text:
First | Previous | Page 45 of 47 | Next | Last
Big thoughts dump of mostly FE unpopular opinions but here we go
I really haven't cared about recent Fire Emblem games, and I think that's because they handed the franchise over to the Echoes director, and I thought the gameplay in Echoes was god awful. The map design was the worst I've ever seen, minibosses like Nuibaba were far too difficult, and Gaiden is arguably the worst possible game for future games to emulate.
I also just want amiibo support, but beyond "scan and get 1 low level useless item per day" like Warriors, I want something similar to Fates, but I'd also settle for what we had in Echoes.
Binding Blade doesn't need a remake. It (and Mother 3) just need translations, since the GBA format of each still work well and aren't too dated. The FE game that needs a straight up remake akin to Echoes is Genealogy of the Holy War, but bundled with Thracia 776 since they're so intertwined. GotHW has not held up very well, and could use a top down makeover and better map design, while Binding Blade is pretty much fine as is.
I don't mind P5S being a "Persona Warriors" game, but that's probably just my bias, seeing as I like a lot of the Warriors spinoffs. I also think it was needed in a way, with what seems like the death of the Q subseries, we needed a spinoff that wasn't another fighting or dancing game. Since it has such a unique story, if we're lucky, we might get some of the P3 and P4 characters as well. I'm betting on at least Aigis and Labrys as a lock.
The updates don't absolve EA of any Crimes Against Gamers, but Star Wars Battlefront II is a legitimately good game in its current state.
A ranked competitive mode is the very last thing Mario Maker 2 needed and sets a really dangerous precedent for future Mario games.
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 05:55:37 16/05/2019 by Vespi
i dont really agree with that statement to be honest. a ranked mode in mario maker will make the games lifespan last even longer and give it a more competitive feel than the leaderboard for time completed. humans are naturally competitive so having a mode where we can prove we are better than others gives a new level of excitement to the game. this is a huge step up from the leadership board of the past game where you can cheat the system by putting in secrets only the creator knows. i cant see how this mode will affect future mario games at all.
Quote: somePerson
It's just me being pessimistic, I suppose. The last thing I want in future Mario games is ranked online, since I really don't want to see Mario become some sort of eSport, speedruns aside. The precedent that I'm worried about Nintendo setting with the series is a hypothetical online only competitive Mario game or something along those lines. It's admittedly unlikely to happen, but single player is already struggling as is, we don't need copanies stoking the fire by making traditionally single player games multiplayer only, i.e. like what happened with Black Ops 4.
Once again, it's highly unlikely, but there's a time and place for multiplayer in games. Multiplayer isn't necessarily needed to make a good game.
I'm honestly more bummed that they axed the 100-Mario Challenge, tbh.
not being able to transfer pokemon to the new games doesnt really affect me. i dont i have ever transferred my past teams into the newest game to use. usually they are trapped in the box forever which is what home is. competitively this is great for the game as the past few years of vgc have been the same 6 pokemon.
Seiki Emerald Sparx Gems: 4642
I doubt that'll really change as those same 6 Pokemon (or at least most of the repeated 'mon's for vgc) are probably popular enough to make the cut and get in.
Once in my dreams, I rose and soared. No matter how I'm knocked around or beaten down, I will stand up restored.
In fact, I'm pretty sure everyone but Garchomp and Landorus-T is already in the game.
And honestly "it doesn't affect me" is exactly what GF wants to hear so they can keep on doing nothing about it. Every pokémon is someone's favorite.
All of the "Hollow Knight is the BEST GAME EVER it needs to be in Smash NOW, it needs a sequel NOW, its infinitely better than every Zelda game COMBINED and it is a Switch system seller ON ITS OWN" or whatever makes me want to play Hollow Knight less and less every time I hear it.
Oof. Hollow Knight is amazing but it's not the new Undertale. It's not reinventing the wheel, just a fun package that works well if you like its mechanics. Trying to shove The Knight into Smash would really be a bad idea too, wait until there's multiple games like Shovel Knight before considering it.
undertale wasnt that special of a game either. all these indie games are flavor of the month games are fun but the bandwagoning for them is quite unbearable. personally i think a game that did reinvent the wheel is fortnite. sure its not the first battle royale but this game became an instant hit right after release. every kid knows what fortnite is and many adults do too. whenever i walk around work (amusment park chain) i can always see something fortnite related rather its people talking about it, merch, or people dancing. this game is what league was to dorks but for society instead. mainstream culture is referencing this silly game and people love to talk about it with the number of registered users always reaching higher peaks. fortnite for smash.
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 19:31:17 13/06/2019 by somePerson
Chompy-King257 Gold Sparx Gems: 2904
So when Bethesda revealed Nuclear Winter (aka Fallout Battle Royale), I wasn't too happy. I expected the lag to be insane and bugs everywhere. I decided to try the free week they're doing for it, and I must say it's actually not that bad. For a battle royale it's pretty enjoyable.
sometimes that japanese future funk be hittin tho...
Fortnite didn't reinvent the wheel either - it's just good enough to market and sell, what gives it an advantage is the style and ease of play. It didn't make the genre, PUBG was the first to put it on the map anyway, and it definately didn't popularize microtransactions or seasons.
I say Undertale for really popularizing nonviolent combat gameplay. SMT and others did it before, yeah, but now it's on everyone's mind that you can make a game where you can use guile rather than force to end a fight - and it doesn't have to be a VN or something with no combat. Alternatively, there's also Shovel Knight, which didn't do anything crazy with its gameplay, but put in everyone's minds that you can expect better than AAA gameplay from an indie product rather than one Braid or one Cave Story out of millions.
HotDogAndZap Emerald Sparx Gems: 3355
i hate grookey. SO MUCH. has to be my least favorite starter of all time
Quote: HotDogAndZap
imagine hating a digital cartoon animal, smh
emeraldzoroark Gold Sparx Gems: 2818
At least the digital cartoon animal is in the game
This avatar will be a reminder of my ultimate goal.
Even if I can't bring it to Gen 8.
Quote: emeraldzoroark
****, you got me there lmao
ill hate all the digital cartoon animals my heart desires
even digital cartoon humans if i set my mind to it
parisruelz12 Hunter Gems: 7248
As much as I like Zelda, I feel like BOTW is put too high on a pedestal. It's in no way a bad game but I personally feel as though its not the best Zelda game nor do I feel as though it's "the best game ever" as someone said on twitter.
This is coming from someone who also didn't like Majora's Mask that much either so idk maybe I just have **** taste asdfgh
looks like ive got some things to do...in hd
Quote: parisruelz12
It's ironically just as overrated (If not more so) as Ocarina of Time in many ways, yet the people who claim that BOTW is the "best game ever" tend to crap all over the former and pretend that BOTW is "perfect".
(Or anything close to it, since people give it a pass on things that they wouldn't for other, similar games)
That, and ironically OOT was more influential when it came out because it was actually very unique for its time and wasn't following a popular trend.
BOTW's great, don't get me wrong, but it isn't nearly as good as people claim it is when you start to notice its flaws peeping through the cracks and remove the glasses clouded by brand bias.
Is BOTW fun? Damn straight. Flawless? Hell no. Being fun is kind of the point of a game, sure, but you also need to have structure.
BOTW does have a structure, obviously, but it's a lot more flimsy than previous games. (Give or take a few of them, of course)
Give it a few years and I guarantee you that people will start treating BOTW like how OOT's perceived now, and people will complain about the formula being "stagnant" and wondering why it was changed in the first place.
(That, and I'm almost certain that the open world formula they're using doesn't have as much longevity as people would like to believe, unfortunately)
Carmelita Fox Diamond Sparx Gems: 9893
runescape is not a good game
Every Skylanders game looks better than Reignited.
With SA, SG, and TT there's no competition. Those games are so richly textured and colored without ever becoming overwhelming and there are only a couple really tiny examples where they lost the style (even then, not much, I'm talking about say Dreadbeard in TT). Every single shot of these games has so much to look into and appreciate and the visuals get stronger and stronger for it.
SF has some incredibly lazy textures, but sometimes some fantastic coloring (on-par with PS1 Spyro). When they actually put effort into both (Twisty Tunnels) the game looks ****ing fantastic. Some of the palettes are just boring too though. The game is inconsistent in quality, but generally it lands the mark more than Reignited did, and has way less annoying qualities. And the STYLE is totally consistent. And it actually tries to just be quiet and nails the naturalistic feel way more. And most of all, you must admit the game never looks like a flat image, and the value work is clean as ****. You're never going to be confused about the depth of an image, what's happening or where to go, or feel overwhelmed in any sense visually. Also worth noting, the lighting is definitely most natural in this game, the others all have way blacker and more blatant shadows. It makes it more impressive how they pulled off the values too. So that's cool to see and adds to the strong sense of depth. Too bad the visuals are really lazy in certain respects, or couldn't always be that well-colored. This could have been one of the big boys tbh... if only.
SC is like a nice middle-ground between the two, doesn't really hit the same heights as either style (other than in value work and the clear depth it still has from SF), the coloring and texturing while they make strong big pictures are generally both much less layered and detailed (especially the coloring, also note there are some textures that are just BAD like that uncanny water, and too much is shiny imo, lest I mention the mechanics everywhere), so you have less to dig into, but it has a better average than SF overall. Because even when it's bad it clearly had more effort than the Fire Gate setpieces. Better shape work too, and way better character designs everywhere, but again not as good as the big boys. I still kinda like SF better personally, but admit this one looks better overall.
SI looks the worst and was obviously a stepping stone to Reignited, but it still has more interesting coloring, more consistent style, and more serious attempt at textures than Reignited. And none of the excess particles for example that plague Reignited and make it hard to look at. Naturally this game does not suffer from Reignited's overly fast, nauseating camera and also has a better framerate. I can't look at Reignited without getting sick nowadays because the more I tried to analyse, the more I realised the game is full of ****ing sensory overload, and the palettes and camera speed weren't taken into account together. I can't un-see them, and the framerate doesn't help. Unfortunately SI likewise has some muddy value work that shouldn't be there, the colors aren't what they could be, there are some inconsistencies, there are some overly obvious VFX (compared even to other moments with overly obvious VFX in the series) and like Reignited it's obvious that plenty had to be slapped together. It's pretty damn similar to Reignited in certain ways. HMMM. It still looks good, but really "good enough" for the most part. I think it's the most dull and didn't really exceed at anything, and had some real issues. There's not much to keep looking at and keep drawing from, there's not that much which is just striking, lots of meh, lots of familiarity.
Reignited is boring, the colors are really flat because even though a lot of good palettes are there they're mapped in such a dull manner (Icy Flight) or lack some piece contrast (Crystal Islands), or sometimes some VFX will drown them out (Tree Tops with bloom/intense light, dozens upon dozens of examples with color filters), and there's no breathing room, there's stuff that looks the way just because they felt like set dressing or whatever garbage and it got too crowded or lost any mood while they were fixated on that (Robotica Farms, lost the retro palette)- as I saw someone else say, it's like the artist couldn't take their pen away from the Wacom- and everything is so energised it's irritating and tiring, there's a dearth of straight-up single-color textures the lighting doesn't disguise. And artistic inconsistencies, and a bunch of bad designs on NPCs (and Sheila) where you can tell they needed so many freelancers... and then the underwater visuals I will never understand how they passed. As mentioned, the game being so saturated and bright is constant and leaves no room to appreciate when it does it right, and ruined a bunch of things. Also, hardly anything actually looks alive. It all looks fake and plasticky and inorganic, and sure it's going for a cartoony style, but you can do that while looking more alive than this. I can't pinpoint what it is, but it isn't all there, it looks too fake. I think it's the color mapping perhaps, combined with very intense lighting (which would probably be fine with better color mapping), but also just a lot of flat awful textures. And speaking of there are too many obvious VFX and needless cluttery particles. The shapes are pretty good, it doesn't matter when everything else is such a mess, tho. Also as mentioned, combined with the camera speed and FPS, the game becomes sensory overload and is literally nauseating to me to play. Yes, I hate the game.
Not to say I enjoyed absolutely nothing else, but Bentley's Outpost and the Sparx levels were the only time I felt like I was playing classic Spyro and not bad reboot, upon replays.
Reminder that Spyro's IDLE EXPRESSION is a ****ing DREAMWORKS FACE
@Bifrost, unless your stance has changed, or unless shapes are that damn important to you, I have no idea how you could have hated SF's visuals and now really like RT's. I think it's much worse, but not because of that, because their failings are mostly in the same spot, but imo way worse in Reignited lol
TwilightSeraph Green Sparx Gems: 222
Breath of the Wild wasn't that good, and I can't stand turn based battle systems like Final Fantasy or Persona. (Fire Emblem or Disgaea battle systems are fine though)
I was Spyrofanboy101, then LinkOfTwilight, now TwilightSeraph.
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 01:47:56 16/06/2019 by TwilightSeraph
Cease.
Blackholes_Wolf Diamond Sparx Gems: 9049
Quote: Carmelita Fox
what a disgusting opinion
ok so i got hollow knight for "free" (thanks nintendo gold points) and played for 30+ minutes. i would actually advise you play it. it's got a very fun and deep pogo stick mechanic where you can bounce off enemies until they die if you time it right
rest of it is pretty good too
Quote: Blackholes_Wolf
what are u going to do about it, huh huh? aggressively chop wood at me for an hour??
I mean it's Grind Central and I spent a total of 30 seconds on it before writing it off, but excluding the recent stuff Jagex has done to the franchise, gotta respect the hustle with the original. It's like giving people a cushion they can always fall down on if they just need busywork to keep mind off of things. There are thousands of multiplayer grindy comfy games out there but how many survive decades without some meh changes?
Actually, ya know what, Mario Odyssey looks boring as hell visually too. Moreso than Reignited.
Long rant but if you want my opinion there that it all I gotta say in this post. Also that 3DW was way better both as a game and visually.
At least Reignited is a newer style. Odyssey is the old Mario style done in a fairly sloppy manner and the ideas it had... meh.
It got really creative with how it presented the 2D sections, I actually really liked those.
In theory the mishmash of styles is a cool idea, but it never does anything else creative with them so those things just come across as inconsistent.
(But at least there was an idea/purpose behind that, the globetrotting; it isn't just amateurish two dozen artists kind of inconsistency, but they didn't pull it off. Just assets of different types next to one another. Meh.)
****in everything looks like a game asset, nothing feels alive. Everything so obviously pasted in, most architecture doesn't blend like it should and segments of the worlds are too segregated, too many repeated setpieces, you won't remember any NPCs as individual characters other than Pauline, the character model pasting is too blatant and doesn't involve enough different models. This makes the worlds feel even more fake.
It's really hard and situational to explain what separates "smart asset pasting" from "blatant asset pasting", or some other problems I'm mentioning, but Odyssey is the latter here.
And like there's nothing that really feels like someone was there and wandering at etc. everything feels too untouched and it's just weird. I can't entirely explain it.
To its credit, the visuals are super clean in terms of values and readability, and where platform edges are, the only problem with the visibility is really some excess bloom at points (which is more of an annoyance/could be better than really upsetting). Also the graphics themselves are bad like blurry textures and aliasing and stuff, but that's a technology problem and not what I'm talking about.
And the world concepts in Odyssey are sometimes cool and sometimes bland as **** or underutilised. But besides Sand and Metro, all of them feel like they aren't dynamic enough, like they stick to one thing the whole way through, other than certain very tiny rooms. And the challenge rooms.
The challenge rooms are different, but are blatantly shaped the same as 3D World and blatantly game assets, but it doesn't fit so well here. As it is the main sections don't really feel alive, but you switch to these also so often, it's weird?
They do play and feel different so again I don't mind changing the art style a bit, and I can see what they were going for, but I don't feel it worked out. There's still no atmosphere to 80-90% of those rooms, some downright look like they ran out of ideas for different ones and threw two types of assets that don't fit together at all, and there are the blue/orange game blocks which have nothing to do with anything and just stick out like a sore thumb.
There is an idea here but it feels like they were forced to do it so they could squeeze all these rooms in, not like they really were excited to mess with this style, and regardless could have done far better. You can do that style with WAY more pizzazz and atmosphere... THREE DEE WORLD.
I know I'm not alone on this because I asked my mom and I could tell she was completely genuine in her answer. I showed her just a trailer and she asked if I like it, and I said "no, everything looks like a game asset" and she was "yeah!" And we just agreed and didn't really have to keep talking.
We both like 3D World's style way better. And props also for it being much riskier. As soon as you look at 3DW you know how the game plays, it totally stands out, and it totally OWNS that it's a video game, and just looks even cleaner and generally much stronger in color and etc (I also thought it had more variety, but really I should go replay 3DW). Again, also props for it being way riskier. It will always stand out. 3DW's art is way more unique, solid, and actually really pulls off what it's doing. Odyssey's isn't all there and it's really well below par in terms of atmosphere, interesting lighting or staging of anything, dynamic nature, asset blending, etc., and not as experimental it should be at all.
Also now that I think about it it made the game feel even smaller.
Odyssey is actually a small game really though (ironically, probably way too long for a game of its genre) but I'm trying to just stick to talking about the art so eh.
