#literally cannot wait for this game

[emptygrvve]

10 more days until mushroom musume 👁️👁️

[bookishsavxx]

LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL CHUNKY BABY NORA BLESSED US WITH 😭

[arcane-gold]

I'm so happy to see you getting close to your goal for your new PC (and Veilguard). I shared your sale w all my friends bc you have some genuinely wonderful art AND it's going to a good cause (romancing hot Dragon Age Babes in your area). Much love, wishing you get all the funds in time <3

THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH

AND AN UPDATE: I DID!!!!!

[goldensunset]

hi welcome to holiday inn ^ - ^ grandpa genocide and zombie flower will show you to your room

[moeblob]

I'm so tired today. Take the Ringleaders of the group.

So I mentioned that I was a little nervous about talking about the plot and it still stands but uh. Basically, the friends all live in reality. And their "reality" is like our reality (obviously with exceptions that I make to the current time line) but some people can create portals. The portals lead to other dimensions. Some are alternate dimensions similar to reality. Some are dimensions to peaceful lands. Some are dimensions to magical lands.

This dimension maker can lead his friends to an alternate dimension in hostile lands with violent monsters but. The thing is. When they die in the other dimension, they just get booted back to their reality. So the Ringleader (Real) recruits his friend group to go die for fun, like a very mentally stable young adult would do.

Also, this is not the same in every dimension. It's simply the same dimension destination every time, so Ringleader (Real) isn't about to generate a portal to some Other Dimension where death could be permanent. He's content just traveling to the one violent dimension.

[see-arcane]

An AU where Ellen catches Carmilla's attention instead of Orlok's could be interesting. Lonely girl who's mom is dead living in an isolated manor; now that sounds familiar doesn't it?

Perhaps in some ways more insidiously Mircalla actually bothering to pose as some sort of "spirit of comfort" instead of pretty much immediately dropping the act seems likely.

I could see it! But then that still leaves the question dangling of whether Mircalla/Carmilla will be as attached to Ellen as she comes to be with Laura, or if Ellen would go the way of other girls who caught Millie's eye and simply get dead about it sooner rather than later :c

[xxplastic-cubexx]

friend notoriously bad at videogames said shed play marvel rivals with me tomorrow chat if i never post after tomorrow night its because a blood vessel bursted

[magnetic-dogz]

If I could be a hater and rant for a second:

I really, really don't like how I've been seeing some fans of Deltarune and Dream BBQ complain about waiting for chapters.

You got Deltarune fans acting like they're positively starved of content and actively pestering Toby Fox on every posts he makes, regardless of subject, about the game.

Trying sooo hard to make it a Silksong type situation when it is so, so not that.

Toby Fox and Joel G have been so much more communicative on the dev progress than Team Cherry (who, as far as I am aware, have been pretty much radio silent for 6 whole years) and have been giving fans PLENTY to feed on during the wait before releases. Official art, merch, newsletters, the works. Guys. Y'all are not starving. Come the fuck on.

"Ohhh the next chapter better not take another 4 years to come out-" LET INDIE DEVS COOK!!!!!!! PLAY ANOTHER GAME?!?!?!? FIND SOMETHING ELSE??!?!?!! DO SOMETHING ELSE BESIDE WHINING AT THE DEVS THAT THEY'RE NOT BUILDING YOUR TOYS FAST ENOUGH

[mysteriousboo]

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!

[dysaniium]

*slides this to supergiant* hey can i be a part of the technical test please please please

[totallynotwaffle]

to everyone (like, three people) wondering about how good ffxiv's cosmic exploration content is:

i spent 14 hours basically exclusively working towards upgrading my alchemist relic tool. during that time, i discovered for the first time how expert crafts worked and also was forced to do them while on a time limit, complete multiple on a time limit, complete absurdly stupidly, nearly triple the normal thresholds for quality & progress without expert craft bonuses, complete expert crafts WHILE ONLY HAVING 20 DURABILITY MAXIMUM, and also completely reorder my hotbars on controller in order to accommodate finally requiring crafting actions i literally never touched due to them being chance-based. my brain hurt multiple times whenever i did these in a row, and i'm still 2 steps away from having the relic tool for alchemist.

i recommend this content wholeheartedly to everyone who even has a passing interest in crafting. jesus fuck i have not had this much fun with this game in literal YEARS

[milquetoastii]

touchstarved game fans i love you dearly and ik you are all very excited for an updated demo/the game to come out in general but please know that your posting about expectations for an anniversary thing is probably just adding pressure to the devs; these are people who have full time jobs and lives outside of the game and while i do agree that we need to get a little more communication on their end on how far along in the timeline of the game they are, i don’t think that posting to put pressure on them for something they may not be ready to release is productive/helpful to them or us. expectations are very high for this game and i wish they were more open about the state of the game outside of the kickstarter updates but it’s starting to feel like there is some resentment and entitlement to content from the devs when projects like this do take a lot of time and deadlines can change

[remythologise]

hansry so compelling it's insane usually I'm like all in on the slowburn and pining and don't read established relationship per se because it's not as interesting. BUT! everything else compelling about them ASIDE (and that's a lot)... even after they're established relationship (in fic and canon) there's SO much potential drama.... the homophobia the social station divide the secrecy the wedding the (potential) two opposite sides of the war the (potential) death and angst of it all (although I hope they fake this out in at least one path and keep the angst but not the death after all did he DIE or simply DISAPPEAR).... yaoi cocaine

[thatpersonnooneknowz]

CLUB AZUL AND CORAL SEE HOMETOWN EVENT (without Azul…but still!) OCTAVINELLE ENJOYERS ARE EATING GOOD

Bonus observation, why is riddle always in the beach events??? Like glad he’s having fun, but still??

