#and I hope game devs unionized after this

[yusuke-of-valla]

WE LIVE IN A HELL WORLD

Snippets from the article by Karissa Bell:

SAG-AFTRA, the union representing thousands of performers, has struck a deal with an AI voice acting platform aimed at making it easier for actors to license their voice for use in video games. ...

the agreements cover the creation of so-called “digital voice replicas” and how they can be used by game studios and other companies. The deal has provisions for minimum rates, safe storage and transparency requirements, as well as “limitations on the amount of time that a performance replica can be employed without further payment and consent.”

Notably, the agreement does not cover whether actors’ replicas can be used to train large language models (LLMs), though Replica Studios CEO Shreyas Nivas said the company was interested in pursuing such an arrangement. “We have been talking to so many of the large AAA studios about this use case,” Nivas said. He added that LLMs are “out-of-scope of this agreement” but “they will hopefully [be] things that we will continue to work on and partner on.”

...Even so, some well-known voice actors were immediately skeptical of the news, as the BBC reports. In a press release, SAG-AFTRA said the agreement had been approved by "affected members of the union’s voiceover performer community." But on X, voice actors said they had not been given advance notice. "How has this agreement passed without notice or vote," wrote Veronica Taylor, who voiced Ash in Pokémon. "Encouraging/allowing AI replacement is a slippery slope downward." Roger Clark, who voiced Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, also suggested he was not notified about the deal. "If I can pay for permission to have an AI rendering of an ‘A-list’ voice actor’s performance for a fraction of their rate I have next to no incentive to employ 90% of the lesser known ‘working’ actors that make up the majority of the industry," Clark wrote.

SAG-AFTRA’s deal with Replica only covers a sliver of the game industry. Separately, the union is also negotiating with several of the major game studios after authorizing a strike last fall. “I certainly hope that the video game companies will take this as an inspiration to help us move forward in that negotiation,” Crabtree said.

And here are some various reactions I've found about things people in/adjacent to this can do

And in OTHER AI games news, Valve is updating it's TOS to allow AI generated content on steam so long as devs promise they have the rights to use it, which you can read more about on Aftermath in this article by Luke Plunkett

[askagamedev]

It's been reported that SAG-AFTRA members recently voted in favor of a strike. The union has been in negotiations with a number of video game companies including EA, Activision and Insomniac. In what ways will the strike affect (both positive and negative effects) these companies and their associated studios?

If it's anything like [the last strike] in 2016, it will likely follow the same procedure. If the union chooses to strike, any games that started development before a certain cutoff date would continue unaffected. Any games that start development after that cutoff date will be struck until an agreement is reached.

To my recollection, only about 40% of video game voice acting is done by union workers anyway. Indie studios and smaller publishers don't really have the money to pay union scale and often save money by using their developers or friends/family as actors. Hades, for example, had a large number of non-union voice actors. This is mostly setting up an agreement for large AAA games. Union actors will also sometimes do non-union work under an alias (like Cam Clarke being credited as "James Flinders" in Metal Gear Solid) to dodge the union rules, and that would likely continue.

Generally speaking, the amount of negotiating power the actors have with game publishers is significantly lower than when negotiating with the MPAA. Voice acting does matter and can elevate certain kinds of games (mostly narrative- or character-driven games like Baldur's Gate 3 or Mortal Kombat 1), but it certainly isn't universal - people don't play Minecraft, Counter-Strike, or Pokemon for the vocal performances. I wish the union luck in their negotiations and I hope that everybody reaches a mutually beneficial agreement. My main sympathies remain with the non-union voice actors out there who get the squeeze - joining the union is quite expensive and difficult, and the union obviously prioritizes union work over non-union members.

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[acepalindrome]

pokemon sv was in development when the switch was announced wydm Rushed the only rushing you do is to sit on your throne of lies (the toilet) after eating a bean burrito you lowly fool

Buddy I don’t know how you can look at all the glitches and bugs this game was released with and think ‘yeah, the devs had plenty of time and resources on this one!’

Also, GameFreak releases roughly one new game a year, which is an insane schedule to keep. Since the Switch came out in 2017, they’ve released Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, Sword and Shield, Legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet. They’ve got 169 employees as of 2022 according to Google, which is way less than a lot of other major companies.

And ever they are a major company! They’re literally bringing in billions! There is no excuse for putting that much strain on their employees! It’s pure greed!

Look, I love Scarlet. Bugs aside, it’s easily one of the best games in the entire series. But it’s real easy to look at all the bugs it was released with and see that this is a symptom of a major problem, not just with GameFreak but with virtually every big game developer company out there. They’re working their employees to the bone and publishing games that needed more time to be polished and work out the bugs.

Anyway I hope all game developers unionize.

[cooplagoop]

Coop rants about the (im)possible Overwatch Netflix series

So in a recent interview (9th of November 2023) with the executive producer Jared Neuss Gamespot asked him about the possibility of an Overwatch animated Netflix series and he just gave the vaguest answer and tries to obviously deflect the topic.

It feels like he wanted to say no, there is no Netflix series and there never will be, but didn't want to upset fans who have been practically begging for this animated show since 2017.

Even if Overwatch got a Netflix series there's the question of what or who would it be about? The game has nearly 40 heroes. How would the Netflix series relate to pve?

The easiest route the Netflix series could go is to follow the original strike team fighting in the first Omnic crisis, however that version of Overwatch was not led by bootleg Captain America, but by a brown Latino and Ana wasn't a support or mother at that time, so they'd actually have to write her character as well as include Jack and Vincent's romance since the Declassified book stated that they met during the crisis.

Basically Blizzard has to actually write about poc and gay people. The two things they don't want to do the most judging from how little queerness they allow Soldier 76 to display, how they never confirm wether Reyes is Mexican or some other Latino ethnicity just give us hints about it and how Ana is often times shelved in favour of other characters (mostly male; Cassidy, Soldier) while the writers pretend like they wrote a 30 page essay fleshing out her character when they did no such thing.

So route A is a not happening outside of fanfiction.

Route B is to have one-off animated episodes of varying lenght focusing on one or two heroes in specific.

Blizzard already does route B with their cinematics. However they're always under 10 minutes which seems to be a general rule with their cinematics.

If they started making episodes on Netflix they'd no longer have to oblige by the 10 minute rule. More episode time = more story which is what fans have always wanted.

However, this also means more investment,more manpower, more resources, more of the writing staff not writing Pve (which is in the game while the Netflix series is not).

In layman's terms greedy execs don't want to give anyone anymore money than they are legally required to, not the dev team, not Netflix and certanly not some 3rd party animation studio on top of it all.

As much as I want a Netflix series and more story content, Jared Neuss has the most realistic idea of just focusing on the game.