Galaxy is still the most beautiful of course imo, because although it falls into weird gameiness I don't like at points, it's the most natural and has so many genuinely beautiful moments that genuinely make me stop and look. The only Mario game to achieve that. And a lot of weird geometry makes sense as just weird space stuff so it's fine.
Galaxy 2 less so but not terribly far off.
Sunshine is just classic Mario artstyle but it looks ****ing great. It didn't need to do more and it didn't really break from it. (The gamey secret rooms are their own thing and make sense as callbacks to 64)
64 is weird but excusable for how primitive it is and sort of owns how it's just a weird sandbox to do whatever and just be weird etc. It's good for the time, and the weirdness is sort of entrancing and endearing, and fits the lassiez-faire game style.
I really feel Odyssey as a whole was rushed. They bit off more than they could chew. And this stuff with the art. At least the visuals absolutely must have been rushed imo, because they needed so many rooms for more and more filler moons, and they needed to toss more and more of the repeat assets over the game's empty space, and I think they didn't have time to polish the graphics, or go further with the art. This looks so ****ing unpolished for a Nintendo title, and look, I have a lot of issues with Nintendo but they always had a lot of polish in games of this caliber. If that's not the case then Nintendo really lost it with this game.
Regardless, among the most boring I've ever played.
Go ahead and lynch me, I know people still cream all over this game, and I'm still here sayin 6/10 one playthrough only. I can't believe that this is meant to be a flagship Nintendo title.
Quote: Drawdler
do you even like any video game that was released after 1984
HEY Mario Galaxy is from 2007!!111!!!1!1!
Drawdler's just doing a good Fishin' Lakitu impression. Don't take the bait, you Cheep-Cheeps. :V
Don't know if this qualifies as unpopular or not, but...
I'm glad Nintendo removed the discotek rave sound effect from Mario Maker 2. That **** was brutal on the eyes/brain. I imagine it made the game a nightmare for epileptics. <.<
-Smashville is the most boring stage for competitive Smash
-Captain Falcon is a tryhard character for tryhard people
alicecarp Prismatic Sparx Gems: 10270
I'm not too bothered that I won't be able to transfer all of my shinies on to SwSh. I'm not going to let a lack of National Dex ruin my hype for the game.
#SobbleSquad
Okay I played Hollow Knight.
I still don't get the appeal other than the aesthetic.
It's extremely polished even if its only 'gimmick' is Dark Souls corpse run and -spoilers for Resting Grounds-. It's kinda like Castlevania Aria of Sorrow at the time, it didn't do anything NEW, but it polished what came before so hard that it pushed its way to the top.
Everyone also loves to talk about how the movement response is amazing, because there's always one option in a metroidvania where it's floaty, slow or unpredictable. Even if an attack or skill isn't nearly autopilot in excecution, there's probably a charm to make it so.
Quote: alicecarp
oh yes im real hyped for a gamecube game in 2019
Bolt Hunter Gems: 5576
Okay I'm going to be a little nitpicky.
Not as much with Reignited, but I think the N Sane trilogy looks incredibly generic, looking back at it now. I don't think they took advantage of how far you can go with stylisation, and Crash's style was very sharp edged. But they've rounded everything out now and made it look, imo, like a normal, generic CGI animation.
You could argue polygons, yes, but other games at the time weren't sharp like this. Spyro certainly didn't use sharp edges like this. I think it helped to highlight the ... insanity and edge of the games. Definately helped with its own unique style.
Now you just look at a screenshot of N Sane and think it could really belong to anything, you know? Maybe that's not a bad thing and I'm making an issue out of nothing. Maybe I'm criticising the industry as a whole for favouring the safe route and making everything samey. But look at the success of Spiderverse's unique stylisation. Maybe that just makes me sad because I feel like Crash has lost its style, and Spyro to an extent as well (although I feel like they managed to create a more unique design with the latter).
But also regarding Spyro, I'm incredibly disappointed they missed out on the opportunity to use the stunning lighting effects that they did in the PS1 trilogy.
Like, look. Look at the inside of the castle in cloud spires.
And other specific places with lighting effects like the tower in Sheila's area of Sunny Villa, or the Sparx levels just don't have it anymore either (or if they do then it's incredibly less dramatic). They used to use vibrant lighting to colour code and help the player locate themselves, and just make the place feel more alive ... and now it's all bland and the same and just, uninteresting.
Okay. Okay. Maybe a real unpopular one. I never liked Crash 3 that much. I'm not one for "time travel / location" gimmicks, i personally find it a little lazy. And the game strays way too far from the Crash formula for my liking. In the first warp room alone 3 out of the 5 levels arent platforming levels. Platforming is Crash's thing, and they swapped it out for boring gimmick levels for """"variety"""". Yeah no. I don't really enjoy this game much because it forces me into play styles that I just really don't enjoy. The platforming, chase and pura levels are really the only ones I like because that is Crash. Crash isn't motorcycling, piloting, jetskiing etc. .... well, to me at least.
you don't know me. i break things
I draw stuff.
BroGuy Blue Sparx Gems: 672
Quote: Bolt
Bolt, I'm really happy to see this. I have stopped myself from voicing my criticisms of the games because a lot of people (not necessarily on here, but somewhat) take issue with such. You can still love a game but be critical, I have a lot of pessimistic hot takes on Spyro Reignited's visuals but you know what? I still love the game. I try to look at things from both sides. But anyway. Your absolutely right, in regards to the color palette of the PS1 Spyro. It was so rich, vibrant and pastel and dreamlike. A lot of that is unfortunately removed. If only people were less harsh to criticism when it was in development.... and if only Reignited had a longer development period. The bright side is that when it comes to PC, modders will address that.
No U
I guess if we're talking about Reignited:
In comparison to the originals, I don't like many of the NPC's new voices. I fully admit that I could be nostalgia blinded, but I just don't like them as much. Most, if not all of them are just so completely different that they don't even feel like the same character, and it feels like there wasn't even an attempt to replicate the original voice.
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 03:03:07 08/07/2019 by JCW555
Yeah I'm just gonna post this here because I know for a fact it's unpopular as all hell and I won't be surprised if I get hate for it.
+Byleth gender options
+A (mostly) explorable overworld
+Dark story
+Branching paths
-Amiibo unlock music for optional battles aka they unlock jack ****ing ****
-No weapon triangle
-Arts and Mila's Turnwheel 2.0 are back so basically the awful gameplay of Shadows of Valentia is back
-The whole "Lost Spirits" thing literally ripping off Dark Souls and a mechanic that literally has no place in a Fire Emblem game
-"80 hours per path" aka 40 hours of school crap that doesn't matter
-"Over 200 hours of gameplay altogether" if I wanted to play a Fire Emblem game for 200 hours I'd play literally any of the better ones multiple times
-Literally zero incentive to ever go Blue Lions
-"Preorder the season pass before you even know what's in the base game!"
-"Hey, as if ****ing your siblings wasn't enough for you, wanna **** your students 5 years in the future?"
You had me at E3, Three Houses. You had completely lost my interest before, and then you had me at E3. And then now you dumped all those expectations in a toilet. Even though Fates' story was awful at least the maps were fun, but ever since Toshiyuki Kusakihara decided to suck off Gaiden specifically the gameplay has taken a nosedive. The maps and gameplay of SoV were atrocious. Enemies had ridiculous moves, maps were far too large, and in my opinion, arts and Mila's Turnwheel really took valuable gameplay elements out of the experience. The only redeeming factor was the story, which, once again, was already told since it was a remake.
I love FE enough that I really wanna give it a chance, but I'm back to not caring one bit about this game. It looks like everything I hated about early FE and SoV that I prayed would never come back but it's getting forced down my throat anyways because I call myself a fan and I want to own all the games. My hype was zero, then it couldn't be stopped, and now it's back down to zero. I'll probably still buy the game, but I'll wait for reviews first before I decide to play it. If there's even a mention of "it's just like SoV", I'm not gonna even bother.
SoV and Three Houses just... don't feel like Fire Emblem to me. In my opinion, this is more of a departure than innovating existing mechanics. All the stuff that made Fire Emblem it's namesake for me is gone now, and I guess I'm just... really upset about it I guess? The art, the music, and ESPECIALLY the gameplay are all things that should be improved upon and innovated in the ways Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild did, instead of taking steps back like Game Freak with Sword and Shield. The mechanics in Gaiden weren't good. That's one of the reasons it sold so little. The mechanics in Gaiden are not meant to be translated to modern games because they don't work. They aren't well done. They're used as an excuse to pretend the gameplay is more strategic and deep than it really is, and they aren't worth emulating. I'm sure the gameplay is one of the reasons SoV is the lowest selling of the 3DS FEs too. Bringing that all back instead of building on previously successful parts of the franchise is what's making the game suffer. Fire Emblem, for me, used to be something special, but now each passing release makes it more generic, more bargain bin anime strategy games that are forgotten in 5 years, which is exactly the opposite of where I wanted it to go.
Then again, maybe I'm putting way too much stock into Intelligent Systems. This is the same company that's giving us a 6th Lyn alt in Heroes for ****'s sake. Maybe the magic's just gone for me.
TL; DR: Three Houses looks really bad and I'm very sad that the Fire Emblem series is growing less special to me.
Not sure if this is unpopular, tbh. I haven't seen much hype for FETH at all.
Call of Duty WWII isn't incredible by any means, but I still think it's a good time and hands down the best CoD game I've played since Modern Warfare 3.
While there's some stuff I didn't like about the campaign(looking at you train setpiece) it was still something I had fun with every now and then. The mission where you play as a French resistance fighter and sneak into a Nazi office guised as an officer in particular is one of the best campaign missions I've played in any CoD.
I don't like the supply drop aspect of the multiplayer and it does get confusing trying to navigate its admittedly bad UI but other than that, it's classic boots on the ground multiplayer that I loved so much during the MW and Black Ops 1 days. It's fast, frantic, and a bit over the top without going crazy. The War mode in particular is great too. I know it's a mode borrowed from other games, but for CoD it's nice to have something that requires a layer of strategy to it.
Zombies took me off guard at first, but I like it a lot for two reasons: for one, it takes more focus on being horrific than being over the top. There are crazy elements to it, sure, but it's nowhere near as insane as zombies has been in the other games. The other is actually having an objective guide. Part of what makes zombies so much fun is that it's simple and easy to play: survive as long as possible with the tools given to you. Black Ops II and onward kept trying to add more and more things and objectives to accomplish and it just made the mode a slog to get through because you had to do so many specific things without knowing exactly what to do. You couldn't just survive as long as possible, you had to be familiar enough with the map in order to complete its objectives and easter eggs too. In this game, however, I don't mind it that much because not only is it a drastically different take on zombies, but it actually tells you what you have to do in order to advance on the map and complete it. Now I don't have to go reading and watching walkthroughs just to know what to do(at least, not nearly as much as past games): the game tells me what I should be looking for or doing.
I definitely think CoD WWII could have been much better if they decided to go all out with the realistic aspects and kept out microtransaction and supply drop bs, and I still think the best games in the franchise came from 2007-2012, but I can't say I hated or even disliked what I played. I had a good time with the campaign and I'm still having a fun time with the multiplayer and zombies. Would I sooner play the MW trilogy or WaW/Black Ops I and II? Definitely. But until the Modern Warfare reboot comes out I'm perfectly satisfied with playing WWII.
DeathOfADream Yellow Sparx Gems: 1141
I still genuinely believe Pokémon Sun and Moon are the best installments in the franchise. And I still believe USUM screwed up more than it fixed. All it's good for is shiny hunting.
"So, I will walk through the fire,
Cause where else can I turn?"
I don't care about BoTW2. I'm under the impression it is simply going to be too similar to BoTW and would sort of bore me for it. BoTW got more boring on replays.
I hope their selling point isn't story because I can't think of one Nintendo EAD game with very good story. They have a couple of good characters and moments, but nothing outstanding, even they had more untapped than tapped potential.
I also would not play BoTW for story because its stories should be much more player-specific; the ways you got to and dealt with specific places, just getting out of fights, the impact of certain views, things like that- as cheesy as they might seem. It's something BoTW uniquely nudged you towards more than many other games on the market and it was under the right circumstances that there are so many of them out there and shared, in such a special scope and with such a special air.
Those kinds of stories could coexist, and ideally the game should have a much better canon story than the first, but it's not what I want or care about. I would expect very little from a Nintendo story and if they really make it a priority, I'm going to be disappointed. So right now I'm setting it as my expectations, especially given many people want it.
My hopes are instead a tremendously overhauled map (not because the original map was bad, but because it's too familiar now, and if they don't do this the game will not have the same breadth of discovery- if it were up to me I'd like a totally new map, but not for a sequel) and much, much better enemy variety and use of combat (it had fun mechanics to dick around with but almost never called for them and certainly didn't reward you for them. Also the bosses were all the lamest ****ing fights in the game, which is saying a lot.)
I also don't nessicarily want them to get rid of durability or something but I feel the weapons need more tweaks somehow, midgame weapons ended up way too useless and there were lategame ones too easy/arguably easier to rely on, I feel in retrospect. I don't remember it in-depth, so I'll just throw up my arms on that one.
Finally: I encourage people to continue whining, because the Pokémon series is long overdue for criticism, but people saying "muh bootlegs and PBR animation" have actually turned me away from looking at SWSH and trying to ever talk about it, because they have a lot of hyperbole too, and don't bring up the problems in their PBR (look at Sucker Punch's animation, ****ing lmao, and look just how lame the walking up to opponents and so many cuts are, and how unstylised the attack particles are; PBR is a step in the right direction in several ways, but also has a whole ton of lame ****, and **** worse than even the modern mainline games, criticise that too) or how literally everything in those bootlegs is plagarised and how some of the animations in it look **** also. Oh well, it's better than devoutly-optimistic hivemind I whined about elsewhere.
Over the past year I have found myself more excited for the growth in the emulation scene than I have been for actual new video game releases. PC ports of games I really like also get me more giddy than most brand new releases (the PC port of Spyro Reignited Trilogy is the only thing left this year that I'm particularly hyped for and has been the thing I'm most excited for this year).
There's just something really special about an old game (or even pretty recent, like Wii U titles, including Breath of the Wild) being spruced up with 4K, widescreen, 60 FPS (or even beyond), and other kinds of HD retextures or mods that improve the experience or personalise it in some way. And having them all on one machine too. And most of these efforts end up better than official remasters.
I didn't really mind some of the smaller segments from Spider-Man PS4 that people really seem to dislike. Specifically the moments when you're not in control of Spidey.
The puzzles with Peter didn't really bother me that much. They weren't super difficult for me to figure out and it was just was exhilarating getting tokens from these puzzles as it was getting tokens from backpacks, research stations, etc.
I can understand why people may not exactly enjoy the MJ/Miles segments of the game but I can't for the life of me understand why they have so much disdain when they don't really last that long. It was refreshing to play as someone other than Spidey and see things happening from their perspective since they're just, y'know, regular people(well, Miles is for most of the game). The last segments with them I really liked in particular, Miles because of how tense it is to be this regular kid trying to avoid Rhino and how brutal he gets, and MJ because not only are you avoiding guards, but you're working together with Spidey to take them out. I thought it was a really neat dynamic.
In general looking back at Spidey PS4 there's little to nothing I can find wrong with the game. It's become one of my favorite video games for a reason. But I've noticed people have a lot wrong with these segments of the game specifically and they never really bugged me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It just feels like forced stealth in a game that isn't really focused on it, and it generally isn't as interesting in my eyes. (At least in execution)
Forced stealth in non-stealth centric games doesn't often go over very well, be it in a mechanic way or just in the eyes of players. (Or both)
Miles does at least have the hacking element to his segments, and I'll agree on liking how tense it was trying to avoid Rhino while playing as him, but you barely get to play as him anyways so it feels like padding more than anything.
With Peter the stealth segments make more sense and are rather fun at least, but MJ and Miles' segments feel forced, out of place, and in general rather unappealing. I don't necessarily hate it either, though, mind you.
I honestly don't even like MJ as a character in this game most of the time, so playing as her was kind of grating for me beyond it feeling like forced stealth.
That's an entirely different can of worms for another time, however.
I'm more disappointed by the game's overall repetitiveness with its combat, and some of its missions/collectables.
If it weren't for that, it would've been my game of the year instead of the new God of War. Otherwise, it's still a spectacular game. (Also, this isn't me trying to argue against your point or anything; I just wanted to give my perspective on it, is all)
I think that I might also still prefer Infamous: Second Son as far as superhero games go, at least in terms of overall gameplay and combat. Side missions were still hella repetitive, though.
Edited 10 times - Last edited at 19:40:35 18/07/2019 by Sesshomaru75
Ezio Hunter Gems: 5603
i like dotd a lot still. idk why
i Like horses a lot. please share horse pictures with me. I make art too
Quote: Ezio
the open world of avalar was really fun as a kid. the game holds up gameplay wise, imo, but the story is c r a p
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 23:24:28 18/07/2019 by Bolt
Re, Spider-Man PS4, to be fair, Insomniac has had similar issues with many of their past titles. See, like, every hacker minigame and Clank level in a Ratchet & Clank game. XP


