Percolation Encyclopedia canceled

Due to the rate at which the encyclopedia's information became outdated, the original Percolation: The Complete Encyclopedia of Crossover Gerosha and Dozerfleet Crossovers has been canceled as a project. Instead, what is salvageable of it will be broken up into smaller reference books. Artwork for some of these may be updated as well.

When the tower previously operating as Dozerfleet Main became too old and slow to run Windows 10 effectively, it was reformatted as Bezzyca and given away to be a training center for three children in Missouri.

However, this came with several snafus:

• Windows 11 updated on the new Dozerfleet Main, a Kamrui mini PC, as well as on the Dell Latitude laptop. With these updates, the drivers were modified, making these devices' versions of Windows 11 officially no longer compatible with Photoshop Elements 2019 - given it relies on some architecture from Internet Explorer 11 to load its installation page - a browser permanently disabled in the new updates. And Photoshop Elements pre-2022 refuses to use Microsoft Edge, or Firefox.
• Access was lost to Microsoft Office 2016, which had served Dozerfleet Productions quite well for many years. This wasn't a big deal for most files. However, any files made in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Access were severely affected.
• Only the Surface tablet, Dozerfleet Mega Portable, still has legacy software of Photoshop Elements 2021 and Office 2019.
• Due to this, workflow is being modified across Dozerfleet to minimize dependency on MS Publisher, Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, or any other legacy software. On the Linux and Windows sides, Scribus may become the new default for small-level 8.5"x11" desktop publishing. High-end productions will be done on the Windows side, using Affinity Publisher. When access to the Surface tablet for Photoshop Elements is impractical, Photopea will be employed as a last resort. Affinity Photo, Krita, and Gimp are all being learned for alternatives to Photoshop Elements. With the original tower and Windows 10 gone, there's also no more Illustrator CS2. Without Illustrator CS2, Affinity Designer is the de-facto for vector image editing. On the Linux side, or else to convert images to live trace, InkScape is now taking the place of Illustrator CS2. Linux-end video editing alternatives to Premiere are also being considered for exploration.

The Percolation encyclopedia consists of many sections: lore explanations, straight-up fanfics described, a character database, a geography database, several art galleries, and Marvel: Avengers Alliance fanfics featuring Dozerfleet characters.

To prevent this epic volume's epic efforts from being wasted, the following course of action is being undertaken:

• Dozerfleet Mega Portable will be used for conversion of the original Percolation fanfic, Percolation: Legends, and the M:AA fanfics into a compendium on 2013-2016 crossovers between Dozerfleet Comics and Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
• The aforementioned compendium and stories in it will be alluded to in the next volume, but not made a big deal of apart from it being a backstory explanation for latter fanfics. This second publication will include the latter fanfic works' descriptions.
• Information about the Percolation Warriors saga in general will be included, as well as any information on franchies parodied in Camelorum Adventures. Plum x Lemon will be added.
• An overview of the geography of Dozerfleet will become its own compendium.
• A who's who in Earth-G7.2.1 will get its own compendium. There will be no need for replication of this for the cast of Volkonir or the Dromedeverse.
• The art galleries will be given their own compendium.

Of these new compendia, only the text and some images are essential for preservation. Only the M:AA content needs to keep its formatting specific. The other content can possibly be converted into a Scribus file or to Affinity Publisher when ready, which will accellerate production of these.

The other bonus to breaking up the Percolation encyclopedia into these compendia is that, being much shorter, they may not require the complex table of contents that the Percolation encyclopedia required. Nor would they require the complicated index that was bogging down that encyclopedia. Pages and contents would be more straighforward.

Could the upcoming comics be AI?

