#TLDR; game bad. me not play as much or spend money until game better. also give us four gods.

[rev-plays-nikki]

Alright here we go 🙃

I am extremely disappointed with the announcement of Heaven’s Favor, or Blessed Land, as it’s been officially named on this Nikki server, as our anniversary hell event. As many others have said, this hell event is beautiful, and I love the suits (although it is disappointing that none have dark skin tones and devs of our Nikki game and devs of the the Chinese server have not thought to add them after the fact), but for an anniversary of the game which many including myself feel is supposed to be the biggest celebration of the year, I was expecting a much larger and more expensive event, such as True Road or Four Gods.

I would have been thrilled with either of those events in truth, though as someone who loves Four Gods and has been wanting it for the last 3 and a half years, I was desperately hoping you would finally bring it to us. I was prepared to spend at least $300 and most likely more on diamonds, lucky bags, and other things, simply to show my support for the devs finally giving players what we have been asking for. The grandeur and expense of this event is puny compared with the other two options we could have been given. People complain sometimes when we get expensive events, yes, but usually that is a result of too many expensive events in a row. That issue does not exist this time, and the player base as a whole does want an occasional very expensive event, especially for an occasion as exciting and celebratory as the game’s anniversary. There will of course always be a few who complain no matter what, but in this case, players including myself are frustrated, angry, and tired of how we are treated by our server’s devs. This event announcement is yet another in a long line of things that have made it clear the only thing or server cares about is money grabbing.

Though this announcement has made me finally decide to stop spending on Love Nikki, it has not been the only thing I’ve been unhappy about. It has simply been ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ as they say. Our server’s devs have also made it clear they don’t care if we get the story in a way that makes sense either. We get the actual story chapters in order, and for the most part in a timely manner, yes, but there is a lot of the story and lore tidbits in other things like events (hell event as well as regular ones) and Dreamweaver stories. We do not get these in chronological order, which makes it confusing for everyone. I have to assume that our devs think we don’t care about the story, which I do think is largely true based on how many people tap through the story stages, but many of us still DO care about the story, so ignoring it and giving no thought to the order in which we receive story based events and Dreamweavers (both long-term “free” ones and ones that cost diamonds) is, frankly, a huge middle finger to that part of the player base.

The recharge lineup for this event is also extremely disappointing to say the least. And this can’t possibly be a surprise after the reaction from players when frost rose was brought back a while ago. We do NOT expect, and certainly do not WANT, return recharges for a hell event. Especially not for the hell event that is supposed to be our big anniversary celebration. Many were prepared to spend big for our anniversary, and now we will be spending nothing. This is yet another in a long history is giving us subpar recharge lineups that are either too expensive for a comparatively mediocre suit or contain too many expensive returning recharges for the same amount of money (or in a couple of instances, more, if someone had purchased parts of the suit in its original run and had to purchase the same again to complete it.) Personally I have purchased every recharge that became available since shortly after I started playing and have well surpassed V15 levels of spending, but I will be skipping these.

It is also shocking, as I noticed recently, that if a player does not claim their daily diamonds one day, the next day the number of daily diamonds left decreases regardless. This means if a player pays for a monthly recharge card, but cannot log in for one or more than one day for that amount of time, they simply lose some of the diamonds they paid for. While it is a “monthly” card, it promises a certain number of diamonds. It would deliver that number no matter what. Other games have systems in place to account for this. For instance, Time Princess, another dress up game, simply allows the player to collect their diamonds for whatever number of days they have not logged in. It works great and everyone stays happy and gets what they paid for. Maybe a similar system is not in place in Love Nikki and that’s fine. There are other ways to make sure people get what they paid for. The diamonds someone didn’t claim could be mailed to them for example, or daily diamonds could be made a permanent event like the daily login reward, and players could claim diamonds once a day as they choose. Another annoyance to players is that the permanent diamond pavilions still do not have a “confirm” pop up asking if players are sure they want to spend up to 1500 diamonds. This seems like such an easy fix and something players have wanted and asked for for some time.

Recharge suits should also come back for crafting. It seems as things have been going for the last four years that none come back for a long time, players complain about it and threaten to boycott, and a short time after, one relatively inexpensive suit will return in an attempt to satisfy players. Players then think this means recharge suits will return regularly, and are appeased for some time until the whole process repeats itself. This is very frustrating and tiresome. Every paid suit should ideally return for crafting, but my guess is that none of the highly expensive ones ever will. That is very sad to me, as I truly believe that every suit should eventually be made available to every player. I believe the same for the ranked suits, all of which I have, as well. It would be great if they came back but I understand for them why they will not far more than for recharge suits. As a paying player, the way I see it when I buy any suit is that I am paying to get it early, not that I am paying to get it at all. And I am more than happy to pay for that, and thrilled to know that every player will have the chance to get it eventually. I’m sure there are other paying players who don’t share my views, so I understand why devs are hesitant to bring back super expensive suits, but I do think they should return. Not only because on other servers recharge suits return for crafting far more frequently than on ours, but also because as time goes on the suits end up looking older and older and as such their value to players should decrease. The price of suits should go down when they return, not stay the same, and eventually every suit should be obtainable for any player.

Now, back to this hell event again, and more specifically Four Gods, because I’m selfish and I want it. Four Gods has been around for years. Those of us who have known about it from its original run on the original Chinese server have been expecting it to come to us ever since. Lore-wise, as I understand it, it was sort of an introduction to the main four Cloud families and their heads who feature prominently in some event and Dreamweaver stories, though not so much the main story yet. The event was sort of a prequel to Four Wars, and on the Chinese server Four Gods came first. I remember when we got the announcement for Four Wars for our server, and my utter shock. No one had expected or really been asking much for this hell and there were so many other, older events that would have made more sense to us at the time. This I think was the first truly egregious breach of lore order, at least that I can recall and that was so important to the story. When we got Four Wars most players had no idea who these characters were, so how were they supposed to care about them or the story? I think a large part of why many players don’t care about the story can be attributed to the devs not caring about it for us. If we were given events and story parts in chronological order so that it made sense, it would be much easier to follow and perhaps players wouldn’t give up on it so easily.

Since then however, years have passed and we still have not received Four Gods, or even been given the courtesy of being told why we haven’t gotten it. It hasn’t even been mentioned to us by our devs. Now there are rumors floating around the Love Nikki community about it that I think do no one any favors. There is the (I suspect true) rumor that the devs have for a long time intended to never give us this event. There is a rumor that there is some issue with converting the files from an older event to our newer server. There is a rumor that the reason we have not gotten Four Gods is that the devs do not want to give players the opportunity to get the 3000 free diamonds that originally came with the event. There are these and many other rumors, all of which highlight I think the most important issue with regards to our server, and that is communication.