Once again a good viewing winter of the northern lights – the aurora borealis is expected. One place that should be able to consistently deliver is the Yukon.
Seeing the northern lights is, for many, of the holiday experiences they have to do. But whichever country you go to, the key is getting away from light pollution. So what better way than by staying in a travelling hotel?
"They" say that this winter could be one of the best for seeing the northern lights. Quite who "they" are never seems quite clear as I'm sure last year's winter was supposed to be one of the best. And the year before that.
Egypt may have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons this year (the clashes in Cairo earlier this week killed 25 people and injured more than 300), but the Egyptian pyramids remain the sight most people want to see before they die.
The last but one day of our journey.
When this saga (a good Scandinavian word) began eleven days ago, it was with the hope of seeing the northern lights. To have seen them for 4 nights in a row when so many see nothing of them is great. That we have cameras inadequate to the task of capturing pictures of them is annoying. But then, the colours that the camera show isn't what the eye sees.
There are fewer than 200 passengers on board now and even the crew has become a bit depleted. After this voyage ends, the ferry sails to Denmark, I am told, for its annual service. Many of the people who have been here from the beginning have become nodding acquaintances as have the crew. For some we know of their families and jobs, ailments and holiday history. They borrow camera chargers from each other and notices go up seeking this or that item. More got off when we reached Bodo in the wee small hours.
People have read their camera manuals. Lots more people were happier with the photographs last night. During the day there had been even more conversations between the camera elite and some had exposure settings down to as little as 4 seconds. But there were moans about those who used automatic cameras and who couldn't disable the flash. It was claimed that the onset of the flash ruined the shoots being taken by those with the more sophisticated cameras. All this was way over my head so I left them to it.
There was no call overnight so most of us just slept. As we are reaching the turning point of the journey I am beginning to think we won't see the northern lights on this trip. At breakfast there was still optimistic talk of how this is the best year to be able to see them; the solar activity is just right and so-and-so knows a man who knows a man who says… You know how the story goes.
An early start as we reach Hammerfest at 5.15 in the morning. Thank goodness we dock here in daylight on the return journey. My "12 Days" tells me that this was a German naval base during the war. In October 1944, all the inhabitants were removed and the town was razed to the ground. If I could only see in the dark it is probably only modern buildings that are out there. Few people were up to see us dock or leave. I wasn't there. When I went up we had another snowy squall and you couldn't see far at all.
At 7.19am we crossed the Arctic Circle. All of a sudden hardy souls were out on deck with all manner of cameras, tripods and professional kit that made me feel just an amateur. But what was there to see? A light. And if someone moved it 100 yards as a joke none of us would have known the difference.
We sailed and the first panic has set in. The wifi doesn't work. But yes it does, but only on one deck and you need a password. So you will be able to read these scribbling after all. People stayed up to watch the sailing and celebrate the voyage with expensively purchased beer, wine or coffee. There is a deal on board. For 209 Norwegian krone, (NKr) about £21, you can have as much coffee as you can drink over the voyage. Considering that coffee and tea are NKr 25 each in the café, it's not surprising that you see dozens of people carrying around their plastic mugs.
For many years, my wife has wanted to see the northern lights, that sparkling shower of light that you see in the night sky up above the Arctic Circle. In just about the only holiday that we have ever planned and paid for months ahead – ours are mostly decided at the last minute – here we were in Bergen in Southern Norway waiting to catch the ferry that would take us to the northernmost tip of the country. In 11 days there should be a fighting chance of seeing the lights, we thought.


