Simming and Macroing Megathread
I have been a little hesitant to post this thread at all since this isn't the kind of a thing that I don't like seeing a ton of people do.. but I would rather this information be public than have an unfair advantage within pr2 and constantly be answering questions about it. This way newer players (and older players) that are curious about how suddenly the ranks are way higher than they used to be, have the information available to them.

What is simming / macroing?
Simming (like simulating) is artificially gaining experience. For pr2, this consists of playing a map using four accounts with exp hat for extra exp or kong hats for extra GP, automatically finishing the map after 2 minutes, then repeating. Macroing is the exact same thing, but without a human pressing the buttons (using a tool to repeat the task). This is why you see tons of people online, but only a few of them that are actually active.

History
Simming and macroing has been going on since the start of pr2, it is no new thing. It has however evolved substantially over time. Jiggmin originally didn't want simming or macroing to be allowed at all - which is why you may remember such barriers like "pick the cat" to stop macroers. Multiple players still managed to find exploits to surpass this and found new ways to earn exp like DM simming, campaign exploits, and obj simming. Macroing was frowned upon and a bannable offence for the majority of pr2's history - but is now allowed.

Should you sim / macro?
I guess that depends if you think it's worth it.. Does simming make you cool ? Meh. Will it help you rank up and have better stats - definitely 
There are many other ways to earn exp and ranks nowadays with contests like Trial and Error, GGP Deluxe, and even Level of The Week. You can also fold up to 8 tokens now (100 mil FAH points) which is a good alternative especially if you have a good GPU. I myself have gained a substantial amount of exp from these contests and folding.
In my opinion, there is really no reason to macro/sim anymore, and it is very unlikely you will catch up in terms of ranks to the top macroers (Colind, AlphaZ, FDX3), but nonetheless it is an option.

Types of sims
There are a few different types of simming, each has its pros and cons:

1P sim

• 1 Player will gain all the exp, others will get none
  
• Fast, exactly 2 minutes
  

• 1st player will gain the most exp, 2nd player will gain decent exp, 3rd player will gain some exp, 4th player will earn hardly any exp
  
• Slightly longer than 2 minutes
  

• Each player will gain lots of exp, each player beats the other by hitting more finish blocks
  
• Requires manual input at the 2-minute time stamp (quit on first -> sword on 2nd quit on second -> sword on third quit on third -> sword on 4th quit on 4th reset)
  
• Video on how to obj sim
  

• Open 4 pr2 screens at whatever dimensions you want, or drag to the four corners to fill the entire screen
  
• Download Bls1999's special executable with 5 pr2's that open all at once here, WARNING it may crash...
  

• Windows: Tinytask (completely free)
  
• Mac: MurGaa  (free trial)
  

Not sure it's been really noticeable considering the general decrease of activity I've shown in the past few years (woops) and the lack of drive around here as of late, but I've been stuck in a bad routine (well, worse than the usual adult stuff I had to deal with beforehand, let's say) for a few months now... probably since March ?

Here's a quick recap for those interested:

- War in Ukraine impacts my savings account quite heavily (around $3-4k CAD)
- My cousin who happened to be my flatmate wanders away, leaving me with 3 whole months to pay alone, and an extra $2.5k he owed me already

Now that would not have been too bad, since I intended to take a break of my full time night shifts for the summer (32h weeks, PM shifts to enjoy summer activities hopefully) by the end of May, plus 2 weeks off turning from June to July to rest and move out somewhere else... but:

- I get screwed with 19 days of rain out of 23 days off total to start things off (and 2 of the 4 were right when I moved lol)
- The HUUUUGE peak of madness at work caused by the big summer music festival never died, as we kept seeing record sales at any hour or day of the week
- New higher management doing nothing valuable and a lot more questionnable new employees led to veterans like me taking a huge toll on their schedule

So yep, basically since July 6th I've had an average of 11 hours per shift, dealing with employees not showing up or super late, smoking weed on their shifts and/or acting like complete childs with no consequences whatsoever cause the new direction won't handle stuff during their first months

At least I had some time for myself, albeit a lot less than I would have liked, but since the end of August and early September, we've been having less support from soom good employees who reduced their availability with the school year back in action, so the pressure added up quickly, and between the long shifts and the maths tutoring I do, sleep hasn't been quite efficient, I guess it culminated to some sort of burnout-like illness I kind of dragged for a month, now ? Not Covid, just a sore throat permanently and mild insomnia/mental fatigue.

Anyways, I've had a huge day off yesterday where I slept for like 14 hours and another 9 overnight just now, and I feel just fine at the moment, so I thought I'd take a couple minutes to write this down. I tried to reply to direct messages over the past weeks, but I assume I might have missed a lot of stuff, so feel free to let me know if that's the case hehe

And before I forget to mention it, Goliathe is still alive and just turned 13 years old recently, aren't we all old yet ?

Currently, the Options you set are tied to the account you are currently logged in to.
If you log in to another account and change the Options again, the new settings will be applied to that account only.

It would be nice if the Options were global and not tied to a specific account.

Way back in the ancient age of 2020, Dutany built his mountain home on my Minecraft server. Now, after the big Caves & Cliffs update, the terrain him is all different. So now he's in the middle of a jungle!



Come here if you want to join https://discord.murucraft.xyz

If you hit a rotate block while in the crouched state you get stuck in the wall

It also looks like you are trying to move towards the left (same effect when rotating to the right) This is not only in LE but also in posted levels.

Simply put the color picker in the level editor is not picking out colors accurately.

   

The darker color in the image is the color AFTER I've used the picker on the lighter brown color(the original hex being #806962 and the hex after using the color picker being #75615B). The color you pick seems to always become darker than the original color you're trying to pick.

Pretty minor thing but kind of annoying when you're trying to keep colors consistent on a map.

Lots to see this Motley Monday... ?

PR2 v168: Always Watching

This update contains some new features, as well as some minor bug fixes.

Changes/Additions
- Level creators can now bypass their own levels' requirements in the lobby. Passwords and minimum rank requirements be... darned. Thanks for the suggestion, @Camer the Dragon and @AlphaZ!
- SPECTATE MODE! Follow players across the map with ease. Thanks for the suggestion, @Camer the Dragon!

Fixes
- Artifact hints that contain special characters now show properly. Ah, double escapes. Thanks for the report, @Ashley766!
- The button that switches to the landscape menu back from the pen tool works again. Thanks for the report, @Ashley766!
- The color of the text in the text tool will now always be black when being edited. This allows the text always to be seen while editing, even if it's set to a lighter color. Thanks for reporting this, @oxy!
- The block grid now shows and hides properly in the level editor. Someone definitely brought this bug to my attention, but I can't remember who. Thank you, mystery person!

Technical Changes
- Player positions now update more frequently in levels. This accompanies the spectate mode change (in an effort to provide a smoother experience). If games become considerably slower, I will reduce the update rate back to what it was before.

Known Issues
- Spectating a rotating player causes them to disappear for a split second. This is due to a bug with the way player positions are updated after rotating.
- Spectate mode does not rotate with the player being spectated. I'll need to add functionality for this in a future version of PR2.

ICYMI
- JV got a Facebook! Find all of our socials here.

EDIT: PR2 v168.0.1 fixes an issue that caused rotate blocks not to work properly. Thanks for the report, @Atari4600!

As we all know, George R. R. Martin is taking his sweet time writing the sixth installment of his Song of Ice and Fire book series. In fact, it's been more than 10 years since the previous book came out. There is still hope, but will he finish it before JV's 24?

What do you think will come first?