Our server’s devs have always been, quite frankly, horrible at communicating with their player base. We get event announcements and teasers and all and that’s fine, those things are fun and exciting, but when it comes to larger issues in the game, like as an example darker skin tones and makeups that match them, and what the team is doing about it, we receive little to nothing. With this specific issue, and it’s not the only one, it seems players complain and complain and threaten to boycott as I’ve mentioned earlier, and the team eventually gives us the promise that they are working on it. These promises usually come far later than they should. And communication should be more than just promises once the team has finally decided to promise it. Communication should include the in-between phases. For instance, using this example, respond to players more quickly and tell us what the team is considering. We don’t always need promises, especially when the team can’t deliver what is wanted in a timely manner. We want to know what is going on. If the team is discussing something before deciding, let us know! It’s ok if nothing has been decided yet. We want to know what is going on, and if we know, we can give feedback and help the team in its discussions.

The game Time Princess again does this well. They offer frequent surveys that players can access the link to in-game, and they have almost weekly live chats in their Discord server where they answer questions, give hints and teasers about future events, give out extra redeem codes, and have players play fun trivia games with them regarding the game’s stories. If Love Nikki’s devs did something similar, it would greatly increase fan engagement with the game and the story, and show that our devs do care about us and what we want. After being more transparent with the community, and letting us know what’s going on, better decisions can be made, and better plans can be formed, instead of the team telling us nothing and letting us wonder and spread usually baseless rumors until we are given a promise. Even the promises are not always adequate either. With the dark skin tone makeups again, we were promised the team was working on it. And yes, we have received more dark skin makeups since, and that’s great, but it seems like we haven’t received that many recently, and when they come they are usually recipes that cost diamonds, and we only get a few makeups matching a few skin tones rather than one makeup for each.

My concern is that something similar will happen this time as well, and the team may well decide to continue not bringing us Four Gods without telling us a word about it or about why they have made such a decision. Supposedly now the team is talking about possibly bringing us Four Gods, but how do I know that? From the devs being open about their process and transparent with players about their plans and thinking? No, of course not. I know this because someone “close to Nikki'' told this to a well known player whom the rest of us know and trust as largely the only player who really knows what’s going on with the devs. And I doubt she even really does, but based on how little communication we get from the devs, it seems that way to the rest of us. And I of course do not mean this in any way to bash or throw negativity at Iri, I love her and she’s a wonderful person and member of our community! But it is a problem with our devs when someone telling one player something is the only way we can get some shred of an answer to our questions and desires.

Now, because I don’t want to be all negative and I don’t want to complain without offering solutions, here is a bullet point form list of things that could be changed in the game to greatly improve it and the players’ relationship with our devs. :)

- First and most importantly: communicate with players! Tell us what is going on with the team. Ask for feedback more often about more things than which door styles we prefer. Involve us in discussions! Transparency is paramount for any brand these days.

- Give us better “free” things. The Chinese server famously gets more free things like login rewards after server maintenance, etc.

- Add another recharge tier. The Chinese server has one more recharge tier than us ifI recall correctly, as well as their highest tier being more diamonds for less money. if that’s not possible for whatever reason, let us know and let us know why! And then make things less expensive. If that’s also impossible, give us better rewards. If that’s also impossible, at least let us know.

- Let people claim their daily dias even if they miss a day. Suggestions for this are already above in what I wrote.

- Add an “are you sure you want to do this?” button to all diamond pavs. Maybe with a checkmark for “don’t ask me again on this account.”

- Make sure darker skin tones and makeups come back in a timely manner. Maybe make a schedule for it and share that with players. Explain why it takes so long. Work on bringing poses for darker skin tones as well. If that’s not possible, explain to us why in detail.

- Give us four gods. Please and thank you. :) I promise plenty of us want it. If you can’t or won’t, tell us that, and tell us why. If you can’t tell us why due to a non disclosure agreement or something similar, tell us you aren’t able to tell us why. Whatever communication you can give us is far better than none.

I love and care about this game deeply. It has been a very important part of my gaming life through the past four years. I would not have bothered writing any of this if that weren’t true. I truly and genuinely hope that things change and get better in the future, but until then I will not be quitting, but I also will not be spending nearly as much time or money on it as I have in the past, which makes me sad. I wish everyone the best and I hope our devs will listen and improve their communication at the very least. Thank you.

[thespoonisvictory]

*warning for dream critical, and pointless rambling about point systems and the nature off mcc. I am not an expert, nor do I think dream should be sent any hate, or that he even really deserves actual criticism for it*

sooo dream posted this on his reddit, as I’m sure you’ve heard. here are my thoughts, because I have a lot to say.

first of all, the fact that dream doesn’t list any pvp games as his strengths is laughable. he’s undeniably a god at both sb and sg, and yet these aren’t strengths for him? he really thinks he’s better at hitw than skybattle? but obviously, if he lists those, he can’t say the point system is against him. but anyway. the tournament isn’t making him play worse, he’s playing worse, and pinning it on the tournament in general is silly.

I don’t think he’s trying to say that mcc is like rigged against him, nor is this particularly hateful, but it comes across as very entitled and oblivious to the reason why mcc exists, which I’ll get into.

Sands of Time: this is a great idea! until you... actually think about it. vaults in particular don’t work, because how can you argue that splitting vaults is more fair when usually one person finds the key and one person finds the vault itself. what about people who spend more time on puzzles or combat to unlock other areas instead of getting coins? what about sand that other people have collected that shouldn’t ‘belong’ to the sand keeper? do they deserve points for that? it’s messy at best, and keeping the points grouped and then split is the simplest and most effective way to keep it fair.

but beyond that, sot is a team game. you’re meant to work with your teammates to most effectively explore the vault, and although individual performance matters, team communication and strategy is much more important, and it’s reflected in the scores.

Parkour Tag: I’m going to trust dream’s word on this one, as many other people such as op have corroborated it. points should be fixed to better reflect the hunter’s skills.

HITW: uhhh, you get a big bonus because you survived the hardest walls my guy. it’s like getting win points for sg, you get it because you were the best, and because you effectively beat the game. also, I hate to say it but if you’re never getting to the end in hitw then you’re not that good lmao

Parkour Warrior: I don’t think he’s blaming mcc for this, or even saying it should be brought back, but like, pw was removed for a reason. the over-practicing done by some competitors forced the difficulty to be raised so far above the average person that parkour was now a miserable experience for 80% of competitors and their viewers. people weren’t having fun, and it wasn’t an engaging game if you weren’t great at it, so it got knocked. it was for the good of the tournament and the players, not to hurt dream’s ego.