The crew is back home with another successful raising under their belts! They were able to raise the six bent frame in a few days without significant delays. You can find more pictures of the frame by following the link below but for now we wanted to give you a quick preview. If you have any questions, be sure to contact us. Who knows, we might even post a video answer from John in our "Ask John" section! Hope to hear from you!


text:
Thoughts around climate change, from the edge of the world
Climate Q&A
Climate Reality
← The battle for better climate policy — and new Action Council appointed
To understand climate, look to the sea →
Lesley Hughes: Why we should feel good about Tasmania
Posted on 12 June 2012 by Peter Boyer
Tasmania has many advantages over other places in meeting the challenge of changing climate, something we should feel positive about, says Lesley Hughes. [12 June 2012 | Peter Boyer]
Professor Lesley Hughes, new chair of the Tasmanian Climate Action Council
What's the capital of Tasmania? The answer is $3.50, according to one of my regular interlocutors, John, who's unhappy at the sight of our island state grinding to a halt when other parts of Australia are living it up.
As coal-rich Queensland and NSW continue to sell great shiploads of the stuff to Asia (on top of the huge trainloads they burn to power their own homes and industries), Tasmania, which doesn't have much coal, is being branded the nation's basket case.
As Australia's largest renewable energy generator, Tasmania should be held up as a clean energy model, yet the same Canberra government that legislated for a coal-free "clean energy future" trumpets our coal-fuelled economic success. Public life is riven with bewildering contradictions.
The coal boom is powering more than just the economy. It's helping to drive a shift in public opinion away from action to reduce carbon emissions, now supported by only a third of Australians according to a Lowy Institute poll released last week.
On cue, governments in the three eastern mainland states as well as Western Australia are back-pedalling on measures like restricting coastal development, cutting coal use, facilitating renewable energy projects and other climate reforms which a year or two ago seemed set in concrete.
Lara Giddings has shown little interest in emissions reduction, but at least she hasn't yet joined the mainland rush to ditch reforms. That may have something to do with Hydro Tasmania's carbon price windfall from next month, yielding to the government a much-needed dividend that's forecast to rise in future years.
Tasmania may now be languishing, but our day will come, says Professor Lesley Hughes, the new chair of the Tasmanian Climate Action Council (TCAC), whose appointment was announced last week by the climate change minister, Cassy O'Connor.
This is something of a coup for O'Connor. Hughes, former head of biological sciences at Macquarie University, Sydney, is an internationally recognised specialist in the impact of climate change on species and ecosystems and a founding member of Climate Scientists Australia, a group of senior scientists seeking better-informed decisions on climate.
A lead author for the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she represents Australia on a major UN biodiversity and climate change working group and is co-convenor of the Terrestrial Biodiversity Adaptation Research Network.
Besides hydro power, says Hughes, Tasmanians have many reasons to feel good about their future. The Climate Futures Tasmania project provided the state with unrivalled planning tools in the form of world-leading, detailed climate models for the next century.
While much of mainland Australia will have to cope with more extreme drying and wetting weather cycles, the impact of global warming on Tasmania's climate is projected to be benign, favouring tourism and an enhanced role as a food producer and exporter.
As one of two specialist scientists on the Gillard government's Climate Commission, Hughes has spoken to meetings in about 20 cities and regional centres around the country over the past two years in a public consultation process that she views as a highlight of her career.
"I was attracted to a role with the TCAC because it's very much at the coalface, offering the opportunity to influence good policy while engaging with Tasmanians about their future," she told me last week.
"I've been thinking for some time that I need to go beyond research and begin to try to make a difference, engaging more with the Australian community. The TCAC role offers me a good avenue to make that transition."
Far from following other states in opting out of climate policy, Hughes believes that as a well-defined and close-knit community Tasmania can provide real leadership to the rest of the country, and an example to other state governments, in preparing for changes that are now upon us.
Tasmanians have much to feel good about, says Hughes. "I'm glad to be invited to help make good policy around the benefits and opportunities thrown up by climate change."
Hughes is just one of nine new appointees to the 10-member TCAC, and the sole non-Tasmanian. Her deputy is Jess Feehely, principal lawyer at the Environmental Defenders Office (Tasmania), in which she provides advice on environmental and planning issues law reform.
Other TCAC members are Thomas Moore (oceanographer and science communicator), Chris Harries (environmental educator and activist in building sustainable communities), James Risbey (CSIRO senior climatologist), Greg Johannes (deputy secretary in the Department of Premier and Cabinet), Nick Towle (medical doctor specialising in emergency medicine and rural health, and community activist), Jan McDonald (Professor of Environmental Law, University of Tasmania), Anna Lyth (geographer and sustainability specialist, University of Tasmania), and the sole member from the old TCAC, author and former Greenpeace CEO Paul Gilding.
I wrote last week that O'Connor has yet to chalk up any significant climate-energy policy successes. If members' credentials are any guide, this new TCAC should seriously enhance her firepower in winning government support for effective measures. I surely hope so.
This entry was posted in biodiversity, biological resources, bureaucracy, carbon, carbon emissions and targets, changes to climate, climate politics, climate system, community action, CSIRO, education, energy, environmental degradation, food, human behaviour, hydro, leadership, modelling, organisations and events, renewable energy, science, social and personal issues, Tasmanian politics and tagged biodiversity, biological resources, bureaucracy, carbon, carbon emissions and targets, Cassy O'Connor, changes to climate, Climate Futures Tasmania, climate politics, climate system, community action, CSIRO, education, energy, environmental degradation, food, human behaviour, hydro, leadership, Lesley Hughes, modelling, organisations and events, renewable energy, science, social and personal issues, Tasmanian Climate Action Council, Tasmanian politics. Bookmark the permalink.
Donald Trump's attack on Congress
Saving forests to save ourselves
Things to remember from our year to forget

