a massive dataset.So if I were to ask the system a random question like, “What color are cats?”, the system would scrape the world’s trove of information on cats and colors to create a response that mirrors the way most pre-existing text talks about cats and colors. The system builds its response word by word, creating something that reads coherently to us, by establishing a probability for what word should follow each prior word. It’s not thinking, it’s imitating.What these generative AI systems are spitting out are word salad amalgams of what it thinks the response to your prompt should look like, based on training from millions of books and webpages that have been previously published.Setting aside for a moment the accuracy of the responses these systems deliver, I am more interested (or concerned) with the cognitive stages that this technology allows us to skip past.For thousands of years we have used technology to improve our ability to manage highly complex tasks. The idea is called cognitive offloading, and it’s as simple as writing something down on a notepad or saving a contact number on your smartphone. There are pros and cons to cognitive offloading, and scientists have been digging into the phenomenon for years.As long as we have been doing it, there have been people criticizing the practice. The legendary Greek philosopher Socrates was notorious for his skepticism around the written word. He believed knowledge emerged through a dialectical process so writing itself was reductive. He even went so far as to suggest (according to his student Plato, who did write things down) that writing makes us dumber. “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” Wrote Plato, quoting Socrates Almost every technological advancement in human history can be seen to be accompanied by someone suggesting it will be damaging. Calculators have destroyed our ability to properly do math. GPS has corrupted our spatial memory. Typewriters killed handwriting. Computer word processors killed typewriters. Video killed the radio star.And what have we lost? Well, zooming in on writing, for example, a 2020 study claimed brain activity is greater when a note is handwritten as opposed to being typed on a keyboard. And then a 2021 study suggested memory retention is better when using a pen and paper versus a stylus and tablet. So there are certainly trade-offs whenever we choose to use a technological tool to offload a cognitive task.There’s an oft-told story about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It may be apocryphal but it certainly is meaningful. He once said he sat down and typed out the entirety of The Great Gatsby, word for word. According to Thompson, he wanted to know what it felt like to write a great novel. Thompson was infamous for writing everything on typewriters, even when computers emerged in the 1990sPublic Domain I don’t want to get all wishy-washy here, but these are the brass tacks we are ultimately falling on. What does it feel like to think? What does it feel like to be creative? What does it feel like to understand something?A recent interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, reveals how deeply AI has infiltrated his life and work. Not only does Nadella utilize nearly a dozen different custom-designed AI agents to manage every part of his workflow – from summarizing emails to managing his schedule – but he also uses AI to get through podcasts quickly on his way to work. Instead of actually listening to the podcasts he has transcripts uploaded to an AI assistant who he then chats to about the information while commuting.Why listen to the podcast when you can get the gist through a summary? Why read a book when you can listen to the audio version at X2 speed? Or better yet, watch the movie? Or just read a Wikipedia entry. Or get AI to summarize the wikipedia entry.I’m not here to judge anyone on the way they choose to use technology. Do what you want with ChatGPT. But for a moment consider what you may be skipping over by racing from point A to point B.Sure, you can give ChatGPT a set of increasingly detailed prompts; adding complexity to its summary of a scientific journal or a podcast, but at what point do the prompts get so granular that you may as well read the journal entry itself? If you get generative AI to skim and summarize something, what is it missing? If something was worth being written then surely it is worth being read?If there is a more succinct way to say something then maybe we should say it more succinctly.In a magnificent article for The New Yorker, Ted Chiang perfectly summed up the deep contradiction at the heart of modern generative AI systems. He argues language, and writing, is fundamentally about communication. If we write an email to someone we can expect the person at the other end to receive those words and consider them with some kind of thought or attention. But modern AI systems (or these simulations of intelligence) are erasing our ability to think, consider, and write. Where does it all end? For Chiang it's pretty dystopian feedback loop of dialectical slop. “We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?” Ted Chiang
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project”

    Bad To The Bravil

    “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project”
    Also, it’ll take some work for the remaster’s modding scene to get to the next level without Bethesda helping "grease the wheels".

    Image credit: Bethesda/VG247

    Article

    by Mark Warren
    Senior Staff Writer

    Published on May 23, 2025

    If there’s one thing us folks who love a good RPG can never have enough of, it’s quests. Oblivion Remastered has plenty in its base form - The Elder Scrolls 4 not being short on stuff to do - but of course modders were always going to add to that.
    We’re still at a pretty early stage in terms of folks digging underneath the Unreal Engine second skin Virtuos has cocooned the classic game in and seeing what they can accomplish by pushing the boundaries. However, there’ve been plenty of mods that have already come out and had everyone going full Uriel Septim ‘I’ve seen you in my dreams’ mode.

    To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

    The latest of these, in my case, had been modder ColdTyrant’s “Infinitum” series, a bunch of mods released in rapid succession that overhaul Oblivion’s already pretty stellar faction questlines by adding in new infinitely accessible radiant quests and systems. They offer nice rewards in return for your character doing more of the job they signed up for - be it assassin, warrior, thief, gladiator, or mage - in a way that’s perfect for roleplaying.
    So, having also been intrigued by his earliest works that made it possible to join the Mythic Dawn and become a necromancer in Oblivion Remastered, I decided earlier this week to reach out to ColdTyrant. We chatted about how the quest mods he's created so far came together, what the next steps in Oblivion Remastered modding might require, and what his future modding plans are. Here’s that conversation:
    VG247: What drew you to modding Oblivion Remastered, and has your previous modding experience come in handy when getting up to speed with it?
    ColdTyrant: I've been playing Oblivion since I was a kid, in 2007 on the PS3. At that age I was absolutely astounded that I could do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, fight, kill, or help whoever I wanted - the game absolutely blew me away and had a fundamental effect on myself and my creativity. I've been modding Bethesda games ever since my dad first let me play on his PC, and I was able to download the Construction Set for Oblivion and start poking around to see how things work and what I could make.
    I had been following the rumors of an 'Oblivion Remake' since January of this year leading up to its eventual shadow drop, and was absolutely floored by the incredible visuals and gameplay overhauls made by the extremely talented team at Virtuos. They breathed new life into one of my all-time favorite video games, and it's been so exciting to see everyone playing and talking about Oblivion again just like when I was a kid.
    Naturally, after I'd already sunken about 100 or so hours into Remaster, I started feeling that itch to get back into the Construction Set. People werepumping out mods, tweaks, and tools for Oblivion Remastered like crazy, and I really wanted to sort of get on that wave and see if I could contribute my own content to help enrich players' experiences further.