It's just not going to happen without unionizing. The devs are already streached thin with both making content for each season of the battlepass, hero balancing, pve writing, developing new event game modes like Trials of Sanctuary and Concert Clash etc etc

I doubt it will get better when Bobby Kotick leaves after 2023 ends as AAA videogame company CEOs are scum one way or the other.

But there is always hope. Sag-aftra writers were able to reach their goals recently. So maybe someday soon, the employees of the videogame industry will do the same.

[haldenlith]

Venting, because I feel the need to. First, the news about the layoffs at Bungie is just... frustrating. The company does seem to like to dance around and go, "but we're DIFFERENT! We're one of the good ones! We CARE!"

And then they do shit like that.

I'll admit I've not fallen really for their posturing, and I've been VERY leery of their whole "we used to crunch, but we don't anymore" stance. (Especially after Lightfall -- that game felt rushed, to me.) It's frustrating because again we see a company that, after being propelled upwards by the hard work of a LOT of people (devs, community managers, etc), immediately give those people the boot, especially after waxing lyrical about how good they supposedly treat their employees, and how they're "family".

(That is increasingly becoming a red flag for me, by the way. Every time a company goes "oh our employees are like family", it's been explicitly the opposite.)

It's also funny, in a way, because back when Marathon was announced, I personally sat back and went "... is this why D2 has felt a little lackluster lately?" Because, to me, as some random outsider looking in, it felt a little like they were trying to juggle too many balls at once, and that just kind of confirmed it. Part of their team was working on Marathon, and part was working on D2. Shit, another part is also still maintaining D1. And then, of course, another team is potentially working on stuff that is undisclosed. I was afraid they were stretching themselves too thin, because I imagine D2 is an absolute BEAST to have to maintain and develop for, especially given how often the game's code seems to operate on a very delicate set of cards. Change one thing and a bunch of other stuff breaks.

But, yeah, that's how I felt back then. And now? Now that they've (needlessly) slashed a chunk of the employee roster? Hm.

Even with the delays, I suspect they're going to push the folks that remain to crunch ("But we don't crunch!") on TFS and Marathon. And, honestly? I think they're already fighting an uphill battle. Lightfall burned a lot of players. Instead of riding the wave Witch Queen had made of people being hype for Lightfall, The Final Shape is having to dig itself out from the messy reception of LF. And if TFS is received badly and "flops"? Probably more layoffs, with a potential side of blaming the consumers. Because it couldn't possibly be due to mismanagement or, I don't know, laying off a chunk of the teams that were working on it. (That's sarcasm.)

I'm saying that because gods if it hasn't become formulaic at this point with AAA studios, with this industry. It's become a profit-chasing meat grinder and I hate it. Genuinely, especially with this news with Bungie because it feels like déjà vu, in a way. Companies across the board chew up their employees for the sake of cranking out some (often very buggy) slop in the name of almighty profit.

I guess I'm just tired of looking at an industry that I wanted to be a part of because of my love of video games being turned into some horrific amalgamation of sweatshops, working night and day for the sake of a few money-bloated execs and shareholders at the top, being ground to dust for their sake. Artists, developers, writers, community managers... It's disgusting. It pisses me off that it's gotten like this.

I hope unions happen. I hope things change, but for right now, I'm just really frustrated and tired of seeing this brand of news over, and over, and over again. I hate that it's rare to come across a game that ends up a hit that didn't come at the cost of the people working on it.

I want better for people. I'm just not sure "better" is going to happen any time soon.

[ilikedetectives]

One ex-Blizzard source familiar with the people presented in the pictures identified an HR representative as one of the Blizzard employees present in the hotel room. Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “Blizzcon Cosby Crew.” In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.” “Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi. “You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes. “I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi. Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, “You misspelled fuck.” Cory Stockton, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, and Greg Street, former Blizzard developer currently working on a new MMO at Riot Games, were also present in the chat."

[adobe-outdesign]

So, what do you think about Pokemon Scarlet/Violet? I'm actually apprehensive about them, as while they look great in the initial trailer, they're coming out later this year. I'm not excited about that last bit.

I'm kind of mixed. One the one hand, I like basically everything we've gotten so far, including:

Spain-based region (I was hoping for something that wasn't English or Japanese for a change)

Texture improvements, such as Lucario's fur and Seviper's scales

New starters look solid and are a massive improvement over Gen 8's

Androgynous outfits regardless of gender

Open world and it looks to be using PLA's basic gameplay/engine, which is encouraging

However, I really wish the game wasn't coming out until 2023; I find it hard to believe it's going to be properly polished at this rate. I keep hearing people say they split into two teams to dev PLA and SV, but didn't they do that for SWSH? And we all know how that turned out. It looks like it might use PLA's coding to some extent which might help, but it makes me nervous. Not to mention how much crunch time it takes to get both games out on time (Gamefreak unionize challenge).

It's also a bummer that it's been announced so soon after PLA, as I'm worried it'll be forgotten about and never get any DLC (DLC as in like major updates; the daybreak one is fine but not that big of a deal at all). Announcing a new game so soon after the last one is like if you were eating a good meal and the waiter shoved a new meal in front of you before you were even finished with the previous one. I want my dessert, Gamefreak!

And, of course, there's a lot of variables that we'll still need to find out. What's the gimmick (I'd prefer there to be none, or at least revisit an old one)? What's the plot? Ect ect.

[randomnameless]

Sometimes I think while I really really really like Jugdral, Tellius is also a nice verse, and if I can erase Ike and RD’s part 4 from my mind it is really interesting verse with political intrigue, wars that matter, civilians having to fight each other and coexistence between different races -

But this is when I freeze because Tellius... delivers the opposite :(

Nasir: Begnion had been established for four years when King Dheginsea received news that Altina had become pregnant. The news brought great joy. You see, the news was also quite surprising. There had been other unions between beorc and laguz, but until Altina’s pregnancy, no children had ever been conceived. Indeed, hers was the first child ever to be born of beorc and laguz.

Yippie, end discriminations ! If people can marry and conceive, then they are not so different, right?

Gareth: As close friends of both Altina and Lehran, both King Dheginsea and Soan rejoiced at the news. The child would be the first to carry the joined blood of both laguz and beorc. The king said that the baby would become a symbol of peace between the two peoples.

:)

Gareth: It became apparent that the child of such a union neutralizes the laguz parent’s powers. To make matters worse, the child bears only the characteristics of a beorc.

:(

Nasir: Lehran felt he was no longer a true laguz, and felt he could no longer act as a bridge between the goddess and the people of Tellius. He lost hope, and also his mind…at least temporarily. He attempted suicide several times, which is an unthinkable taboo for anyone who has sworn to serve the goddess.