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Thứ hai, ngày 11 tháng 2 năm 2019 | 10:11
(Vufo) A joint delegation of the General Departments of Logistics of the Vietnam People's Army and Laos People's Army recently traveled dozens of kilometers of mountainous roads to provide free health checkups and counseling for people in Laohoung Cluster-villages, Xiengkhor district, Houaphanh province.
Staff of the Vietnam General Department of Logistics provide medical checkups for locals.
Although they had to face and overcome a lot of hardship and danger on the way to the former revolution base, all members of the delegation were so delighted when meeting locals, who had wholeheartedly taken care of Lao revolutionary troops and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers during their joint struggle against the common enemy.
They were welcomed by Chief of Laohoung village grouping Bunta Navongta and the elderly as the special guests.
Navongta said that he was so proud because his forefathers in Laohoung Cluster-villages had protected President Kaysone Phomvihane and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers against a series of raids of French colonialists 70 years ago. With the constant trust in their just struggle for national independence and freedom, local people tried their best to protect volunteer soldiers, despite the enemy's brutal tortures and guns.
As Navongta told us, after leaving Laohoung on Jan. 20, 1949 to go to Phalong village in Phiengsa village grouping, Xiengkhor district, President Kaysone Phomvihane and 26 soldiers held a swearing-in ceremony to establish the Latxavong Team, the forerunner of the Lao People's Army. Thanks to the leadership of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the support of the Vietnam People's Army, the Lao People's Army has increasingly developed, defeated all invaders, and liberated the country.
The village head also expressed his delight at welcoming Major General Vu Ba Trung, Deputy Political Commissar of the General Department of Logistics, and Vietnamese military doctors.
In turn, General Trung said that in spite of the differences in languages and geographical features, the two peoples shared similarities in their historical struggles against foreign invaders in the past as well as in their current national construction and development cause. Therefore, the Vietnamese people and military would always regard the Lao people as brothers and always share with them any difficulties and wholeheartedly support them in developing their country, he noted.
After a week staying in Laohoung Cluster-villages, Vietnamese guests said goodbye to the locals. The Vietnamese doctors could feel deep sentiment of the Lao brothers when seeing them waving their hands to bid farewell even when the envoy of cars carrying the Vietnamese delegation was moving away./.
( VNF/PANO )
Bright symbol of faithful international solidarity between Vietnam and Cambodia


July 29, 2008: British counter-terrorism officials believe that Irish terrorists (splinter groups of the IRA, or Irish Republican Army) in Northern Ireland are currently more of a terrorist threat than Islamic radicals. The Irish terror groups are planning violence in an effort to disrupt the peace deal that was worked out in Northern Ireland, between the Catholic and Protestant communities. British intelligence believes that about 80 Irish terrorists are planning attacks.
Although there are more potential Islamic terrorists, their planning activity has declined, largely as a result of many arrests, and failed attacks, as well as the recent al Qaeda defeat in Iraq. Islamic terrorism has also become less popular in Moslem nations over the past few years, and is less fashionable among young Moslems in Britain. The threat of Islamic terrorism is still there, but British intelligence simply believes that the Irish terrorists are trying hard to get something going again.
MORALE: Is It Combat Yet?


text:
\section{Introduction}

In Europe, coupled market areas and the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources regularly lead to high cross-border power transfers and require frequent interactions between neighboring transmission system operators (TSO). For instance, congestion management and generator redispatch become more and more a matter of international rather than national interest. Furthermore, cost-efficiency should be aimed at on a European level. A cheap local measure should be avoided if it results in large additional costs for the neighboring TSO.

The most important economic optimization which respects electrical grid constraints is the Optimal Power Flow (OPF), which was introduced by Carpentier~\cite{Carpentier1962} and studied to large extents in the last decades~\cite{Momoh1999a,Momoh1999b}. However, in its original form, it requires information and control over the entire system.
Motivated by the increasing complexity of the power system and the resulting computational burdens, the interest in distributing the optimization grew. An early overview on distributed OPF algorithms can be found in~\cite{Kim2000} and the most recent developments are examined in~\cite{Molzahn2017}.

The most popular branches to tackle the non-convex alternating current (AC) OPF problem are the Optimality Condition Decomposition (OCD)~\cite{Conejo2002} and the Alternating Direction of Multipliers Method (ADMM)~\cite{Boyd2011}. In OCD technique, information among regions is exchanged after each iteration of an interior point method. Contrarily, in ADMM, each agent solves its sub-problem to optimality and then exchanges information.

One main question is whether or not algorithms are applicable to real-world problems. Cases with up to 300 buses are solved in~\cite{Nogales2003,Hug2009,Erseghe2014,Erseghe2015,Gavriluta2016,Mhanna2017,Engelmann2018}. In~\cite{Liang2014,Guo2017,Shin2019}, the Polish transmission system with over 3000 buses is used. Additionally, \cite{Shin2019} shows a case with over 6000 buses of the French system. However, \cite{Liang2014} and~\cite{Shin2019} use network reduction methods to reduce the system size. In~\cite{Huang2002}, a network with over 8000 buses is solved, however, there is no information on grid type or load. All of the above works have in common at least one of the following drawbacks:
\begin{itemize}
	\item small system size
	\item single country and therefore comparatively small system load
	\item mathematical clustering of buses disregarding geopolitical or regulatory boundaries.
\end{itemize}

In this work, we overcome those drawbacks and present a realistic case study of the European transmission system with over 5000 buses and 315\:GW load in 24 countries. We use a modified ADMM, where penalties are imposed with different weights depending on the coupling variable as presented in~\cite{MeHue2019,Huebner2019,Huebner2019_Diss}. While sub-optimality gaps of 0.54\:\%~\cite{Liang2014}, 0.43\:\%~\cite{Guo2017} or 1\:\%~\cite{Shin2019} are achieved for large-scale systems in literature, the modified ADMM in this work reduces the gap to 0.02\:\%.
Furthermore, we extend the standard OPF by integrating high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems in voltage source converter (VSC) technology. As shown in~\cite{MeHue2018}, converter power set point optimization will play an important role in cost minimization and~\cite{MeHue2019,Huebner2019_Diss} show that HVDC systems can efficiently be included in distributed optimization as well.
Thus, the main contributions of this paper are:
\begin{itemize}
	\item first large-scale distributed AC-DC OPF
	\item first large-scale case study with geopolitical node clustering with by far the highest system load
	\item improvement of optimality gap by one order of magnitude with recently proposed modified ADMM.
\end{itemize}

The paper is organized as follows. In Chapter~\ref{ch:OPF}, we present the centralized formulation for an AC-DC OPF. In Chapter~\ref{ch:Distribute}, the decoupling of regions and the ADMM algorithm are presented. The network model and simulation results are shown in Chapter~\ref{ch:Results}, and we draw a conclusion in Chapter~\ref{ch:Conclusion}.

\section{AC-DC Optimal Power Flow}\label{ch:OPF}
Consider an electrical network with a total of $N$ nodes, which are collected in the set $\mathcal N = \{1,...,N\}$. It consists of alternating current (AC) nodes $\mathcal N^\text{AC}\subseteq\mathcal N$ and direct current (DC) nodes $\mathcal N^\text{DC}\subseteq\mathcal N$. Two AC nodes are connected via AC lines, two DC nodes are connected via DC lines, and an AC and a DC node are connected via an AC-DC converter.
The centralized formulation of the full AC-DC OPF problem is written as
\begin{subequations}
	\begin{align}
	\underset{\substack{|V_{\text{AC}}|, \angle V_{\text{AC}},  \\ P_{\text{G}}, Q_{\text{G}}, \\V_{\text{DC}},P_{\text{C}}, Q_{\text{C}}}}{\text{minimize}}  & \quad \sum_{l \in \mathcal N^\text{AC}} \bigl(b_{\text{G}} P_{\text{G,}l}+a_{\text{Q}} (Q^2_{\text{G,}l}+ Q^2_{\text{C,}l}) \bigr) \label{eq:objective}\\
	\text{subject to}	&\quad \operatorname{Re}\bigl(V_{\text{AC,}i}\sum_{l \in \mathcal N^\text{AC}}(Y_{\text{AC,}il}V_{\text{AC,}l})^*\bigr) = \notag \\
	& \hspace{90pt} P_{\text{G,}i}+P_{\text{C,}i}-P_{\text{D,}i} \label{eq:Pbalance} \\
	&\quad \operatorname{Im}\bigl(V_{\text{AC,}i}\sum_{l \in \mathcal N^\text{AC}}(Y_{\text{AC,}il}V_{\text{AC,}l})^*\bigr) = \notag \\
	& \hspace{90pt} Q_{\text{G,}i}+Q_{\text{C,}i}-Q_{\text{D,}i} \label{eq:Qbalance}\\
	&\quad \underline{V}_{\text{AC,}i} \leq |V_{\text{AC,}i}| \leq \overline{V}_{\text{AC,}i} \label{eq:ACvoltage}\\
	&\quad V_{\text{AC,}m}=1.0\text{\:pu\:}\angle 0^\circ  \label{eq:ACslack}\\
	&\quad \underline{P}_{\text{G,}i} \leq P_{\text{G,}i} \leq \overline{P}_{\text{G,}i} \label{eq:Pgen}\\
	&\quad \underline{Q}_{\text{G,}i} \leq Q_{\text{G,}i} \leq \overline{Q}_{\text{G,}i}  \label{eq:Qgen}\\
	&\quad V_{\text{DC,}j}\sum_{l \in \mathcal N^\text{DC}}(Y_{\text{DC,}jl}V_{\text{DC,}l}) = -(P_{\text{C,}j}+P_{\text{CL,}j}) \label{eq:DCbalance}\\
	&\quad \underline{V}_{\text{DC,}j} \leq V_{\text{DC,}j} \leq \overline{V}_{\text{DC,}j} \label{eq:DCvoltage}\\
	&\quad  V_{\text{DC,}n}=1.0\text{\:pu} \label{eq:DCslack}\\
	&\quad P_{\text{C,}i}+Q_{\text{C,}i} \leq \overline{S}_{\text{C,}i}^2  \label{eq:VSClimit}\\
		&\quad \forall i\in\mathcal{N}^\text{AC},\forall j\in\mathcal{N}^\text{DC},\forall m\in\mathcal{N}^\text{AC}_\text{ref},\forall n\in\mathcal{N}^\text{DC}_\text{ref}\notag.
	\end{align}\label{eq:OPF}
\end{subequations}

The optimization variables are the following: $(|V_{\text{AC}}|, \angle V_{\text{AC}})$ are magnitude and angle of all AC node voltages; generator active and reactive power is denoted with $(P_{\text{G}},Q_{\text{G}})$. The DC system model requires DC node voltages $V_{\text{DC}}$ and active and reactive power output of an AC-DC converter are modeled with $(P_{\text{C}},Q_{\text{C}})$. Each variable can be assigned to a certain node, for example, $P_{\text{C,}i}$ is a converter connected to node $i$. For the sake of readability, we assume at most one unit per type at the same node.