    Being back in Cyrodiil can do that to a guy. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247

    VG247: How did you go about creating your first couple of quest/faction expansion mods, Mythic Dawn Rising and Dark Path of The Necromancer? Was it a case of wanting more evil options and finding out what was possible, or did you go in with a set vision?
    ColdTyrant: When I decided it was time to start modding Remastered, I really wasn't sure where to start. I've always been fascinated with the villains Bethesda has created, and I know many playershave a desire to explore the idea - what if *I* was the bad guy?
    I started re-learning Oblivion's scripting and quest system, and ultimately decided I wanted to create an alternate path to the Main Quest, where the player could decide to explore what it would be like to actually be a member of Mehrunes Dagon's Mythic Dawn cult. This mod was sort of a test of what I could get away with mechanically - a proof of concept to myself, and it's a bit light on content and needs a big update.
    After I released Mythic Dawn Rising, I just kept playing around with scripts and variables and seeing what could be done. When I discovered the different types of systems I'd be able to create with what I'd discovered, my ideas really began to run wild.
    Dark Path of the Necromancer started as just a mod that would add an alternative way for players to create Black Soul Gems, but as I'd finish one feature I'd think of another, then get to work on it - then another, then another. It quickly sort of snowballed into this big project with multiple necromantic-centered systems, and I really love how it turned out. Sort of accidentally, I'd wound up creating another mod that allowed the player to explore membership with another previously forbidden faction.

    Who wouldn't want to join a group of folks who can cast armour illusions this cool? | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247

    VG247: I’ve noticed that in both of those mods’ descriptions you note that you’re hoping to add more to them once more advanced Oblivion Remastered modding tools are out there. What kinds of tools are you most keen to see emerge going forwards and can you paint me a picture of what the ‘ideal versions’ of those mods might look like?
    ColdTyrant: So, with modding the original Oblivion, it's a lot simpler - anything you put into the game world will just be there when you load up the mod. No requirements, no difficult installation instructions, just plug and play. If I dropped a new NPC named Bob the Mage into Anvil, he'd just be there!
    Oblivion Remastered is a bit more complicated. Virtuos has created an incredibly remarkable hybrid engine that combines both Gamebryoand Unreal Engine 5. Gamebryo handles the scripts, quests, and gameplay mechanics, while Unreal Engine 5 handles all rendering - meshes, textures, menus, lighting, shadows, effects, lines of text, pretty much anything and everything the player sees on their screen.
    What this means in layman's terms is that if I dropped Bob the Mage into Anvil in Remastered using the Gamebryo Oblivion Construction Set, well... that's not enough to make him show up. At best, a visit to Anvil will result in him being completely invisible, and at worst, a game crash. This is because Gamebryo no longer handles rendering.
    Unreal Engine needs to be told by Gamebryo via strings what actually exists and what to render into the game. Everything needs a table string entry that connects back to Unreal, or you'll have problems.
    Fortunately, some incredibly talented moddershave created tools like TesSyncMapInjector or the Fix & Port Script for xEdit that do this job for us - so Bob the Mage can exist in Oblivion Remastered.

    Ok, so this particular mage isn't called Bob, but you get the picture. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247

    However, this means players will be required to install these tools on their end to experience mods that add new items and systems to Oblivion Remastered, and it can be frustrating for new people that want to get into modding their games, but feel intimidated by all these requirements and specific installation instructions.
    So ideally, we'll get to a point where either Bethesda/Virtuos release official modding tools for the remaster or talented mod engineers are able to create toolthat make mods fully compatible with Unreal, without the end user needing to install extra requirements. For the ‘Oldblivion’ versions of my mods, they are all plug and play - no requirements. But for Remastered - for now - you'll always need UE4SS and TesSyncMapInjector.
    VG247: What inspired you to take on your Infinitum series, how was it putting together each of the radiant quest systems and deciding on the unique twists you were going to give each faction’s system? One of the things I found most interesting about the Dark Brotherhood one was the gacha-style Dark Token reward system, so how did the idea for that specifically come about?
    ColdTyrant: The ‘radiant quest system’ I've designed was actually initially a side feature in another currently unnamed mod project regarding the Blackwood Company, as my original intention was to continue the ‘join and play evil factions’ genre of mods I'd released so far.
    When I discovered during testing how much fun I was having just doing infinite quests, I thought to myself - I need to adapt this to the main factions. From there, once again, my ideas started to kind of run wild.
    I ‘extracted’ the radiant quest system from my Blackwood project, ported it into a new project, and reworked it for the Dark Brotherhood. I think a lot of people feel this way, but Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood is by far my favorite questline in the game, and I say that while really loving all of the major factions. I wanted to be able to take contracts to assassinate people forever, and I hoped others would too. In the end, Dark Brotherhood - Infinitum was born, and the series kicked off.