[cicide76536]

Also Imagine if @bioware did this: you pick your Rook to be a warden, you name them and for their last name you put Amell/Surana/Brosca/Cousland, whatever and press play, and the game goes: "You wish to return to the battlefield, Commander?" Like.. i would SOB????

[kopivie]

(genshin/zzz/hsr rant incoming. these are all my personal opinions.)

look, varesa is cute, i guess, but genshin impact is becoming so disappointing that i sincerely can't indulge in it anymore. i'm not even joking.

for example: varesa is iansan's pupil – that's who is quoted in her character intro on twitter. but if that's the case, why the fuck is iansan – the literal promo character for natlan – a 4 star with grey skin, while varesa is a 5 star? how much fucking sense does that make? did the devs forget that iansan was the character who was pushed in that trailer showcasing the nations all those years ago?

i understand that ningguang got the same treatment, being a 4 star and all, but in spite of that, we got displays of her strength and significance countless times. meanwhile, iansan isn't even remotely the same skin color as she was in the promo trailer.

also, varesa is meant to be "plus size" but... really? c'mon, dude. her thighs and arms are just drawn thicker, that's all. give her a tummy and rounder cheeks, at least. or some fucking melanin, for crying out loud. if anything, it's just an excuse to create a character that eats a lot and has fat in the "right" places. ugh.

(also, why the fuck do npcs get to have melanin, but not playable characters? cyno, xinyan, sethos, and candace are special cases, but the sumeru characters from the desert should definitely be darker since they're literally from the desert. and if natlan characters are based on indigenous and/or african cultures, their skin tones should reflect that. the most striking aspects of their designs are the colors that appear when they use their nightsoul blessings, but it's wasted since they're all so fucking pale. but okay. whatever.)

something that people have been complaining about lately is that genshin impact fell off super hard after the release of fontaine, and i have to agree. while i'm personally not as enthusiastic about fontaine's characters as i am about those that came before, fontaine was still super compelling, the characters were interesting, and the story as a whole was pretty cool. natlan had the potential to be the same, what with the plot being so morbid, canonically relevant, and emotional, but the characters flopped so hard that natlan as a whole feels soulless. the momentum crashed and fucking burned.

which is disheartening, to say the least. the most vibrant nation – both in terms of visuals, aesthetics, and culture – reduced to absolutely nothing because of how fucking soggy the cast is. it's bad enough that hoyoverse refuses to handle characters with melanin with any sort of care & openly fuses and disrespects several cultures from vastly different countries, but i digress.

because i need you to be so fr: what is kinich's favorite food? what's the deal with k'uhul ajaw? what about mualani's past? outside of mavuika, what do you actually know about any of natlan's playable characters? genuinely. excluding what you experience in tribal chronicles, the archon quest, and reading through their character stories, what do you really know about them?

characters like kazuha and xiao are so easy to cling to because you've seen so much of them. xiao's aloof and self-sacrifical nature melted away very quickly even before we got tons of content to watch him evolve. hell, even jeht, a fucking npc, got infinitely more character depth than some playable characters have to this day. so why are natlan's characters so fucking hollow?

another thing i've seen people mention is that genshin has become gooner or waifu bait, which... yeah..? i guess? people try to counter that argument by pointing at zenless zone zero, but that argument falls flat when you understand that zzz never tried to be anything else. a lot of people got into zzz for nicole's tits and stayed for the lore, great mechanics, and generous reward system. zzz literally baited people and is doing a pretty good job balancing it out, if you ask me. the fanservice is blatant because that's exactly what they chose to be.

like seriously, if you look at zenless zone zero's pre-release cbt vs. what it looks like now, you'll find that they censored quite a bit of the game. it's still fan service heavy with a lot of jiggle physics, but it doesn't distract from the content of the game in any way. like it's evident, but not uncomfortably so. if it was, i'm sure the game would get far more hate.

take jane doe as an example. her trailers are insanely erotic. she literally oozes sex appeal even though her occupation technically doesn't require her to make use of it. but does that detract from her character in the special story? nope. it's not even something she utilizes, actually. she's simply a fantastic actress, convincing even seth, a fellow pubsec officer, that she's a bad guy. (i know he's supposed to be naïve, but c'mon. she had so many people fooled.)

on the other hand, genshin never advertised itself as such. fanservice was expected, but it was never their main selling point – and don't misunderstand me, it still isn't, but it doesn't feel that way anymore.

