Greetings Magisters!

Welcome to the General Questions Megathread of AFKJourney!
If you have a small question that doesn't warrant its own post, need some advice on your account, need teambuilding help, or otherwise, this is the thread for you!
Before you ask a question, please check the links and guides below to see if there is a guide that can help you.
See our official site for downloads and information!

Useful Links to get you started

Just starting the game and feeling overwhelmed?

• Prydwen.gg has collected a list of guides to get you started!
  • This includes but is not limited to...
    • Exclusive Weapon priorities
    • Wishlist Tips
    • Primal Lord and Dream Realm guides
    • and more!

Want to follow alongside an experienced player?

• Volkin on YouTube is documenting his Journey and offering great insight!

From our own Community!

• u/drakonath's Quick Progression Guide
• u/vicksin's Hero Ascension Guide
• u/octospice's Early Game Formations Guide
• u/BadCat_ML's 10 Things to Do When You Feel Stuck Guide
• u/Due-Feedback2238's Dream Realm Guides, here's the first, see his profile for more!
• u/Vicious2020's Spending Priority Guide

As our game continues to grow, we will add/change our guide list, please feel free to suggest guides in the comments below or submit your own!

Redemption Codes

• See a compiled list here (as of May 11th)

As always, be kind to others and be good people <3

Hello, I am writing a Pokemon fanfic and I am likely putting way too much behind it, but hey, Gotta love the storytelling hobby.
Pokemon Urban Black is a cyberpunk semi-realism take on Pokemon as a concept overall. The book has mature themes (not NSFW but certainly an older age range) and asks several questions about the nature of a pokemon world.
Anyway, I'm looking for a few voice actors who can help with snippets from the story. There will be no full-fledged chapter reading and even the most prominent roles will have snippets that last less than 1:30, if that.
This is a fun fan project. I am paying but I am not making profits off this. Below I am going to list roles from most to least prominent, along with two lines you can read if you so choose (not required before contact). Please let me know what roles you're considering when you reach out.
The one's that say "Pokemon" in parenthesis are characters from the actual games/manga/anime that you can look up.
Trevor Black
Black male, 23-years-old, smooth urban voice, AAVE swag. Semi-sarcastic. He's a hacker that gets himself caught up in some shady business with criminals, by accident.
"Nah, what do you think, Frenchie?"
"Yeah. You right. But it's not him I care about. The shame is all that money he's leaving on the table. He probably spent his life building that up, and for what?"
Godlove Benjamin
Black male, 49-years-old, deep commanding urban voice. Sometimes Sarcastic, Everything he says puts you on edge. Main Villain of Pokemon Urban Black. Mob boss of a gang called Pressure.
"Yeah, that's it. You came to me all excited and shit cuz you caught that lil Sandshrew"
Teanna Black
Black female, Age 19-45-ish as story progresses. Natural voice, weathered by life but optimistic. Teanna is Trevor's mother but we will be hearing her voice from audio journal recordings that range from when she's 19 on.
"My name is Teanna. Teanna Black. I'm 19 years old about 5'6", brown eyes. Very cute. You know. You know. But \ahem* really. I'm doing this because my mom always told me to and I never did."*
Amber Renee Carter
Black Female, Age 24, confident, sweet, encouraging. Renee is the 8th ranked Pokemon Master in the world and famous for it. She starts dating Trevor near the beginning of the story.
"Okay 'Trev'... how about I take your number, instead?"
Frenchie
Black Female, Age 24, sassy, sarcastic, slight (very slight) southern twang, AAVE Swag. Trevor's best friend. A "keeping it real" type of personality.
"Please Trev, like you give a damn about what happens to some rich CEO"
"Yes! Do you know how powerful a Mudkip can be?! and it's sooo cuuuuute."
James (Pokemon)
White male, 34-years-old, (NOT like show voice), Suave, smooth, velvety voice. Apathatic, confident swag. James is second only two Giovanni in Pokemon training capability. One of the strongest trainers in the story. (Jessie is in the story too, but she is already cast)
"Just... James"
"Ah yes, and the world was reminded of what the word 'Legendary' truly means."
Guzma (Pokemon)
White Male, 42-years-old, Sarcastic, kind of gruff, but playful voice. Laid back, carefree. Guzma is the leader of the "Skull" gang, but... despite being a career criminal he's not exactly a bad guy.
"Kid's too soft. I'm doing his ass a favor."
"Eh, well you know what they say... polished shit is still shit."
Plumeria (Pokemon)
White female, 26-years-old, Quiet, reserved, can be stern, but typically calm. Plumeria is second in command of the "Skull" gang.
"N's a good kid,"
"We'll be violating the family ground laws."
Cyrus (Pokemon)
White male, 56-years-old, Collected, pensive, wise. Leader of the Galactic Game, once a reputable science organization gone bad.
"It was certainly possible. You know it was. The science was sound. Even the magic aspects checked out. You were just afraid,"
Ryme (Pokemon)
Black Female, 74-years-old, Somewhat raspy voice, but commanding, and collected. She's the godmother of the underworld crime families.
"This meeting has been called to clear up these confusions so that we can avoid any unnecessary mistakes in judgment." Her eyes again found Jessie. "You have the table."
Brock (Pokemon)
Black Male, 48-years-old, Street hardened, heavy voice, no-nosense. perpetually angry but always keeping it under wraps. Far different from Brock in the series, he's had serious trauma and he's looking for revenge.
"That Sandshrew... where'd you find it?"
If anyone has any questions feel free to simply reach out to me. There will likely be other required voices but as of now these are all I have. Thank you!

