#And for some reason while grinding this out I somehow glitched the game into thinking I died 200 times

[vynnyal]

This is likely the hardest I've laughed in rain world yet. Basically, you can glitch a spear into a quantum state using a dead bat body, allowing stabbed enemies to follow you through tunnels. So I tried bringing a leviathan to Moon. And the game really, really didn't like that

[nerd-takes-pony-town]

So... Dergun Town's gone, at last - Temp. Tester Rant.

To be frankly honest, I was waiting for it to end. I stopped playing after the weird ass Pet update and sudden, unnannounced Hair Change due to “legal reasons” because the game was just getting utterly confusing, a mess of minigames with clunky customization options and systems, and whatnot. Plus, my time as a tester was when I hit the breaks on the game and realized "man... they really are dicks".

I never ranted about it because I knew if I did, they'd definitely come for me and ban me from the game or from the server because "I shittalked about the game" or “I’m unveiling the tester server”, but now that it's over - it's time for a rant.

So, think it was around May 2020 that I decided to go for Tester to better prepare myself for the future updates, the chat itself was basically... like the lobby, just mainly memes and the Dev fanatics, who will defend them 24/7, chatting with the Devs.

One of the first few things that was asked for is the Timezones so that we could test the server together - the Timezones thing is literally thrown out the window after the very first test. From there on, what they would do is ping the Testers to announce an update - at the time, we had no changelog, no proper bug report channel, it was all crowded in one place, and because they disregarded the Timezones, imagine if you will the chat being both filled with players spamming the chat with all the new shit like some happy toddlers, and another half are people who are reporting to be in class, asleep, dinnering, ect.

A chaotic mess that makes it near impossible to actually report something. Eventually, they added a bug report but once again, no proper check list - if any, the changelog and the checklist only appeared around the Argoras or Minigame Update (June-July). And, as always, the checklist was never updated, so you'd be testing something that's already been checked and other listed things wouldn't be checked at all. Organization, which is something a Tester needs, was never a fucking thing in that horrid mess. They would occasionally do polls, one of which was if the Update should release now, nearly everyone said No - they released it anyway. :^)

Then, there would be some bugs where they’d blame us for it - the /hitme was a command that was restrictedly used in the test server because the Devs somehow don’t know how to add a small quantity of resources to all of us, so he instead made a command that gives, what? Over a million of each of the resources? We ALL made sure that wasn’t toggled on the “beta” server, and yet, somehow, it got released with the commad functioning, and instead of admitting their fault, they blamed the Testers for practically saying folks not to use it - one of the testers was literally STRIPPED OFF of their Gil and other resources, and mind you, they didn’t even used the command at all, all they did was accidentally say the command.

The Moderators would also be rather cruel, everyone likes memes, that's granted, but it shouldn't mean you can willingly change our nicknames like that. Imagine switching over to the chat only to find out your name, along with all the other testers, has been changed to "Todd Howard"; you rename it, and a couple of days later, they change it yet again without your permission or consent. This isn't fun, this is just annoying. I had to walk around with "Stop changin my name" on my nickname because of them.

And like how it has been told, these Devs cannot take criticism at all. The Argoras Update will haunt me down as the Update where I was literally fighting against other testers and the Devs over something that needed to be changed. In the Test Server, the Skill Points had a Clover table, meaning you used clovers for Skill Points, the thing is in Pony Town, the rewards are remain unlocked even if you go down the unlocking mark - Dergun Town does not. So players who are unaware of this would've wasted 1k Clovers and then realize that their prizes have been taken away because they're no longer above the unlocking mark. So as a Tester, it should be my duty to warn the Devs about it and come with suggestions.

I told them without mentioning Pony Town at all (because they have a stupid policy of “if it’s close to PT, we can’t do it”) about how the Clover option will result in players losing their reward if they go below 1k and 500 Clovers respectively, which is the equivalent to hundreds of players putting all those days collecting Clovers to waste. They would ABSOLUTELY rant  about it in Bugs or Help Desk. I suggested them to either:

Make the rewards unlocked still even if you left the mark.

Remove the Clover option

Add a warning when about to select Clover

Those are the ones on top of my head, what did they do?

Tom just kept ignoring what I said on the first suggestion and exclusively focusing on the second one, as if it was the only option available. Meanwhile, Q was guilt tripping me into bidding to their commands, "37,500 gil per skill if you the 50 points pure,," it's horrible, sure, but do you really want to deal with a hoard of players coming to the server to scream about how the Skill Point system stole their Clover rewards? And having to deal with a patch or two to make them happy, or worse, having to ban more players because they’re angry WITH REASON that their prizes were taken away because you idiots refuse to add something that allows the players to keep their rewards while below the mark?

You know they would do that, everyone knows they would do that. And worse is with exception of one or two Testers, the other users, specifically folks like J*y and D**r, just kept defending the Devs even though I was literally helping them prevent a future problem that everyone knew it would fucking happen. What's the point of testing a game if the Developers will fucking refuse to take your advices?

They did removed the Clovers from the options, but kept the Dandelions and the Bones, which, you guested it, STILL DIDN'T HAD THE PRIZE LOCKING! And the best part - NO WARNING REGARDING THE LOST OF THE PRIZES WAS ADDED EITHER! So players who had the Dandelion Rune and the ability to get the special items from the Bone would end up in losing them without them knowing - though it’s not as bad as the Clovers, a resource that restrictedly spawns in areas with Clovers as opposed to be map-wide and the last prize needs 1k of those, and the recent-ish Spring Update changed the green to a shade that blends with them.

I singlehandedly helped them avoid a hoard of angry players, and not a singular thank you was given.

The Quest Cap is also a thing, if the mobile users are in such a disadvantage with the Clovers being gone, then why are you adding the Cap anyway? Everyone knows that if a game is relying on the player to grind, it should not cap the Quests to a fucking T - only 20 Quests per hour?! And the NPC's Gil is both dependant on Bootleg Flight Rising Dominance... and dependant on a Clan that YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY CHANGE even if you request for such?! It's like if in Flight Rising, because Fiona has Light eyes, Light Flight would gain extra bonus treasure from here as if Dominance wasn't enough. "It's to balance the Economy", how is that going to balance, it just restricting the mobile users even further, as if the shitty battle controls on mobile that makes it impossible to battle wasn't enough.

The game was also just turning into a weird, funky, Flight Rising bootleg - fitting how the game that Q also worked on was a bootleg hybrid between Dragon Cave and Flight Rising - the release of pets with these genes and barely any use but to literally do the exact shit you do in FR. In FR, you exalt Dragons to gain a upper hand at Dominance, in DT, a rather recent-ish? Update allowed you to sell the Magikins (the gened pets, the other pets are literally useless) for Clan Tokens, giving you a boost to gain Dominance. It’s exactly like FR, I’m surprised no one ever bothered to contact the FR folks about this ripoff. The pets did had a use and it was to gain more gil but a nerf was done because, once again, they released an update were we made SURE that wasn’t happening, but somehow, it happened - the Pet-Gill Machine Glitch that allowed you to gain infinite Gil.

My pets got bugged because of it - the level got reset (it’d only reward 1-2 gil) but the price of the upgrade did not (750 gil) - I asked if that was a nerf or a bug, and as expected, they said it was nerf when it was clear as days it was a bug given how people had pets that requried 700+ gil and rewarded 30+ gil.

The game’s just a mess of minigames and FR Ripoff, I could go on and on with just how bad the game is, but the Devs are even worse.

It's really bad when they're once straight up muted someone for speaking their fucking opinion.

(You may need to zoom)

(From PMs)

This user would constantly bring the flaws in their shit without insulting, they'd argue with reason, give suggestions, everything, in hopes of improving the game. and they instead just argued back, if not, criticized them for even bringing an opinion and tried to justify themselves as to why they didn't need to change - and the users would absolutely defend the Devs like literal ass kissers, to the point of being happy they got muted.