TGTTOS: now this is where it gets batshit. ok, first of all, dream suggests that it’s almost impossible to use teamwork, something disproved by watching literally any perspective where teammates guide each other through the map, give tips, and shout out which directions to go. hell, group bridging has proved very effective. then, he suggests that the team bonus is bad because it gives more points to good teams... and this is a bad thing.

the team bonus is such a wonderful implement because it encourages teams where everyone contributes equally. unlike stuff like hitw, where one good player can carry a team to 1st, tgttos team bonuses mean that the strongest overall team usually wins, not the one with the strongest individual player. which is good! because this is a team tournament!

Overall: besides the impracticality of resorting the entire points system to cater to his ‘strengths’, the issue with this mindset. mcc isn’t about individual points, it’s about how you do as a team. the top two players don’t face off in dodgebolt, afterall. having shared points and team benefit encourages that the winning team is one where every player contributes and works together, instead of a few players individually being skilled. but this isn’t that for dream, and I think that’s blatantly clear. I understand that he wants to show his skill, but mcc is a tournament started by scott as a way to play with his friends for fun. It’s about meeting new people and networking and sometimes making money for charity, not a try-hard competition.

and if he wants to take it competitively, that’s fine, but other people try as well, and yet no one else is complaining.

techno didn’t complain when they changed game rules like five times to nerf him, he just adapted.

players who perform roles like woolplacer in bb don’t complain about the loss of points, they just do their job.

the hermits, especially grian, certainly haven’t played this season, despite having two of their strongest games removed from circulation (bingo and rocket spleef).

other than parkour warrior complaints raised as a community, I can’t think of anyone else that has demanded a change in points to better suit them. It comes off as incredibly egotistical to believe that can tell mcc how their tournament should be run, and that it should cater to the small percentage of people who want to take it that competitively. above all, it comes off as naive to what mcc is actually about, even if he didn’t intend for this to sound as off as it did to me. 

tldr: dream pls calm down and stop trying to make a for fun tournament your place to show off, it’s for fun.

[thedappleddragon]

My thoughts on the new webkinz game so far

When I first found out it existed I was really put off by the wierd 3d models and just the fact that webkinz made a reboot. But I played it for a few hours and its not so bad. It’s buggy and there’s not much variety in pets and items yet, but the game is new and I’m sure they’ll fix both of those eventually.

The baby mechanic sounded soooo interesting, but I don’t want to fork over $20 in micro transactions for gems to get a second pet. I’ll probably wait until they release more stuff before possibly spending money on the game.

Tbh the graphics grew on me in some areas. It doesn’t really look or feel like webkinz, but it makes sense that things are gonna change and technology is gonna advance and demographics are gonna shift after 15 years lol. I don’t mind that everything is in 3d, but it doesn’t have the same charm as the original game.

The one area where it pissed me off was in the home before dark game. Originally, it was a 2d top down view of a bunch of tiles. Now it’s in 3d and it’s harder to tap the tiles correctly and it’s janky as hell. I probably won’t play it again. The tile lowers game also doesn’t look good in 3d because it’s so hard to tell where the edge of one level ends and another begins.

In general the UI is a little hard to navigate on mobile, just because the screen is so small and the buttons aren’t made any bigger than they would be on a full sized computer screen.

I’ve got beef with all sorts of small things in the game, mostly revolving around the arcade. It’s wierd how you only get 3 plays of each game and you have to spend micro transaction currency to get tokens to play more. And some of the games don’t translate to 3d. I feel like they couldn’t done a better job at knowing when and when not to use 3d

But I do think it’s fun how the whole world works like the parks in webkinz classic with people everywhere and you can run from building to building.

I was running around the map and saw that both the webkinz academy and curio shop will be returning, and a new (I think) town hall building is also in progress. I’m very exited to see how the game expands.

One feature I think would be neat is allowing your pets to make a baby with your friends pets, so you don’t have to fork over $20+ dollars off the bat if you want to use the baby mechanic.

TLDR: I’m exited to see how the game improves over time, but I have some beef over small stuff

[prorevenge]

Revenge for the boss from hell. 30k+ payable to me, thanks.

Greetings,

I posed this story once before in days past but deleted it in fear legal reasons. I’ve revised it and feel more comfortable sharing. I enjoy the heck out of this blog along with @r-maliciouscompliance and @petty-revenge-stories. I can tell you as a long time lurker this story is worth the read for the most deserved revenge.

TLDR: Boss was a d*ckhead all the time, then insulted me while I was eating lunch with a client in public. I painfully planned and executed a plan to make him pay me over 30,000 dollars as punishment , I was successful.

I worked for this small business IT Consulting firm for seven years. Owned and operated by a person we will call d*ck.

First two years things were fine. Occasionally this guy would take things a little too far, he was just passionate about his opinion and always had to be right, so I’d always give him that. I don’t have to agree but I saw his need and left it at that.

What I started to discover however is the turn over for the company is a couple of years and I began to realize why. The Boss (d*ck), picks one worker and makes it his life’s work to make that person as miserable as possible. I’m guessing the reason, ego purposes?

For months I’d hear him shouting all the time at this one guy. The co-worker after leaving the meeting would go back to his office from where I had a view and I could just see the stress and misery in his face. Till finally I said to him, “what the hell man? He’s always giving you a hard time here lately, what did you do?”

He didn’t seem to know. He confided in me right there the level of hell he’s in and some of the things d*ck has said or done. I couldn’t believe some of the details he shared on what d*ck both said and did. I felt things were embellished because people just don’t do some of the things he said. I would realize much later he was telling the truth as crazy as it sounded.

A few months later he finally found another job and left. I talk to him couple times a year and he always said it was the best choice in his life he ever made.

d*ck’s sights then narrowed on to me. I can take a lot. So for the next five years I took it. He would insult me pretty much every day, each day more and more colorful. I didn’t really care or take it home with me so it wasn’t a problem for me, for d*ck I would learn it was.

Unrelated, five years in I put in my notice because he asked me to get a couple certifications and if I did he would take care of me. Once I did what was requested he backed out of the agreement and played coy. Once he received my notice a couple months later he called me up within a minute, begged me to stay. It’s important to note he only asked for two certifications, I not only obtained those but an addional fourteen on top of that. Each time he would tell me “Great job, you will be well taken care of”. He lied 16 times in total on this matter. He matched the offer and increased my Salary up another 15k. Not looking forward to starting a new job I decided to stay.

What I learned is I was a fool to do that and money isn’t everything. Go where you’ll be the most happy. Best life advice I can give after this experience.