A Eulogy to Dozerfleet Main

As the until-recent Dozerfleet Main was reaching its end-of-life as a tower, a difficult decision was reached: it was to retire the old dinosaur of a unit. The current Dozerfleet Portable, a Dell Latitude 5490 purchased off of Amazon, is also operating as Dozerfleet Main at the moment. The tower that was until recently Dozerfleet Main was a modified Dell Inspiron 3650 from 2017, with the main hard drive changed over to a 1TB solid state drive, and the original hard drive turned into a backup data drive known as "Ivan's Vault."

The external backup hard drive formerly known as "Dozimax" has inherited the title of "Ivan's Vault." Its sister, "Dozerfleet Backup," has now been re-christened as "Ivan's Vault 2."

The former Dozerfleet Main tower had been modified further since its original purchase, to contain an extra 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, thus putting it at 16 GB total. This made it an absolute powerhouse of a machine. However, it was still unable to run a lot of higher-end software, due to its graphics card limitations. Its elaborate Dell design made it nearly impossible to update the graphics for this device, dooming its future of ever being the advanced gaming machine desired.

Enter Bezzyca

The former Dozerfleet Main has since been given a new life as Bezzyca, a children's art and office learning station running on Kubuntu.

It now has all the basics for three children it's being donated to in order to learn their way around open source software, Linux, Gimp, Krita, and LibreOffice. To learn the ins and outs of the software world in a somewhat-safe environment with minimal parental control oversight, but also allowing them to brainstorm ideas any time of the year - away from the prying eyes of school admins, who might otherwise want to scrutinize their every move.

It also encourages them to get their own USB drives and learn their way around private ownership - something difficult to instill as a value in children when they are dependent on clouds and ChromeBooks.

Adapting to software obsolescence

However, the next stage forward in Dozerfleet progress has come at other costs besides simply donating old hardware. In the time it has taken to come this far, key bits of software that Dozerfleet once relied on have now started to become obsolete. Most notably: Microsoft Access and Microsoft Publisher.

Old Microsoft Access content will be the tricky part, as all that table data must now be converted to LibreOffice Calc. This will require a joint effort between Dozerfleet Portable and Dozerfleet Mega Portable (the Surface Go 2 Tablet). The Microsoft account associated with both doesn't recall Office 2019 being installed on Mega Portable. Therefore, there's no option to go back and reinstall Office 2019 for Portable. Likewise, there's no recollection in the online account of the purchase of Office 2016, which was what was running on Old Main.

Worse, Office 2021 was renamed to Offline Microsoft 365 2021, to create even more confusion for those who just want to run a forever license. Turns out, Microsoft wants 2021 to be the last of these offline-runable office apps. Beyond that, they offer only their online subscription model - a perfect reason to want to switch to LibreOffice for most tasks!

But here's the real kicker: Microsoft 365 2021 does not include Access or Publisher!!!

These relics being gone mean that only Office 2019, running on Mega Portable, can still open these files. And that means that several Dozerfleet works now need to be reformatted.

As mentioned above, a slow-moving conversion can happen to transform the Access documents for use in LibreOffice Calc. However, Publisher documents will need to be re-assessed for long-term retention. Those not deemed worth it, will be discarded. Then, there are those which do have long-term retention value. Alas, they now have to be converted.

From Microsoft to Affinity

The following key documents will need reformatting to Affinity Publisher:

Public

• Every Ape and His Brother lyrics
• The Horrorday Gang: What's Your Straggele Codename?
• Volkonir 2008
• The Official Handbook to The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapid Living Stuff
• The Official Handbook to The Sims 4: Into the Future Conversions Stuff
• Ciem: Inferno: The Inmates of Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility
• Ciem: Inferno: The Staff of Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility
• Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry

Private

• A Very Anarteq Tour of the Soo Itinerary
• Arionna Davis' Ciem Info Packet Series (when she initially showed interest in 2019 in portraying Candi Flippo on the wiki, though that arrangement never materialized.)
• Blood Over Water Relational Chart
• Blood Over Water Charts
• Business Card
• Folder Tabs
• C.O.W.
• Old credits for Ciem 2 (2009)
• Old Stationery Voyagers data
• Resume files

Out of that list, the Ciem: Inferno tie-in books won't change much. Meagan Amez's timeline will be re-examined per her expanded role. Otherwise, those books should be the same. Purge-Flare: Stickin' It to Pencil will likely also be re-formatted using Affinity Publisher. It was originally made in Microsoft Word 2016, using a mix of text captions and screenshots edited from a playthrough of GTA V on the PS4.