As the user rightfully said in PMs:

I wanted to make contributions that could help improve it, but it seems like the staff just want people to do as they say without question instead of looking for ways to improve. And they desperately need to understand that the game is not just about what they want, what kinds of designs they think players should make. It should be encouraging players to try new designs and be creative, but all the devs want to do is shut that down.

I just wish they didn't have absolute power over the server. If they were accountable to their community in some way, it'd be possible to convince them to make changes when it's really necessary. Not all the time, just when their stubbornness is getting in the way of something that absolutely everybody except them wants.

The fun in these games has always been in the community. If you stifle that, you stifle the game. And unfortunately, I now can't say any of this. Making demon combat even harder for those without skill points was wholly unnecessary, too. I don't know what their obsession is with making the game so heavy on grinding.

Back when I first arrived, Dergun Town was mostly just Pony Town with more customization options, plus a few special prizes you could earn by gathering items. Nowadays it seems like the devs are more interested in forcing players to grind for literally everything than they are in adding new stuff everyone can enjoy and use.

But worse than that is how they always respond to criticism. The mini-events were the biggest example of that. Players didn't like being forced to spend all day on Dergun Town just for any chance to win an award in mini-events. It was damaging people's ability to have a life outside the game, and a lot of users complained. How did they respond? They basically threatened to remove the mini-events altogether and make all the items from them unobtainable, rather than improving on anything. This is how the staff responds to all complaints and suggestions. It's either the exact thing they want or nothing, and if they make a mistake big enough that everyone complains, rather than admitting fault, they basically punish the community for being unhappy. Their entire mentality is "play by my rules or I'm taking my toys and going home".

Reminder that when the garden update broke and erased a ton of players' houses and items, they blamed the players and said they had to do all the work to get everything that was lost back themselves.

I swear, all of this "you complained now you get nothing" and "we work hard, so be thankful to us even for terrible content" we hear in the user suggestions channel is just conditioning their player base to accept being taken for granted and mistreated. They're basically trying to induce Stockholm Syndrome.

Someone who’s also on Tumblr got banned for saying that the new design of the hairs made their characters look ugly - it was a change that was NEVER ANNOUNCED, specially considering it’s a change regarding “legal issues”, the playerbase should’ve been warned about this before they updated it. But instead, they got pissy that some people have complained about the drastically changed hairs and once again, shit down on them for complaining.

Dergun Town is an excellent example of how some people are not and never were meant to run a game - the guilt tripping, the “accept this or get lost” attitude, the behavior they had and occasionally have regarding Pony Town (search “Let’s Talk About Dergun Town” and you’ll get the document), to the point of banning the actual word “to avoid drama” aka keep folks from talking about their real fucking nature.

I am honestly happy that Dergun Town got shut down while Pony Town keeps improving and growing, karma was indeed well served.

[radramblog]

Game of the Year 2020...?

Ive scrolled the list of games that came out this year to see what my GOTY ended up being, but turns out the only game I played in 2020 that released that year was, uh…….

Fucking good game but like I’m not gonna hand it GOTY by default (That goes to Hades, based solely impressions from other people). Actually, I’m not handing out any awards, really. So I guess I’m just gonna go over a bunch of the other games I did play last year, regardless of whether or not they came out then.

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition

A mate got me this for my birthday in December 2019, and unlike the other games I got then (Kirby Star Allies which I burned through that month and Octopath which I still haven’t played) I spent a fair few hours playing it last year. This was before the sequel was announced, and also a little bit after the fact- figured I should try and finish one before playing the other. Unfortunately, I have yet to purchase Age of Calamity nor finish Definitive Edition, because the former is expensive and the latter is expansive. Holy shit there’s so much fucking content in this game. I don’t think I ever will finish it to be honest, though despite the repetitiveness it never really felt boring to me. It’s the only Warriors/Musou game I’ve played, and I’d be interested in trying others based on the experience.

(I’m not playing Fire Emblem Warriors though fuck that)

Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC: The Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra

Sword and Shield felt somewhat lacking on release, and while the DLCs released this year did much to try and fix this its still a bit shit that it required an extra paycheck out of you to get the full game- outside of outsourced mobile games like Go and Shuffle, or services such as Bank or Home, Pokemon has never actually had DLC/microtransactions, so this was a little disappointing. I’d argue that it absolutely wasn’t worth it when Isle was released, as fun as the content was it was again, lacking. Crown Tundra I would argue exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations, however- the new and returning mons are cool and welcome (I despised Calyrex’s design on first reveal but their behaviour in story redeemed it more than enough), and the Max Lair Adventure offered a surprisingly replayable romp that has been great to just try and grind out with friends. I can’t say I’d recommend the DLC pack though- only if because you’ve probably made up your mind already as to whether or not you’re getting it, or this doesn’t apply to you at all. I could also put basically every main series Pokemon game on here, seeing as I’m pretty sure I nuzlocked every region at some point during the year, but I don’t want to make this *that* long. 

Super Smash Bros Ultimate Expansion Pass

Smash is still Smash. I don’t find myself playing it much on my own, and even in Perth get-togethers weren’t super common last year. As neat as the DLC characters released this year are for the franchise as a whole, none of them convinced me to play significantly more than usual, and I can’t wrap my head around half of them, so.

Also, I’m still salty about Byleth, and I actually really liked Three Houses, it was my first FE game. Why the fuck wasn’t it Claude????

Rivals of Aether

On the other hand, in the last few months I’ve found myself grinding match after match of Rivals with one of my best mates and the game is a fucking blast, holy shit. I still haven’t bought it for myself, but its basically 100% of the reason I have played 0 smash for the last few months since we’re too busy mashing Orcane vs Ranno over and over and not really getting tired of it. It requires a specific type of person to get into it, but if you’re in that group then its just an excellent game.

VA-11 Hall-A

I first played VA-11 Hall-A (Vallhalla, since typing that is a pain) by pirating it and playing it on my laptop in the dead of night.

It quickly became one of my favourite games of all time.

When the Switch port dropped, I felt obliged to actually pay for it this time around, since the developers had more than earned my money. And then I replayed it again, playing it on my switch in the dead of night (At least this time I had the excuse of being a nightshift worker). With the sequel unfortunately delayed into 2021, it might be time to run it back once more or drag more of my mates into Glitch City since I already forcibly exposed a few of em to it.

The post-credits title screen is still my phone background.

Fallout: New Vegas

I don’t really have much to say about FNV that hasn’t been said already, especially considering HBomberguy’s recently released video, but it is also on my top 5 list and I only got around to playing Lonesome Road and Dead Money this year. Also went out of my way to 100% achievement complete the game on Steam, which I believe is the first time I’ve done that for a game.

Zero Escape Series (Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, Virtue’s Last Reward, Zero Time Dilemma)

The Danganronpa series’ less colourful sibling, Zero Escape was a series I finally got around to finishing after having borrowed a friend’s copy of VLR back in high school and playing it wrong due to not deleting his save file (oops,). I think VLR remains my favourite, and I really hope the series continues at some point (unlikely as it seems now) considering how ZTD missed the mark pretty hard. The first 2 games are still excellent mystery games and a lot of fun, though you do need somewhat of a tolerance for words.

A Hat in Time

Oh god this game is so fucking cute. Also, just an excellent platformer. Is the DLC still on sale? I should buy that.