We use objective (\ref{eq:objective}) which minimizes active losses if we choose the same $b_\text{G}$ for all generators. Furthermore, we allow for a small weight to reactive power injections in order to regularize the problem and thus improve its numerical condition. Technically, this is motivated by keeping reactive power injections small. The parameter $a_{\text{Q}}$ is the quadratic coefficient for all reactive injections.

The power balance of active and reactive power for an AC node is given by~(\ref{eq:Pbalance}) and~(\ref{eq:Qbalance}), respectively, where $Y_{\text{AC,}il}$ is the $il$-th entry of the complex AC bus admittance matrix. Furthermore, ($P_{\text{D,}l}, Q_{\text{D,}l}$) are the active and reactive power demand at node~$i$. Voltage magnitudes are limited by~(\ref{eq:ACvoltage}) and both magnitude and angle are fixed for one node per synchronous area~(\ref{eq:ACslack}). Reference nodes are collected in $\mathcal{N}^\text{AC}_\text{ref}\subset\mathcal{N}^\text{AC}$ and $\mathcal{N}^\text{DC}_\text{ref}\subset\mathcal{N}^\text{DC}$, respectively.
Generator power outputs must satisfy operational upper and lower limits~(\ref{eq:Pgen})-(\ref{eq:Qgen}).
Equivalently to the AC side, the active power balance of a DC node is given by~(\ref{eq:DCbalance}) and $Y_{\text{DC,}jl}$ is the $jl$-th entry of the real DC bus admittance matrix.
Again, voltages are limited by~(\ref{eq:DCvoltage}) and the voltage magnitude of one node is fixed to 1\:pu (\ref{eq:DCslack}).

The converter model is a simplified VSC model, where the active power transfer between AC and DC side is coupled via $P_{\text{C}}$, which is part of both AC power balance~(\ref{eq:Pbalance}) and DC power balance~(\ref{eq:DCbalance}). Here, a positive value denotes a power flow from DC to AC. The withdrawn power from the DC side is augmented by a loss term $P_{\text{CL}}$, which is quadratically dependent on the apparent power $S_{\text{C}}$.
Lastly, we limit the apparent power injection on the AC side with~(\ref{eq:VSClimit}).

We may reformulate problem (\ref{eq:OPF}) to
\begin{subequations}
	\begin{align}
	\underset{x}{\text{minimize}}  & \quad F(x) \\
	\text{subject to}	&\quad h(x)\leq 0.
	\end{align}\label{eq:OPF_2}
\end{subequations}
Note that for later purposes and readability reasons, equality constraints have been integrated into the inequality constraints set $h(x)\leq 0$.

\section{Distributed Optimization}\label{ch:Distribute}
We form a regional formulation for the AC-DC OPF. We define $R$ regions in $\mathcal{R}=\{1,...,R\}$. Each region may contain both AC and DC nodes. Thus, a boundary between two regions runs between two nodes, crossing a tie line. The decoupling of such a tie line is described in the following section. Then, problem~(\ref{eq:OPF_2}) is brought into a regional form and lastly, the implemented algorithm is described shortly.

\subsection{Decoupling of Inter-Regional Connectors}

\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\psfrag{F}[l][l]{\small$\begin{aligned}&P_{\text{G,}n}\\(&Q_{\text{G,}n})\end{aligned}$}
	\psfrag{A}[r][r]{\small$\begin{aligned}&P_{\text{G,}m}\\(&Q_{\text{G,}m})\end{aligned}$}
	\psfrag{G}[c][c]{\small$m$}
	\psfrag{H}[c][c]{\small$n$}
	\psfrag{I}[c][c]{\small$i$}
	\psfrag{J}[c][c]{\small$j$}
	\psfrag{Z}[c][c]{\small$Z/2$}
	\psfrag{R}[l][l]{\small Region A}
	\psfrag{T}[r][r]{\small Region B}
	\includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{TieLine.pdf}
	\caption[Tie line]{Decoupling model of a tie line (AC or DC) between nodes $i$ and $j$ with two auxiliary nodes $(m,n)$ and two auxiliary generators.}
	\label{fig:tieline}
\end{figure}

We cut the original line into two halves and add auxiliary nodes $(m,n)$ and auxiliary generators $(a,b)$ at both open ends, see Fig.~\ref{fig:tieline}.
To guarantee a feasible power flow, the voltage must be equal at nodes $m$ and $n$. Furthermore, the generators must produce the same amount of power of the opposite sign. In the case of an AC tie line, we have complex voltage and both active and reactive power for boundary conditions:
\begin{subequations}\begin{align}
	|V_{\text{AC,}m}|&=|V_{\text{AC,}n}| \\
	\angle V_{\text{AC,}m}&=\angle V_{\text{AC,}n} \\
	P_{\text{G,}m}&=-P_{\text{G,}n} \\
	Q_{\text{G,}m}&=-Q_{\text{G,}n}.
	\end{align}\label{eq:consensus1}\end{subequations}
In the case of a DC tie line, we only have real voltage and active power to meet the constraints:
\begin{subequations}\begin{align}
	V_{\text{DC,}m}&=V_{\text{DC,}n} \\
	P_{\text{G,}m}&=-P_{\text{G,}n}.
	\end{align}\label{eq:consensus2}\end{subequations}
In a more compact form, the boundary conditions between region \textit{A} and \textit{B}, i.e. (\ref{eq:consensus1})-(\ref{eq:consensus2}), can be written as
\begin{align}
A_\text{A} x_\text{A} + A_\text{B} x_\text{B} =0.
\label{eq:consensus}\end{align}
\subsection{Problem Formulation}
We write
\begin{subequations}
	\begin{align}
	\underset{x_k,k\in\mathcal{R}}{\text{minimize}} & \quad \sum_{k\in \mathcal R^\text{}} f_{k}(x_{k}) \\
	\text{subject to} & \quad h_k(x_k) \leq 0, \quad \forall k\in\mathcal R, \\
	& \quad \sum_{k\in \mathcal R^\text{}} A_k x_k =0 ,\label{eq:consensus_2}
	\end{align}\label{eq:distOPF}
\end{subequations}
which is an equivalent OPF formulation as~(\ref{eq:OPF_2}), but in separable form. That is, each region $k$ has an objective $f_k$ depending only on local variables $x_k$. The same accounts for local constraints $h_k(x_k)\leq 0$. The equivalence to problem~(\ref{eq:OPF_2}) is guaranteed by consensus constraint~(\ref{eq:consensus_2}).

\subsection{Modified ADMM}\label{ch:Algorithms}
The general idea of ADMM, see also~\cite{Boyd2011}, is the following. Augmented regional OPFs are solved and the deviation of boundary variables from a fixed auxiliary variable $z$, which is information stemming from neighboring regions, is penalized. The regions then exchange information and $z$ is updated. The update is re-distributed to the local agents (areas) for a new OPF calculation until consensus between regions is achieved.
To this end, it is constructed an augmented Lagrangian of the form
\begin{align}
\mathcal{L}(x,z,\lambda) &= \sum_{k\in \mathcal R} \biggl\{ f_k(x_k)+\lambda^\top_k {A}_k (x_k-z_k) \notag\\
&+ \frac{\rho}{2}||{A}_k (x_k-z_k)||^2_{W} \biggr\} ,\label{eq:ADMM_Lag}
\end{align}
with penalty parameter $\rho\in\mathbb{R}$. With $n$ the number of consensus constraints, dual variables of such are denoted with $\lambda_k \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times 1}$, and $W \in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ is a positive definite, diagonal weighting matrix, where each entry is related to one coupling constraint and can be dimensioned accordingly.
In ADMM literature, $W$ is the identity matrix.
In three sequential steps, each of $x$, $z$, and $\lambda$ are optimized while the remaining two variables are fixed, we refer to~\cite{MeHue2019,Huebner2019,Huebner2019_Diss} for more details. An overview of the implemented ADMM is given in Algorithm~\ref{alg:ADMM}. Equation~(\ref{eq:ADMM_NLP}) solves the local nonlinear OPF's of each region to get optimized local variables $x_k$. In~(\ref{eq:ADMM_z1})-(\ref{eq:ADMM_z2}), information is sent to and gathered from neighboring regions to locally update auxiliary variables $z_k$. Then, dual variables $\lambda_k$ are updated depending on the current residuals.
An update rule on $\rho$ can be useful to enforce consensus. A $\rho_k\in\mathbb{R}$ is assigned to each region, which is increased depending on the local residual, see (\ref{eq:ADMM_rho}). If the residual has not decreased sufficiently compared to the previous iteration (indicator $0<\Theta\in\mathbb{R}<1$), the penalty is increased by a constant factor of $\tau\in\mathbb{R}>1$.
The penalty parameter must be chosen carefully since it is widely known to be crucial for good convergence behavior~\cite{Mhanna2017}.

\begin{algorithm}
	\caption{ADMM}\label{alg:ADMM}
	\begin{algorithmic}[1]
		\State \textbf{Initialization:} Weighting matrix $W$, tolerance $\epsilon$; for all $k\in\mathcal{R}$: initial guesses $z_k$, penalty parameters $\rho_k=\rho$, dual variables $\lambda_k=\mathbf{0}$, local solutions $x_k=\boldsymbol{\infty}$, local residues $\Gamma_k=\infty$.
		\While{$||\sum_{k\in \mathcal R^\text{}} A_k x_k ||_\infty > \epsilon$}