pls
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Last summer in 2023 I rode across the country, DC to Washington state. I took a ton of pictures, and actually wrote a book(its in editing now). Anyways, to go with the book I'm looking for a way to make a couple bucks selling my pictures, and videos I took along the way. 4100 miles, 62 days riding, 3300 pictures, 80 videos, and I'd like to sell them as a whole single file download. These are all taken from my cell phone, a midrange model, if that matters. I'm not looking to make a ton of money, if any, I just figured it'd be an easy way to maybe make some on the side to complement my book. So what are the best websites to sell all those photos, and videos as a single sale? It would just be selling a file, the photos just for viewing, and I'm looking for a easy set up. I'm not overly concerned about high fee's. I'd prefer the more popular name and website, over saving a little bit in fee's. But since I don't expect much of anything, it has to be free to start up, and list, only charging for sales. It just wouldn't make sense to have to pay monthly fee's on this adventure. thanks in advance

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I downloaded Legendary Edition when it was free on PSN ages ago, while talking with a good friend at a party a couple months back he recommended I try it. Dove right in and loved it. Huge KOTOR fan so this early BioWare feeling is very nostalgic for me. If you have any questions about what I thought or choices I made let me know!

They can be a celebrity for any reason, good or bad. As long as they were famous.
When I first joined (2010)....
All the admins were celebrities, and everyone had their favorites. Builderman, Telamon, legoseed, Tarabyte, Clockwork, MrDoomBringer, and so on. And the one that everyone hated, Reesemcblox. Apparently she was personally responsible for a lot of the bans that users got, allegedly.
Hacker lore was also extremely popular. Everyone knew 1x1x1x1, especially on the forums. Dignity, Zuka, Minish were other famous "hackers" that were revered.
John Doe and Jane Doe were the 2nd and 3rd roblox characters made, they were test accounts made by the admins. But everyone had lore of them being hacker puppet accounts.
SONICTHEHEDGEHOGXX was particularly famous for his island resort game, mostly for having a lot of free models, but mostly for creating the FEAR group which made clan groups popular.
Jaredvaldez2 was very infamous for stealing games, especially the zombie game where you defended a house and went underground, and rebranding them as his own.
JuliusColes was infamous for also copying games, especially Welcome to the Town of Robloxia (another famous game made by a famous user, 1dev2). JuliusColes was also famous for being a massive POS.

- iOS App for FishBowl game - Uses AI so you can personalize some specific years for movies, shows, etc. and also according to your country. - Keeps scores of each team - Always new words thanks to AI so games feel fresher and as unrepeated words as possible (AI is still improving) - Instructions included for those who haven’t play it - You won’t pay for each theme pack or something like that, like so many other apps, but it does require subscription to cover AI costs 

So if I wanted to save some video form nisasoccer.com, does anyone know a simple/free tool to grab the streams? Just wanted to save/make some clips from them, but nisa doesnt provide a download option.

