#and i feel like in part that comes from what players value and gaming culture puts Skill really high and can sometiems treat story/characte

[toskarin]

As someone knowledgeable about MMOs, and given the topic of SAO just came up. If you were to write a .Hack/SAO/Log Horizon style story, what kind of things would you focus on? I personally feel like there are a lot of different elements of MMO culture anyone writing about them could really delve into. So I'm curious what Tumblr user Toskarin would choose.

condensed

back when I played Perfect World, it had some empty spaces. this wasn't uncommon for mmos, and if you can name one older than 15 or so years, you can bet there were vast empty spaces on the world map that existed to pad it

but they were important! sure, they added nothing of obvious value and could cynically be read as existing just to pad travel time, but they also made the worlds feel bigger than you what you were doing in them. and more mysterious.

some friends in my guild and I got a message one day that one member was going to roll a new character and wanted help levelling. a complication: their starting zone was across the sea.

a few friends and I volunteered to swim across the sea to their zone. there were definitely easier ways to go about it, but setting out to do something just to see if it was possible seemed fun

now, they may have changed this since then, but the sea in Perfect World felt strange in a way I haven't seen any game really emulate since. the sky was a dull, and as was the fashion, everything was a bit muted. the sea itself was opaque, and when you swam under it, there was a significant amount of grey-blue terrain that seemed to stretch on forever into the fog

and of course, there was fuck all in it. nothing alive. no monsters until you got close to a shore. just vast empty sea that you swam through, only your friends' characters to break up the odd stillness of it. you probably turned the music off at this point, too, so there was only ambient sound and splashing

this is because you were supposed to fly over it, if you crossed it at all. and because there wasn't really a good centralised source of knowledge on these things, it wasn't really clear if it was entirely empty

the trip there was fine, if a bit boring and lonely. during the trip back, I accidentally clicked on something in the middle of the ocean

now, there weren't supposed to be things there. I had my friends, but I clicked on a monster, and when I swam down to look at it, I saw that it was actually an enormous sea monster

so I pinged one of the guildmates swimming with me and they thought I was lying, so I showed them, and then we repeated this several times until everyone in the group had seen this weird thing that felt like it came from a schoolyard rumour

Ancient Sea Dragon. 99,999,999 health points and none of us could find anything on it posted online. it was pretty common for players to run into it and be shocked, but we didn't know that

so we naturally let the rest of the guild know, got a hunting party together, and spent the better part of a day just whittling its health down

with the benefit of hindsight and documentation of this thing existing now, I can spoil this and tell you it didn't drop anything, but this long down the line, I still think about how deeply surreal it felt to stumble on an enormous sea monster in the middle of what my brain had come to understand as a liminal space. the sea was supposed to be mostly empty, and here was this thing

which is a very long way to introduce what I think is lacking here: we need more of those enormous empty spaces that leave characters with nothing to do but talk and feel completely isolated. sometimes you get to a sprawling castle city and it's completely empty because the players moved on. sometimes the devs threw an enormous monster in the middle of nowhere just to fuck with you, and that was kind of cool even if it sucked

[anxiousdreamcore]

Frontiers of Pandora story review ✨

BEWARE! Heavy spoilers ahead.

Alright, since I don’t see people talking about this game as much as I’d want on my socials, I decided to put together a little review where I talk about the story, what spoke to me, as well as some critiques.

To summarise my opinion; I love it! The story knows where it’s taking place and takes advantage of it. It covers dark topics and succeeds in staying as serious in tone as the movie franchise, which makes the campaign feel like it truly belongs in the world of Pandora.

To speak more in-depth; the plot of a Na’vi residential school had me hooked from the first moment. I think residential schools that native children were forced into are a topic not talked about often enough, so I appreciated the developers and writers bringing awareness to such facilities, even if it’s in sci-fi form. reconnecting with Na’vi heritage that was stolen from the main character and their family is executed quite well, as playing frontiers lets you get immersed into the feeling of exploration and discovery. The player is as un-knowledgeable about the world around them as the protagonist, and being able to experience new connections, abilities, places, stories and traditions side-by-side with them has been an amazing ride.

The different Na’vi cultures shown in the game are written organically. They each possess an intricate fashion based on their values, environment and history, but that is not all. Every clan has a cast of characters, bigger or smaller, who bring further life into the western frontier, help expand on the lore and provide entertainment. My personal favourites of these characters have to be Nefika and Kin, both elderly Na’vi with a welcoming presence and charm. Second to them come Eetu and Okul!

Then there is the main cast, which is MC, their three found family siblings, a.k.a the surviving Sarentu children, So’lek, Alma and Priya. We consistently stay in contact with them, both as part of the campaign and as part of our explorations, sharing experiences with them. The protagonist character is righteous, brave and endlessly adorable in their reactions to the world around them, and the trio of Sarentu forever have a place in my heart. I liked the concept of each one of the Sarentu children representing a different reaction to their past abuse and toxic relationship with John Mercer.