He left me alone for a couple months after that, he wasn’t in the office much either. Then a day struck his fancy to start things up again only he ran out of material. My work is solid and he had no opportunity to criticize that.

The only method he had was bashing his ego and sarcasm around but he realized it had no impact on me. Here is a Brief snippet of any given day of what it’s like to be selected as his target. He would communicate a problem he was having in length. Let’s say he complained about his cell phone. After he finished his story you would provide a helpful suggestion or advice from your experience. In turn he would ask with an entitled and sarcastic tone if you were an expert on the matter and wanted to see those credentials. I learn fast, just never speak unless spoken too. Any comment or insult he made I would respond without emotion and just say ok.

Because d*ck wasn’t able to get a rise out of me the old fashioned way he decided to create fictional content for a new direction.

Our small company would go out to eat as a whole, or just order in on Fridays. I ate half my sandwich, and wrapped the remaining to take home. He saw me with leftover food and claimed that I was taking home dinner on his dime. Any time there was any leftover, even a single French fry he’d be there with a magnify glass for inspection to find any conceivable way to yell.

So on Fridays I started packing my lunch, I’d order a beverage and a side. I’d finish the beverage and the side. Then eat what I brought, if I didn’t finish it he had no opportunity. You could see his look of disappointment when he would scan my plate.

This went on a couple weeks, he had no opportunity and couldn’t complain. He realized he failed again. So then he came up with the next item.

The Bathroom. This I actually did a little research on and couldn’t find anything legally I could do. But anytime anyone would use the rest room he would blame me for the smell. Instead of hello when passing in the highway he would say “Did you use spray” or “Did you light a match” as hateful as he could, but that was his normal. It went much deeper than this, more then I care to share. But I honestly believe d*ck has a fetish on this topic which is why I looked in to it legally. It was just always on his mind and a little too important to him, let’s just leave the rest unsaid.

I must have visually tipped him off I didn’t approve of this because he never got bored with it. However I did at least get him to stop asking about if I used spray. Anytime I used the bathroom, even to take a piss I’d use the entire can of air freshener. This wasn’t an easy task as I’d have to mask my face to empty that entire thing. Takes a while surprisingly to empty an entire can in a session. One thing is for certain when I was finished, someone used the “spray” and d*ck was buying a new can. Took about five weeks but I think he figured it out spending so much on spray, he stuck to just asking about matches after that. He even provided them in the bathroom.

One day we were out with a client. The current topic at this moment was “what is your favorite meal? My answer was “hot wings, I could eat those every day!” d*ck jumps in, his comment “Just think how bad the bathroom would smell”. Most at table wouldn’t get the context and direction of that comment, but I knew. He did this in front of a client, in public, while people are eating.

I almost walked out. Then I remembered he drove and it’s a long way back. Plus d*ck is over 60, what kind of person knocks out a senior? I had to chant that in my mind to keep control. I never get pissed but after years this was the last straw! I seriously pleaded with myself all day not to do it because I’d go to jail and he would win.

During this time period he also started playing with my money. Behind 4-5 months with reimbursement, week late on paychecks, stuff like that. You ask where it’s out, he says “next week” you explain he already said that last week, then he’d play coy.

I finished out the day without reacting somehow. Took everything I had but I’m not going to allow this to be unanswered. That was dangerous and too close. If he want’s trouble, I’ll give it to him! I will get even in a lawful way, somehow.

Then the idea came to me that night, did my research and odds were in my favorite that it could work. I’m just going to mirror him until he fires me. When he fires me he will have to pay half my current salary of 65k until I get a new job. You know what? I can live perfectly fine on 32.5k. Why not make him pay out of his pocket 32.5k for everything he had said and done? He would have to pay this over the course of six months or until I found a new job. So my goal was to make him pay me $32,500 to be exact over 6 months as restitution for what he said at that table.

I read up on all the rules in my state for Unemployment. Each state is different. But basically to qualify for it, it can’t be your fault if you were fired. So If I stood there and told him where to put it, that’s a no go. However if I was laid off I would qualify.

So I hit him where it hurt first, his favorite thing in the world is meetings. Because he loves to hear himself talk and take you step by step through his thought process with a noble tone congratulating himself for his thinking and why his way is the best way. So I started speaking up and illustrated a more efficient way that cost less.

He would argue, sometimes red in the face mad. Especially if others in the meeting liked my idea. He knew he was wrong but he would dismiss them and demand it be done his way.

I then started talking about him within ear shot on purpose. I’d say things like “Make sure you perform that d*cks way, takes longer but it’s better than him releasing the Kraken”. It would make everyone laugh, but it wasn’t a direct insult.

Trust me when I say this guy has a massive ego and I was counting on this for pissing him off. I laid it on thick, in time it took its toll. I knew it did because what came next.

His retaliation was the kitchen sink, he had nothing so he started accusing me of things, then playing coy when it came to reviewing the details or facts. He would put words in my month, I’d state he was wrong and then he would tell me I was. All he was doing was opening the door so he could play a revengeful sarcasm game. I know it’s a game so I decided to take his new toy away from him by just going along with whatever it is he said. Which further made him mad because what he was doing had no effect on me.

Fast forward six months, yes I’m STILL working here. But were only receiving a couple calls a day which are fifteen minutes each. This was due to d*ck’s bad business discussions.

While I took delight knowing he was hemorrhaging money for months, I was hoping for a lay off to execute my plan. Nothing. I have to make him want to fire me, it’s the only way. I have to beat him at his own game while providing the illusion he is in control.

So I turned up the heat. I was asked to travel to a client by the 2nd in command. I said “I’m sorry man, I haven’t received reimbursement in six months for travel expenses and I just had my work cell phone service turned off. With the way business is right now things aren’t looking good, I’d be stupid to take on more expenses, and I’m owed over two thousand dollars as it is. Once that’s paid in full I’d be more than happy to continue on a week to week bases after reimbursements”.

That day d*ck had a meeting with me and setup a payment plan to pay the money back. After three weeks it would be paid. So I said to d*ck “understood, after three weeks I’ll be on the road again, cool” just making sure he understood because he wanted to play games and not pay the amount in full d*ck is now going to pay me my salary for three weeks to do nothing until the reimbursement fee is paid.

Guy has a several million dollar house, goes on vacations has a boats, etc. Out of all the things I’ve done so far, this had made the most significant impact. Because I out whit him at his own game, it embarrassed him in the eyes of others. Why? Because the second of command was instructed to drive me anywhere I was needed. So I had my own personal Taxi driver for the few calls we had over the next two weeks. Two weeks he paid two people, me and the admin to drive and watch me work. I was friends with the admin and he knew exactly what I was doing and he loved every second of it.