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Hello, I've been making flashcard decks in Anki over the course of taking each of these classes. (Anki is free and so are my decks of course.)
Anki is a really neat website/program that guesses when you're going to forget a card next and then only shows you that card just before then. So, you just go on Anki every day (or so) and it'll show you some cards. The more you get a card right, the (exponentially) longer it'll be before it shows up again.
You can have Anki only give you new cards as often as will result in keeping up with the course, so it's not overwhelming.
󠀠
Here are the decks I've made:
Chemistry I (272 cards)
Physics I (35 cards)
Calculus I (105 cards)
Calculus II (106 cards)
Calculus III (88 cards)
Anyway, if you don't use my decks that's completely fine, but I would sincerely highly recommend Anki. I can't imagine getting through calc 2 without it. As long as you do the Anki runs, you'll just remember all the stuff. Learning and memorizing isn't so much up to chance anymore.
󠀠
Thanks for the 384 total downloads from the last times I posted these! Genuinely happy to help and I hope a lot of you stuck with it. I graduated in the fall and didn't make any new decks this semester, but I thought I'd post these one last time.
Oh and if anyone wants to improve my decks and re-share them, that'd be amazing - feel free to use them for anything, I promise I won't sue you or whatever. If someone makes some tiny improvement to a deck, shares it themselves, and gets 1000 downloads, I'd be happy to hear it.

For those of you that are interested in a mosaic free experience, I created a patch for The Shell Part 2 using Oneline's uncensored CGs.
https://github.com/wildpomme/visual-novel-mods/releases/download/v1.0/the-shell-p2-uncensored-mod.zip
It will work regardless of where you got The Shell Part 2 from. If you're playing on Steam though, you will need to have the adult patch already installed. Just unzip the uncensored patch and drag the file into The Shell Part 2's base directory. Then launch the game and enjoy.

TL;DR

"I'm not reading all that, get to the point!"

Yes you should buy one, check ProtonDB to see if the game will work on the Deck and how to run it, yes the LCD is fine but also yes the OLED is better, don't go overboard with accessories or tweaking unless you know you need it, and we've already recommended games / given advice for the specific situation you're asking about so please search the subreddit first before you ask your question!

Purchasing / Accessories

"Should I buy a Steam Deck?"

Do you have the money? Yes.

"Should I buy a Steam Deck, or a ROG DoodooPeepee, or a Lenovo PoopooDookie?"

Look where you are. We're going to tell you to get the Deck, and we're going to be right. It's not perfect, it's a little janky, but it's absolutely amazing.

"Should I get the OLED or LCD?"

It depends. If money is an issue, or someone is offering you one at a huge discount, the LCD is perfectly fine! It's still an amazing system, and any FOMO is misplaced unless you really need better battery life.
The OLED is strictly better (better screen, better battery life, etc), but the overall experience is not that far off and they can run all of the same games at ~effectively the same fps.

"Should I get the official Dock?"

NO. It has a horrible bug with HDMI that will haunt your dreams. There are plenty of alternate docks that work perfectly, just Google "steam deck docks" and pick one. The JSAUX one is spoken of highly, and I can attest that my old UGREEN USB-C hub works perfectly as a dock.

"What accessories should I get?"

Overall... You don't need much, the Deck is great the way it is.
If you plan to play on a TV, definitely get a nice dock/hub.
A standard power bank with at least 45w charging is great for long plane/train rides.
A "ground loop isolator" is nice for getting rid of the loud buzz on wired headphones when charging.
Beyond that, just search the subreddit for "accessories" and you'll get tons of answers!

"What controller should I get?"

Do you want gyro?
If not, just any old controller is fine. XBox controllers seem affordable and high quality these days, and are well-supported.
If so, then check out DualShock 4, DualSense, 8BitDo Pro 2, and Switch Pro.
If you want back paddles and gyro, you'll want to check out the 8BitDo Pro 2 and the (pricey but amazing) DualSense Edge.

"What games should I buy?"

Search the subreddit! This is probably the most-asked question we get here, and there are literally thousands of threads full of great answers.

"I have a long flight coming up, what games should I buy?"

Search the subreddit! (Balatro.)

"What games are good for keeping battery use low?"

Search the subreddit! (Balatro. And/or streaming via Moonlight or Remote Play.)

"What games are good for playing in bed that don't spin the fan too loudly and wake up my partner?"

Search the subreddit! (Balatro. And/or streaming via Moonlight or Remote Play.)

"I'm on a really tight budget, what games can I buy for the deck?"

Search the subreddit! (Holocure. It's free.)

"I just bought my Deck, how long will it take to arrive?"

It depends, but 1-2 weeks is a safe bet.

Tweaking / Compatibility

"What should I tweak before I start playing games?"

Nothing. Don't change things until you're clear why you want to change it.

"Will run on the Deck?"

Check out ProtonDB.

"How can I get better performance on ?"

Check out ProtonDB.
Google it! "steam deck performance " will get you so many great threads and spreadsheets. If it runs, someone has tweaked it.

"Should I overclock my Deck? Should I enable PeePeePooPoo Ultra Performance Utils?"

No.

"How can I run my games from Epic/GOG/Ubisoft/EA?"

