THE NO-RONTO 2020 ONLINE AVEN MEETUP

THE NO-RONTO 2020 ONLINE AVEN MEETUP BY SNAO CONE

The No-ronto meetup–an online substitute for the international AVEN meet that was supposed to take place in Toronto from 19– 26 September this year–was a great success. Many people were able to attend various online events or general socializing–even ones that wouldn’t have been able to make it to the in-person meet as planned. Events were put on through A custom logo for the meetup, designed by kelico! a dedicated Discord server, and advertised in a thread in the Online subforum of the Meetup Mart. Here’s a snapshot of what happened: • Games! These included games that can be played online (like skribbl.io, which is like internet Pictionary), games that could be streamed through the Discord server (specifically

Jackbox, which players can watch on Discord and join in on through any old browser), and a custom-made AVEN meme trivia streamed onto Discord as a slideshow – with prizes! • Music! As the event had a Canadian theme, Snao curated a list of CanCon (short for Canadian content, meaning music by Canadian artists) that interested people could stream through Discord. • Movies! Snao also streamed a selection of Canadian movies through Discord: Men With Brooms, Goon, Saddest Music in the World, Bon Cop Bad Cop, Strange Brew, and FUBAR. • Learning events! Snao, as the foremost expert on this topic, gave a presentation on shitposting and memes. Puck gave a presentation on a project in the works to help mixed orientation couples.

• Food and drink! Prior to the week, Snao gave suggestions on what people could buy or make that might resemble

Canadian food and drink. The biggest star was, of course, poutine. The Discord had both voice channels and text channels, paired up together to keep conversations in context. When a group watched a movie, for example, they could chat by text in the accompanying channel to avoid talking over movies or making anything lag. Standard etiquette was to mute yourself unless people wanted to voice chat. This made things less overstimulating for people who just wanted to tune into the entertainment, and also put no pressure on people to listen or partake in conversation themselves. The setup of this event was not without hiccups. Technical issues included connection speed, streaming quality, and reliability. The account that Snao streamed from had upgraded to a Discord Nitro membership to improve the quality, but there were still limitations from the quality of the internet connection itself. Time zones also posed significant challenges: movies were scheduled for different times at different days to appeal to different continents (primarily North America and Europe), so some people missed out due to their work or sleep schedules. Very few people got the chance to catch all movies or take part in all games. Overall, though, it was successful enough to turn this Discord server into a recurring social space for online AVEN meetups. We are continuing regular movie screenings that are organized through the Party Time at Snaotown thread in the Online Meetup Mart subforum. Join the party!

MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR REVIEW BY KIMMIE

FORMAT: PC and Xbox One (not yet released) TESTED ON: PC with Ryzen 9 3900x, RTX 2070 super oc and 16gb ram. I was using a Thrustmaster T.Flight HotasX joystick. First off, this is not really a game, but a simulator. I have