I have compiled 12 songs recorded between 2005 and 2010. Many of the tracks have been heard (some are named different than at the time of previous release), but a few have never been heard up to now by anyone but me. The tracks go surprisingly well together (in my opinion). The production is often lo-fi and gritty, the vocals are often lost under walls of distortion and I even used a shitty speaker as a microphone in a couple of the songs (yes you can do that).

The lyrics for every track is available if you click on the individual tracks to listen to the album. I encourage people to read the lyrics if they cannot understand what I;m saying as I feel my songwriting is often the strong point to many of the tracks.

Click the image to navigate to the album, you can stream the entire thing for free, or pay .20 USD per track or 2.00 USD for the entire album!



Track-list:

1. Hello Sleepy Eyes
2. Dark Day (previously unreleased)
3. Chemicals
4. Free (previously unreleased)
5. Nova Nova
6. The Space Between Us
7. Snow (previously unreleased)
8. Never Go Home
9. Stutterer
10. Dandelion
11. Dear (previously unreleased)
12. Too Late

Do you guys remember when I spammed the Activity Feed with blogs on new tracks I would post on soundcloud or various hosting sites? Well, as I started getting more and more into soundcloud, gathering more followers and more and more comments on my tracks. It became easier and easier for me to neglect the amazing community and feedback from this site as my life became more and more consumed by creating music.

I have admittedly have become more and more anal about posting every piece of music I write, and for better or for worse, have suffered and deliberated on whether or not certain tracks were "worthy", "loud enough", whatever.

Anyways, I came to the realization that I could do that dance forever and I was ultimately destroying my ability to possibly make a living doing the thing I love and spend most all of my time doing, making music. My first attempt is this release, 'Joypad'. You can of course stream the whole thing for free and listen to it whenever you want in it's entirety, or you can buy individual tracks that you like or buy the entire album if you s desire for a measly 12 bucks. (The album is comprised of 15 tracks).

Anyways, I hope some of the regulars who enjoyed my music still frequent here and if you don't remember/know me...well... check it out anyways! ;)

As always, much love and I STILL appreciate suggestions, comments, criticisms.

Well, here it is:

The Avatrol - Joypad

I own and have played Oblivion for quite some time now. The game was always massive enough in scope, with nice graphics and a fair amount to do so as to hold my attention, but I could never help but feel it could have been a lot better with simple additions and fixes.

The environment: The game world was huge, yet wandering through the world town to town was never near as enjoyable as it could be. No oddities to be found, dead ends, hidden notes, etc, and worst off, the only animals you would ever encounter in the wild were wolves, deer, and maybe a mud crab or too. Way to empty for such a huge world. The addition of the quick travel between already visited locations made the game begin to feel like a grind after a while, because there was really no reason to NOT fast travel, and otherwise just enjoy the scenery/wildlife.

The NPCs and their actions seemed way to modular. You had to stare at them from the same annoying angle and their movements always seemed scripted and awkward most of the times, not to mention hearing the same voices used for different NPCs over and over.

Obvious automatic and randomized world creation made the uniqueness of the overall world grow old quick, as there was no unique features in certain areas.

Finally, the quest system inevitably led to a feel of grinding, and after the game ended, it never felt quite the same playing it afterwards without waiting for some time.

My hope for Skyrim lies in the fact that, according to the information about the game, the developers actually may have listened to the community.

After watching the game demo, I have concluded that it seems very likely that there will be many more monsters and creatures in the environment as there were in Oblivion. This is good news... The developers also stated how there were many more voice actors used for the NPCs and characters as a direct response to the communities complaints about this.

Talking to an NPC won't lock you into their face as your forced through the same familiar scenario time and time again, and they use natural mannerisms and are more expressive and free in their movement. This can be seen in the demonstration video of the game, and I was very pleased to find this out. The NPCs can also be found doing stuff like forging weaponry, working around the village, etc. This is a must for an immersive RPG game and has been featured in RPG games as far back as Ultima Underworld. I'm happy Bethesda game around with this.

The game world was actually designed by placing things, too a large extend, by hand and creating a realistic, changing environment, as stated by the developers and evident by watching the game play demo.

As with Oblivion at the time, the graphics look really great, which is always a plus so long as the entire game doesn't ride on this fact as it's only redeeming quality as so many games coming out now days seem to do.