More changes to Blood Over Water lore

The biggest changes will be to Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry and Volkonir 2008. With the photos provided, it's plausible that Volkonir 2008 could now be mostly made as an AI-enhanced photocomic. Only the bare minimum content from The Sims 4, such as the Golden Lion Knight armor, Selshon, and the Gwirdons would necessarily have to be machinomic-generated. Everything else could either come from photos or from Krea AI.

In spite of all the readiness for Blood Over Water to be done up in The Sims 4, it could become an AI comic instead of a Sims machinomic. The need to completely re-make Dirty Laundry from the ground up justifies this change, as all the Sims photos can now be swapped out with AI to better match its mock-tabloid format. New photos from the 2024 Sorbet / Blood Over Water / Volkonir Big Rapids Farewell Tour also allow for coverage of regions that were impossible to cover when the first edition of Dirty Laundry was released.

AI: The Future of Dozerfleet Comics?

If Dirty Laundry is re-released as AI, and Blood Over Water's remake is also made AI, then Sorbet will likewise take a hybrid Sims / AI approach. Sims only for elements and scenes that can't be made with AI, and the use of AI and photos for everything else.

This will produce the following results:

Comics by pending format
Title	Visual style	Media format
Anarteq: Top of the World	Cartoon	AI comic
Anarteq: Top of the World Story Pack	Cartoon + Game	Abridged AI comic + Sims 3 mods + Sims 4 mods + InZoi recipes + a House Flipper 2 tour
Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry, 2nd Edition	Live Action	AI mock tabloid
Blood Over Water	Cartoon	AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references)
Sorbet	Cartoon	AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references)
Volkonir 2008	Live Action	AI machinomic (with Sims and photograph references)
Corando's "Don't Lose Hope"	Machinomic	Sims 4 machinomic
Path of the Ming-Cho	Cartoon	AI comic
Ciem / Anarteq: Kahoopiliana	Cartoon	AI comic
Sniperbadger: Fall of the Critter Resistance	Cartoon	AI comic
Nemara: Ward of the Upper Peninsula	Cartoon	AI comic

Handbooks to finish

Work on these comics will resume after the handbooks are finished for Anarteq: Top of the World Story Pack. As well as for the following packs at Dozerfleet Labs still awaiting handbooks:

DzMD Handbooks to be Made
Title	Game	Inception Year
A Tour of The Gerosha Chronicles	House Flipper 2	2025
The Blood Over Water Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Ciem: Inferno Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Ciem: Ash Cloud Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Ciem: Caldera Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Anarteq: Guardian of the Soo Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Anarteq: Tropic Mercenary Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Anarteq: Envoy to Lough Melvin Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Corando Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Extirpon Trilogy Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Navyrope Duology Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Horrorday Gang Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Path of the Ming-Cho Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Phaemer Village Peacekeepers Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Pilltar Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Sodality Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Swappernetters Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Gray Champion: Modern Legends Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Horrorday Gang Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
The Volkonir Character Recipe Book	InZoi	2024
Anarteq: Guardian of the Soo Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Anarteq: Tropic Mercenary Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Anarteq: Envoy to Lough Melvin Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Ciem: Inferno Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Ciem: Ash Cloud Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Ciem: Caldera Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
Swappernetters: Frontliner Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020
Swappernetters: Chrome Kite Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020
Swappernetters: Supporting Cast Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020
Swappernetters: Screwworms and Other Villains Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020
Sodality: Instigation Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020
Sodality: Adaptation and Determination Story Pack	The Sims 4	2024
The Horrorday Gang Story Pack	The Sims 4	2020

Completion of these handbooks, and of the comics aforementioned, will beget work opening up for the for-profit novels across the Megaverse.