    Creeper, gacha master of the Dark Brotherhood. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant

    As far as the ‘gacha reward system’, I wanted to create a unique way for the player to get random rewards, but also be able to choose what type of reward they're interested in. Creating a gacha that may or may not give the player something good for their Dark Tokens I thought would be a fantastic way to motivate the player to keep doing infinite contracts besides just the fun of sneak killing and gold.
    If the popularity of certain gacha games is any indicator, people really love being able to take their chances and roll for rewards, even if the odds are stacked against them. Fortunately, however, Creeper does NOT charge the player any real-world money!
    Some players complained that Creeper being in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary is not immersive, and I totally get it - but I love Morrowind just as much as Oblivion and Skyrim, and I'm sure any Morrowind player is aware of the "meme" of selling Creeper hundreds of sets of Dark Brotherhood armor. Why wouldn't he show up? He wants more of that stuff! It was just a fun reference in the end, and I was hoping people would get a kick out of it!
    VG247: What are your personal plans and general hopes for Oblivion Remastered modding going forwards, especially when it comes to quest mods - are there any complex ideas you've not tried yet that you’re keen to give a go once the tech’s there and do you think there’s a high ceiling in terms of what people might eventually pull off?
    ColdTyrant: Similar to what I mentioned earlier, the ideal situation for Oblivion Remastered modding will be the release of official modding tools to ‘grease the wheels’ on the mod development process - but given the complexity of the hybrid engine, I'm not sure if this will happen. It would be really nice, though, so our friends playing on console can hop on the hype wave of Remastered modding too.
    As far as my plans - the nextmod in the Infinitum series will be Mages Guild - Infinitum. This mod will feature an endless Creature Research system, a brand new Elixir-crafting system separate from regular Alchemy, and radiant quests to deliver those Elixirs to the various Mages Guild Halls. Additionally there will be an endlessly-available staff-crafting system.

    Since we had our chat, ColdTyrant's released his Mages Guild mod, so you can try it right after you're done reading. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant

    Since the Mages Guild is a bit different, and focused more on scholarly endeavors and magical power, I'm hoping people really enjoy it!
    Once the main Infinitum Series is complete, I'll likely shift my focus to a big Mythic Dawn Rising update, and a secret project I've been writing up, that I think people will really love!
    As far as whether or not I've tried certain ideas due to current limitations, there are certainly a few. I try not to lean *too* heavily into NPC dialogue, for example, since we can't use custom voice files yet, or have an elegant solution like ‘Elys Universal Silent Voice’ which exists for Oldblivion.
    I think there is a high ceiling for learning and getting into more complex scripting if you've never done it before, but really, the sky is the limit when it comes to Bethesda modding - there are hundreds and hundreds of mod authors far more talented than myself that have created incredible content for all of Bethesda's single-player masterpieces.
    As time marches on, I'm really excited to see the things people continue to pump out for Oblivion Remastered. It's really exciting to see what people can come up with!
    #what #was #bad #guy #oblivion
    “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project”
    Bad To The Bravil “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project” Also, it’ll take some work for the remaster’s modding scene to get to the next level without Bethesda helping "grease the wheels". Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 Article by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 23, 2025 If there’s one thing us folks who love a good RPG can never have enough of, it’s quests. Oblivion Remastered has plenty in its base form - The Elder Scrolls 4 not being short on stuff to do - but of course modders were always going to add to that. We’re still at a pretty early stage in terms of folks digging underneath the Unreal Engine second skin Virtuos has cocooned the classic game in and seeing what they can accomplish by pushing the boundaries. However, there’ve been plenty of mods that have already come out and had everyone going full Uriel Septim ‘I’ve seen you in my dreams’ mode. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The latest of these, in my case, had been modder ColdTyrant’s “Infinitum” series, a bunch of mods released in rapid succession that overhaul Oblivion’s already pretty stellar faction questlines by adding in new infinitely accessible radiant quests and systems. They offer nice rewards in return for your character doing more of the job they signed up for - be it assassin, warrior, thief, gladiator, or mage - in a way that’s perfect for roleplaying. So, having also been intrigued by his earliest works that made it possible to join the Mythic Dawn and become a necromancer in Oblivion Remastered, I decided earlier this week to reach out to ColdTyrant. We chatted about how the quest mods he's created so far came together, what the next steps in Oblivion Remastered modding might require, and what his future modding plans are. Here’s that conversation: VG247: What drew you to modding Oblivion Remastered, and has your previous modding experience come in handy when getting up to speed with it? ColdTyrant: I've been playing Oblivion since I was a kid, in 2007 on the PS3. At that age I was absolutely astounded that I could do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, fight, kill, or help whoever I wanted - the game absolutely blew me away and had a fundamental effect on myself and my creativity. I've been modding Bethesda games ever since my dad first let me play on his PC, and I was able to download the Construction Set for Oblivion and start poking around to see how things work and what I could make. I had been following the rumors of an 'Oblivion Remake' since January of this year leading up to its eventual shadow drop, and was absolutely floored by the incredible visuals and gameplay overhauls made by the extremely talented team at Virtuos. They breathed new life into one of my all-time favorite video games, and it's been so exciting to see everyone playing and talking about Oblivion again just like when I was a kid. Naturally, after I'd already sunken about 100 or so hours into Remaster, I started feeling that itch to get back into the Construction Set. People werepumping out mods, tweaks, and tools for Oblivion Remastered like crazy, and I really wanted to sort of get on that wave and see if I could contribute my own content to help enrich players' experiences further. Being back in Cyrodiil can do that to a guy. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 VG247: How did you go about creating your first couple of quest/faction expansion mods, Mythic Dawn Rising and Dark Path of The Necromancer? Was it a case of wanting more evil options and finding out what was possible, or did you go in with a set vision? ColdTyrant: When I decided it was time to start modding Remastered, I really wasn't sure where to start. I've always been fascinated with the villains Bethesda has created, and I know many playershave a desire to explore the idea - what if *I* was the bad guy? I started re-learning Oblivion's scripting and quest system, and ultimately decided I wanted to create an alternate path to the Main Quest, where the player could decide to explore what it would be like to actually be a member of Mehrunes Dagon's Mythic Dawn cult. This mod was sort of a test of what I could get away with mechanically - a proof of concept to myself, and it's a bit light on content and needs a big update. After I released Mythic Dawn Rising, I just kept playing around with scripts and variables and seeing what could be done. When I discovered the different types of systems I'd be able to create with what I'd discovered, my ideas really began to run wild. Dark Path of the Necromancer started as just a mod that would add an alternative way for players to create Black Soul Gems, but as I'd finish one feature I'd think of another, then get to work on it - then another, then another. It quickly sort of snowballed into this big project with multiple necromantic-centered systems, and I really love how it turned out. Sort of accidentally, I'd wound up creating another mod that allowed the player to explore membership with another previously forbidden faction. Who wouldn't want to join a group of folks who can cast armour illusions this cool? | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 VG247: I’ve noticed that in both of those mods’ descriptions you note that you’re hoping to add more to them once more advanced Oblivion Remastered modding tools are out there. What kinds of tools are you most keen to see emerge going forwards and can you paint me a picture of what the ‘ideal versions’ of those mods might look like? ColdTyrant: So, with modding the original Oblivion, it's a lot simpler - anything you put into the game world will just be there when you load up the mod. No requirements, no difficult installation instructions, just plug and play. If I dropped a new NPC named Bob the Mage into Anvil, he'd just be there! Oblivion Remastered is a bit more complicated. Virtuos has created an incredibly remarkable hybrid engine that combines both Gamebryoand Unreal Engine 5. Gamebryo handles the scripts, quests, and gameplay mechanics, while Unreal Engine 5 handles all rendering - meshes, textures, menus, lighting, shadows, effects, lines of text, pretty much anything and everything the player sees on their screen. What this means in layman's terms is that if I dropped Bob the Mage into Anvil in Remastered using the Gamebryo Oblivion Construction Set, well... that's not enough to make him show up. At best, a visit to Anvil will result in him being completely invisible, and at worst, a game crash. This is because Gamebryo no longer handles rendering. Unreal Engine needs to be told by Gamebryo via strings what actually exists and what to render into the game. Everything needs a table string entry that connects back to Unreal, or you'll have problems. Fortunately, some incredibly talented moddershave created tools like TesSyncMapInjector or the Fix & Port Script for xEdit that do this job for us - so Bob the Mage can exist in Oblivion Remastered. Ok, so this particular mage isn't called Bob, but you get the picture. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 However, this means players will be required to install these tools on their end to experience mods that add new items and systems to Oblivion Remastered, and it can be frustrating for new people that want to get into modding their games, but feel intimidated by all these requirements and specific installation instructions. So ideally, we'll get to a point where either Bethesda/Virtuos release official modding tools for the remaster or talented mod engineers are able to create toolthat make mods fully compatible with Unreal, without the end user needing to install extra requirements. For the ‘Oldblivion’ versions of my mods, they are all plug and play - no requirements. But for Remastered - for now - you'll always need UE4SS and TesSyncMapInjector. VG247: What inspired you to take on your Infinitum series, how was it putting together each of the radiant quest systems and deciding on the unique twists you were going to give each faction’s system? One of the things I found most interesting about the Dark Brotherhood one was the gacha-style Dark Token reward system, so how did the idea for that specifically come about? ColdTyrant: The ‘radiant quest system’ I've designed was actually initially a side feature in another currently unnamed mod project regarding the Blackwood Company, as my original intention was to continue the ‘join and play evil factions’ genre of mods I'd released so far. When I discovered during testing how much fun I was having just doing infinite quests, I thought to myself - I need to adapt this to the main factions. From there, once again, my ideas started to kind of run wild. I ‘extracted’ the radiant quest system from my Blackwood project, ported it into a new project, and reworked it for the Dark Brotherhood. I think a lot of people feel this way, but Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood is by far my favorite questline in the game, and I say that while really loving all of the major factions. I wanted to be able to take contracts to assassinate people forever, and I hoped others would too. In the end, Dark Brotherhood - Infinitum was born, and the series kicked off. Creeper, gacha master of the Dark Brotherhood. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant As far as the ‘gacha reward system’, I wanted to create a unique way for the player to get random rewards, but also be able to choose what type of reward they're interested in. Creating a gacha that may or may not give the player something good for their Dark Tokens I thought would be a fantastic way to motivate the player to keep doing infinite contracts besides just the fun of sneak killing and gold. If the popularity of certain gacha games is any indicator, people really love being able to take their chances and roll for rewards, even if the odds are stacked against them. Fortunately, however, Creeper does NOT charge the player any real-world money! Some players complained that Creeper being in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary is not immersive, and I totally get it - but I love Morrowind just as much as Oblivion and Skyrim, and I'm sure any Morrowind player is aware of the "meme" of selling Creeper hundreds of sets of Dark Brotherhood armor. Why wouldn't he show up? He wants more of that stuff! It was just a fun reference in the end, and I was hoping people would get a kick out of it! VG247: What are your personal plans and general hopes for Oblivion Remastered modding going forwards, especially when it comes to quest mods - are there any complex ideas you've not tried yet that you’re keen to give a go once the tech’s there and do you think there’s a high ceiling in terms of what people might eventually pull off? ColdTyrant: Similar to what I mentioned earlier, the ideal situation for Oblivion Remastered modding will be the release of official modding tools to ‘grease the wheels’ on the mod development process - but given the complexity of the hybrid engine, I'm not sure if this will happen. It would be really nice, though, so our friends playing on console can hop on the hype wave of Remastered modding too. As far as my plans - the nextmod in the Infinitum series will be Mages Guild - Infinitum. This mod will feature an endless Creature Research system, a brand new Elixir-crafting system separate from regular Alchemy, and radiant quests to deliver those Elixirs to the various Mages Guild Halls. Additionally there will be an endlessly-available staff-crafting system. Since we had our chat, ColdTyrant's released his Mages Guild mod, so you can try it right after you're done reading. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant Since the Mages Guild is a bit different, and focused more on scholarly endeavors and magical power, I'm hoping people really enjoy it! Once the main Infinitum Series is complete, I'll likely shift my focus to a big Mythic Dawn Rising update, and a secret project I've been writing up, that I think people will really love! As far as whether or not I've tried certain ideas due to current limitations, there are certainly a few. I try not to lean *too* heavily into NPC dialogue, for example, since we can't use custom voice files yet, or have an elegant solution like ‘Elys Universal Silent Voice’ which exists for Oldblivion. I think there is a high ceiling for learning and getting into more complex scripting if you've never done it before, but really, the sky is the limit when it comes to Bethesda modding - there are hundreds and hundreds of mod authors far more talented than myself that have created incredible content for all of Bethesda's single-player masterpieces. As time marches on, I'm really excited to see the things people continue to pump out for Oblivion Remastered. It's really exciting to see what people can come up with! #what #was #bad #guy #oblivion
    WWW.VG247.COM
    “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project”
    Bad To The Bravil “What if I was the bad guy?” Oblivion Remastered’s best new faction quests so far exist because a modder was doing evil stuff, and they’re now teasing “a secret project” Also, it’ll take some work for the remaster’s modding scene to get to the next level without Bethesda helping "grease the wheels". Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 Article by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 23, 2025 If there’s one thing us folks who love a good RPG can never have enough of, it’s quests. Oblivion Remastered has plenty in its base form - The Elder Scrolls 4 not being short on stuff to do - but of course modders were always going to add to that. We’re still at a pretty early stage in terms of folks digging underneath the Unreal Engine second skin Virtuos has cocooned the classic game in and seeing what they can accomplish by pushing the boundaries. However, there’ve been plenty of mods that have already come out and had everyone going full Uriel Septim ‘I’ve seen you in my dreams’ mode. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The latest of these, in my case, had been modder ColdTyrant’s “Infinitum” series, a bunch of mods released in rapid succession that overhaul Oblivion’s already pretty stellar faction questlines by adding in new infinitely accessible radiant quests and systems. They offer nice rewards in return for your character doing more of the job they signed up for - be it assassin, warrior, thief, gladiator, or mage - in a way that’s perfect for roleplaying. So, having also been intrigued by his earliest works that made it possible to join the Mythic Dawn and become a necromancer in Oblivion Remastered, I decided earlier this week to reach out to ColdTyrant. We chatted about how the quest mods he's created so far came together, what the next steps in Oblivion Remastered modding might require, and what his future modding plans are. Here’s that conversation: VG247: What drew you to modding Oblivion Remastered, and has your previous modding experience come in handy when getting up to speed with it? ColdTyrant: I've been playing Oblivion since I was a kid, in 2007 on the PS3. At that age I was absolutely astounded that I could do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, fight, kill, or help whoever I wanted - the game absolutely blew me away and had a fundamental effect on myself and my creativity. I've been modding Bethesda games ever since my dad first let me play on his PC, and I was able to download the Construction Set for Oblivion and start poking around to see how things work and what I could make. I had been following the rumors of an 'Oblivion Remake' since January of this year leading up to its eventual shadow drop, and was absolutely floored by the incredible visuals and gameplay overhauls made by the extremely talented team at Virtuos. They breathed new life into one of my all-time favorite video games, and it's been so exciting to see everyone playing and talking about Oblivion again just like when I was a kid. Naturally, after I'd already sunken about 100 or so hours into Remaster, I started feeling that itch to get back into the Construction Set. People were (and still are) pumping out mods, tweaks, and tools for Oblivion Remastered like crazy, and I really wanted to sort of get on that wave and see if I could contribute my own content to help enrich players' experiences further. Being back in Cyrodiil can do that to a guy. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 VG247: How did you go about creating your first couple of quest/faction expansion mods, Mythic Dawn Rising and Dark Path of The Necromancer? Was it a case of wanting more evil options and finding out what was possible, or did you go in with a set vision? ColdTyrant: When I decided it was time to start modding Remastered, I really wasn't sure where to start. I've always been fascinated with the villains Bethesda has created, and I know many players (including myself) have a desire to explore the idea - what if *I* was the bad guy? I started re-learning Oblivion's scripting and quest system, and ultimately decided I wanted to create an alternate path to the Main Quest, where the player could decide to explore what it would be like to actually be a member of Mehrunes Dagon's Mythic Dawn cult. This mod was sort of a test of what I could get away with mechanically - a proof of concept to myself, and it's a bit light on content and needs a big update (I'm working on this!). After I released Mythic Dawn Rising, I just kept playing around with scripts and variables and seeing what could be done. When I discovered the different types of systems I'd be able to create with what I'd discovered, my ideas really began to run wild. Dark Path of the Necromancer started as just a mod that would add an alternative way for players to create Black Soul Gems, but as I'd finish one feature I'd think of another, then get to work on it - then another, then another. It quickly sort of snowballed into this big project with multiple necromantic-centered systems, and I really love how it turned out. Sort of accidentally, I'd wound up creating another mod that allowed the player to explore membership with another previously forbidden faction. Who wouldn't want to join a group of folks who can cast armour illusions this cool? | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 VG247: I’ve noticed that in both of those mods’ descriptions you note that you’re hoping to add more to them once more advanced Oblivion Remastered modding tools are out there. What kinds of tools are you most keen to see emerge going forwards and can you paint me a picture of what the ‘ideal versions’ of those mods might look like? ColdTyrant: So, with modding the original Oblivion, it's a lot simpler - anything you put into the game world will just be there when you load up the mod. No requirements, no difficult installation instructions, just plug and play. If I dropped a new NPC named Bob the Mage into Anvil, he'd just be there! Oblivion Remastered is a bit more complicated. Virtuos has created an incredibly remarkable hybrid engine that combines both Gamebryo (an earlier version of Creation Engine) and Unreal Engine 5. Gamebryo handles the scripts, quests, and gameplay mechanics, while Unreal Engine 5 handles all rendering - meshes, textures, menus, lighting, shadows, effects, lines of text, pretty much anything and everything the player sees on their screen. What this means in layman's terms is that if I dropped Bob the Mage into Anvil in Remastered using the Gamebryo Oblivion Construction Set, well... that's not enough to make him show up. At best, a visit to Anvil will result in him being completely invisible, and at worst, a game crash. This is because Gamebryo no longer handles rendering. Unreal Engine needs to be told by Gamebryo via strings what actually exists and what to render into the game. Everything needs a table string entry that connects back to Unreal, or you'll have problems. Fortunately, some incredibly talented modders (I like referring to them as engineers) have created tools like TesSyncMapInjector or the Fix & Port Script for xEdit that do this job for us - so Bob the Mage can exist in Oblivion Remastered. Ok, so this particular mage isn't called Bob, but you get the picture. | Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 However, this means players will be required to install these tools on their end to experience mods that add new items and systems to Oblivion Remastered, and it can be frustrating for new people that want to get into modding their games, but feel intimidated by all these requirements and specific installation instructions. So ideally, we'll get to a point where either Bethesda/Virtuos release official modding tools for the remaster or talented mod engineers are able to create tool(s) that make mods fully compatible with Unreal, without the end user needing to install extra requirements. For the ‘Oldblivion’ versions of my mods, they are all plug and play - no requirements. But for Remastered - for now - you'll always need UE4SS and TesSyncMapInjector. VG247: What inspired you to take on your Infinitum series, how was it putting together each of the radiant quest systems and deciding on the unique twists you were going to give each faction’s system? One of the things I found most interesting about the Dark Brotherhood one was the gacha-style Dark Token reward system, so how did the idea for that specifically come about? ColdTyrant: The ‘radiant quest system’ I've designed was actually initially a side feature in another currently unnamed mod project regarding the Blackwood Company, as my original intention was to continue the ‘join and play evil factions’ genre of mods I'd released so far. When I discovered during testing how much fun I was having just doing infinite quests, I thought to myself - I need to adapt this to the main factions. From there, once again, my ideas started to kind of run wild. I ‘extracted’ the radiant quest system from my Blackwood project, ported it into a new project, and reworked it for the Dark Brotherhood. I think a lot of people feel this way, but Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood is by far my favorite questline in the game, and I say that while really loving all of the major factions. I wanted to be able to take contracts to assassinate people forever, and I hoped others would too. In the end, Dark Brotherhood - Infinitum was born, and the series kicked off. Creeper, gacha master of the Dark Brotherhood. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant As far as the ‘gacha reward system’, I wanted to create a unique way for the player to get random rewards, but also be able to choose what type of reward they're interested in. Creating a gacha that may or may not give the player something good for their Dark Tokens I thought would be a fantastic way to motivate the player to keep doing infinite contracts besides just the fun of sneak killing and gold. If the popularity of certain gacha games is any indicator, people really love being able to take their chances and roll for rewards, even if the odds are stacked against them. Fortunately, however, Creeper does NOT charge the player any real-world money! Some players complained that Creeper being in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary is not immersive (hence my 'No Creeper' optional version), and I totally get it - but I love Morrowind just as much as Oblivion and Skyrim, and I'm sure any Morrowind player is aware of the "meme" of selling Creeper hundreds of sets of Dark Brotherhood armor. Why wouldn't he show up? He wants more of that stuff! It was just a fun reference in the end, and I was hoping people would get a kick out of it! VG247: What are your personal plans and general hopes for Oblivion Remastered modding going forwards, especially when it comes to quest mods - are there any complex ideas you've not tried yet that you’re keen to give a go once the tech’s there and do you think there’s a high ceiling in terms of what people might eventually pull off? ColdTyrant: Similar to what I mentioned earlier, the ideal situation for Oblivion Remastered modding will be the release of official modding tools to ‘grease the wheels’ on the mod development process - but given the complexity of the hybrid engine, I'm not sure if this will happen. It would be really nice, though, so our friends playing on console can hop on the hype wave of Remastered modding too. As far as my plans - the next (and final, for the major factions) mod in the Infinitum series will be Mages Guild - Infinitum. This mod will feature an endless Creature Research system, a brand new Elixir-crafting system separate from regular Alchemy, and radiant quests to deliver those Elixirs to the various Mages Guild Halls. Additionally there will be an endlessly-available staff-crafting system. Since we had our chat, ColdTyrant's released his Mages Guild mod, so you can try it right after you're done reading. | Image credit: Bethesda/ColdTyrant Since the Mages Guild is a bit different, and focused more on scholarly endeavors and magical power, I'm hoping people really enjoy it! Once the main Infinitum Series is complete, I'll likely shift my focus to a big Mythic Dawn Rising update, and a secret project I've been writing up, that I think people will really love! As far as whether or not I've tried certain ideas due to current limitations (I consider Remastered modding to currently be in its infancy), there are certainly a few. I try not to lean *too* heavily into NPC dialogue, for example, since we can't use custom voice files yet, or have an elegant solution like ‘Elys Universal Silent Voice’ which exists for Oldblivion. I think there is a high ceiling for learning and getting into more complex scripting if you've never done it before, but really, the sky is the limit when it comes to Bethesda modding - there are hundreds and hundreds of mod authors far more talented than myself that have created incredible content for all of Bethesda's single-player masterpieces. As time marches on, I'm really excited to see the things people continue to pump out for Oblivion Remastered. It's really exciting to see what people can come up with!
    0 Comments 0 Shares
  • Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake New Update Increases Flight Speed, Here Are The Patch Notes