Gareth: King Dheginsea fell into despair. If people caught wind of this news, he believed it would create a deep rift between the two peoples. The king was especially concerned about the reaction from the laguz. They might interpret the birth as a herald of their eventual end. Some might even attempt to harm the child.

This such a joyous news that Lehran loses his powers, loses hopes, loses his mind and attempts suicide. Dheginsea was afraid the laguz would see this birth as their future extinction, since it neutralises them and makes them no longer laguz, but no beorc either. They lose on both fronts.

Gareth: Most Branded chose to hide, living outside of ordinary society, and they disappeared into the shadows of history. Rumors had already begun to spread across Begnion, however. The Branded were shunned and cast out wherever they lived. Where the laguz held power, they persecuted the Branded and executed them in honor killings.

To the Beorcs the Branded are people who look like them but have more powers and longer lifespans - so they are jealous and shun them - to the Laguz, the Branded are a symbol of their inability to live with Beorcs and a “herald of their eventual end”, so some straight up hunted them in “honor killings”.

Joy .

But then, the plot thickens - or derails because this is RD’s part 4 and the devs didn’t give a fuck :

Gareth: It was King Dheginsea’s opinion that these were crimes that he had to carry on his conscience. From the beginning, he realized that he and the others in power had made a mistake. They understood that they should have revealed everything about Altina and Lehran’s child. The people should have been told the truth. But since they’d kept the truth from everyone, the Branded were marked as unclean, persecuted wherever they traveled.

Lehran ended up suicidal after losing his powers, Dheginsea had valid worries about Branded being heralded as laguz destroyers since their birth makes a laguz lose all of its powers - and as to confirm his fears, laguz hunted brandeds while beorcs, for no reason (bar being jealous?) ignored them.

But sure, Dheginsea should have told everyone the truth. I’m sure the Laguz would have especially happy to learn this, that co-existence between their two races is straight up impossible because if they coexist too much the laguz will disappear.

They should have been told the truth. For real.

It’s on part with “Rhea should have told people she was a giant lizard in disguise even if Edel’s first reaction to see her lizard form is “eww dirty beast” “ or “they should have revealed the truth about the 10 Elites so maybe Marianne wouldn’t be the only one persecuted because her ancestor was a monster”.

But what to do when a Branded is here, or when a Beorc and a Laguz love each other a lot? 

Apparently Hatari has an answer, but the Saga doesn’t give a fuck because Hatari is just a footnote where Rafi was found by his wife, and serves to make the Tellius Gods hold the idiot plot ball.

Stefan made a colony in the desert for the Branded, but if he walked 3 days straight to the East, he would have found a country where they are all accepted :’( 

Why the laguz lose their powers when they have a kid with a beorc? The Gods don’t know. The game doesn’t know. How can you claim to be a game preaching about tolerance when a race is seen as lesser than the other and disappears if they live together?

No wonder why Stefan has a nervous breakdown in his final base convo.

This is why I have a love-hate-loathe relationship with this duology.

For Pete’s sake, even the FE6 manga paints a better story about racism and being tolerant, and this is the manga where a dude prefered to seal his wife and son than to reveal to the world he fucked a lizard!

[greetings-from-azeroth]

I have been thinking about this a lot these past days and honestly this really stings to write.

I have come to the conclusion that once the 6 month subscription *trap* ends I am going to unsubscribe from World of Warcraft. This is particularly huge because I have not been unsubbed from WoW since I started playing in WoTLK. I have always had an active subscription because i loved the world of Azeroth. I loved the lore. I loved the races and their backstories. I loved the Arthas storyline. I loved Teldrassil where I started my journey into this world as a curious night elf.

I put so much money into this game because I believed in it. I wanted it to do good and flourish and be here for more people to enjoy in the future. I got the Chronicle book series, the WoTLK art book, strategy guides, magazines... I even got a figureprint of my first ever main character. I wore Horde logo tees and hoodies to proudly represent my faction. During Blizzcons I cheered for the Horde.

And what was all that for?

To watch Blizzard run the game to the ground. Our accomplishments become null and void the moment we reach them. We grind and grind only to find out in the end it was for nothing and now that shiny new thing is not worth it anymore. Patch after patch we start the game over and throw the old content in the trash. How are we supposed to feel good about any of this? Why do we bother? What’s the point? You said Shadowlands was going to be different. And then it was just a bunch of lies. You say one thing and do the other. You learn the wrong lessons of past content.

You think of us as nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

You give us mandatory content grind that is mindless and boring and then look at the numbers and go “everyone is doing this = fun”. No. We’re doing it because we have to in order to play the game at full capacity. Those metrics mean nothing, throw them in the trash. Look at magetower. The only reward was a cool looking weapon appearance, no player power. And it was a hit. Why didn’t you put cosmetics into Torghast? Why DID you drop cosmetics and customisations like a hot potato when the community responded to them so WELL? Why are you so focused on solving problems only you can see instead of listening to us for a change? There’s a huge disconnect between the player and the devs. There hasn’t been anything fun in the game for a long time. Just boring grinds with no end in sight. Is that the only way you can keep players logging in? Grind 1000 anima per week (because if I had to do any more than that I’d die) and then maybe in a month you can buy a belt appearance OR upgrade one sanctum feature. Why are these two on par in the first place?? Why are the cosmetics so expensive! Scratch that! If grinding anima wasn’t so soul crushing then maybe it wouldn’t be a problem!

And you know what, I feel bad. I recruited a friend of mine to the game only to have them watch the entire thing burn to the ground and waste their money. I feel so utterly horrible because when I invited them, I still had hope left. I wanted to show them Azeroth. I wanted to show them why I loved this game. But it just.. all went horribly wrong. This expansion was supposed to be better. And it wasn’t. You lied to us. You delivered a dud. A beautiful looking dud but still a dud. (the art team has always been the mvp).

I stuck by WoD when all my friend went to FF14. I stuck by BFA when all my friends were playing FF14 and different games. I stuck by the beginning of Shadowlands because I was hoping for better. And then I went to FF14 myself.

I finally cracked. After logging in to grind my 1000 anima and then logging off I had enough of it. I had already completed all past content, got my reps, got most of the mounts.. there as nothing to fall back on for the first time ever. I didn’t see a point. So I joined my friends in a game that opened my eyes on the rest of WoW’s flaws.

I’m tired of the constant grinds. When the gameplay is a freaking grind from day one... that’s not fun. You’ve burnt us out on that. Are you afraid to not have a grind anymore? Are you afraid if there is no sunk cost fallacy to keep us logging in every day we’re not gonna play? Here’s how you can make sure that doesn’t happen:

MAKE FUN CONTENT. MAKE CONTENT. INNOVATE.