Fallout 4

Its just not New Vegas. It just isn’t. I really tried with this game, I really did. The gunplay is great, modding and building shit is fun, but its just not the same.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

A couple years ago I bought a SNES Mini, but until 2020 I didn’t really have a convenient way of playing it seeing as my monitor didn’t have an HDMI port. But now I do have one with one, so I got to start playing this classic! And then stopped because of uni. Should finish that, probably.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon

Shit Keara I still have your copy sorry I’ll get back to it :<

Pokemon Stadium

I also managed to get my N64 up and running, and despite being the wrong region for most of the games available in local shops, I somehow managed to get Stadium for a great price. Got to dig out my old Red cartridge and anything. Fuck me though, this game is brutal. Seriously, Gen 1 battle mechanics are tough to deal with at the best of times, having to do battle after battle with said mechanics without losing is just nuts. I still haven’t managed to get Round 2 unlocked.

God, fuck you Blaine. Goddamn fire spin Rapidash motherfucker.

Super Mario 64 Speaking of, I managed to pick up a Japanese cartridge of SM64, complete with BLJ glitches and 3 entire save files. After much effort, I managed to actually get it working, and spent most of the night of Christmas getting smashed and trying to beat Bowser in the Fire Sea. I played a lot of the DS remake as a kid, and I feel like an idiot for struggling as much I did with the original.

This is all of course a buildup to the fact that I was lying about not assigning a GOTY. Because there is only one N64 game in my small collection deserving of Game of the Year, because its deserving of Game of the Year every year since its 1999 release.

BEETLE ADVENTURE RACING MOTHERFUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER

[hoenn-hakase]

TPP Bronze: Day 8. The End

Where we last saw Fifer, she had just become Champion for both Kohto and Kanto and had begun to explore the lengths of her domain as she'd hardly knew anything about Kanto. Prof. Koa gave her a Cave Pass that allowed her to go through Cerulean Cave where she found and fought her toughest opponent yet: TPP's own, AJ. Unable to beat him, she returned to Kanto's mainland where she seems to be seeking the greatest treasure of all: Her Purpose.

We start the day bright and early in Vermilion City. Having never been in a port city, but having been in a train station, Fifer sure wanted to check out the docks. What would be found down there? A big fancy boat? A rare pokemon in hiding? A gateway to HELL? Well.... APPARENTLY! D8!

Going down the stairs to where the loading area normally would be, Fifer instead stepped out of the port and into the Glitch Worl!!! Which bizarrely enough, also seems to be the source of the Plague o' Rocks that's been slowly trying to encase Kohto for some time now. A stray NPC tries to ask her if she came from Johto and admires her rare Pokemon he wonders can be found there. Glitch Worl seems to be a pretty enclosed space, having the doors blocked and buildings too fragmented to hold anything. No treasure to be found... So Fifer heads back to the Lost Boy and decides to ask the.... clone? Yes, she didn't notice at first, but there's a girl in blue who turned toward Fifer when she tried to get the girl's attention, and... SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE HER???

The girl suddenly takes her through another doorway, (down the rabbit hole indeed...) where she found herself suddenly TRAPPED in a mess of world fragments and somewhere in the distance, a horn blows, signalling that they're being taken away somewhere. Even as she can feel the "ship" moving, she eventually manages to kick the door open and stepped out to find... she was still in the same place. In front of the fragmented gym of the town she departed from anyway. How strange. Talking to another girl this time, or what she THOUGHT was another girl, turned out to be some copy of her as well and the pair of Fifers decided to shove her back into the pocket dimension to seal her away.

Wriggling out the side door this time, Fifer seemed to be quite put out with this place, and these... "twins" and decided to see if she could just fly back to Cerulean City. Somehow... that worked? She eventually went back to do a bit of a test, and certainly the port still lead into the Glitch Worl. But she could leave it just as easily with Fly. Having learned this, she heads back to the League, presumably to talk with the council about barring off the docks until they figure out how to prevent people from falling into The Void.

After dealing with those bugs, Fifer decides to go beat up some real bugs and does a long grind session in the Viridian Forest where she stumbles across a fisherman who is mad about someone telling him there was a good fishing spot there, but only bugs!

Feeling her training is complete, it's time to rechallenge AJ! And fail. ... Multiple times. So instead it's BACK to training! Off to the League to again get the help and advice of her fellow League members. There's something troubling about all this, I'm sure. AJ is known destroyer. Has he only been going easy on her?

Things only turn weirder (and Glitchier? Come on, Bronze you were holding up so well....;o; ) as she has a total WHITE out

Perhaps the answer isn't just in sheer brute strength, but something... more. Remembering Sabrina's words in how the power of the bond Fifer has with her Pokemon, the love they share, is more powerful than anything, Fifer appears to be working on strengthening her bond with Lucy

Working her way through the LITERAL Maze of Trees, Fifer finds a hidden house that seems to be some kind of Game Corner... Only there's no games inside the building. Instead a shady man tells her CONGRATS on her excellent sleuthing skills in being able to find the Secret Room. His friend then proceeds to give her AS MANY MASTER BALLS AS SHE WANTS 8O 8O 8O The chat proceeds to get so many, the game goes into a sort of "hyper mode" where the music, text, and character movements all suddenly move at an accelerated pace to speed things up XD

Having been deemed a Master of Glitchcraft, Fifer decides to test her strength elsewhere. She eventually heads to the Kanto Power Plant, where she walked through the door into the Old Couple's house in the heart of Deep Cave. Stepping out of the house proved she was, in fact, still in the cave, so it wasn't that they were removed to the Power Plant, but that she figured out how to create a portal of her own. Digging her way out, she returned to the Power Plant entrance just fine. Magic~ 8D <3

Fifer seems very excited to discover such powers and immediately decides she MUST try this elsewhere to give herself confidence in this new ability. She returns to the Glitch Worl and proves she doesn't even need to Fly to leave this weird place, as she can just step back through the doorway she created to enter it. Entering and leaving Vermilion City Gym also appears to form a gateway, giving her a shortcut back to Memoria Town.

A new plan forges as she seems to piece things together, eventually setting up a gateway at the entrance to Dark Tunnel that would lead her directly into Cerulean Cave so she could bypass the guards and go more quickly after AJ. In the end it was a long, and hard fought battle but with a bit of luck and strategizing, we FINALLY CLAIM VICTORY! >O

AJ actually doesn't have much to say (not to US anyway XD) and just as mysteriously as he appeared to Fifer.... he vanished. Leaving one to wonder if he was ever truly there... The credits roll and the Chat cries and Fifer... Well Fifer managed to warp into the game's true finale. A mysterious lookout spot where she could see all of Kohto through a lense and found --?!! waiting for her with a happy Congrats on her completing all there is to do in their tiny home. She also meets with Freako, a strange man who thanks for playing "the game". One of Koa's aides is even there, saying the professor sends his regards. Everyone's so proud of her ;o;

As she talks to all the people, and takes in the sights, her ItemFinder starts going off. A... a treasure? It doesn't appear to be in the building, but stepping outside reveals the "lookout" is in a house by the sea. It... It's Cerulean Cape! I mean, Enders Isle. Fifer continues to look around the clearing it sits in, thoroughly cut off from the rest of civilization. The ItemFinder starts to react to something outside now... she follows... She follows until she finds herself back in the gateway to Cerulean Cave and a soft mist fills the area. The Voices leave, some sending hearts and well wishes as they do so. The game ends.

This was long but still kind of fun. I think if I do this for the next run, I'll start doing it from Day 1 so hopefully I won't be SO far behind as I started this when it was almost over. I know my points of interest are kind of wonky, but I hope I could at least make these info-dumps amusing at least. Thanks! <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, well since no one asked about it, here's a few bonus notes and lore ideas to come up while I was going through all this.

