I'm gonna be honest, the more I hear about their plans for flight changes the less I want to play the game. This feels so far removed from what we used to have and what was sold years ago it's not even funny. "We're removing Master Modes but there will still be modes and now you'll have a choice of flying at a crawl speeds or quantum boosting with instant breaks and no skill requirement. Cool. What's that, you like NAV speeds? Upgrade your ship to gold tier!" Thanks, I hate it.

I know I can sound really cranky whenever I comment on the new direction CIG decided on but boy do they not make it easy to be excited about what they talk about.

I want to like the game and I appreciate some of the tedious and less popular changes (physicalized everything, more "immersive sim" elements etc) but what they're doing with flight and the unsure future of medical gameplay... I'm actually starting to regret waiting all those years for... this.

Huh, didn't even realize that. Guess it's time to party! ヽ(✧ω✧)ノ

Praise be to Yevon! Now do the other ones.

I might be coping but I feel like we're finally, slowly getting there. Maybe. Possibly.

Still busy, still not much happening manga wise. I can however share the latest chapter of A Story About Smoking At The Back Of The Supermarket which bursts with tons of adorable Tayama energy and it's glorious.

I can't help with "now" but it definitely wasn't locked the whole time. I used to have an account on Misskey.io without any issues or need for VPN (that was before they changed the registration rules though).

WTF, I'm jumping between both versions currently and somehow missed it. Good eye.

I know the pain. I was playing like 4 or 5 titles (on top of "normal" games) at the same time for a while and it was... an experience. Ended dropping most of them for various reasons so it worked out in the end but I realize that's not an easy choice.

Very well, I'll make a note... __φ(．．)

To be fair most of the stuff was already tested by China and we're getting an updated version with some of the technical and quality of life improvements. Closed beta was mostly likely just a stability, servers and translation test.

I understand that I'm on the extreme end with this topic and I'm obviously not going to resent anyone for being more lax with that stuff (especially with Dooby's approach during her debut). I just hope it stays within reasonable limits instead of being pushed as a new norm like it was with mentioning PL's (from "don't talk about it openly" to "just spam it wherever, even if the talent wasn't going to mention it"). I don't expect things to go that far but internet can get weird about these things so who knows.

That's more of a general worry than something specific to this case though.

Another busy week so I don't have any huge updates. I did however restart reading The Demon King's Daughter Is Too Kind!! - it's a perfect comfort food for rough times. Even more so since I had a long break from the series so there's some new chapters waiting for me as well.

I love manga. (❁´◡`❁)

Just so we're clear, I'm talking strictly about her real name, not about being Ame.

I'm aware of Calli's approach, though I'd argue it's a bit different since she did use her (mostly first) name as DD. You can't really go more open than that.

I realize my bias is showing here and I might be going a bit too far in the other direction but I think some things go unsaid for a reason. I understand that general sentiment was going to (and kinda had to) change after Doki/Niji drama but I feel like some folks use it to justify getting a bit too comfortable with sharing way too much about other people. Again, I'm talking about real life personal info, not professional stuff.

Dunno, maybe I'm overthinking things.

So yeah, I apparently misunderstood that part of your OP as I thought you meant they weren't able to talk about their Holo achievements outside the company rather than having to keep their identity separate from the avatar.

As far as I'm aware Cover doesn't have much problems with the former though I don't think anyone tried to use it as a springboard for something new. It's hard to say whether talents not talking about their affiliation with Holo is a contractual obligation or their own choice. Remember that talking about streamer's alternative identities (let alone real ones) has been pretty much a taboo among VTubers in general. While discussion about PLs shifted with the whole Niji fiasco, that doesn't mean everyone (including talents) is interested in going full throttle in the other direction.