Then on the third week, three days until the final payment, it happens. d*ck enters my office, and gives me the filmier demeaning dog wave gesture to follow him without speaking. We sit down and he asks me what the problem is?

I told him the problem is he needs a new hobby. In one hand you have someone sitting here that busted his ass for the last seven years, in the other your need to bash someone’s face in the dirt with your ego. The problem with me is I won’t conform and provide both.

He asked for some examples. I said you know what I’m talking about and even if I did review them you’d play coy. He then played coy about being coy, I laughed.

After a pause He said if you feel that way why didn’t you speak to me about it? I reminded him that I did twice and both times you humiliated me for it and said “this is I.T!” What the I.T Career that I’ve done the last twenty years had to do with his ego I’ll never know.

He responded with I’m behind the times, my work has been poor and out of the kindness of his heart he gave me a raise after I demanded it. I responded with Ok.

Then he finally said what I wanted to hear “I want to call it quits”.

I remained professional and communicated I’m sorry things didn’t work out and spent the next two hours reviewing stuff with co-workers on how to handle certain things. I shook his hand with a smile and left without saying anything negative. The fruit of my labor will do the talking for me shortly.

In route on the way home I called family members to tell them the good news. Everyone was so happy for me. It finally happened.

When I arrived home I promptly adjusted the dates on the unemployment forms I had filled out already in wait and submitted them. I called the state and confirmed everything was documented on my end accurately and now it’s the waiting game.

My plan wasn’t realized until my boss receive the letter in the mail about a week later stating he’s going to have shell out my Salary for the next six months or until I found a job.

Panicked at this point he realized what I set him up for. So He claimed he fired me for poor work performance. The state said, ok prove it. In this state it’s the employers’ burden to prove it. My record had no blemishes and he couldn’t use a client because a number of people at any given client would vouch for me and the truth as they all liked me and appreciated my work.

Realizing the shit storm he’s in now I’m told from the admin friend he was on the phone with them quite a while twisting and turning the fake stories out. Bottom line, the state needed to see documented verbal and written warnings, signed so he couldn’t fake them. He called his lawyer and his lawyer told him he’s screwed.

Later my boss told co-workers he felt bad for me that I couldn’t find work and he decided to give unemployment to me to save face of his ego. That made official that his ego was effected, he didn’t want anyone to know the truth. At this point he realized I got the better of him when I fought back and I won, big!

In a last ditch effort he lied about how much I made. The state sent me paper work stating this fact and asked me to prove my salary. So I gave them copies of checks and pay stubs for the last six months. After that things went easy, he was flagged for lying which made the reaming steps effortless the state rep told me.

For the reason I was terminated I said “d*ck the owner made some poor business discussions that impacted the company losing business and clients. He let me go as a business discussion, in his shoes I’d of done the same and understand.”

I wrote it that way for a reason. But d*ck didn’t realize why. I knew what his reaction would be. The state saw a down to earth guy that was honest and understanding on paper. Then they saw d*cks predicted response of being a d*ck, most likely yelling and of course lying. I had no doubt that would seal the deal simply on the evaluation on character before the facts even entered in to it.

His reaction being, his ego had to take it up the ass. Once for failing as a business man, another for me saying so on state paper work, and lastly accepting that I got the better of him and all this time I have been coaxing him to make this move.

The only thing left to do is pay me, every single week. And his money goes to the state first then the state sends it to me, so he can’t play games with my money or the state is coming after him.

Over the next six months I took that time to enjoy myself, pursue hobbies and lived life to the fullest on his dime as a reward for his comment. Once the letter came to renew unemployment, d*ck would no longer have to pay or only a parentage I forget, the important thing to know is tax payers would have to pay after six months not d*ck. So I declined the renewal. Three weeks later I had a new job.

It was either that or knock him out during that lunch, It wasn’t easy, took work but I’m proud of the way I handled it. I feel vindicated, it’s pretty rare the world is balanced, evil often wins. But not this time. This time it cost d*ck, 32,500 dollars to be exact. All in all I can say 10/10 would do it again.

Due to his age I can’t imagine that it would be a humbling experience at this point. But it was for me, money isn’t everything, there is only one thing of true value, your happiness. A year later, I’m very happy now, I enjoy my new job and my new boss. I discovered myself again, who I really am. The goofy friendly guy, my light is no longer dimmed by a dark presence and I can be myself without punishment.

(source) (story by Divine_Squire)

[rossmallo]

I'm going to start with the main point of my discussion, as a sort of pre-emptive TLDR. After 12 years of playing, I am now done with Runescape, and Menaphos was the straw that broke the camel's back. It has shown, in no uncertain terms, what the future is going to hold, and it is a future I do not want to pay to be a part of. Jagex needs to learn its limitations, not overwork their employees to the point it results in inferior, sloppy work, and focus on quality over quantity. Because if the current trend of updates continues, I won't be the last to quit over it.

So yeah, that's the TLDR – Be warned, I am going to go into total ramble / Purple Prose mode here, because this has been on my mind for a while and I just want to process it by getting it out in writing.

Runescape has been a game I have had an interesting past with, my interest and liking for it ebbing and flowing as time went on. I've loved it, I've hated it, and everything in between. But, after several things just repeatedly chipping away at me, my faith in the game has now completely evaporated. I want to like the game, I really do, but the truth of the matter is no longer ignorable – The game is floundering, partly in spite of – or possibly due to - Jagex's best intentions to give us as much content as possible, instead of focusing on realistic, achievable goals.

Now, anyone who knows me on the Official Forums will know that I am kind of infamous for being very vocal against microtransaction stuff (Don't click off. This isn't what this is about). This rather touchy subject had worn me down quite a bit, making me eventually feel very cynical and apathetic about the game, eventually causing me to drift away, only logging in once or twice a week to get a few daily things done or check in with people.

Eventually, though, I made a snap decision which caused me to play the game a whole lot more. Skip to about a month ago, and this increased play-time had paid off - I got my Max Cape. I also completed Sliske's Endgame – I used the lamps from that to utterly skip Magic 98-99.

I had wanted to do this to get closure on Runescape. It had devolved from a game I had loved to play, to a game that I only felt I had to... To a game that I felt I had to expunge from my consciousness in order to know peace. Every time I looked at my skills, I knew that Completion Principle would not let me go until I had finished what I had started. I wanted to finish the Sliske Questline and get Maxed, and be done with it all.

However...As I pushed on with the quests, I felt the old embers of love for the game spark back into a flame. The story I had grown up with, the feeling of progress, it all felt right again. And for just a week or so, I felt like there was hope for the game once more. Sure, there was a lot of patchiness with the updates recently, but it was going to get better, right?