    Image: Square EnixSquare Enix has released a patch for its gorgeous Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake today, and it's live to download on Switch right now.The patch, detailed on Steam, includes adding the Mini Medal Manor as a Zoom location, the addition of "short-cut buttons" to add spells and skills to buttons, various balance changes, and an increase to movement speed when travelling on the boat or in the skies on your trusty godbird, Ramia.
    That last one is pretty crucial — one of oursbiggest criticisms of the game was the movement speed of the bird. So this will make the later hours of the game much more tolerable.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813kWatch on YouTube
    Need a rundown of everything included in the patch? Here are the patch notes:
    Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - Ver. 1.2.0.0 Update Content
    This update contains the content listed below
    Traversal

    The movement speed when travelling by boat or using Ramia has been increased.
    Adjustments have been made to avoid boat travel speed being reset by opening the menu or getting into a battle while travelling by boat.
    A feature has been added whereby pressing the menu button while flying with Ramia allows the player to switch between automatic and manual flight modes.

    Vocations

    Critical hit rates for the Hero and Martial Artist have been increased.
    The Hero's Falcon Slash and Gigaslash abilities have been made more powerful.
    The Warrior's Cutting Edge ability has been made more powerful.
    The Priest can now equip the Duplic Hat.
    The Monster Wrangler's Monster Pile-On ability has been changed to have reduced power until all friendly monsters have been found, and to carry out a random number of attacks between 3 and 5.
    The amount of MP used by the Monster Wrangler ability Wild Side has been changed to 30.

    Battle

    A limit has been placed on the number of times that some monsters can perform certain actions within one turn.
    Some monsters have been adjusted so that they no longer use Defending Champion in the next turn after they become the last remaining monster.
    The status-ailment resistance of boss monsters has been increased for Draconian Quest difficulty.
    Adjustments have been made to make it more difficult for both enemies and party members to be successively afflicted with the same status ailments.
    Some monstersnow yield more experience points when defeated.
    Defence has been lowered for all monsters except for metal monsters.
    Minor adjustments have been made to the way that damage is dealt.

    Miscellaneous

    Once the Mini Medal Manor has been visited, it will be added to the list of Zoom destinations.
    A new “short-cut button” feature has been added that allows spells and abilities to be assigned to specific buttons. For more information, please refer to Traveller's Tips in-game.
    In the Temple of Trials, the number of Elfin Elixirs required to be handed over to the guard has been changed to 10.
    A treasure chest has been added to the Temple of Trials, allowing players to acquire one more Gringham Whip.
    Fixed a bug whereby levelling up after using the Seed of Life or Seed of Magic items would cause the status increase value to be calculated twice.
    Adjustments have been made so that if trophies and achievements have not been acquired correctly, selecting Misc. > Info in the menu allows some of them to be reacquired.

    Miscellaneous fixes for minor bugs.

    Images: Square Enix
    Since launching in November 2024, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has apparently sold above expectations, with sales in December 2024 coming in at over 2 million.
    We've also got more HD-2D goodness to come this year, with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, which got a new trailer during the March 2025 Nintendo Direct. That's coming sometime in 2025, but we're keeping our eyes peeled for a more concrete date?
    Have you completed Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake? Will you be picking it up with these changes now? Let us know down below.

    You 'Erd

    While mobile games seemingly tankRelated Games
    See Also

    Share:0
    1

    Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate.

    Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...

    Related Articles

    Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design
    Cap's off

    The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In
    A fantasy score?

    Round Up: The First Impressions Of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Are In
    Here's what players are saying