The brain drain at Blizzard is real. The last few expansions (except for Legion) have shown a total lack of innovation. And honestly downright incompetence.

And then when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, the company turns out to be sick from the inside. Sick with perverted men who cannot keep their hands to themselves, staff who are mistreated and higherups who don’t give a shit about what’s going on inside the company, HR that doesn’t care! And once your workforce walks out and talks about union are brought in, you hire a firm to keep them from unionizing! You don’t give a shit about your workers! You don’t give a shit about your customers! You don’t give a shit about the players!

That was the last straw.

It’s really painful... to be the player and having it come to this. It feels like those 11-12 years I poured into this game are now tainted. What started out like a blossoming romance is now an abusive relationship where we are being gaslit and neglected.

I didn’t want it to end like this.

[jesawyer]

What's your opinion on the somewhat dated drama surrounding CP2077? Cause personally I don't think the game looks... great. An anti-union company making a game in a setting/genre focused on capitalist critique, and having to be essentially forced via outrage to include non-binary character options, when so much of the cyberpunk genre is centered on gender non-conformity as well. It doesn't give me high hopes. And feel free to answer this privately, since this is semi-controversial.

Well, I know a fair number of people who work at CDPR and there’s a diverse range of political/social opinions in that company.  I think it’s fair to criticize how any company develops and presents the games that they make, but individual devs should be given the benefit of the doubt about how they approach their work.  I think people have developed a narrative about how gender is treated in CP2077 based on really limited information.  I think it’s always fair to be skeptical and wait until a game is released before committing to buying it for myriad reasons.  If you’re skeptical about gameplay, social issues, character development, story arcs, etc., just chill out and wait like two days after the game has been released.  If it sucks, don’t get it.

When I wear my Game Workers Unite shirt in former Soviet Bloc countries, I get shit from a few senior game devs (always/only at the upper management level) about it.  They are always people who were born prior to the fall of the Soviet Union and have extremely negative views of unions.  Younger people (and most of the older people who talked to me) have a more positive view of unions.  I’m not the sort of person who thinks that unions are magical.  They’re still run by people, and people have an incredible capacity to be shitty and bad.  Still, if developers don’t have some form of leverage, it’s difficult to effect change and easy for managers/owners to exploit employees.

In my opinion, one way or another, game devs who are mistreated are going to find a way to improve their working conditions.  Managers and owners can either work with devs or against them.  I think the latter is terrible strategy that inevitably breeds mistrust and resentment and bleeds talent.  In the long run, it often leads to unions because it’s the only way to change anything.

[theonyxpath]

Wooo! The Kickstarter for V5 Cults of the Blood Gods is going live tomorrow (or today depending when you read this), Tuesday, December 17th at 2pm Eastern US time! We’re doing this Kickstarter in order to create a traditionally printed book that we’ll print and deliver to backers and overprint more books in order to get Cults into stores!

Here are some of the highlights of the book, provided to me by developer Matthew Dawkins:

•           An in-character breakdown of the rise of esoteric beliefs among the ranks of the undead and how faith drives many of the major aspects of vampire culture.

•           A host of religions — from historic theocracies and globe-spanning conspiracies to fringe cults and mortal beliefs arising in the modern nights — introduced for incorporation into your character backgrounds or as supporting casts and antagonist groups in your chronicles.

•           The history, structure, and ambitions of the Hecata, the vampire group known as the Clan of Death, as well as a chapter dedicated to playing a vampire among the Necromancers, and the rituals for their Discipline: Oblivion.

•           Guidance on how to use ecclesiastical horror and construct cults in Vampire, making them a vivid backdrop for your own stories, including new coterie styles focused on cult play.

•           Faith-based story hooks and a full story centered on the activities of the Hecata, involving walking corpses, ghosts, ready-made characters, and the secrets of the most twisted family in the World of Darkness.

•           New Loresheets, Discipline powers, and Predator types for inclusion in your chronicles, encouraging player characters to engage fully with the material presented in this book.

Visually, as folks will see when the KS page goes live, it’ll be a gorgeous book featuring much of the same qualities and artists as V5 Chicago By Night.

Just fair warning: we continue to look for methods to cut shipping costs outside the US, yet the shipping for V5 Cults of the Blood Gods has shipping costs in line with our more recent KSs this whole year, rather than the shipping costs we were working with when we KS’d V5 Chicago By Night.

As I’ve mentioned before, we know the costs are high, but they are the costs quoted to us from our shippers here in the US, and passed on to backers. I continue to think it better to give our non-US backers a choice as to whether to back and pay the shipping costs and be part of the KS (including getting Stretch Goals, and all), rather than Onyx just not shipping outside the US as many TTRPG companies have decided to do with their KSs.

Basically, shipping costs are high, and they suck. We will keep searching for avenues that could cut those costs – never fear!

CofD Dark Eras 2 art by Alex Sheikman

Here are some brief nuggets of things we want you to know about this week, besides the V5 Cult of the Blood Gods Kickstarter:

If you haven’t seen the promos on our social media, Onyx Path is part of DTRPG‘s Teach Your Kids To Game sale! You can get the Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau core book PDFs half-off! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/rpg_teachkids.php

When I was at PAX Unplugged I sat down for an interview about art directing for TTRPGs in general, how I got started art directing for White Wolf, how art directing has changed since then, and specifically how I went about devising the look and feel and artistic style of Mage: The Ascension first edition and how the look evolved from edition to edition.

As is typical for me with interviews, I absolutely have no idea how it went. Like, did I talk too much, did I answer their questions at all interestingly, did I reveal too much? But I got a lot of really nice comments from folks about the Werewolf one, so hopefully this one sounds good to y’all. Thanks, Terry!http://magethepodcast.com/index.php/2019/12/14/mage-noir-with-matt-webb-and-the-art-of-mage-with-rich-thomas/

Lunars art by Gunship Revolution

Finally, we spent a lot of time setting up what everybody will be doing for the next couple of weeks, as today’s Monday Meeting was our last one for the year! From here until after New Years, we’re trying to give folks enough space to handle the holidays, while we still have projects rolling at full speed!

In fact, it’s not uncommon for freelancers – which is what the vast majority of our creators are – to use holidays to really dive into their freelance projects. Certainly, I always did that when I was freelance illustrating. Having a deadline is a great reason for ducking out on a long family event! (Not that I do that any more!)

But, never fear, true believers!

I’ll still be assembling the next two weeks’ Monday Meeting Notes with updates and Kickstarter news, and with some short year-end focused content! We just aren’t having the Monday Meetings those weeks.