...Nope. Menaphos happened, and it made me finally snap awake.

Something I had predicted from the very first day of expansions being announced had shown itself to be very, very true. Allow me to quote myself from back then.

“I'm looking at these expansions, and I'm worried. I'm going to straight up say this: When expansions come, the game is either going to fly, or going to die. There will be no middle ground.

Jagex is suggesting that they can do a normal weekly game update at the same time of doing a huge expansion-style update every three months. No. In their current situation, there is NO way they can do this. That is an unpaid increase in workload that is utterly untenable – Something has to give.”

And give, it did.

Let's not kid ourselves here. Almost all of the updates, from March onwards, have been shoddy, buggy, broken or otherwise substandard. Let's quickly run through them...

March 6th – Lumbridge Crater rework and wardrobe change. Simple graphical update, UI change which had mixed reception.

March 13th – Ninja Updates – Several good QOL updates.

March 20th – Agents of Fury, Runespan reward rework and Arc changes. Another Currency Event, and the cynic in me sees the releasing of the Runecrafter Robes via Runespan as an effective admission that they've given up on Great Orb Project entirely.

March 27th – Luck Rework – An incredibly confusing, ill-explained, convoluted and broken mess of a system that could have been done so, so much better.

April 3rd – Gemstone Dragons. Due to their huge cost for entry, difficulty, lack of justifiably good drops and the bizarre decisions around their slayer level, these were effectively dead on arrival due to bad planning.

April 10th – Easter Quest – This was the point I really began to notice the damage. The quest was as basic as it could possibly get, with no new graphics, no new areas or music, and effectively all done through text boxes and bare-bone fetchquests. The event looked like a project that had to be done for Monday morning but was only started on Sunday night, and just stunk of laziness and cost-cutting. Needless to say, the “They're working on Menaphos!!!1” people were out in full force this time. I'll get back to that later.

April 18th – The new Achievement system. A rework of a system nobody needed reworking, turning it into a broken, rickety, barely-functioning pile of warped coding that caused far more problems than it solved. This was a mess, pure and simple.

April 24th – The Spring Fayre - When I was complaining about the Easter event, I was usually shot down and told that this would be the actual Easter event. Interestingly, those people got very, VERY quiet when we saw what this actually was. Without wanting to go too far into detail, this was a carnival of MTX greed the likes of which we had never seen, with a massive air of open contempt wafting over the whole thing, due to unfairly balanced reward systems heavily weighted towards spending money. This was eventually improved somewhat, but the initial damage was just...staggering.

May 2nd – Shattered Worlds - This was an update I had been waiting for for years, and initially, it looked like this was something that made up for a lot of the pain the players had endured...But it soon became apparent that this was a terribly-balanced mess which is still very much not worth playing. Disillusionment set in very high for me here.

May 8th – Gilenorian Giving – Charity or no, this was still a Currency Event.

May 15th – Skyboxes. A lightweight update that effectively boiled down to giving us admin commands for changing skyboxes, but it was still pretty nice.

May 22nd – Patch notes, followed by a week of no update, presumably to polish Menaphos.

So all in all, we saw a massive downswing in the quality of updates, ranging from average at best to unusable or contemptuous at worst. But every single time anyone tried to complain, an echoing cry would be heard all through the forums and on Reddit.

“They're working on Menaphos! They have to direct resources from other areas to get Menaphos done! Menaphos will make this all worth it!”

Uh huh...Right. Here's the thing. Jagex has worked on big projects before. Prifddinas. Summoning. Dimension of Disaster. Mzcab. All of these are far bigger projects than this. But none of those crippled the quality of their weekly releases like Menaphos did. None of them ever needed to siphon resources like Menaphos apparently did. They allowed themselves the time to make big, intricate updates, while going along with smaller, more manageable projects. They didn't try to work on multiple big things at once. For instance, I get the feeling that if they shelved Shattered Worlds and the Achievement rework and done some smaller, more feasible updates, they would have been more able to work on Menaphos, to bring it up to a decent standard. But no - They tried to do a bunch of big projects at once, and, well, we can see the results.

Now, admittedly, the resource-siphoning may have been necessary this time...But even if it is, it's entirely Jagex's fault. They are the ones who put this demand upon themselves. If they couldn't hack it, they shouldn't have made that promise. Nobody was asking them to stretch themselves as thin as they did (Hell, the whole reason the poll went the way it did was because we wanted bigger, more polished, less rushed updates). But they did, and as a result the game suffered, and the players suffered. Call me a jerk if you want, but I feel that even if Menaphos was good, we shouldn't just brush all that under the carpet.

But in the end, we manage to get into Menaphos, and after all the bluster and hype, after all the poor updates justified by its very existence, what do we get?

A rainbow reflected in a puddle. Wonderful to look at, but when you get close and actually step inside, you find it's as shallow as it gets.

Menaphos has, when you get down to it, maybe about the same amount of utility as Falador. MAYBE Ardougne if you want to be generous. The only particularly interesting / noteworthy things added with the update – The Slayer Dungeon and Slayer Pyramid - aren't even in Menaphos themselves. Other than that, it's more than a little basic, and other than the appearances, doesn't really do much to actually set itself apart from other cities.

Well, I'm being unfair – I should have said “The only particularly interesting/noteworthy long-term pieces of content”. Because there IS interesting short-term, one-time-only content - four new quests!

…

...Yep, I'm bringing it up. The rep grind. For the uninitiated, in order to actually access the quests there, you need to do an arbitrary reputation grind. The only way to do this is by skilling on the below-average skill plots there. For hours. Some estimates put it at somewhere between 30-50 hours. I know this has been improved with the various patches...But let's face it, if someone's forcing you to eat a turd, but out of the “kindness of their heart” they cut some of it off and dispose of it, you're still having to eat it, you just need to eat less. A vast majority of people don't want to in the first place.

Because most of us can see what this boils down to. The needless rep-grind, the fact there's a passive EXP buff there, and the darkly hilarious Currency Event they have put in there as of this week...To me, it points to two things, clear as day.

Padding, and Desperation.

Rather than making the city somewhere we want to be, with interesting, engaging activities and sights, we are effectively being forced to be there in order to “enjoy” the city, to endure subpar exp, and to engage in constant, tedious grind in order to get to do the quests. No other city has had this treatment - New / Overhauled cities were allowed to just exist, and prove their own worth. All that will be achieved by forcing people to stay in a city when they could be doing other things, is simply breed enormous amounts of contempt.