    12 Switch Games Are Getting Free Switch 2 Upgrades, Here's What You Can Expect
    Nintendo's free updates arrive next month
    #dragon #quest #iii #hd2d #remake
    Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake New Update Increases Flight Speed, Here Are The Patch Notes
    Image: Square EnixSquare Enix has released a patch for its gorgeous Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake today, and it's live to download on Switch right now.The patch, detailed on Steam, includes adding the Mini Medal Manor as a Zoom location, the addition of "short-cut buttons" to add spells and skills to buttons, various balance changes, and an increase to movement speed when travelling on the boat or in the skies on your trusty godbird, Ramia. That last one is pretty crucial — one of oursbiggest criticisms of the game was the movement speed of the bird. So this will make the later hours of the game much more tolerable.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813kWatch on YouTube Need a rundown of everything included in the patch? Here are the patch notes: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - Ver. 1.2.0.0 Update Content This update contains the content listed below Traversal The movement speed when travelling by boat or using Ramia has been increased. Adjustments have been made to avoid boat travel speed being reset by opening the menu or getting into a battle while travelling by boat. A feature has been added whereby pressing the menu button while flying with Ramia allows the player to switch between automatic and manual flight modes. Vocations Critical hit rates for the Hero and Martial Artist have been increased. The Hero's Falcon Slash and Gigaslash abilities have been made more powerful. The Warrior's Cutting Edge ability has been made more powerful. The Priest can now equip the Duplic Hat. The Monster Wrangler's Monster Pile-On ability has been changed to have reduced power until all friendly monsters have been found, and to carry out a random number of attacks between 3 and 5. The amount of MP used by the Monster Wrangler ability Wild Side has been changed to 30. Battle A limit has been placed on the number of times that some monsters can perform certain actions within one turn. Some monsters have been adjusted so that they no longer use Defending Champion in the next turn after they become the last remaining monster. The status-ailment resistance of boss monsters has been increased for Draconian Quest difficulty. Adjustments have been made to make it more difficult for both enemies and party members to be successively afflicted with the same status ailments. Some monstersnow yield more experience points when defeated. Defence has been lowered for all monsters except for metal monsters. Minor adjustments have been made to the way that damage is dealt. Miscellaneous Once the Mini Medal Manor has been visited, it will be added to the list of Zoom destinations. A new “short-cut button” feature has been added that allows spells and abilities to be assigned to specific buttons. For more information, please refer to Traveller's Tips in-game. In the Temple of Trials, the number of Elfin Elixirs required to be handed over to the guard has been changed to 10. A treasure chest has been added to the Temple of Trials, allowing players to acquire one more Gringham Whip. Fixed a bug whereby levelling up after using the Seed of Life or Seed of Magic items would cause the status increase value to be calculated twice. Adjustments have been made so that if trophies and achievements have not been acquired correctly, selecting Misc. > Info in the menu allows some of them to be reacquired. Miscellaneous fixes for minor bugs. Images: Square Enix Since launching in November 2024, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has apparently sold above expectations, with sales in December 2024 coming in at over 2 million. We've also got more HD-2D goodness to come this year, with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, which got a new trailer during the March 2025 Nintendo Direct. That's coming sometime in 2025, but we're keeping our eyes peeled for a more concrete date? Have you completed Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake? Will you be picking it up with these changes now? Let us know down below. You 'Erd While mobile games seemingly tankRelated Games See Also Share:0 1 Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In A fantasy score? Round Up: The First Impressions Of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Are In Here's what players are saying 12 Switch Games Are Getting Free Switch 2 Upgrades, Here's What You Can Expect Nintendo's free updates arrive next month #dragon #quest #iii #hd2d #remake
    WWW.NINTENDOLIFE.COM
    Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake New Update Increases Flight Speed, Here Are The Patch Notes
    Image: Square EnixSquare Enix has released a patch for its gorgeous Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake today, and it's live to download on Switch right now. (Thanks, RPG Site!) The patch, detailed on Steam, includes adding the Mini Medal Manor as a Zoom location, the addition of "short-cut buttons" to add spells and skills to buttons, various balance changes, and an increase to movement speed when travelling on the boat or in the skies on your trusty godbird, Ramia. That last one is pretty crucial — one of ours (and others') biggest criticisms of the game was the movement speed of the bird. So this will make the later hours of the game much more tolerable.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813kWatch on YouTube Need a rundown of everything included in the patch? Here are the patch notes: Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - Ver. 1.2.0.0 Update Content This update contains the content listed below Traversal The movement speed when travelling by boat or using Ramia has been increased. Adjustments have been made to avoid boat travel speed being reset by opening the menu or getting into a battle while travelling by boat. A feature has been added whereby pressing the menu button while flying with Ramia allows the player to switch between automatic and manual flight modes. Vocations Critical hit rates for the Hero and Martial Artist have been increased. The Hero's Falcon Slash and Gigaslash abilities have been made more powerful. The Warrior's Cutting Edge ability has been made more powerful. The Priest can now equip the Duplic Hat. The Monster Wrangler's Monster Pile-On ability has been changed to have reduced power until all friendly monsters have been found, and to carry out a random number of attacks between 3 and 5. The amount of MP used by the Monster Wrangler ability Wild Side has been changed to 30. Battle A limit has been placed on the number of times that some monsters can perform certain actions within one turn. Some monsters have been adjusted so that they no longer use Defending Champion in the next turn after they become the last remaining monster. The status-ailment resistance of boss monsters has been increased for Draconian Quest difficulty. Adjustments have been made to make it more difficult for both enemies and party members to be successively afflicted with the same status ailments. Some monsters (Metal Chimaera and Hardy Hand) now yield more experience points when defeated. Defence has been lowered for all monsters except for metal monsters. Minor adjustments have been made to the way that damage is dealt. Miscellaneous Once the Mini Medal Manor has been visited, it will be added to the list of Zoom destinations. A new “short-cut button” feature has been added that allows spells and abilities to be assigned to specific buttons. For more information, please refer to Traveller's Tips in-game. In the Temple of Trials, the number of Elfin Elixirs required to be handed over to the guard has been changed to 10. A treasure chest has been added to the Temple of Trials, allowing players to acquire one more Gringham Whip. Fixed a bug whereby levelling up after using the Seed of Life or Seed of Magic items would cause the status increase value to be calculated twice. Adjustments have been made so that if trophies and achievements have not been acquired correctly, selecting Misc. > Info in the menu allows some of them to be reacquired. Miscellaneous fixes for minor bugs. Images: Square Enix Since launching in November 2024, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has apparently sold above expectations, with sales in December 2024 coming in at over 2 million. We've also got more HD-2D goodness to come this year, with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, which got a new trailer during the March 2025 Nintendo Direct. That's coming sometime in 2025, but we're keeping our eyes peeled for a more concrete date? Have you completed Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake? Will you be picking it up with these changes now? Let us know down below. You 'Erd While mobile games seemingly tank [source store.steampowered.com, via rpgsite.net] Related Games See Also Share:0 1 Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In A fantasy score? Round Up: The First Impressions Of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Are In Here's what players are saying 12 Switch Games Are Getting Free Switch 2 Upgrades, Here's What You Can Expect Nintendo's free updates arrive next month
    0 Comments 0 Shares