Talents sharing some things about their personal life on stream doesn't mean they want everything they do online be connected (whether between identities or real and online lives). Unless one of them says, outright or otherwise, they're prohibited from taking their deserved credit I don't see a reason to fight in their name against something that may or may not be a problem. I realize I'm looking at this from a biased perspective as I'm someone very focused on privacy (to the point of trying to compartmentalize my online presence as much as possible) but VTuber culture is what it is and it's up to those directly involved in it to decide how they want to proceed.

I also think the latter (keeping personal stuff from Holo activities) is fine due to (already mentioned) safety, wanting the brand (avatar) stand on their own and being a way to avoid potential controversies (even if someone finds "dirt" on a specific talent Cover can just go "it has nothing to do with us"). The last one was already used by Cover when some folks tried to stir shit about some of the talents being in relationship IIRC. It might feel strict but it does have its benefits.

Lastly, I disagree that "dropping hints" is good enough reason to spread her name publicly - if she doesn't say it on stream it's only fair to keep it to yourself. You said it's about talent's choice then post personal info she deliberately chose to omit, why?

Thanks for the link. I thought that sentence was about her not being able to talk about her Holo specific achievements outside the company rather than not being able to "doxx" herself as a Holo member. My bad.

I'm aware about the name flubs and I've seen various other rumors about Cover being rather lax in this regards which is why I'm a bit confused about this topic. As far as I'm aware it's mostly just "keep your real identity separate from the avatar" when acting as a talent.

(...) one of the very first things she did was make her identity public specifically to take credit for some previous work she’s done.

I don't really keep up with Dooby so this is a genuine question - do you have a source for this? I'd love to confirm it from her rather than taking it on faith.

As for the premise of the post, there's a reason for that. Both idols in general and various VTubers (including multiple Hololive talents specifically) had issues with stalkers, harassment and other similarl things in the past. Making their identities public makes it only more likely, especially with the size of Holo's fan- and antibases. It's also the reason why they no longer accept gifts that aren't factory sealed (remember the wave of stalking cases using air tags?).

I'm not saying Cover does that only to protect their talents, they are a company after all. On one hand it give them a bit more leverage but there's also a possibility of someone using their affiliation with Holo to prop up their other ventures - ones that might not be in an area Cover wants to be associated with (say one of the talents does porn and their Holo-porn identities are officially connected). This could lead to additional rules and vetting (talent has to stop their other activities, unlike now) or not giving them the chance they'd get otherwise.

I'm not saying I disagree with the idea of people being able to share what they do but I don't think it's as black and white as you make it sound (or maybe I just took it that way, apologies if that's the case). Also, do we know what exactly their contracts prevent them from sharing? Is it:

• Don't talk about being part of Hololive, period?
• Don't talk about it while you're still working with them?
• Can you share any info about your involvement after you leave and look for a new company for example?

Some more info on that could make the conversation a bit easier.

That's good to hear. Lets hope the rest of cut 4.0 features won't take too long once this one's out.

That's what happens when you leave the public facing part of the project with a skeleton crew and force everyone else to work on big boss' darling behind closed doors. Not that I'm defending this approach but it is what it is. ╮( ˘ ､ ˘ )╭

It might interest you that Evocati is suppose to test a potential 4.0 release candidate for wave 1. Chance to test SM on live servers within the next quarter is more and more probable.

Welp, since you beat me to it I'll just drop my usual TL;DW here.

Guests:

• Ivan Corbett, Producer II
• Benoit Beausjour, Chief Technology Officer
• Jordan Wood, Network Programmer III

TL;DW:

• Server meshing is tested with players because they break stuff.
• High player limits (500+) help figure out bottlenecks.
• Replication Message Queue is one of the results of those high capacity tests.
• RMQ fixed initial problems but revealed a bunch of new ones with high latency and packet losses.
• Lack of paralliziation was another problem not found until RMQ made it in.
• Entity synchronization (binding) also had to be optimized (example provided talks about 3 million entities per shard after a week of running a server).
• Current hope is to improve the network performance 10x or more and find the next set of bottlenecks.