genshin was supposed to be that one revolutionary gacha game with complex lore, fun fight mechanics, cool character designs, and cultural references. obviously it delivered, but lately it's been... shamelessly leaning in a certain direction. in fact, it's leaning so far that the game itself is lacking in actual compelling content.

also, the devs adding the ability to skip through certain things doesn't do much for player retention imo. because once you skip through these things and collect your materials, what's left? an event that you don't care about that yields little to no meaningful rewards? articles are being made about how barren the updates have become and if you're like me and you've got endless quests that could be completed, there's no real incentive for completing them.

the developers of honkai star rail are so observant that they recognized that the game is evolving in such a way that renders their early release characters useless. so what are they promising to do? buff the old characters so that they're still useful, even as the combat evolves beyond what those early characters were made for. i'm not sure if they're buffing all of them, but to ensure people can still play the game with old characters (without having to spend money/resources to get the new ones), they're fixing the game so that that is possible.

sunday may have been released before this announcement, but he was definitely the first step because he gave jing yuan, a character that got power crept by literally everyone released after him, more value. that's how you refresh a game, dammit.

zenless zone zero isn't old enough to warrant such changes, nor does it have such complex combat mechanics. the characters are organized into five categories – support, anomaly, stun, attack, and defense – and every agent that comes out has their own unique animations & ways to expand upon their designated combat role. even without proper synergy between agents, you can still succeed.

even the element distribution is unique in zzz. the canonical reason for there being only three ether characters is because developing ether weapons is expensive and ether is a dangerous element that can corrupt the user, so not many can use it. (this is just my assumption, but) zhu yuan likely has ether bullets because she's got pubsec to pay for her weapons, and nicole is nicole, so she probably has some secret connection who gave her the suitcase.

also, the dev team understands that ether is unique to the world of zzz, so they're being extremely careful when handling it. that said, it's safe to assume that the abundance of agents who use more natural elements – ice/frost, fire, physical, and electric – is due in part to the fact that it's simply safer for agents to fight using things that are easily accessible and less prone to corrupting them.

there's also the matter of certain pieces of canon lore being shown in regular gameplay, such as miyabi's hair glowing. with her w-engine her hair glows indefinitely, but without it, it still glows. in canon, her father and other citizens have seen that glow whenever she fights – hence why you can see it in combat. that's fucking amazing; the consistency is absolutely wild.

i'm not saying all of this to say that genshin lacks these traits; you can absolutely achieve the same synergy using unconventional team comps and so on. there's also aspects of lore being shown through on-field character action, be it via combat or idles. but because most of genshin's true value is hidden behind endless walls of text and occasionally hard-to-locate items, it falls short. players communicate ways to improve the game and sometimes the devs will answer, but they'll over-deliver and make things upsetting all over again like they did with the over-simplified puzzles.

inazuma was fun imo because the puzzle difficulty was perfect. complex, but not overly so. sumeru expanded on that beautifully, and world quests for both nations were riveting from start to finish.

natlan has its own gimmick, being the nation of war, after all. everything is centered around combat which is understandable and fun. but once again, i sincerely feel like natlan is just... underwhelming. the potential fizzles out upon contact.

my point in saying all of this is just to reiterate something that i've said several times on this blog: genshin impact is no longer appealing to me. it no longer gets me as amped up as it used to. i don't yearn for updates or characters – quite frankly, i don't care anymore. i treat genshin the same way i treat k-pop idols that i used to obsess over; i tune in for important updates but don't bother engaging any further than that. genshin is only interesting for the lore and theories at this point.

the characters still hold a special place in my heart, though i can't really say i care for anyone post-sumeru. i'm at the point where i'm more fascinated by fanart and creating fic ideas than actually engaging with the damn game itself. i want to do things like explore sumeru and inazuma all over again, but... i dunno. genshin's grown dull and has done nothing but disappoint me as of late, and it's breaking my heart. i could obtain new characters all i wanted, but still not give a damn.

i got arlecchino and i was excited until i pulled clorinde's weapon. i got arlecchino to a point where she's playable and for a time, i was excited to go back to building the characters that i've been itching to build for years so i could have various team comps to swap out and have fun with. but did i follow through? no. that's not a new development; genshin's always been tedious. but it's not laziness that's stopping me anymore – it's the fact that i just don't care.

it will forever confuse me how genshin impact put hoyoverse on the map and yet that's the game that fell apart first. instead of improving genshin directly, it almost seems as though zzz and hsr are learning from genshin's mistakes.

genshin locks talent and weapon materials behind real world time constraints; you can only obtain a specific mat on a specific day. but in hsr and zzz, all mats are available at all times. i'm aware that this is due to the fact that there are significantly less materials since those games are smaller, but my point remains. like, instead of locking mats behind a specific day of the week, why not combine the hsr strat and choose a difficulty along with the specific mat you want whenever you pick a domain? why make this so damn difficult?

zzz and hsr are also more generous with their rewards, be it for events or otherwise. why not allow genshin to do the same? it's weird, but of little concern to me at this point tbh.

i just wanted to get that out my system. i'm not mad, just... fiercely disappointed.