And, of course, we hope all of you have happy holidays and plenty of time for playing in our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

V5 Cults of the Blood Gods goes live at 2pm Eastern US time on Tuesday December 17th!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast Is our Holiday Special 1: Podbean Live Test Episode! Check it out direct on Podbean, or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Just because it’s the holiday season doesn’t mean we’re stopping with our gaming streams! This week we’ve got Vampire: The Masquerade, Trinity Continuum, Scarred Lands, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Dreaming, and Mage: The Awakening, and we’ll undoubtedly be dropping a surprise stream or two into the mix as well!

Subscribe to twitch.tv/theonyxpath to keep up with our streams as and when they happen!

As ever, we’ve got a lot of YouTube content coming up too. This week, expect to see an interview regarding Pugmire and Dystopia Rising: Evolution, actual plays of Changeling: The Lost and Aberrant, and a behind-the-screen special for Scion!

Subscribe to youtube.com/user/theonyxpath to catch up on all our content!

Matthew Dawkins – The Gentleman Gamer – continues with his Gentleman’s Guide to Scion over on his channel, and will be doing a few V5 Cults of the Blood Gods videos too!

Subscribe to him on youtube.com/user/clackclickbang right here!

Mage: The Podcast recently had occultist S Rune Emerson walk through the history of Tarot and the symbology of the Mage the Ascension Tarot: http://magethepodcast.com/index.php/…-rune-emerson/

A group of podcasters and Storyteller Vault writers are looking for input on what kind of publications and podcasts WoD and CoD fans would like to see in 2020. If you complete their survey, you can be entered into a drawing for a $200 DriveThruRPG gift card. The survey is available here: bit.ly/wodcodsurvey2019

Here’s Occultists Anonymous returning with two new episodes

Episode 64: Small Details As the cabal waits to hear back about a meeting with the Union, Atratus begins to research vampires, Wyrd develops her labyrinth, and Songbird makes a phone call. https://youtu.be/UoyrYH_PM3A

Episode 65: Ignorant Fools   The cabal take the lead in meeting with the Union on behalf of the Phantasm Society, and perhaps many other supernatural beings trying to lay low. https://youtu.be/8sTnubeBl44

Red Moon Roleplaying recently concluded their Mummy: The Curse actual play and are currently running a Changeling: The Lost chronicle!  You can subscribe to their YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1wvSKstApo9vYYq1wEDtmQ

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we are proud to announce the PDF and physical book PoD versions of the Aeon Aexpansion for Trinity Continuum: Aeon, a collection of additional material that came out of the Kickstarter, including:

Information about new noetic biotech, hardtech cyberware, military weapons, and other technologies of the early 22nd century.

Rules for creating and playing psiad and superior characters within the Trinity Continuum.

Rules for playing psions in the modern day setting of the Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook.

And more…

Plus we’re also releasing the Trinity Continuum Aeon Screen in PDF – all on DriveThruRPG

Conventions!

2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th, in Milwaukee, WI. Check out David Fuller’s Athens, Ohio Scion actual play tie-in adventure (soon to be coming to the Storypath Nexus community content site) that will be running at Midwinter. The event url is below: https://tabletop.events/conventions/midwinter-gaming-convention-2020/schedule/402

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Duke Rollo fiction (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – LeBlanc working away.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Contracted.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Ready for KS.

Mummy 2

City of the Towered Tombs

Let the Streets Run Red – Art notes and contracts finishing going out this week.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Rich doing artnotes.

Scion Mythical Denizens – Finals coming in soon.

Deviant

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Totally contracted.

Vigil Watch – Wrapping up AD stuff this week.

Legendlore (KS)

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

In Layout

Chicago Folio – On it.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Haven’t forgotten it.

Pirates of Pugmire – With Aileen.

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Off to WW this week for approval.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

M20 Book of the Fallen – Getting it to PoD this week.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Approval needed, then Backer PDF out to backers.

VtR Spilled Blood

At Press

V5: Chicago – Shipping to the KS fulfillment shippers. PoD proofs ordered.

Aeon Aexpansion – PDF and PoD versions on sale on Weds at DTRPG!

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Being printed.

Geist 2e Screen – Being printed.

DR:E – Being printed.

DRE Screen – Being printed.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – PoD proof on the way.

Trinity RMCs

Tales of Good Dogs – PoD proof ordered.

Memento Mori – Backer PDF going out to backers soon.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today is the birthday of Wassily Kandinsky, a painter born in 1866 whose later paintings after WWI were completely abstract. Now most of our illustrations depict things rather than going for abstractions, but how they depict them stylistically, and why different people respond to the different approaches our illustrators use, is part of creating the moods inherent to our various game lines. There’s something else going on in our brains when we see art beyond just IDing that the piece looks like a thing, and Kandinsky was creating abstract art intended to evoke sound and meaning because he supposedly had a direct link to that part of the brain. According to popular thinking, he was one of those rare people who “hear color” and “see pictures” when he listening to music. There’s not really medical proof he indeed had synaesthesia, as it’s called, but he did recall hearing a strange hissing noise when mixing colours in his paintbox as a child, and later became an accomplished cello player, which he said represented one of the deepest blues of all instruments.

[luxenvulpies]

[JP] User Survey

It is time.

Period to submit the survey is as follows:

May 23, 12:00 - June 3, 23:59 JST

Those that submit the survey will receive 600 jewels at a later date. (No matter how many times you submit a reply, you only get 600 jewels once.) Jewels will be sent the jewels starting June 7.

Survey link: https://form.square-enix.com/a.p/158/

My note: Don’t try to use Google translate. They’ll know.

* required

Gender*

male

female

Occupation*

student

full-time

part-time

self-employed

stay-at-home parent

other

KH games played*

KH 1 (includes FM)

KH CoM

KH 2 (includes FM)

KH 358/2 Days

KH Re:Coded

KH BBS

KH 3D

KH 3

played none of these

User ID*

Lux level*

Play frequency (of KHUX)*

almost every day

4-5 days a week

2-3 days a week

1 day a week

2-3 days a month

1 day a month

play less frequently

Have you bought jewels?*

have purchased

have not purchased

When did you start playing KHUX?*

KH Unchained x[chi] (before the title change) [2015-2017]

KH Union x[cross] (after the title change) [~2017]

within the last year before KH3′s release [2018-2019, Jan 25]

after KH3′s release [2019, Jan 25]

Favourite content (of KHUX)*

main story

proud mode

raid bosses

subjugation events (basically fighting the whale territory event bosses)

Chamber of Trials events (even worse whale territory)

Union Cross

PVE Coliseum

PVP Coliseum

Favourite character #1* (I suggest going to a KH wiki if you don’t know how to type their name in Japanese)

Fav character #2

Fav character #3

Fav character #4

Fav character #5

Favourite part of the game. What do you like and hope for more of? (Can choose multiple)*

story

character

graphics

draws (i swear if you pick this...)

music, BGM

events, campaigns

communication between users (what about with the devs, huh??)

medal collection

avatar changes, avatar boards

training, strengthening

extra challenges/restrictions (for events?)

strategy (if this entails whaling for medals or awakenings, no)

ease (i assume make things easier?)

something new

same

nothing specific

What kind of character would you like to see?