The PokeGear was back in full swing this run, and we had several numbers calling us at all hours of the day, but the ones that stood out to me the most were: Youngster Zach, Camper Nate, Lass Dana, and PokeFan Beverly. I suppose given the chat's reactions whenever one of them called had something to do with it. (Dana is Bae though apparently)

I'm not sure if it was a bug or what triggered it, but while we were in Viridian Forest, Mom called after EVERY. SINGLE. TRAINER. to tell us she went and bought something and it's in the PC. Whether she was pushing for PC use or simply seems to be gaining a bit of a shopping addiction due to just how much dough Fifer's been raking in through her battle and treasure hunting skills, it was really funny. I really do wonder if the same phone call just kept getting triggered even though she only meant to call us once, or if there actually was a new item in the PC for every time she called, but we'll never know.

For anyone curious, I believe I saw we had 171 Master Balls over the course of Bronze. According to Kelcyus: "and most Masterball'd mons: Master Alakazam, Master Golbat, Master Graveler, Master Goldeen and Master Tangela which was caught with the original masterball."

Speaking of, Kelcyus made a comic about the incident, but I didn't actually notice it since I was more or less skimming over events in my vid watching so while skimming I didn't see anything out of place with a trainer battle and the continuing on down Route 9 toward the Power Plant though knowing that the area was off limits now explains SO MUCH about the stuff that happened in that area. Like the gateways to different areas because nothing was programmed in place of the Power Plant and Rock Tunnel and so forth. If I calculated correctly, the Edna OH SHIT incident happened back on Day 7. While it's hilarious that after turning into a Magicarp, Edna accuses us of hacking, the truth is, the gate house to the underground between Cerulean City and Vermilion City was meant to block the path to Route 9. Instead it was about two spaces over, creating a one space gap for Fiver to simply walk through and then use Cut on the tree as normal.

While I keep making jokes about the Plague o Rocks that seems to be tormenting Kohto (that one village I never got the name for, Acre Forest, Cerulean Cape, ect all having the large square boulders blocking off places for seemingly no reason) and then finding them EVERYWHERE in the Glitch Worl, and the stray NPC still talking about Johto, (as well as a few others like in Saffon and in the Route 9 forbidden zone) I can't help but wonder if the random rocks are Glitchwork or actually (from a lore prospective) actually from the remnants from Brown when Johto was basically buried due to (I thiiiiink?) an earthquake. Seeing how Kohto and Kanto are directly connected, and both areas have these rocks to some extent, and Johto was basically destroyed, I wonder how far flung the effects of that disaster struck. o.O;

And that's all I can think of at the moment. ^ w ^

[stompsite]

An Open Letter To Bungie

Hi, Bungie folks, I’m Doc. You recently released the Warmind DLC. I recently played it. I’m writing this blog post now for two reasons: one, I’m obligated to write content for my readers, and two, because in another, healthier life, people paid me to help them make their games better. I’m not gonna pretend to be The Greatest Person Ever, but I do have a knack for helping developers, especially when it comes to online shooters.

Sure, I’m not some famous streamer or YouTuber who drives people to your games, and I’m not some universally beloved game designer like Shigeru Miyamoto. I’ve worked on games nobody will ever know about. I’ve worked on games everyone loves, and in the process, I’ve played and studied service based games more than just about anyone else out there. I want to help, because Bungie’s games have been good to me, and because I think they still can be.

I’m not gonna talk about Destiny 2 or how I felt about it or whether it’s good or bad or whatever. I’ve done that already. For the sake of my blog-reader-types, I’ve written about Destiny 2 for USGamer (part 1 and part 2), but I’m gonna assume you didn’t, and I’m not gonna ask you to sit down and read like 8,000 more words on Destiny 2 right now.

The tl;dr is this: Destiny 2 wasn’t as beloved as it could be. Bungie has, admirably, worked their asses off to make Destiny 2 a better game, and I think they’ve done a really good job, but I think there’s some areas where Destiny 2 could improve. There was a lot of hope for Warmind, and a bunch of the changes--the go fast and exotic updates especially--have done an amazing job at making Destiny 2 feel better to play. Exotics sucked before, and exotics are in a better place now.

There’s two kinds of feedback I can provide. There’s universal feedback and personal feedback. I want to try to do the former, because look, while personal would make the game more fun for me, it might not bring other people back.

(I started to write some and it went like: “Look, none of my Hunter gear has any mobility perks on it and yet I somehow have like 6 mobility on my guy. Everything is specced for armor and recovery but somehow I still have mobility on” or “you guys should really patch the physics glitch back into Crota’s End because that man cannon launch will never not be fun”)

Fixing my wants makes Destiny a better experience for me, but it doesn’t rope in new players or bring back old ones. This is more of a universal feedback type article thing.

Historically, I spend a lot of time writing really lengthy articles for casual readers. I go in-depth into setup because I’m trying to help people who might not know stuff learn the basics. My journalisty stuff is meant to educate and entertain. This is meant to be more, lean, respectful of time, blah blah blah. Buuuttt… since it’s unsolicited feedback, I don’t have any kind of report parameters, briefings, “what we’re aware ofs,” or stuff like that. So I’ll try to keep it succinct and try to avoid unnecessary explanations.

Okay, that was all setup; the actionable stuff starts here.

A big problem facing D2 right now is the fans. I mean, they’re great people. I love ‘em to pieces. But fans are usually, uh, not informed about game development, which means they’ll tell you what they think they want, and you have to listen to that and do your best to interpret it, which is a huge problem for basically every developer I’ve ever interacted with in any way, shape, or even tweet.

Like, “we want a better grind,” for instance. That sounds really simple, right? What does “better” mean, though? I’ve heard some people say that getting rewards is too easy. I’ve heard other people say that getting meaningful rewards seems impossible. There’s a ton of different ways we can interpret this desire for a better grind.

Warmind promised that. You folks at Bungie changed how difficulty works, how engrams drop, where the soft cap was, and a bunch of other stuff. You know all about that. But the folks online are still upset, and the discussion seems more confused than ever.

So, all we know for sure is that people didn’t like the grind before and they don’t like the grind now. Okay, cool, but what do they like? Or, better yet, how can we move the grind to a place where they’re happy?

First things first, making the grind a bit longer was absolutely the right call. Having exotics dumped all over you makes rewards feel meaningless. Getting legendaries all the time? Same deal. So making those things rarer, that’s a really good first step, but there are still three fundamental problems with the grind.

Problem #1: The soft cap. It’s weird to do a 350 difficulty event and only get 342 gear for it. What’s the point, you know? Why run these strikes that are super challenging--like, in some cases, LASO-levels of challenging--and get literally nothing of value for it? What’s the fun in doing it? I’m not gated by How I Play, I’m gated by the Weekly Reset. It’s weird to be told “stop playing now, you can’t make any forward progress.”

Some of the most fun I ever had was in Archon’s Forge in Destiny. I’d constantly jump into that with friends. Sure, it sucked that it wasn’t a matchmade activity, so we just kind of had to hope that we’d spawn in with another group of players, but it was so fun, and there was no way to play it without making some degree of granular, forward momentum.

This is in part because Rise of Iron had this nice, slow, forward momentum that felt really good until you hit somewhere around 385 or so, a mere 15 light from the cap of 400. You could complete any content in the game at that point, and, as I recall, get those last few levels by doing the PVE raids or Nightfalls or the PVP Trials of Osiris, Shaxx bounties, (and/or Iron Banner).

Destiny 2 has soft caps that make a bunch of content inaccessible. Momentum comes in starts and stops. I’ve done every milestone for the week except crucible (my heart condition makes competitive multiplayer a no-go for me until after my surgery) and the raid (same, but also putting together a team is hard these days) and I’ve… gone from, what, 335 to 342? For days now, no progress. There is nothing I can do but wait until reset. Heroic strikes and Escalation Protocol don’t feel rewarding at all.