Check out ProtonDB, and search the subreddit/Google.
The answer is likely going to be Lutris or Heroic Launcher. Once you have the game set up there, both launchers have an "Add to Steam" option that should work perfectly.

"How can I use the Nintendo button layout?"

You, as a supreme ultrachad of taste and elegance, should simply go to the main menu, look under Controller, and select "Use Nintendo Button Layout".
(Note: this should work out of the box for essentially all games using Steam Input, and will swap the button glyphs in-game for most games. The only issue you'll have is that the Steam Deck UI will still show the actual physical button glyphs, instead of the superior-layout buttons that you expect (so X/Y and A/B will be backwards from what you want).)

"Can I swap the physical buttons to match the superior Nintendo layout stored in my galaxy-sized brain?"

Unfortunately not, or at least not without getting custom buttons. The buttons on the deck are differently-shaped, and would feel very weird out of position.

Tips & Tricks

"How do I bring up the on-screen keyboard?"

STEAM + X.
(Or, for those giga-brained among you using the Nintendo layout, STEAM + Y.)

"The left trackpad scrolling doesn't work right in Desktop Mode!"

It's a scroll wheel. Rub counterclockwise to scroll up, clockwise for down.

"That's dumb. How do I change the controls for Desktop Mode?"

Open up Steam, then Settings > Controller > Desktop Configuration.

"I want to play Red Dead Redemption 2 or on a plane!"

LAUNCH THE GAME BEFORE YOU GET ON THAT PLANE, MY FRIEND. Make sure you can get all the way to the game itself. Many games require you to be connected to the internet either the first time the game launches, or the first time you've launched the game in a while.

"I hate trying to aim / use the mouse with the joysticks/pads!"

USE GYRO. USE GYRO. USE GYRO.
Go into the controller settings for your game, turn on gyro "As Mouse", and set it to activate on "Right Stick Touch" and/or "Right Pad Touch". Your console gaming life will never be the same.

"How can I type faster on the on-screen keyboard?"

Try using the trackpads. The left pad controls the left half of the keyboard, the right pad controls the right half. Takes some getting used to, but it's decently quick and doesn't require taking your hands off the sides to type on-screen.

"How can I switch the controls to gamepad mode (or back) in Desktop Mode?"

Hold the menu [...] button!

"I want custom menus, more button options, perfectly-tweaked joystick/gyro controls, etc."

Go to the controller settings for your game and look through community layouts!
If that's not good enough, customize one of them or make your own. Steam Input is ridiculously flexible.
(My favorite thing to do is to create an Action Layer called "util", set one of the back paddles to "Hold Action Layer - util", and then rebind a bunch of buttons in that Action Layer to essentially 2x the number of buttons on the Deck. Just hold down the paddle, press whatever buttons you need, and let go when you're done.)

"I want to open up my Deck to replace the . Anything I should know?"

TAKE OUT THE SD CARD FIRST.

Troubleshooting

"It's hanging forever after a reboot, what do I do?"

Either connect it to Ethernet with the dock, get near a known wifi network (doesn't always work), or turn it off and then hold the [...] button while you press the power button and then select the second option in the list that appears on the screen.

"After an update, I'm seeing an error that says 'Something went wrong while displaying this content'!"

Decky, or one of your Decky plugins is not updated yet and is broken. If you can open Decky, try to update your plugins or disable them one-by-one to figure out which one is broken. If you can't open it, go to desktop mode and update/uninstall Decky by running the installer again. If you're still struggling, search the subreddit for "decky broken" and see what other people have done to fix it.
This can also happen if you're using the Beta channel. I believe Decky has their own beta/prerelease channel that makes this happen less often.

"When streaming on my OLED deck with Moonlight or Steam Remote Play, I randomly get periods of really intense lag!"

It's a long-running networking bug that has inexplicably never been fixed. Just restart Moonlight, or turn wifi off and on again.

"My wifi is slow on the Deck!"

Check that you're using the 5Ghz band, if possible.

"Game downloads/updates are really slow!"

Go to "Downloads" in the main settings menu and make sure "Download region" is near you.

"I can't connect my Deck to my TV via HDMI with the official dock, it just shows a black screen and doesn't connect!"

You will need to _unplug every cord_ except HDMI from the dock, connect to the TV, and then plug everything else back in. Every single time. I'm so sorry. You may want to just get a better dock. They still haven't fixed this and I don't think anyone knows why.

"Oh God my Deck shows an error when I boot what do I do?"

Search the error, but the likely answer will be to do a full system recovery: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3