A few things I still find disappointing and I believe should be changed:

ELIMINATE fast travel, or at least make an option when you start your journey to do so. If the environment is designed properly and there are sufficient things to do, you shouldn't have to tell your players: "You can fast travel between areas and skip the mundane boring world you've already traveled over so often." It seems like a lame, cheap feature to me, and a quick fix to keep people from getting bored with the game. Traveling the land and stumbling upon things should be a staple of any proper fantasy/role-playing game.

The leaked game manual has a section on thievery, which is similar to Oblivion. When you steal items, you can't sell them and you lose ALL your stolen items if you go to jail. This sort of takes away from the fun of being a thief just for the sake of being a thief. If I want to be a thief, I shouldn't feel as if I'm required to join the Thieves Guild just so I can sell my stolen wares. They should implement a system where it's POSSIBLE for NPCs to find out you are carrying stolen goods, but only under certain conditions, and even then, there should be many dishonest and otherwise greedy merchants who could care less whether or not you are carrying stolen goods (I believe there was only one such merchant in Oblivion without joining the Thieves Guild).

My final gripe, and my most severe complaint, is in regards to the UI. The game is still a fantasy, and one thing I love about games like Oblivion, Ultima, Gothic, etc, is the feeling of going through my inventory, chests, bags, etc, and feeling like I am actually doing so. The ultra-contemporary UI of Skyrim only detracts from the fantasy element and appears to be mismatched to the game, and even gives the impression of being a place-holder, or incomplete.

There are of course only my opinions, and I'm sure there will be MODs to come that fix/change these elements, but I still feel like they would help to push the game in the right direction.

So, what do you guys think?

Well I haven't shared my music with 64Digits in a while, and I'm not sure how many people follow me on soundcloud, so I figured I'd share my latest track with you all. (everybody else seems to be doing it, which is awesome)

http://soundcloud.com/theavatrol/01-noyd-elnob

WARNING: Not for those prone to auditory seizures*.





*I just looked it up, and such a thing doesn't exist, so I guess you should be okay. :)

I was skeptical about the odd additions to 1.9 (primarily the "snow golems" and the "mooshrooms"), but after playing for a while, I realized how much fun I was having.

Walking around the Shroom biome really made me feel like it was another world.

The NPC Villagers are pointless as of now, but they have their own charm, and I think they look cool. (though they seem to have perpetually folded arms).

My favorite thing though, by far, is the nether. The "dungeon" I encountered in the nether was huge and I had a lot of fun climbing all those stairs and checking out all the room.

Then I ran into "nether wart" growing in these odd shrine like garden areas within the nether dungeon. There are also two new neat mobs in the nether.

The snow golems are perfect. Many people seemed to scratch there heads when they heard they didn't do any damage, but I think it's better they serve as a distraction and a curiosity rather than another over powered ally like the wolves.. Just something to have a bit of fun with...

In terms of bugs, I haven't crashed the game yet, there seems to have been some bug fixes, (though the new features have undoubtedly introduced some bugs).

In terms of performance, I noticed a dramatic speed increase and a lot less studdering compared to the 1.8 release...

All in all, I had a lot of fun with the new features, and though the nether wart and NPC villagers are essentially placeholders, I like the direction Mojang is taking with them, and I feel they could become something pretty neat.

What's your take?

Here's the link to the 1.9 "Pre-Release" .jar file if you haven't checked it out yet: http://t.co/ByDKpDUg

Notch quietly released 1.8 for testing...

http://assets.minecraft.net/1_8-pre/minecraft.jar

Make sure to backup your old minecraft.jar (I guess that goes without saying for anybody here who's actually playing Minecraft here)

:D

In case you guys didn't see. :)

http://www.twitch.tv/jeffrey7s/b/293546009?id=293546009&channel=jeffrey7s

Unfortunately the footage is very low-res, but there is some awesome stuff! Huge biomes, awesomely huge oceans, nice looking randomly generated towns, better and faster lighting system. A few Ender encounters, eating animation, etc, etc.

Seven digital acid tracks.

The Avatrol - Obbis(X)

01 - Obbisium(1)
02 - Obbis(i)
03 - An Obbis(1)
04 - Obbisium(2)
05 - obX(1)
06 - Obbisium(3)
07 - The Obbis(1)

Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?idind4r4kr0daln

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/156-18-updates-new-mobrevealed/page__st__20/

They CARRY BLOCKS. I've been getting back into Minecraft after holding off for more updates. I'm excited that there are lots of features coming to 1.8, can't wait!

http://yooouuutuuube.com/v/?b=1&yt=at_H6u4a3Zo&width=96&height=96&flux=1&direction=rand