Suggestion: Move the soft cap up to a point where players feel they control their own pacing, while making the level-up process way smoother. Those last ten light levels should be the challenge. Let me make progress on my light every single day of the week until the only thing in my way is the true endgame content.

Problem #2: Activities are unrewarding. For a service-based game to succeed, it needs to reward players for playing. To this end, most service-based games give players loot, of which there are two kinds. The first kind helps you progress, which means completing a collection (Destiny 2 does not have any meaningful way of tracking collection completion) or leveling up (in Destiny 2’s case, that’s the light system). The second kind changes how you play. After maining hand cannons for so long, Vision of Confluence, a scout rifle, changed everything for me. It felt rewarding not just because it was a joy to use, but because it tangibly impacted my power level and changed how I played Destiny. If you want to make loot rewarding, it needs to fill one of these criteria; if you want people to fall in love, it needs to fill both.

We’ve already talked about the soft cap issue and the lack of smoothness and player involvement in their own progression, but if all I ever get are slightly more powerful blue-tier guns, I’m going to shard all of them in disappointment. It’s why “two tokens and a blue” became such a meme. It’s why two of my friends ragequit Destiny 2 the other day. They’re tired of getting blues.

So, what’s the solution? Fewer blues? More purples and exotics? Nah, it’s deeper than that.

When I get loot now, I do one of two things. If it’s blue, I shard it. If it’s purple, I check the light level, and if it won’t raise my light, I shard it. If it does, I infuse it. I don’t keep anything anymore. I’ve found some guns I like, but truth be told, I could break down most of the guns I have without a worry, because none of them really change the way I play meaningfully. I’ve got Better Devils. I like the way it looks and it does the DPS I need. No legendary hand cannon has come along to change the way I use hand cannons. Ikelos and West of Sunfall 7 are… okay? They look cool, I guess?

Back in Destiny, I got this amazing scout rifle that had two complementary perks: firefly, which caused enemies to explode on headshot kills, and triple tap, which added a bullet to the magazine after three critical shots. Not super powerful, but it felt juicy to proc those abilities. It wasn’t the only scout rifle I used, of course. On solar burn nightfalls, I went with the awesome, super stable, automatic Vision of Confluence. I had this really fun Cryptic Dragon and Fang of Ir Yut I used.

Not to get into nostalgia, but some of those things had value.

In Destiny 2, most guns have one perk. Once you find a perk you like, you can safely break everything else down. Chances are, even if your favorite perk like, say, Outlaw, once you get a hand cannon with Outlaw, you’ll never care about another Hand Cannon with Outlaw. You’ve customized the one you found, it’s been your faithful companion, why would you ever switch to something else? Just infuse it into your old standby.

The single-perk system means that there’s no chance for perks that combine in pleasing or interesting ways. It would be awesome to--spitballing here--have an auto rifle with a perk that increases damage the longer you hold down the trigger and another perk that grants bonus ammo if the gun is reloaded when the mag is empty. Toss in a third perk that gives you a larger magazine size, and you have a really attractive weapon. Throw out your designer instincts to make the gun less accurate because those perks are powerful; let your players live a little!

Randomization helped a lot. In Destiny, getting new loot was exciting because it was always worth checking to see if you got something good. In Destiny 2, there’s no possibility to get anything good, because everything is predictable. I have a Valakadyn. There is no point to ever getting another Valakadyn, ever again. I have one. I don’t need more.

Consider faction rallies. I participated in one. I got most of the guns I wanted right away, then took forever to hit the cap. When I hit the cap, there was like… I think maybe one gun I wanted but didn’t get? It was a mind-numbing process of breaking things down, constantly, over and over again. A stream of endless disappointment. Once I got Dead Orbit’s Scout Rifle or Shotgun or whatever, the other 50 didn’t matter to me, y’know? No value whatsoever. Complementary perks would change how I play, and every gun would be way more exciting even if I got bad perks on some of them.

Better to have an active community complaining about balance than a dead community that barely logs on to play your game because they aren’t getting guns worth considering.

Suggestion: Honestly, the Destiny system was great. Just do that but add more possible perks. Hell, let players import all their old guns if you really love them. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” could not be stated more here. In this case, unbreak what was working fine, please? It’ll keep players more invested. Lastly, let players get rewards at every tier. Scale it so that everyone who finishes the DLC has a chance of beating at least 1 wave of Escalation Protocol and getting rewards. Look at how anyone could beat Court of Oryx’s easy rune and get rewards, but only the best teams could beat the hardest runes.

Problem #3: Get some. Get none.

I’ve got this quest. It’s very simple: I need to complete three Escalation Protocol waves in order to complete. Awesome, right? Well, I tried all day yesterday to get it. Nothing. Part of the issue was matchmaking--this is a super tough thing that requires more than 3 players to complete, but I can only bring 3 players in, so I just have to hope people are willing to play.

Every time I turned it on, people in the area ran away.

There’s a problem with your game if people are running away from your content. In the case of Escalation Protocol, it’s because nobody I’ve encountered can reliably get to the first loot drop. With Archon’s Forge, Prison of Elders, or Court of Oryx, similar encounters in Destiny, people actively participated in those because you could always get something for doing it. With Escalation Protocol, you can spend 30 minutes trying to do it and get literally nothing for the effort except your entire fireteam complaining about how we should go play something else because “I’m too pissed off at this binary bullshit.”

That’s harsh. I don’t want to be harsh, but my friends were noticeably upset. We used to log onto Destiny to have a good time. But when you beat your head against a wall and get nothing for it, what’s the point? And, like I said above, getting more blues don’t count--blues are literally worthless (neither improving your power nor changing the way you play), and getting more legendaries rarely matters, as discussed above. That leaves, what, glimmer? Shaders? None of this fits the all-important “makes me more powerful or changes how I play” criteria.

“You either get something or you don’t, and because of this soft cap, it’s never good,” is how my friend put it, when I pressed him.

Games like Warframe address this by giving you resources, then giving you stuff to spend the resources on. Want to build this frame? (think Hunter/Titan/theotherclassnoonelikes, but there are like 50 of them and they have 4 abilities that can be modified in all sorts of insane ways) That’ll cost you a bunch of specific ingredients.

Suddenly, you find yourself changing things up. Maybe you run a few boss fights, do some derelict survival, fly archwing for a while… you’re always getting something, and that something leads to something new, and that something new changes your power or your level.

In Warframe’s case, every single weapon can be raised to level 30. Max out enough weapons, and you’ll improve your mastery rank. This rank offers a bunch of perks, which I’m not gonna get into here. “Forma” your level 30 weapon, and it starts over at level 1, but now it has more mod slots. The point isn’t “hey, do it like Warframe,” it’s “hey, every time you do something in Warframe, you get something, and that something goes towards changing how you play or how much more powerful you become. A non-Forma’d gun might only have room for 4 perks. Forma it enough, and you’ll be able to equip 12, which can radically alter how it behaves.

In my hundreds of hours of Warframe time, I always felt like I was making progress. My friends tell me Monster Hunter is the same way; even if you aren’t getting what you want grinding one monster, it’s easy to grind another monster. There’s always something to do.

With Destiny 2, you either get something or you don’t, and, like my friend said, it’s rarely worth the time. I think the exotic masterwork grind is a move in the right direction (though damn, do I wish that there were PVP and PVE requirements for every exotic because I like way too many guns that require me to play Crucible, which I don’t enjoy, as a person who prefers cooperative games).

Suggestion: More. Useful. Rewards. The easiest way to do this is just gonna be to do the above suggestion. That’ll put you back up there with Destiny. To take things even further, I’d put the masterwork core chase on every gun. I’d have some sort of “item collection kiosk” that lets players track every single gun and armor in the game. Destiny let players upgrade all their guns--that was more stuff for players to spend resources on and more resources to farm, which meant more willingness to go to multiple planets and different activities. It’d be more fun to finish a strike on Venus and get Spirit Bloom and go “oh, heck, I need that, because this gun with these perks I like needs Spirit Bloom to upgrade.”