		\State Solve for all $k\in\mathcal R$ the decoupled NLPs
		\begin{subequations}\begin{align}
			\underset{x_k}{\text{min}} & \enskip f_k(x_k)+\lambda^\top_k {A}_k x_k + \frac{\rho_k}{2}||{A}_k (x_k-z_k)||^2_{W} \\
			\text{s.t.} & \enskip h_k(x_k) \leq 0
			\end{align}\label{eq:ADMM_NLP}\end{subequations}
		\State For all $k\in\mathcal R$: Broadcast information on voltage-related constraints ($[\cdot]^\text{V}$) and power-related constraints ($[\cdot]^\text{S}$) to neighboring regions
		\begin{subequations}
			\begin{align}
		m^\text{V}_k = A^\text{V}_k x^\text{V}_k \\
		m^\text{S}_k = A^\text{S}_k x^\text{S}_k
		\end{align}\label{eq:ADMM_z1}
		\end{subequations}
		\State For all $k\in\mathcal R$: Update $z_k$ with information from each neighboring region $l$ for tie lines $kl$:
		\begin{subequations}
			\begin{align}
			z^\text{V}_{k,kl} &= 0.5(m^\text{V}_{k,kl} + m^\text{V}_{l,lk}) \\
			z^\text{S}_{k,kl} &= 0.5(m^\text{S}_{k,kl} - m^\text{S}_{l,lk})
			\end{align}\label{eq:ADMM_z2}
		\end{subequations}
		\State Update dual variables for all $k\in\mathcal R$
		\begin{align}
		\lambda_k &\gets \lambda_k+\rho_k W {A}_k (x_k-z_k) \label{eq:ADMM_lam}
		\end{align}
		\State Calculate local residues and penalty parameter updates for all $k\in\mathcal R$
		\begin{subequations}\begin{align}
			\Gamma_k^+&=||A_k (x_k-z_k)||_\infty\\
			\rho_k &\gets \begin{cases}
			\mathcal \rho_k &\text{if}\enskip \Gamma_k^+\leq \Theta\Gamma_k \label{eq:ADMM_rho}\\
			\mathcal \tau\rho_k  &\text{otherwise}
			\end{cases}
			\end{align}\end{subequations}

		\State Update $\Gamma_k\gets\Gamma_k^+$ for all $k\in\mathcal R$
		\EndWhile
\end{algorithmic}\end{algorithm}

\section{Case Study}\label{ch:Results}

\subsection{The European Network}\label{ch:case}

\begin{figure*}
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{Netz_namen-eps-converted-to2.pdf}
	\caption{Model of the European transmission grid (220\:kV and 380\:kV). To apply a distributed OPF, the grid is decomposed into the colored areas, which correspond to the single countries indicated with a two-letter country code. DC lines are marked in black with the corresponding converter number.}
	\label{fig:netz2}
\end{figure*}

The European transmission grid is modeled based on the 2014 TYNDP public data set from ENTSO-E, which mainly covers the 220\:kV and 380\:kV voltage level. The model consists of 5707 buses, 8046 lines, 2134 generators, 3013 loads and 444 shunts. The given scenario includes a total load of 315.4\:GW and 75.3\:Gvar. Geographical locations are often hard to assign automatically due to unclear or anonymous station names. Nevertheless, a geographical model was achieved with intense manual effort, see Fig.~\ref{fig:netz2}. In central Europe, line corridors are additionally traced in detail. Eleven HVDC point-to-point connections are implemented -- indicated with black lines -- which results in 21 AC-DC converters. All converters are modeled with the above-mentioned standard VSC model for OPF studies, although older stations may be based on LCC technology. Inner-German converters 1-9 are rated with 1800\:MVA, all other converters with 900\:MVA. We use the same quadratic VSC loss function as in~\cite{MeHue2019}, leading to 1.1\:\% no-load losses and 1.85\:\% losses under full load.
The decoupled model consists of 24 regions with grid sizes between 8 nodes (Macedonia, MK) and 1535 nodes (France, FR). In total, the countries are connected by 210 AC and 6 DC cross-border tie lines.

\subsection{Simulation Settings and Parameter Tuning}

We perform a reference solution (``centralized OPF'', \mbox{``OPF-c''}) by solving~(\ref{eq:OPF}) over the entire interconnected European grid. Since the problem is non-linear and non-convex, we do not expect a global optimum, but nevertheless a good local one. All OPF problems are solved with IPOPT~\cite{Waechter2006}.
We seek to minimize network losses and use the same costs of 50\:\euro~per MWh ($b_\text{G} = 50 \bigl[\frac{\text{\euro}}{\text{MWh}}\bigr]$) for each generator. Furthermore, we use a small quadratic cost function for all reactive power injections ($a_\text{Q} = 0.001 \bigl[\frac{1}{\text{Mvar}^2}\frac{\text{\euro}}{\text{h}}\bigr]$). The base power for p.u.-values is 100\:MVA.

We chose a convergence criteria of $\epsilon=0.001$, that is, 0.1\:\% voltage deviation and 10\:kVA power deviation. We set $\Theta=0.99$ and penalty parameters $\rho$ and $\tau$ are chosen after a parameter sweep. The two decisive criteria are optimality gap and number of iterations, which are shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:cost3d} and Fig.~\ref{fig:iterations3d}, respectively.
In general, large penalties prevent near-optimal solutions, since the objective function is dominated by the penalty instead of the original cost function. As a consequence, it can be observed that the optimality gap is increased with both $\rho$ and $\tau$, that is, if the penalty is already large at the beginning or ramped up too fast. On the other hand, the convergence criterion is cross-border feasibility among the regions. Thus, if consensus is strongly enforced with high penalties, convergence is achieved faster. In Fig.~\ref{fig:iterations3d}, we observe a dependency between convergence speed and penalty ramping $\tau$. Convergence is achieved for all cases under 250 iterations if $\tau>1.03$. Fastest convergence is achieved with $\tau=1.1$ and $\rho\in\{10^2,10^3\}$. Thus, we choose $(\tau,\rho)=(1.1, 10^2)$ for the remainder since the optimality gap is acceptable (0.016\:\%). We emphasize that the sweep of two parameters is straightforward. Furthermore, there is a certain range where the optimization leads to acceptable speed and optimality.
For the above analysis, we chose matrix $W$ from \cite{MeHue2019} to show the generality of the chosen weights. That is, voltage-related entries are set to 100, and power-related entries are set to 1. However, convergence can further be improved with empirical studies on certain variable weights. For example, we reduce the number of iterations from 189 to 166, if we increase entries in $W$ related to DC-power from 1 to 10. We use this setting in the following case study.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.98\linewidth]{cost3d-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Optimality gap of each simulation in a parameter sweep of $\rho$ and $\tau$.}
	\label{fig:cost3d}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.98\linewidth]{iterations3d-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Iterations of each simulation in a parameter sweep of $\rho$ and $\tau$.}
	\label{fig:iterations3d}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Case Study Results}

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.98\linewidth]{compENTSO1-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Comparison of total generated power and total load for each country with centralized (``OPF-c'') and distributed (``OPF-d'') calculation.}
	\label{fig:comp_ENTSO1}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.97\linewidth]{compENTSO2-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Cumulated power flow over tie lines for each country. Positive value: net power export, negative value: net power import.}
	\label{fig:comp_ENTSO2}
\end{figure}

In Fig.~\ref{fig:comp_ENTSO1}, we compare the power balance between centralized and distributed calculation for each country, where total generated power and total load are depicted. The difference between centralized and distributed OPF is marginal. As a result, the cumulated power flow over tie lines is very similar as well, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:comp_ENTSO2}. A positive value indicates an ``export country'', a negative value an ``import country''.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.99\linewidth]{PsConv-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Active power set points of AC-DC converters with centralized and distributed calculation. Positive value: power transfer from AC to DC.}
	\label{fig:PsConv}
\end{figure}

In Fig.~\ref{fig:PsConv}, the active power set point is shown for each converter. It is notable, that the distributed solution is in general close to the centralized one. However, we observe small deviation for instance at converters 12 and 13, which is a tie line between Italy and Greece. Here, a power transfer of about 200\:MW towards Greece is calculated with the distributed method, while the tie line is almost inactive with a centralized calculation.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.99\linewidth]{objective-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Cost difference (sub-optimality) between centralized and distributed OPF. Top: absolute objective value. Bottom: relative difference.}
	\vspace{3pt}
	\label{fig:objective}
\end{figure}

However, the decisive measure of whether a set point is ``worse'' than another, is the effect on objective values. In Fig.~\ref{fig:objective}, we show the sub-optimality of a distributed solution. The top figure shows the absolute objective value, that is, the total operating cost of the system. During the first 30 iterations, the distributed solution approaches the centralized one of 15.2 Million Euros per hour very closely. In the bottom figure, the cost difference is depicted in detail. The final deviation after convergence remains around 0.02\:\% or 3000 Euro, which is remarkably low. Thus, the above-mentioned deviation in converter power set points has a negligible influence on operating costs.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.99\linewidth]{residual-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Maximal mismatch of coupling variables between neighboring countries. Top: AC tie lines. Bottom: DC tie lines.}
	\label{fig:residual}
\end{figure}

The second major criterion in distributed optimization is the feasibility. Separately from each other, two neighboring regions calculate voltage and transferred power at a coupling bus. As a result, the two obtained solutions should be close to identical in order to allow for a physically feasible load flow. In Fig.~\ref{fig:residual}, we show the maximal mismatch between two neighbors over the iterations. In the case of an AC tie line (top figure), we have four coupling variables. In the beginning, active and reactive power mismatches can be quite large compared to the relative voltage mismatches, that is, over 1\:GVA or $10^1$\:pu. Toward the end of optimization, voltage angle and active power tend to be more difficult to converge than the other two variables. This is supposedly since reactive power and voltage magnitude can be adapted locally more easily. In the case of a DC tie line, only voltage magnitude and active power must be coupled. Here, the maximal mismatches satisfy the convergence criterion after 100 iterations.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=0.98\linewidth]{rho-eps-converted-to.pdf}
	\caption{Penalty parameter $\rho_k$ for each region $k$.}
	\label{fig:rho}
\end{figure}

Lastly, we show the penalty parameter $\rho_k$ for each region $k$ in Fig.~\ref{fig:rho}. It is increased from 100 to a maximum of 10000 for certain regions. Interestingly, the highest penalties are imposed on Spain and Portugal.

\section{Discussion \& Outlook}\label{ch:Conclusion}

This work shows that distributed optimization is applicable to large-scale realistic transmission grids. We present the first case study in a grid of such geographical dimensions and total load. With over 200 tie lines and many small regions, the partitioning is mathematically challenging but can be implemented in the existing regulatory and political framework, since it corresponds to the country borders. At the same time, data exchange is very low and requirements on each system operator's privacy can be fulfilled. Nevertheless, fast convergence is achieved with a cost difference of 0.02\:\% compared to a centralized optimization. We use both AC and DC cross-border tie lines and a multi-terminal DC system, while the model is designed for meshed DC systems as well. In this work, a conventional AC-DC OPF is solved to minimize network losses. Thermal branch flow limits should be incorporated in the next step. Furthermore, generator redispatch and N-1 security will play an important role in the future, which has been optimized distributively in a small grid in~\cite{Huebner2019}, but is yet to be demonstrated in large-scale.