Because look, you can argue that you are “Forced” to get levels in skills you don't want to for quests sometimes. You can argue you're “Forced” to get combat levels up to get to certain places. Yes, you are. But you can go about it in any way you want. You can go to all sorts of different locations to train skills. You have lots of options on how to train most of them. But with Menaphos, you ARE forced to do things as they want you to. Unless you want to go completely insane by doing bankstanding skills and getting tiny bits of rep, you are effectively stuck looking at a tree you're continually cutting until the game finally says you can do what you want, because they don't want you finishing the content you want and then moving on. To me, this whole combination of things totals up to one thing.

“Spend as much time as you possibly can in the new city. Justify the time it took us, the developers, to design. It doesn't matter how much you're enjoying it, just so long as it looks populated so we can say it's a job well done.

Because you're going to skill in Menaphos and appreciate every last crack in the pavement we textured, dammit.”

And I look at all of this, this sun bleached, shining city of cardboard, and think to myself - “This is going to keep happening. Weak, shallow expansions backed up by shoddy weekly updates. This is not going to get better. They're committed to this business model now, and backing out will damage them even worse. This is how things are now.”

I'm done.

I can't keep this up any more. If this is the normal standard of the updates now, I cannot justify paying for this any longer.

I have enough money for a few bonds. Perhaps several years in the future, I may check back in to see what's going on in the game, assuming the game is still running, and is still recognizable. Because I hate being a cynic, but...The way that this is going, if the quality of updates continues along these lines, and the depravity of the investors continues to balloon like it has been...I don't know how much longer RS will last.

…

I want to finish this ramble fest on a more positive note.

Runescape has changed my life for the better. I could honestly argue it's saved my life. I still remember back when my friends in school were talking about Shilo Village like it was the promised land. I fondly recall my first ever month when I was a Member – I distinctly remember exploring the Gnome Stronghold, getting a full set of the light blue robes and being surprised by the impressive-at-the-time Magic Trees. Hell, I even feel a slight twinge of twisted, bitter-sweet mirth at the fact that I got hacked very early on in my RS lifetime, and deemed too worthless to even get my password changed. (My only indication I'd been hacked was that I was in Falador without my 11k GP on my next login.)

It was a game that I took solace in. I live in a rather remote area of England – As I graduated, the amount of friends I had evaporated – all moving away from this place, looking for better places to go. I was very soon left with nobody but the people I met online. I am proud to admit that one of the best friends I have ever made, I know from Runescape. It's kind of staggering that if I hadn't been making Body Tiaras at the time I was, I would never have got to know him. Runescape was the rock upon which I managed to cling to, to help me keep my life in order, when everything else seemed to not make any sense.

This is honestly a reason why I get so utterly agitated about all that is going wrong with the game lately. It feels...almost disrespectful, the way that the game is just being defiled, broken and twisted the way it is now. Like watching some community club building from your childhood become ruined and dilapidated.

So...That's why I'm opting to quit now, as opposed to waiting for my membership to run out. I want to leave while I still have some respect for the game, and before the memories I have of the game become permanently tainted.

If there is indeed anyone that's still reading...Thank you for that. I know that this is just me letting out one final yell before I turn my back on this, but...I just wanted to speak from the heart for a while, about the game that I used to love – and on some level, still do. I understand if you feel my reasoning is flawed, and I don't mind if you want to tear me down about it. I know this could probably be an unpopular opinion.

I'll probably still lurk on Reddit and the forums here and there, but nowhere near as much as I used to.

To all the people who have better tolerance and restraint than I do, I hope Runescape improves for you once more. I hope with everything I have that the next expansion actually does live up to expectations this time. You deserve better than what you're getting.

[monsteriseksuaali]

2020 has been horrible. Anxiety is killing me, stress is killing me, my chronic pain has been worse since the nerve pain which started late last year has spread and part of the blame is probably if my tennis elbow.

Well, for the first time ever I've been happy I'm sick and unemployed because the Covid-19 happened and it has not affected my financial situation at all. I even got my welfare money faster now and a longer decision about it (idk if 2 months is worth celebrating but anyways and for those who don't know here in Finland we usuallt need to make the application every month which fucking sucks).

I miss meeting my friends. I've pretty much been seeing only the one which lives nearby and just because he also has stayed home a lot so it's been relatively safe.

I also miss all the social groups I go to since they construct the majority of everything I do outside home since not being in school or work. I'm so frustrated that it was starting to slowly get a slightly better but now I feel I've lost all progress! It feels hard to leave home now, I've been getting more panic attacks and I devour attention so much I keep spamming stupid messages to some group chats and mutuals or keep asking the one friend every second day to do something - luckily he's often busy with household chores or something since I don't actually have energy.

Yes I'm very aware how annoying I am right now but I just can't help it. I really need to find some kind of new way to socialize.

I kinda miss the days I was doing more cosplay and was so active on istagram ppl recognized me on cosplay conventions and said hi, made me feel like something. I've had some issues with a good friend of mine who also used to do lots of cosplay but nowadays I feel we don't really have anything common but our past. She has also hurted my feelings more than once and I really want her to apologise but I don't know how to ask since she doesn't seem to do it without asking either.

It's like I just keep drifting away from too many of my friends and it's really hard to find someone new since lot of new ppl have been gay men who have tried to hit on me (even when I've told everyone beforehand I'm mostly looking for friends) and after I tell them I'm not interested in them romantically they just slowly stop responding to my messages.

One of my friends also moved away just before this covid-19 happened and our relationship had gone to a point where I didn't really consider her a good friend anymore since there had been too much negativity and stuff but I still miss her. We used to hang out a lot like the way I love which is just casually hanging out in my place chatting or randomly asking each others outside to play badminton etc. Until she started to cancel plans without telling me.

Now I hang out with the nearby friend like that BUT mostly with a strict schedule with I hate. I'm so envious of people who can randomly go out at nighttime to just hang out in a beach and just spend hours playing board games or go photographing or camping just like that. I don't like making plans about hanging out since I can't guarantee I can make it because my pain could be too bad or I'm most likely too tired.

I hate it how hard it's to make friends when youre adult. Many times I try to approach someone who is not trying to hit on me they are way too socially awkward and after months and months I just notice it's just me trying to make them talk. Asking frequently how is their day and they never ask me or would they like to go to cafe someday and they are like yeah but never tell me when they have free time.

TLDR: I fucking hate year 2020. Also need friends.

[harlequinboardgaming-blog]

[Fields of Green] Review

Overview

Fields of Green is a 2-4 players card-drafting game with an engine building element, where players take the role of farmers trying to expand their lands and properties, planning the location of each building to maximize the production of their fields and livestocks. The game takes the concept and basic rules from Among the Stars, adds an extra resource to manage (wheat), and introduces an additional scoring phase between rounds (harvest). At the end of the game, the player with the most VPs win.