Percolation Encyclopedia's uncertain future

Another work, this one with an uncertain future, is Percolation: The Complete Encyclopedia of Crossover Gerosha and Dozerfleet Crossovers. It was drafted at a time when Miraheze underwent a change of leadership, and was in danger of being shut down. That threat has passed. The artwork contained inside the encyclopedia has since become obsolete. To make matters worse, the work itself was all made in Microsoft Publisher, and then never finished. So it would need a massive overhaul to be added to Affinity Publisher, and be scaled down of unnecessary features.

Progress has started coming. But alas, some things needed to be sacrificed in the process.

Progress update on Corando and Blood Over Water

After completion of a story pack related to the 2022 remake of Corando's "Don't Lose Hope," being remade as a book, almost all wiki side work is now complete. Work can now resume on completing the actual book.

Once this comic is finished, and a trailer for it is possibly made for YouTube, the remake of "Corando" will be considered in-the-can. Archiving will commence, and this will be one more classic project re-made and off the project queue. Intentions are to follow it up by immediately beginning production on Blood Over Water, utilizing the materials available via Dirty Laundry to reconstruct it.

There could be some delays, due to Hurrican Ian. However, Dozerfleet staff intend to move at the fastest possible speed to get the remake of Blood Over Water completed, to make room for the completion afterward of Sorbet and Volkonir 2008. These works, once finished, will conclude the Big Rapids Saga.

How Blood Over Water Classic missed its deadline for IMDB

Clips for the miniseries can now be viewed here. The photocomic can be downloaded here.

The question becomes: if Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff can qualify for an IMDB page, then why not Blood Over Water? Well, it's technical; but it mostly comes down to nit picks regarding IMDB's specific rules.

1. Most new IMDB entries prefer that the film still exist, in its original format, verifiably, with verifiable information ready for its time of original release.
2. If the film (or miniseries) has been banned from public view for any particular reason, then IMDB wants evidence that it was available once upon a time.
3. Moreover, an additional clause in IMDB's rules states that the deceased work had to have been originally intended for release to the box office, a major commercial TV station or cable network, a major streaming platform (like YouTube or Vimeo), or some other venue that is widely publicly available.
4. If that isn't the case, then the work must still exist on a public venue in a form recognizable to its original medium / format at the time the entry to IMDB is made.
5. If the entry is to be made posthumously, then the work must have been originally intended for public broadcast, verifiably.

The specificity of these clauses in site rules, unfortunately, disqualify Blood Over Water from receiving an entry. And for two big reasons:

1. The work was removed from YouTube before an IMDB entry could be made, partially due to Chris' irrationality and TDS on Facebook, and partially due to a copyright dispute over the soundtrack. Therefore, it was defunct as a video online before an entry to IMDB could be submitted.
2. YouTube was not its original intended destination.

Nor was it ever intended in its original form for a box office release, nor to Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, nor any of their affiliates. Rather, the miniseries' original target audience was Bulldog Television, the educational access cable channel connected to FerrisState.tv that is specific to Ferris students on campus.

IMDB rules state that PEG channel programming "doesn't count" for its platform. So without a version of the videos still on YouTube, IMDB's official stance is that it "doesn't exist, never happened."

Here at Dozerfleet, we know better. But just because it no longer qualifies for an IMDB page, doesn't mean that information on the old miniseries is lost forever. Because of the photocomic, it now qualifies for a listing on ICDB! And even if somehow failing that, it still has entries on All the Tropes, and of course, the Dozerfleet Database on Miraheze.

OBRL now listed on IMDB

You read that right! The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff is now officially listed on IMDB! This makes it the first time a Dozerfleet Productions item has ever been given such a listing.

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