I mean… this sounds bad, but like… don’t fix what ain’t broke, you know? You want to give players something that always feels like it is useful or will be useful in the near future. It doesn’t always have to level them up or change the way they play, but it should always promise that one of those two things is just around the corner.

So this is the conclusion time.

“But, Doc, why not be more imaginative than this?” Because I’m operating on a couple hours of sleep, am not allowed to drink any caffeine until after my surgery, and because no one’s paying me to do this. I’m just up blogging and trying to point more in a general direction than offer any serious, concrete solutions.

Besides, I don’t have any insights into how the engine works or what resources the team has or what deadlines they’re operating on. I don’t know what’s reasonable for you folks at Bungie to do. I know that some of this stuff is piss easy in Unreal Engine 4 or Unity. Heck, I could probably figure out a few of these things in CryEngine or Torque or idTech or Gamebryo or any of the other engines I’ve messed in over the years. So I could hazard a guess, but I mean, I’d rather go “you had it figured out already” and “here’s what other people do” than sit down and come up with brand spankin’ new innovative ideas for a developer that might not even read this post, y’know?

But uh…

Well, this brings me to the surprise problem!

I’m not really sure this is a problem. The other stuff, I can see it. I know how this stuff works, I know how players respond to problems, I know how to help people fix stuff. I can speak with relative confidence there.

But this, I dunno, it’s rooted in speculation, and that speculation is this: I feel as though Bungie is more interested in reinventing the wheel than perfecting it. Wheels have evolved over time, y’know? They started out as round things to help ancient humans move stuff around, and eventually people figured out all sorts of things like tires and transmissions and casters and brakes.

The tire evolved. But when I look at the stuff Bungie does, it seems like they’re more focused on Doing Something New Every Time. That’s not necessarily bad, but consider how often people have asked Bungie for a mode like Firefight or Horde, where players face off against waves of enemies for increasing rewards. Bungie has given players Prison of Elders, Court of Oryx, Archon’s Forge, and Escalation Protocol instead. I’m not going to lie, I like aspects of each of these.

Prison of Elders was great because it had so many unique bosses and random modifiers, but it suffered because there were no checkpoints, you always encountered every race every time, and it was just the same four rooms to fight in. The main issue with Court of Oryx was that there was no matchmaking, so you just kinda had to hope someone might join you in the world, and that didn’t happen as often as it should have. Archon’s Forge had the same matchmaking problem as Court of Oryx, but you could only carry one key at a time, instead of being able to carry multiple keys for multiple difficulties. Bungie had keys worked out with Court of Oryx. Why was Archon’s Forge different?

Now we have Escalation Protocol, and there are no keys, but there’s still the matchmaking problem, with an added “now you don’t get loot for beating a boss” issue. All three Destiny 1 events gave loot more reliably. Getting axes for skilled play seemed more predictable in Archon’s Forge than the Valkyries do in Escalation Protocol.

It feels like Bungie wants to make something new every time.

We’ve heard people from the Streamer/Youtuber Summit thing who’ve indicated that they’re not that excited by Bungie’s proposed weapon randomization system. So many of the changes in Destiny 2 seem completely arbitrary. It… how do I put this… don’t replace what ain’t broke, folks. We don’t need change for change’s sake. Improvements are better. Like, hey, I hated Exhumed. That’s a bad perk. I would have been way happier to see a bunch of new perks than to not have perks at all. I’d really like to see Prison of Elders or Archon’s Forge make a comeback, but with improvements like more objective randomization and the ability to carry more keys.

Right now, Escalation Protocol feels like the fourth, and least exciting, attempt at something else. Because it’s The Big Endgame Activity of the DLC, I feel like it casts a pall over Warmind.

So that’s my last suggestion: improve what you’ve got. Add onto it. But maybe cut back on the subtraction? Just a little bit?

Hopefully this is helpful feedback. Mostly, players just wanna hop in, feel like they got something done, and log off. There’s so much more I could talk about, especially why the challenge system feels flat or how the storytelling could be improved or why Bones of Eao NEEDS to return, but I think this covers the big stuff people are talking about after the DLC.

This fall, I don’t know if I’ll be picking up the next Destiny 2 installment. The patches are encouraging, but “the shooting feels better” isn’t why I come back to a game, y’know? It’s because I want to replay the story or spend time doing cool co-op stuff with my friends. Right now, Destiny 2 has room for improvement.

[aymar-lounox]

brusttale break down? trying to find stuff or explain? or just me been dumb dummie

warning : long text with horrible English xD there some parts of this comic that have bugging me for months!! and whit the last page i think i have a couple information on what going on and whit the chronological order been 2-3-1 i maybe les see what i can get first off mine personal take on for lv or LOVE it is not how strong you are but how feel you can control yourself and your feeling how easy can you turn off/on them why if we take the concept of love realistic we got a lot of people whit extremity high love levels and no this are not the murders we have in prison some of them have even negative level on love but who have it then?? the answer is easy the army why the entire train is all about grain LOVE the ability to turn off your emotions to do what you muss do why in war there is no mercy and the one whit the higher LOVE performs better even a soldier that have never ever kill once in his life can have a 10-15 lv and war veterans and very high ranked soldier that had years of experience we can easy hit 20 lv but then we don’t see a Chara that is cold hatred and brutally whit out saying anything? the answer will be pointing on the LOVE meaning she just can turn off/on emotions that does not make her not thinking she can still feel everything if she allow it and her reason and not that blank of just killing for fun but more in the lines of killing for trying to accomplish something the something i am thinking is resuscitation of Asriel why in Ch.2 we how she does not expect that it have been her fault and is overall very agressive about it hurt her so mine guess is try to collect power from repeating grinding monster to somehow be able to make a reset strong enough to actually get back to where Asriel is strong or use this power whit some other way to bring back Asriel but all her effort the only thing have accomplishment is bring Gaster somehow back and after the battle whit him . he have get all the memory of Chara and what happen in the mean while he have been gone so Gaster beat up Chara and breaks the reality/code apart and so he reset for Chara but this time Chara have max LVL from the start and Gaster is now the one is control of everything given all monsters some little meta knowledge i guess why we see Toriel getting nightmare the lasts days and is also change up stuff like giving Chara new cloth when Toriel have found her after the trap and it seem everything got a little boost in stat like turning on hard mode why both Toriel,papyrus and sans seem to have a bit increase in speed  so is Gaster hide all of this maybe but he surely is playing around whit Chara and someway take on a narrator role here which is odd and skeleton bro showing that they have full meta knowledge and after the beat up of paps Gaster seem to trigger to load and remind Chara some memories and also trigger something that actually make them break thought a limit and grain a new ability?? now fast further to Ch.1 but oh boi i still think ch 1 maybe be a little bit off why it the plot maybe have change a bit but it still point that after 99 reset on 100th she have grain a new ability that help her powering thought everything and will make her beat up sans and the last page of ch 3 we see something is unlocked maybe it is the ability reference at the very start??? maybe it is Gaster work that break and grain of the ability or the power of the promise/goal whit the memories have been so strong that have give her the power to make that break thou? i think the power up is learning how to use it while finding that a other way maybe be more successful on making real the original goal

thinking i expect to see in upcoming chaters(~?~) is more Gaster shenanigans and after the sans fight the reveal of flowey?? i dont think we will see a frisk in this au But hey that mine point of view/theory!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OKAY SO! 1- BOi that’s long! and i just love theories and discussing them coz GoSH its FUN!