Desired collaboration

Additional requests

Improvements

Opinions and requests

[semi-imaginary-place]

KH3 is like half a game, it feels incomplete and clunky. It sets up events that never happen and tries to force moments without having the build up to support them. The game does some things really well and reaches some truly heartfelt emotional beats and solid character moments.

3:48 PM - 31 Jan 20191 reply0 retweets1 likeReply 1 Retweet  Like 1 View Tweet activity

The Disney (and Pixar) worlds were pretty well incorporated and mostly able to contribute thematically to the game unlike sometimes in past games were the worlds were kind of just dropped into the game.

The Toy Box much like Halloween Town brings up how dolls/toys/those who begin as inanimate objects can gain hearts. Monstropolis allows a plausible  entry point for Vanitas with the connection between fear induced scream  energy and the negative emotions of the unversed.

Of all the worlds, I enjoyed Sora's time with the Big Hero 6 gang the most. Their interactions felt genuine and I had a lot of fun watching them. It also had the most complete arc of the worlds with the continuation of the movie's theme of living after loss.

Most of the worlds' story arcs felt incomplete. Starting in Olympus we are left hanging with Pete finding Pandora's box and the city in ruins. The story just kind of ends. There also was not enough time and build up to give significance to Hercules' choice to rejoin the mortals.

In Twilight Town, with all the discussion surrounding hearts and data from Coded to KH2 to KH3, that a whole other Twilight Town exists was completely dropped. It felt like the game was leading the audience somewhere and then never followed through.

With the Toy Box, the Sora, Goofy, and Donald leave and don't come back with Woody, Buzz, and the others still stranded in another world just hoping to one day meet Andy again. The search for Andy and the other toys is the main arc for this world and its never resolved.

While some worlds aren't quite as obviously half a story arc, all of them could have used more time. Many of them assume you have already seen the source material. In Frozen, Hans being the villian is the big twist but with the first half of the movie cut, there's no impact.

Pirates of the Caribbean makes no sense to anyone who hasn't seen the movies. I wish there was a scene of Sora unlocking Tia Dalma given how it was setup to happen. There was good characterization for Sora here though on how both he and Jack are free spirits.

The Winnie the Poo part while sweet (because I love Winnie the Poo sections) doesn't go anywhere. Sora just loses his connection with Poo and disappears from the cover, and then a few mini games later he's back. Sora's comment on how their bond has weakened never goes anywhere.

In the other games you search for lost pages or help Poo regain his memories, here there is no story. It's a lost opportunity to do, well something,  but that can be said of much of the game. They could have used this part to talk about how relationships must be nurtured.

The ending also fell a bit flat because of the buildup-payoff problem. The game tries to show the characters despairing only for someone to swoop in and give them hope. The problem is that in the Keyblade Graveyard they do this so many times it loses its impact.

Given the amount of stuff this game should have resolved, not enough time was spent on that. Instead precious time was spent trying to create sequel hooks. In doing so, the cohesiveness of the game as a unit was compromised. The game was too short for all they tried to achieve.

At times the narrative would point "Look! its a  happy/sad/intense/etc. scene", but without a proper build up, these  scenes lacked emotional weight.

I'm conflicted on KHUX in KH3.  I liked Chirithy reuniting with Ven, Laurium possibly remembering, and Strelitzia's maybe cameo. The black box stuff could have been cut. Its to connect  KHUX with future games, but it does nothing for the Xehanort saga and bogs KH3 down.

Then there is the mysterious girl with connections to Lea, Isa, and Ansem that we are only hearing of now. Who is she? Is she Ava? I don't know but they should have saved it for another game.

I thought all the keyblades of the Union members coming to help was a nice touch, but why did Ephemer of all people show up? He was a Dandelion; the player was the one who chose to stay (except the player has no canon appearance in khux which makes them hard to depict).

On one hand I got really excited looking for my KHUX username but on the other hand it was a little too 4th wall breaking and took me out of the game. The other 4th wall leaning scenes with Axel didn't do it for me either.

I did like the definitely-not-instagram loading screens. They were just this side of absurd to be amusing. It was cute. Humor is a subjective thing but I didn't like the increase in jokes in this game. It broke immersion for me.

Some were funny like Verum Rex. Others though felt forced. KH3 had more Donald, Sora, and Goofy poking fun at each other. At first it was fun, but then they kept doing it and it got old.

Maybe its because of all the jokes and narrative problems broke my immersion in the game or maybe its because I'm older now, but KH3 wasn't as magical an experience for me as the other games.

I don't mean magic in how many spells Donald can cast but in that sense wonder, that the extraordinary is possible. That sense of magic is why the Roxas prologue of KH2 is one of my favorite parts of the franchise.

Part of it also is that the section where Sora goes saving everyone's hearts from the Lich after they "died" didn't reach me emotionally. Which is a shame since the part right before where Sora runs around in the Final World and talks with the stars is one of my favorite parts.

I was surprised we didn't see more Dives to the Heart and battles at the center of the heart given the Terranort, Ventus-Vanitas, Xion, etc. After Sora got the power of awakening I was expecting him and Riku to use that to free Xion and Terra.

And then we would get an epic battle where Terra finally kicks Xehanort out of his own body. I also wanted to see Aqua beat up Xehanort. Aqua's suppose to be super strong from spending 10 years in the Realm of Darkness.

Kairi deserved better. Kairi deserved more. 3 games (II, 3D, III) on how Kairi trains to become a keyblade wielder and she doesn't get to do anything. Why was she kidnapped anyways? The answer is to give an excuse for Sora at the end to have a "I must do this alone" moment.

Kairi was kidnapped just so Sora could angst over her and so he could go save her. She deserved better.

The developers really pushed the Sora-Kairi romance this game. I was disoriented since we since the last game we saw a lot of romantic indications was 17 years ago in KH1. Riku got third-wheeled this game.

Enough complaining, parts that worked pretty well/were well executed: Big Hero 6, Monsters Inc, Sora finding the Door to Darkness in Destiny Islands and Aqua returning to the Realm of Light, Sora's interaction with other characters(Rapunzel, BH6, Jack, etc), the Final World.

Visually the environments are amazing! I was so happy running around everywhere. Its pretty. (and the heartless are cute)

KH3 was on the low side for number of worlds visited. Again, I'm surprised how (comparatively) short the game is. There was a lack on Final Fantasy characters as well (or well videogame characters given how TWEWY was in 3D).

