This is going to be a shitty update because a) I got nothing done and b) I hate making excuses and c) I can’t go to AVCON.

First off, I got pretty sick last week and had to go on antibiotics. I’ve just recovered from that, so with AVCON only a few days away, I’ve decided it’d be unwise to dive into the virus zone that is games events. I’m yet to attend an event without getting sick afterward. Luckily, I have friends and my partner who are going to show Exo One for me. I have enough energy to go and setup/tear down on the Friday/Sunday, so that should be safe enough I guess.

Secondly, (this is the comedy part) as I started feeling better and sat back down to do some work, my OS SSD died and failed to boot. SMART and Crystal Disk stats gave some conflicting info, and I did a Windows 10 reinstall, which lasted only 2 days before the drive died again.  Really average timing prior to AVCON, and zero chance I can show the new build now :(

Spent all day today sourcing new parts for a new computer, as this is actually the 3rd time in 3-4 years I’ve lost HDDs! The first time was due to an unlucky purchase of an infamous model of hard drive that failed at a high rate, the second time was from a power surge, and this last time I don’t know, but all the houses I’ve lived in the last few years (3!) have had power issues (brown outs and black outs). That may have something to do with it. I also fear the computer is just ‘haunted’ (dodgy motherboard or PSU or???) hence the new computer.

I’ve grabbed a bunch of premium brands/parts to try and reduce hardware failures as much as possible and ordered a pure sine wave UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that arrives next week to ensure my home’s power isn’t causing problems. So now I do the impossible and not put together my fast new computer – I don’t really want to take a brand new machine to a games event I’m not attending. I wouldn’t use it beforehand without the UPS anyway, just in case. You would be paranoid too if you’d lost this many HDDs :P

I’m planning on using this downtime for story work, as that can all be done easily on my laptop.

Apologies to anyone that was hoping to say hi at AVCON, but at least you’ll still be able to play Exo One! I’m off to put in a new OS HDD and get Exo One running on the TV before Friday.

Hopefully a more positive update at the end of the month!