2- Applying LOVE in real life is just awesome! good job, and so to this point~ i will say the LOVE LEVEL do apply to what? your body? nah its your SOUL right? yeh Burst have MAX LEVEL of LOVE in her SOUL...? is it her soul only?

3- Burst snap from two states true its not schizophrenia or anything she is well aware of what she is doing she is just genuinely like that xD, also like you said there is a goal~ *And this goal is just hinted or let’s say almost said in the last part aka Part 3 of Ch.3.2 4-Burst don’t remember well~ she knows she failed she knows they both died. and that’s it, apparently if you read Chap 2 first pages she haven’t seen that Weird Talking flower since a LONNG time, does she knows he is... when Gaster told her Asriel was alive she triggered xD so~

5-The timeline is really not normal and that’s what opened the WHITE door to Gaster in the first place, but that’s it. no more... the timeline for now is just slightly Glitching. Sadly for him Gaster don’t have the control of the Timeline~  -Toriel’s nightmares are cozed by another thing~ that  is even canon see when you reset your game in the ruins after passing the tuTORIEL when you come back at the point she ask you the usual questions she awkwardly feel like this already happened~ -Pap is strong coz... he ALWAYS was, just never got a reason to show that, despite him being kind as heck you just can’t threat him with something more important then HIS OWN SELF and flee from that...at least that’s how Burst!Pap is~

-Sans extra power come from Mmmmm... pLOT xD you will see in next chaps lel 6- The Ability she gained? yehhh... i guess~

[imatin3222]

Early Beta?

I never really had much of a childhood, mainly because my parents were “slightly” overprotective. Which meant I had very little interaction with the more popular games, or even consoles. It wasn’t until I had reached the age of thirteen that my parents got with the times and trusted me enough to buy me a computer, and soon after a phone as well. I had only interacted with games like Lego Star Wars and Republic Commando at my friends’. Long story short, I had to move to Virginia when I was 13. Fortunately, I was able to fit right in with the local gamers and nerds at my new school. A couple of years later, at the end of my freshmen year, I grew tired of playing my limited collection of  Star Wars and Superhero based games. (My parents wouldn’t let me get games outside of those categories) So I talked to my friends, and we all decided to get GBA emulators for our phones and download the largest game series I had missed out on: Pokèmon. Of course, it took some time, but finally I was able to get my parents consent.

We all downloaded Fire Red first, because it was a remake of the original Red and Blue, and the originals were way too pixelated for my liking.  Anyways, we had to have a Pikachu, since it was such an iconic character. Also, having the ability to say we had a Pikachu would be pretty prestigious (even being weak as it was).

I did some research to find the best place to catch them. I found that at the end of Veridian Forest, right before you enter Pewter city, the last two tall grass sections have the highest Pikachu spawn rate. So I headed out to catch me a Pikachu. The timing couldn’t have been worse, though. I had a fainted Squirtle and a nearly fainted Weedle. I lost the battle just as I entered homeroom, and I was forced to turn my phone off. When I got back on after school, I soon realized that my game had been deleted, and couldn't access my last save. I thought it a little weird at first, but I did have the tendency to think I saved my game, when I really didn’t. Not to mention I shut off my phone in the middle of the game.

I restarted the game, this time choosing Charmander. Going back to the spot, I searched for at least twenty minutes before finally capturing a Pikachu. Now, it was time to begin the grind to level up my Pokemon so I could faceoff against Brock. I had Charmander, Pikachu, Pidgey, and a Weedle. It was during this time that my game began to undergo a glitching animation. You know how your screen flashes when you have a Poisoned Pokemon? I didn’t have one, but for some reason the screen kept flashing. I went to the Pewter City Pokemon Center just to be safe and after going in, I went to the P.C. where there is a Jigglypuff in the corner. It didn't look too happy, and it had dark red eyes instead of the light blue they normally had. I went up the man next to it to talk to him, hoping he would mention the irregular eye color.

“Oh, you're wondering about the Jigglypuff,” he said. A yes or no icon popped up. Out of curiosity I instantly chose Yes.

“He has a tendency to get a little riled up when they’re around,” he stated.

At the time i thought it was kind of odd, seeming as there was no one else around, but I just pressed on with my quest, happy that the screen finally stopped flashing.

Eventually my younger brother decided to get fire red for his phone as well, so I reset my game to play with him and chose Bulbasaur this time around.

“No more resets,” I promised myself.

Just like before there was the weird Jigglypuff. I sped through the gyms as fast as I could to get to Lavender Town. It was one of the most iconic towns in the game. The Jigglypuff from earlier made me want to know if anything else in the game would be affected, and Lavender Town seemed like a prime location for spooky changes. It took me a few days, because I couldn’t take more than a couple steps before running into a wild Pokemon. What made it extremely annoying, though, was that my brother and friends didn’t experience any problems.After finally getting past the bridge, I joined Team Rocket. What? I enjoy playing as an antagonist if I get the chance. After hitting the P.C. right before entering Mt. Moon, I talked to the various people. To my surprise the Magikarp seller had an extra set of dialogue. After buying the Magikarp, he said,

“This fellow was quite an easy catch, something has been upsetting the Pokemon making them more aggressive and prone to attack. This fella’ just jumped straight at me.”

At this point I went to the site I downloaded the ROM from and decided to do some investigating. While most hacks didn’t affect the game (to my knowledge) I felt it was best to make sure I didn’t get a ROM that was totally jacked up. Eventually, I drew the conclusion that when I accidentally reset my game by shutting off my phone, I corrupted some files and somehow caused the game to fill in the blanks spots with files from an earlier version of the game. Again, this was just a speculation, so I continued playing to see what else I could discover.

Finally, after an excruciatingly long time I finally got out of Mt. Moon and ventured into Lavender Town. At first glance It didn’t seem strange at all, in fact it almost seemed normal for a second or two. Then the screen began to shake, like it does when a Pokemon uses Rock Throw. I saw four Team Rocket grunts run out of the Pokemon tower with bags.

One said, “C’mon let's get out of here! We don’t need more Marowak’s coming after us. Let’s just take these skulls and go.”

What? Was there really a pokemon that could scare at least four Team Rocket grunts? And skulls, why skulls? After the grunts left the screen I saw it. A Pokemon towing what looked like an evolved version of itself. It dragged its companion to the middle of the town and began wailing, or at least that's what it sounded like. This “wailing” sound that came from the Pokemon was incredibly loud. I assumed the larger Pokemon had died, by the sound the smaller one was making. Then the villagers began to come out to see the commotion. They gathered around the Pokemon and stood there. Finally able to move, I walked up the large group as a dialogue box popped up.

“Oh the poor thing, it lost it’s mother”

“Those darn Team Rocket grunts!” This was followed by more boxes, all saying basically the same thing.

Of course I was now beginning to regret being a Rocket Agent. Not because it was wrong, but I didn’t feel like getting caught. I turned to leave but was quickly approached by one of the town elders.

“Hey you’re a new face. Are you with Team Rocket,” A yes/no option came up. After some consideration, I chose no.

“The word going around is a new Rocket Recruit was inducted recently. Are you positive you are not with them?”  A yes/no option came up again. I chose yes.

“Alright. But if we find you with them, we will make you wish you hadn’t messed with us, Mister!”

I took that as my ticket to leave, as well as talk to my brother about what was going on. Something was definitely wrong with the game, but then again this was an experience that only the game designers, and maybe a select few other people, knew about. So I figured, why stop?

After rushing to Saffron City, I was immediately surprised by all the Team Rocket grunts there. I went up to the guard standing in front of the Silph Co. He let me in, no questions asked. The thought of not having to fight grunts really eased my tension, however when talking to staff members they would all say strange, passive-aggressive quips, like:

“I hope they let us go. Oh wait; why am I talking to you? You’re one of them.”