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


You driving in that? Pics, please!
We got 6 inches in mid November. Nothing much since on Long Island NY.
I just shoveled another 5" since that measurement this morning.
I'll trade you. It was -39 yesterday morning.
I miss driving in the snow. Not the cold that comes with it though.
I'm gonna die in that weather. Lol.
Took a ride into Palm Desert yesterday... ~75. Supposed to hit 77 tomorrow... so I'm looking for another reason to head in.
Hate cold. Hate clouds. Raised in Western Washington. 3rd world.
getting weird in Northern Utah: Snow in the morning, ~50d in the afternoons.... couple of times a week.
We got 8" two weekends ago. Here's the view from my front door.
Note the mailbox on the right side of pic.
We got another 2" last Sat and we're supposed to get 3-5" on Thu. It never ends. Seems more like Jan 5, not Mar 5.


NEW BEDFORD — Wayne Smith, who pled guilty to the charge of manslaughter while driving under the influence of alcohol, received a sentence of five to seven years in the state prison for the death of Lt. Robert Cabral on November 5, 2005.
Judge Robert Rufo made the decision taking into account Melanie's Law that provides for prison terms of not less than five years and not more than 20 for those found guilty of driving under the influence with death resulting. Ironically, that law passed in October of 2005 and is named for 13 year old Melanie Powell who was killed by a drunk driver. Under the sentence, Mr. Smith becomes eligible for parole after five years, but would serve no more than seven.
His decision met with a burst from Thomas Cabral, brother of Lt. Cabral and tears form family members. There was also disappointment by law enforcement personnel, including Chief George Arruda who was asked to make a statement for the press outside New Bedford's superior court. The Chief noted that the justice system is an adversarial one and that the judge made a decision based on his professional opinion.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Quinn had asked for seven to 10 years, citing Mr. Smith's blood alcohol level at .23, almost three times the legal limit. He also pointed out that another vehicle with two adults and four teenagers evaded a vehicle meeting Mr. Smith's Ford pickup on Rt. 6 just moments before the accident.
ADA Quinn also pointed to another incident in 1999 where Mr. Smith was accused of leaving the scene of an accident and was sentenced to community service.
He said later that he felt that the request of seven to 10 years was appropriate under the circumstances.
Mr. Smith's attorney, Jeffrey Entin, noted that Mr. Smith had left the scene to go to a nearby convenience store to call the police.
Atty. Entin pointed to Mr. Smith's 24 years as a volunteer firefighter as an example of his helping people. He noted that his client was a good man who was involved in a tragic accident. Atty. Entin said later that prior to Melanie's Law the sentence was two to two and a half years.
Cabral family members were outraged by the sentence and spoke to the media outside the court house. The family members took issue with the sentence, pointing out that while even the maximum would not bring their brother back, the minimum sentence that Mr. Smith received sent the wrong message to the public.
The judge made his decision after a recess that was preceded by a victim impact statement by Susan Schucker, sister of Lt. Cabral as well as statements from the brother, daughter and two friends of Mr. Smith.
Mrs. Schucker made an emotional statement to the judge noting her brother's efforts in the Drug Awareness Resistance Education program and how he lived the life he preached.
She noted that it was "beyond comprehension" that he would be killed by a drunk driver.
She added that he made a difference in people's lives and that he would be missed forever.
Karen Stidhim, a friend of the Smith family, noted that Mr. Smith was like a brother to her, pointing out that he was a good person who helped others.
Another family friend, Amanda Bibeau, echoed Ms. Stidhim's comments and added that it was a tragic accident.
Mr. Smith's brother, Everett, who has served 31 years in the department of corrections, pointed out that his brother was not a monster but a good man who made a mistake.
Brenda Smith, the daughter to Mr. Smith, recalled her father searching for a young man who had been lost in the waters off Swansea. In an emotional statement to the judge, she noted that her career in occupational therapy was due to her wanting to help people, a trait she picked up form her father.
Each of those who spoke for Mr. Smith, noted the loss of Lt. Cabral and their sympathy to his family.
Mr. Smith then spoke and noted that he was "so sorry for everything I have done." He noted that he made a "big mistake."
As Mr. Smith broke down, his words became almost unintelligible, noting that he thinks of the incident every day and it will not go away.


Find out how to improve your leadership skills by establishing a vision, inspiring others and championing high performance. You'll learn to focus your energy, build relationships and develop strategies. In a slim, portable format Essential Managers gives you a practical 'how-to' approach with step-by-step instructions, tips, checklists and 'ask yourself' features showing you how to focus your energy, manage change and make an impact.
If you are keen to brush up on or enhance your leadership skills, this is the guide for you.


text:
Despite NCAA Tournament loss, UNC volleyball is building a foundation for the future
Photo by Helen McGinnis | The Daily Tar Heel
UNC women's volleyball players celebrate after scoring a point at the game against Duke on Oct. 22 at Carmicahel Arena. UNC won 3-0.
By Evan Rogers
January 13, 2022 | 9:56am EST
For the past four years, UNC volleyball was stuck in a rut.
Disappointing losses, "middle-of-the-pack" finishes in the ACC and a four-year NCAA Tournament drought all culminated in a sense of needing to win now — especially for a program that, just a decade ago, had seven-straight seasons with at least 20 wins.
"In the beginning, the goal was to make it to the tournament," first-year outside hitter Mabrey Shaffmaster said. "I knew that the first day I got here."
The work toward winning started before the season even began.
For a team bringing in several new faces — with multiple graduate transfer and first-year players joining the team — preseason team activities and a leadership program helped create the strong foundation displayed by this year's squad.
"We spent a lot of time before the season bonding," sophomore middle blocker Kaya Merkler said. "This allowed us to perform really well on the court."
The offseason grind reaped immediate benefits for the Tar Heels.
To start the season, North Carolina won its first 11 games, including a marquee victory over archrival Duke and a road win against Michigan in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. This hot start marked only the second time in program history that a team started 11-0 or better.
"We kind of surprised ourselves, at the beginning, by winning so often," Merkler said. "It was really fun."
But the undefeated Tar Heels met their match once ACC play ramped up.
To start off the conference schedule, UNC welcomed No. 4 Pittsburgh to Carmichael Arena on Sept. 24. Despite winning the third set, the Tar Heels were defeated 3-1, which would mark the first of four-straight losses for North Carolina.
"That was a big learning curve for us," head coach Joe Sagula said. "It allowed us to understand that it's a team effort and that everybody has a role."
In response to their coach's call after that string of losses, the Tar Heels won six straight and swept "rivalry week" with 3-1 and 3-0 wins over N.C. State and Duke, respectively. In the process, "roles" seemed to emerge, and stars were born.
Outside hitters Shaffmaster and graduate transfer Nia Robinson went on a tear, together accounting for over half of the team's total kills during the streak.
"Me and Nia are both really competitive," Shaffmaster said. "She helped me a lot with what to do and the game plan."
Sitting at 17-4, the end goal of making it back to the NCAA Tournament seemed in reach. But the Tar Heels continued to view the season game by game, in hopes of preventing any distractions that thoughts of postseason play could create amid a tough ACC schedule — the conference Sagula called the best in the country.
After going 4-4 in the final eight games, UNC finished the regular season 21-8. With key wins over Michigan and Colorado State and a season sweep of Duke, the Tar Heels were awarded an NCAA tournament at-large bid and were matched up against Tennessee in the first round.
"When we got there, it hit me that this is where we're supposed to be," Shaffmaster said. "It was not a fluke. We didn't end up there randomly."
Despite a disappointing 3-1 loss in the first round, the season proved to be a step in the right direction. Shaffmaster and Merkler earned All-ACC honors, and Shaffmaster was voted as ACC Freshman of the Year. UNC hopes this young core can lead the charge for years to come.
Yet, despite the tournament drought being over, the Tar Heels know the job's not finished.
"We've got to put in more work to get better," Sagula said. "And we can't take anything for granted."
@dthsports | sports@dailytarheel.com
'A lot was missing': Marisol Nugent hopes to bring attention to women's wrestling
No. 3 UNC women's tennis earns program-record with 51st straight home victory
'A change in effort': UNC men's basketball needs more sparks after 85-57 loss to Miami
Next up in Volleyball
UNC Volleyball loses its first round matchup to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament
UNC volleyball defeats Duke for the third time this season, winning in five sets
UNC volleyball's efforts not enough beyond first set in loss to Miami
Next up in Community members attend inaugural Chapel Hill-Carrboro Juneteenth events
UNC BOG finance committee proposes performance-weighted budget model
Education, housing, employment outlined as priorities in county racial equity survey


Any combination win you hit on a spin will pay you out a prize, before all the winning symbols explode, leaving spaces on the grid into which the symbols above can drop – making new combinations and giving you more winning chances. Re-trigger again and again for some of the top wins.
Stop in 3 or more scatters on the reels to activate the free falls bonus round. This operates like a free spin round on standard spin slots. During the free falls all winning symbols are transformed into marbles.
Use your marbles to play a second bonus – cascading all your marbles down through this game into different cups. Land the marbles in a cash win cup to win prizes or if you can get 3 marbles in the jackpot cup, you'll get a chance to play the big money progressive jackpot game.
You're given 50 marbles to fire down a bonus game, with a chance to win one of 5 different jackpots or a straight up cash prize. The jackpot game has 4 cash win cups and 5 jackpot cups.
Marbles landing in the coin cups pay out prizes in accordance with the pay-table. You can only win 1 of the 5 jackpots available. The jackpot cups consist of 2 fixed value jackpots and 3 progressive jackpots, with the current values of these prizes displayed at the top of the screen. Land 3 marbles in a jackpot cup to win the respective prize.
With some huge money on offer – you can grab a prize that could change your life forever on the reels of Cosmic Fortune.


Voted by Atlanta Brides BEST OF THE CITY, our "best in the business" reputation is undisputed. We specialize in the fine, delicate sewing your bridal gown requires, with absolute perfection you can trust. When you arrive for your appointment, our entire focus is on you – your wedding is a special day and you deserve to have your gown altered as you wish, in the most professional manner possible. Visit Go2Bella Alteration Services for the BEST Wedding Gown Alterations in Atlanta.
When it comes to your wedding gown, it needs to be perfect on your big day!
It may fit, but just a few touches will make it made for you. So, Go2Bella Alteration is here to give you a few tips when getting wedding gown alterations.
Custom alteration of your gown to fit your shape, and style!
There is no limit on what type of alteration we can do!
Change back from zipper to corset/from corset to zipper.
Please note….. For some of the changes such as corset back, adding sleeves, building neckline up – order extra fabric/lace to maintain the original details of your dress without compromise in design.


The National Film Board of Canada has just uploaded portions of their catalog online. In 23 Skidoo (1964), director Julian Biggs trains a moving camera across a startlingly empty cityscape. Habitation is extremely recent. A pair of broken glasses sits on a sidewalk as if they had just been dropped. Police streamers wave in the air next to upended police barriers. Towards the end of the film, a single medium shot explains the predicament.
Be sure and check out other offerings on the Film Board's website.