I would have loved to see a Moana world. Moana, Maui, and Sora interactions would have been great. Thematically it would have worked too since Moana's plot centers on how Te Fiti losing her heart changed her.

In every KH there's always been some wham moments and that didn't happen to me at all in KH3... until the every end with Luxu. Many of us have been suspicious of Xigbar for a very long time. His organization chair height is too high. He seems to know more than he should...

As much as I am complaining, I do like the Kingdom Hearts III. Its a good game.

I've said it before, but KH:coded is a thematic summary of the entire series and one of the important points in that game is how Data Sora understands hurt. Data Sora understood how to live through hurt and this is something we see Sora learn as well through the games.

In CoM Sora did not understand this. All the way to 3D he did not know how to deal with hurt so when Roxas shared all his pain, that contributed to Sora sinking into darkness. In KH3 though Sora has grown and can accept hurt.

I would have though liked to have seen a more overt conclusion to Sora's relationship to darkness. Sora has always had darkness in him, he's not a princess of heart (or Ven) and there were hints before KH3 that he was falling to darkness.

Anti/Rage form are a manifestations of that darkness. Maybe this was just sloppy character writing, but Sora is noticeably meaner during KH2 and at the end he says "maybe the darkness has gotten to me, too". In KH3, besides rage form Sora's darkness isn't directly addressed.

Back to UX. The devs connected the epilogue, the secret reports, and UX well. That's all that was needed really. From Backcover we already know the black box is important. KH3 shouldn't have wasted time focusing on it.

And about X girl )Shuld?? idk). It really is awkward how they bring her into KH3. If she's the reason Lea and Isa got into this mess they should have dropped a line in 358/2 or one of the other games something like "Don't forget we're doing this for her"

Another good scene was Aqua giving Ven head pats. This gave me life.

Scala ad Caelum was built inverse on top of Daybreak Town. I didn't notice! Never mind what I said earlier, there's the "oh shit... what" moment. I'm just going to sit here mind blown thinking of all the implications...

[cadevader]

Telltale Games

I was always fairly neutral towards Telltale games, but I know a few people who love them. I can usually see why a game of theirs does well, they do a good job building their games on solid premises and ideas. I’ve never been a fan of quick time events (QTEs), though and so their games never could grab me. If I wanted play one, I got more from watching someone else play because there wasn’t a constant obligation to press a button, or choose an option. The QTEs would tend to break my immersion by consistently reminding me that I’m just watching a video with random, required button presses. I also didn’t like some of the writing they would use, combined with the ‘x will remember that’ messages. Like, if you need to constantly remind players that their actions have consequences, then their actions probably don’t have real consequences. I dunno, I could never get past that ‘your choices matter’ stuff and then watch a playthrough where someone’s choices mostly amounted to slight changes in dialogue. The most the choices ever amounted to was that you could choose whether or not a certain character dies, which usually ends in the character’s role being completely replaced by someone who lived from the choice or just being mostly forgotten. Heck, your choices matter in Fallout 4 more than any telltale games I have played, and all you get to do is choose which faction wins. But maybe that’s just me, you don’t get a decent following without doing something well. It did, however, sadden me when I heard about them shutting down. I did enjoy watching some of their games. It also saddened me when I heard about how they were handling the layoffs. No severance pay is pretty harsh, and it means something was really wrong financially. I do hope that it leads to a better union situation, or just a better working situation, in the games industry. I find it really sad whenever I see a studio like Rockstar bragging that their devs worked 100hr work weeks, and I hope that this Telltale situation leads to something being done about that.

I’ve included some elaborated thoughts about telltale ‘choices matter’ game design and such in the read more.

Since the massive paragraph didn’t scare you away here we go!

 Choices that matter! I’ve seen a lot of discussion about meaningful choices in games over the years. The best way to handle choices in games, from my perspective, is to set them ups so that the player doesn’t easily and immediately realize the impact of the choice. This can’t always be the case, however, in Fallout 4 it is very obvious what you are doing when you choose which faction to side with, and I can’t think of a way around that. But to use Undertale as an example (it’s relevant again so I can), the player doesn’t immediately know what will come from sparing every person or enemy you encounter, so the final payoff is much better. If players could easily tell what was going to happen the pacifist ending wouldn’t be so important, because the surprise and impact would be lost. In the Talos Principle, the player has no idea what will happen when they climb the tower, only that they were told not to. The player is driven to climb the tower by curiosity, discovery, and defiance, which is kinda the point of the game. On the other hand, to use fallout 4 again, you want to make the faction choice clear, since you don’t want a synth-friendly player to side with the brotherhood only to find out that the brotherhood hate synths and actively seek to kill them. But, the faction choice isn’t meant to be impactful to the player, but rather the world instead. In telltale games, the choices are meant to impact the player through the story, so the fact that you can almost always clearly see what the choices are and what to expect the outcome to be kinda undermines the point of the choices. I can guarantee that if you were to remove the ‘x will remember that’ messages the games would be much better and feel more meaningful. There is also the problem with the consequences in Telltale games. the best example I can think of is in minecraft storymode. There is a bit where you have to choose between 2 characters (the redstone lady and the TNT dude) to find, and all it does is choose which searching sequence you get. At the end, which ever one you didn’t go after gets found and brought in by another part of your group. The only meaningful affect it has is flavor. Why not just have it so that you can go after both and put an option to opt out of one event? There is no point to keep you from searching for both, other that to have an excuse to make a certain character like you a little less. When the choice comes up you know immediately that you are just choosing what sequence to see. You either want a choice to be surprising, or to give the player plenty of info to make the choice they want depending on the circumstances. If you are going to do something in-between, don’t undermine it with an obvious call-out. I don’t want to play a game screaming ‘Meaningful Choice’ every time I press a button.

[nipuni]

Bless online related asks and mmo talk 😄  for anyone interested! I’m collecting it here so that I don’t spam everyone with it haha

Novosomnium said:

 is it truly worth it? cause i have been considering the game, am a long time mmo gamer myself. im hoping this will turn out like ESO [its my current mmo]. horrid horrid launch, but great improvements overtime. Ive been waiting for bless for almost 8 years. it looks so magnificent, but im always worried it will turn out like FFXIV. i got bored of it within 3 months.the discourse that exploded cause of the game and game devs, is intense at the moment. o.0 i heard there was gonna be a complete server reset cause of a game breaking duplicate bug that got ported over from the japanese version.