“Will they ever leave- Oh, sorry. Will YOU ever leave?”

Slightly taken aback, I discontinued talking to them. It didn’t take me to long to find the right teleporters and defeat Gary. I took him out with ease and finally met Giovanni.

“Ahh, our newest recruit. A little young, but very powerful, and growing quickly too. Tell me, would you like to help me rule over all of the Pokemon?”

A yes/no icon popped up. I chose yes, because why not?

“Heh, you’re a true Team Rocket agent. You’ll do great.”

He gave me the silph scope to go to the Pokemon Tower. Apparently there was some ghost keeping some grunts from leaving with their hostage. Great, back to Lavender Town, where everyone already suspected my affiliations with Team Rocket.

I decided to avoid being seen by the townspeople as a precaution, and hoped get in and out of there as quickly as possible. This was made difficult only by the insane amount of ghost pokemon that kept attacking me inside the tower, unlike my friends, who went through with ease.  

Then after finding Marowak’s ghost and taking it down, it gave me a strange reply.

“Marowak’s spirit was not calmed, it is angry that it’s murderers sent one of their own to deal with it. You cannot escape its wrath.”

It then faded into the overworld screen. I walked past the grunts as they ran by me and down the stairs. One stopped to thank me for dealing with the ghost. I continued on to find an old man, most likely the grunt’s hostage. Oddly, I was kind of worried to hear what he had to say.

“Heh, good job on angering that ghost. You will regret it! Oh, and don’t pretend you tried to save me, I heard those villains. Keep an eye out for that Marowak! Heh heh heh!”

Thinking I was an easy target in the tower, I bolted out of there, only to be cut off by most of the people in Lavender Town.

“We warned you not to lie to us. Now you will pay for lying about being a Team Rocket Agent.”

“Hold on a minute folks, let him go. He already has trouble chasing him.”

It was the old man, I had met in the tower.

“He angered the Marowak’s spirit and it’s out for revenge. That should be enough to deal with this kid.”

Honestly after what I just saw, I needed a break, so I took a couple days off. Yet, I couldn’t get that Marowak out of my head. Plus, with overprotective parents that wouldn’t let me do much it was kind of hard to get my mind on other things. I mean one plus is that I got what could be an earlier version of the game. But then again, I worked so hard to get the actual game. I mean, I could just reinstall it again. I decided against that, so I could see what the creators wanted to do with the game.

Soon after, I got right back into Fire Red. When I got back into the game everything was just like I had left it. The man had just told everyone that I was cursed and they were beginning to back off and let me pass. I was a bit worried, hearing that a Pokemon’s ghost was out to get me, but I kept at it and soon enough I was at Cinnabar island. Hesitantly, I approached the old Pokemon Mansion. It took a lot of guts for me to force myself in there, not only because it was probably loaded with Pokemon, but Marowak was potentially waiting for me. Thankfully and surprisingly it didn’t show up. I continued getting Pokemon and grinding to ready myself for the Elite Four. I had a Venusaur, Pidgeot, Pikachu (that knew Mega Kick and Mega Punch), Lapras, Mr. Mime, and Gengar.

To speed up the story, and because nothing of huge significance happened, I’ll skip to where things started acting up again. Right after beating Gary.

Oak did his usual rambling about Pokemon and being the best, when Giovanni burst through the door and strode right to me. Talking to Oak, he said,

“The number one Pokemon Master is also a Team Rocket agent! Our plan is almost complete to rule the world, just one last thing.”

Then a semi-transparent Marowak walked into the room.

“Of course, with that much power, you might overthrow me kiddo. So I’ll just take all your Pokemon.”

I checked for my Pokemon, and like he had said they were gone. I had a feeling I knew what would happen next.

“Now I think that Marowak has some unfinished business with you. Ha ha ha. Thanks for all your help, bub.”

A battle sequence started. The text “Marowak’s spirit is challenging You. What will you do?” appeared. I tried running. “You can’t escape Marowak’s spirit.”

“Oh well,” I thought to myself, “this is where it all ends.”

But then another text box popped up. It read, “Marowak senses good in you. She will give you a second chance, but she will always be watching you. Be careful!”

Now I know I should have seen that coming, but then again I wasn’t expecting to have some ghost stalk me. Could I possibly capture or lose it? First I could hardly see it, the ghost had a very faint outline and always moved away from me. And secondly it always followed me. Even when I tried to fly somewhere, it would be waiting for me at whatever location I was at.

Anyways I took a break from the game after that. Of course I didn’t want my parents to think I was getting addicted, giving them another reason to keep me from playing more games. But after that confrontation things got weird.

I’m not one to believe in haunted games or games affecting real life. I’ve read all those stories like Ben Drowned and what not. Plus those stories involved a “haunted” game not some glitch i was able to use to access some early version of the game. But anyways I began to catch glimpses of a faded creature following me. As usual it disappeared when I tried stopped to see it a little better.

I continued to carry on with and observe the game. As I played, I began to see more ghosts, or Marowak screwing with me. Not much time had passed before they became more visible. Then I began to realize, it was probably the ghosts that were riling up these Pokemon and scaring them. Anyways, I decided to go back to Pewter City, where I first began to notice these game changes. And, sure enough, there was a ghost standing near that Jigglypuff.

A couple of weeks later, I had finally gotten used to all the ghosts, and I had all the available legendary Pokemon. As I was strolling through some grass looking for trouble, I realized that Marowak began to walk towards me.

“It seems you have the strength to finally help me.”

Ok, I have to admit that at first I was confused. But soon, I began to realize what was happening. I continued on to see what Marowak wanted.

“I want revenge on Team Rocket. Don’t you, too? Treating us like mere conveniences to further their plans for domination. So will you help destroy this menace?”

I accepted, because honestly I was a little pissed at Giovanni for tossing me aside. So it wasn’t only Marowak getting revenge.

“It’s too dangerous to talk to you here, I’ll visit you in the real world.”

Now I was spooked, of course I shouldn’t have let that bother me. But it still did, now I know there have been games that break the fourth wall, but could this be one of kind of scenarios? In the following days I was too scared to sleep, even going as far as recording me sleeping during the night didn’t help me. I couldn’t concentrate in class and my grades began to slip, but I could care less at the moment, this game had taken a turn for the worst and affecting me. During this time I began to dig in the internet to see if I could find anything much more deeper than looking at some ROM sites, and skimming over google. I went to every search engine I could find. But all I could find were beta hacks and mods, and the occasional Roblox pokemon game.

The last thing I could think of was contacting Nintendo, but since ROMs aren't legal, I decided it was best not to risk getting in trouble.

So my diagnosis? I seriously screwed up my game. Finally, I gathered up the courage to open up Firered on my phone.

Once I entered the game Marowak spoke.

“You’ve been gone for some time now haven’t you? Two weeks and three days right?”

I sat there on my bed, staring at that dialogue, re-reading the line. Then I realized that some games pulled stunts like that, like those games in the early 2000’s. Everything happening in this game had been stunts pulled in later games.

I was suddenly not afraid and decided to play one, until my phone crashed.

After a couple of hours of work I was able to get my phone on and functioning without having to hard reset. Instantly I installed a virus and malware app to go through my phone to find anything.

At the end, Firered was clear, I went ahead and got rid of it anyways.

Anyways fast forward a year, that experience had been buried. And when Pokemon Go was released I slightly remembered when I had gotten Firered but didn’t dare want to bring back everything. After going through the tutorial I went into town to find some Pokemon, ironically the first Pokemon that I ran into was Marowak. It was slightly transparent, and when I went to capture that’s when everything came back.

“It has been a really long time since we’ve talked. A year, two months and ten days was it?”