Gameplay

Before setup, each type of card is separated and shuffled to form 4 piles of cards and each player receives a starting Silo and Water Tower. Then, at the beginning of each of the 4 rounds, each player draws a total of 6 cards from those 4 decks and a common draft sequence begins, with each player choosing one card and either building that structure or discarding the card and replace it for one of the basic cards or some money.

Once each player has taken an action, the hands are rotated and the drafting continues until all cards have been exhausted. Then, the end of round scoring (harvest) takes place, and each player must pay the harvest cost for the harvest buildings and claim the rewards, or turn into any building whose cost was not paid into an Open Area. This process repeats for the subsequent rounds, and after the 4th harvest, the end game scoring takes place.

However, during a 2-player game, the common drafting is replaced and instead, both players’ hands are shuffled together, 6 of the cards are put for display and players take turns picking one from the set, then 2 more cards are revealed and the process continues until the 12 cards are used.

During the game, you soon discover you will need more fields to feed your livestock, but then you need more water towers to water your fields, and you have to keep building more water towers to get more fresh water, and more silos to hold the food, and more construction to get some bonus, and more buildings to get scoring options, but they ask for more fields, so you go buy more fields but the 4th year has passed and you look at your huge randomly-organized farmland. You then reshuffle all decks and start again trying to do everything better this time.

Components

Fields of Green (Artipia Games, 2016) includes 33 cards for each of the four types (Field, Livestock, Construction and Buildings), 14 silos, 20 water towers, 4 player aids and 1 scoring card. This gives a total of 171 cards. The size of the cards is 70x70mm and sleeves can be found easily, either from Artipia Games or from any other major brand.

It also includes a set of cardboard tokens for the coins and victory points, starting player marker, a round marker and a scoring pad. The best part of the components are the custom shaped tokens for the wheat and for the water.

At first glance it seems like a small footprint game, but as the game progresses, the farms grow in size a lot so it is recommended to have around 60×40 cm of table space for each player, plus a similar space for the supply. In the end, a standard 90×90 cm table can provide enough space for a 2-player game. If space is a problem, I would suggest a house-rule to limit the amount of cards you can place in each direction so that players can plan accordingly.

The Review

Times played: 3 (2-Players)

I will begin with probably the least important subject, the components. The cards are of good quality, I would prefer if they were slightly smaller to save on table space, but I can live with the size. The wooden tokens are great and are not too fiddly. The cardboard coins will soon be replaced for my almighty poker chips because I don’t like handling different sized coins. What I like the most about the components is the art. I like the style and the color palettes used. I think it fits quite nice with the farmland theme of the game.

Now for the important part, let me begin by saying that my only previous experience with card drafting games comes from 7 Wonders and Imperial Settlers so these will be my reference.

The card drafting is just standard drafting but I prefer the rules in 7 wonders where the last card gets discarded because you have a little more options (and thus control) in the round and you are not forced to do something with the last card. Of course you can always trade that card for a Water Tower or a Silo, but they are only needed at specific times so you might still feel like you wasted a turn with a subpar card.

The engine building is there and I enjoy it quite a bit. It will be confusing for new players because you will get either too many fields and not enough livestock to benefit from all the food, or too many livestock and not enough fields to feed them, or too few Water Towers and not enough water to (duh) water your fields… There is often a delicate balance to be found and it will be a challenge, especially because with 2 players you are looking at 48 out of the 132 cards in the game. Odds are that what worked for you before won’t show up again. If you like the random setups, you will probably like dealing with the first hand here, but if you prefer perfect information from the get go, 7 Wonders would be better.

I remember Imperial Settlers was demoralizing for first time players because they would have a weak engine and they would be forced to pass early while the rest of the players kept going and going and going. This is not a problem here because everyone has a set number of turns, and even a farm with no harvest abilities feels good to look at.

There is no player interaction at all. The only interaction comes from looking at your hand and deciding if taking the card that works for you and scores you a couple points is better than taking the card that would score the opponent a couple points. That’s it. There are no cards that affect other players, and there is not even the war points comparison that 7 Wonders have. The 2-player game is a bit more interactive in this same way because of the 2-player rules where all cards are available to you in a given turn, so you can steal a card right after you see your opponent taking part of the combo.

Speaking of which, the 2-player rules add a nice change of pace, but it felt somewhat imbalanced because the new cards are revealed after the second player’s turn, so the first player has the advantage of always being able to grab the new cards before the opponent. This is something I really disliked about the rules and I am still trying to house rule something to fix this.

I have some mixed feeling about the randomness of the game. I like random, or at least some of it. I like the random setup in Dominion mixed with the random hands after every shuffle, or Agricola’s hand mixed with the new activities coming at slightly variable order. In this case, the initial hand gives me a little of that feeling because you start planning what you can do with those cards and thinking ahead what other cards you might need in future rounds. My problem comes after the second round because by that time you know exactly what card you want, so you draw 4 cards from the livestock deck hoping those Rabbits will show up, or preferably two Rabbits because you are last player and your opponent will steal the rabbits before you have a chance to act. I would say the randomness in Fields of Green feel very similar to the randomness in Imperial Settlers without any card drawing bonus, or to the randomness in Race for the Galaxy without access to the explore action.

TLDR;

The Good

Replayability – With the random cards, the game offers huge replayability, at least at low player counts. Fast – It is a fast playing game once you know what the cards do. Tense – There are times where you really want that card, but grabbing that could mean your opponent grabs something else you need and you end the round with not enough resources to pay for the harvest cost. Math-y – It is a game of efficiency, about how can you maximize the points that each card will give you and when in the game it will be best to build it. Grabbing the Rabbits in the last turn might give you a lot of food, but you might be better off getting the Oranges and scoring the 2 points without spending as much. Artwork & Theme – I really like the art style, and the theme is one of my favourites since my SNES days of Harvest Moon.

The Bad

2-player rules – I usually game with my GF so 2-player rules are important to us. I feel this game could be improved by adding some sort of dummy player that randomly steals a card every turn, or by each player looking at their hand, drawing 6 more cards per round, shuffling and discarding 6 at random to simulate that extra player. Of course, card-drafting games are usually not good at 2 players, and it is probably the best of the three games I have experienced with this player count. No interaction – I don’t mind some conflict in my games, but I do like interaction. It would be interesting if there were some cards that gave a bonus for all cards in game, similar to Suburbia’s Airports. Slow with new players – There are too many different cards and too many things to read for a new player, so it will certainly slow the game down quite a bit. Math-y – It is a game of efficiency and all the maths behind it can turn it into an AP fest if everyone stops to do all the math for each of the cards they received.

The Score

3/5 I like it, will play it again.