 I have not played ESO so I could not say if it is a similar game that you will enjoy, I have played FFXIV though! and I think it is a fantastic game to be honest, the expansions have been amazing, the story is amazing, the craft is probably the best i’ve tried, it is unique and solid and the player base is so much better than in any other mmo I’ve played, I think everything except maybe the pvp in the game is great, BUT I also ran out of things to do after a few months and was just waiting for the next expansion most of the time. I compare Bless to Aion because of the faction versus faction theme that will sort of force you into pvp at some point, as well as the flying mounts, and manastone system, the character customization is also very similar, I’m not sure if you have played Aion though but that is the closest thing I can think of to give you an idea. The duplicate exploit has been fixed as far as I know, I believe they removed the bug as well as the money earned through it, and the servers have not been reset, I haven’t read much about this though, only what people talk about in game 😅 

Umabass said:

Sadly, the forced world pvp is a killer for me, otherwise I'd definitely try it. I play Black Desert, but on Japanese server where the mentality is much different from Western players (got killed by player grand total 2x in 2 years).

Ahh yes if pvp is not your thing then faction vs faction is a bad idea, there are some potions you can buy that make you inmune to pvp but I believe the max level ones are only available through the cash shop and they only last 10 minutes, so they are only for very specific tasks 😰

wicked-eyes-and-wicked-hearts said:

This game is beautiful. I've always loved good character creation. By the way, is that Solas standing by Nalia's side? If so, that's pretty cool! It seems like so much fun to be able to explore the world with a companion by your side. Maybe I'll give it a try too! Thank you so much for the review, and for the person who asked the question! (:

It really is, especially the cities! The character creator has sliders which is great, body sliders too! That person in the screenshot is Nicolas’ character, I am the one who made a Solas so sadly I can’t play both Solas and Nalia at once, I should have made him in Nicolas account ; ; hahah but it is very fun to play with a partner! we also play with a friend, we have been playing together for many years, the more the merrier 😊

kayleana said:

My sister has been a heavy MMORPGer for years, and she absolutely loves this game. All of the complaints are being heard by the company, and people need to understand it's still in early access phases. (I think they're working on the PVP thing, according to my sister.) If anyone has any in depth questions, she knows a ton about the game. Just shoot me a DM, and I'll ask her. (Last night, she went into an in depth thesis about why she supports the game, lmao)

I agree with your sister! the game has been launched before in other regions but this is the first self publish they do as a company. The game has also failed several times and has been reworked so now they are trying to do things differently and adress past mistakes I think that is nice! they seem determined and are being very active from what i’ve seen 😊

nauface said:

Are you on Lilyanthes? I'm enjoying Bless, as well!

I am on Tanara, Union faction 😄

perijules said:

God it looks gorgeous. Wish it wasn't PvP focused. That's not really my thing with mmos

It is! It was the main reason I wanted to try it out, the scenery looks amazing! although I do enjoy pvp in mmos, and if you are looking to avoid it then I would not recommend 😰

Anon said:

I can't seem to find out through the steam page but is bless online monthly payment?

It is buy to play with an optional monthly subscription! The main game is around $30 usd I believe, unless you go for special packs, the subscription is $15 usd, but is really not necessary (BDO’s subscription felt necessary for example, Tera’s offers good advantages too, this one on the other hand is really just optional) 

[evanescent-red-light]

Hi ^^ What do you think about the new monster ladies from TEW2 demo? Since We can see a lady in red before the to many heads lady appears, do you think is possible that Lily Castellanos somehow get to know Laura? I was thinking that in case that yes maybe in her steam she splitted Laura's personality in two different ladies, the many heads one and the humming lady who is searching for someone, something like reborn Laura, and the Laura of the easter egg from TEW. Have a nice day ♥

((Oh god, this has been sitting in my drafts for ages. Tbh I thought I already posted this. Sorry about that. I have quite a few theories about it but I’ll put them under a cut so it won’t take up people’s dashes. Also beware of slight spoilers from gameplay footage and trailers shown. I’ve tried keeping it to a minimum, but it’s better to give a heads up just in case. Thanks for the ask and hope you have a nice day as well! ♥))

I really do think Laura is in the new STEM. All of the variations of the “Laura” monsters, like Guardian, are too uncanny to be coincidence. I will point out that, since this is a Japanese game, long black haired monster ladies are common. I understand that. But... damn. Here are a few of my theories:

1) Laura has still been in a vegetative state after the fire. As to why she would be connected to STEM and, more importantly, how Ruvik had zero idea about her being involved is still unclear. Then again, it is MOBIUS we’re talking about. They might have thought that she would have the same neurowave link, maybe? Thought that there might be a genetic pattern to get around Ruvik’s little latch on the whole system? But not enough to put her as the Core. Hmm... Same as Leslie then? Plug her in to see if she can withstand it, but since she’s not responsive they wouldn’t risk her as the Core?

2) Laura might have been in contact with Stefano prior to the events of STEM. I’m actually kinda leaning towards this one a bit for several reasons. Guardian has an uncanny resemblance to Reborn Laura. (Not to mention the brief appearance of an older looking Laura who I hope isn’t a red herring.) Plus it’s been confirmed that she is one of Stefano’s creations. So why the similarities? We know that Stefano mostly targeted fashion models due to his profession, so that would explain why Guardian is an amalgamation of body parts. But why do all of them look like Laura? Maybe they were in a relationship in some form or another? Quite a number of his creations focus on the female form; Obscura, Guardian, various photos/paintings etc. Obscura in particular seems very sexual in nature, with her form and the way she moans. But one thing I noticed in particular is his fascination with ballet dancers. Obscura’s feet are that of a ballerinas. I also remember seeing a painting of a ballerina holding two balances, and a photo of a sliced ballerina’s ankle. (And this, admittedly, is bordering on headcanon territory but bear with me.) Laura always seemed like the type who would be into dancing, especially ballet. While Ruben’s interests were purely scientific, Laura focused more on the arts. Perhaps she and Stefano held a common interest?

 3) She’s a remnant of Seb’s trauma from surviving the original STEM. I mentioned before that you can actually see Reborn Laura in the trailers, despite only appearing for a sliver of a second. We know that Seb has really fallen off the wagon since the last game, and the devs have pretty much said that his psyche is extremely fragile. Reborn Laura really freaked him (and us) the most in the previous game. So it would make sense for her to start manifesting in Union.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!

4) Laura is Myra. In all honesty, I wasn’t too keen on this theory at first. I heard it first from @jazitupart and, while she made a convincing argument, I wasn’t swayed... until recently. I think what is most striking to me is her eyes. They’re the exact same. It’s... eerily similar. Another massive indicator would be their age. Laura would be well into her 40′s at this stage, and Myra would easily be the same. Since Seb just entered his 40′s I imagine Myra would be the roughly same. However there are still a lot of gaps with this theory.