Nor, who had most luxury of remembering his life before being taken by the RDA, tries to distance himself as far as possible from everything human, and progressively adopts an antagonistic mindset towards his human allies, as well as a growing feeling of resentment and vengeance. I do not blame him for it and I believe it makes sense. After him comes Ri’nela, who, during Mercer’s captivity, tried staying out of sight but protecting her siblings where she could. Without Mercer, she feels insecure, constantly stumbling and at first, regularly looks guidance from Alma. She beats herself up for things that happen to Teylan and A’hari, despite being unable to have fixed them, but eventually grows into a stronger person, being able to take on the role of a Tsahik in the clan. Lastly, there is Teylan and he has to be my favorite character in the game. His bond to Mercer is strong, as T.A.P is all he ever knew, so without John, he begins falling apart. Lack of constant control and lack of ""affection"" from Tey’s "father figure" leave him feeling ten times as insecure as Ri’nela. He has a hard time learning Na’vi ways, keeps lagging behind and ultimately sticks to technology and hacking, which is worsened by So’lek’s nagging, as he obviously doesn’t know how severe Teylan’s abuse was and simply assumes that he is "lost" in the new world. Eventually, Teylan does what many abuse victims do, and returns to his abuser. An action I kind of predicted, but which still really hit me. His voice actor did an incredible job of portraying this character and the rest of the campaign I spent praying that I’ll get to bring him back home. In the end, I’m happy he’s at home and safe. 🥹💖🫶

Now to the grown ups. I don’t have much to say about Priya, but I grew fond of her. I liked her development from an awkward girl that sparks horrific second-hand embarrassment in the viewer to a resistance member who actively puts herself in the line of fire to help her friends. I found myself getting worried for her whenever she didn’t respond or was in danger.

So’lek is a character who I was immediately fond of, and I liked his growth as well. He saw himself as completely separate from human resistance members, and his thoughts are often occupied by revenge, but he comes to care for MC, the Sarentu and eventually the humans. Seeing him protect Alma when Nor attacks her was a brilliant moment.

Lastly, there is Alma herself. A very grey character who did horrible things in the past, like leading the program side-by-side with John Mercer. I liked her development, from an aloof and seemingly supportive teacher at T.A.P, to a person that orchestrated the entire project. Her grief and guilt feel organic, and I found myself having a lot of difficult feelings about her as it is obvious she cares for the Sarentu children, but her sins cannot be forgiven. I’m happy Ri’nela made the choice to simply part ways with her in peace, instead of trying to build a new bridge.

Now, for what I believe was executed badly. It’s quite unfortunate, but the game suffers from the same problem as Avatar the way of water, only quadrupled and that is; we don’t get enough time with the characters.

It feels even worse because in comparison to the movies, games don’t have to worry about pacing or time limits. The campaign can be as long as developers wish, but it came out rushed anyway. Part of the reason I got as attached to the characters as I did was because I spent time getting emotionally invested into everything they said, their minor behavioural cues and voicelines, but not everyone is as dedicated, and those people should have the right to experience a good story as well. They shouldn’t have to seek it out between the lines.

The only characters who I felt were properly developed are Teylan and Alma. They had the most extensive arcs and their growth was tied into a nice bow. But what about Ri’nela, Nor and So’lek? Nor suffers from Metkayina syndrome gets completely scrapped shortly before the finale, So’lek only gets crumbs of growth and Ri’nela is at times forgotten about completely. Her development as a character is too off-screen and between the lines for most people to catch it, and I find that sad because she’s such a sweet character when you actually get invested into her.

In the end, Frontiers of Pandora’s story feels like a good joke with all the necessary setup but only half-delivered punchline. I had very reasonable expectations and a lot of them were not fulfilled. This project is definitely miles better than whatever Ubisoft has been releasing in these last years, but I really hope that the DLCs will expand on the story further.

Verdict on the campaign; 7 out of 10. The setup and the beginning of the story were just perfect, but in the end, the characters didn’t get the treatment they deserved. Thank you for reading.

[eeldritchblast]

Thoughts on Halsin

I want to preface this by saying I don't have anything particularly against Halsin as he is in game. But I do find him lacking in depth, when compared to everyone else.

Even without knowing that he was added as a full companion last minute, I would probably have guessed as much simply because there's not much to him beyond the role he plays in the Shadow-Curse quest of Act 2. This is lampshaded with dialogue about how he himself feels consumed by his determination to end the curse. But to me, that just feels like a cop-out. Imagine any other character looking at the camera and just saying "yeah I know I don't have much character beyond what happens to me in the plot, too bad?"

But I think the worst crime about his lack of development, is the fact that because he doesn't have a lot else going on, he feels a little overly sexualized to me; like he's just there for the player to thirst after because he's this big, bulky man. Now, to be clear, I don't care that he's horny, and I definitely don't care that he's poly. (My GF is a poly lesbian, and honestly I could see myself having more than one romantic relationship , too, if someone else was ever interested in me like that and cool with it.) What I'm trying to say is, because he's lacking in other areas, leaving those traits being of his few you can list, it makes them feel of less value, and makes him feel more like a sex prop. And if you're gonna have a character with rape victim as part of his background like Halsin has, then that's the last thing you want, I think.

So, what more could be done with Halsin?

I once made a joke that someone should draw Halsin in a "Big Auntie Energy" shirt. For those of you who aren't Native, let me try to translate: In most if not all Indigenous Nations, we often call women who are champions of our cultures and communities "Auntie", whether they are actually literally your aunt or not. An Auntie is someone you dearly love, and trust to guide you. Halsin already plays something of a mentor figure to the protagonist—indeed, dev notes even call him "avuncular"—so why not lean into it further by showing what he does for others, too? Pretending that there was more development time allotted, here's what I would've liked to see...

"This place crawls with life, but little of it flourishes. I see refugees, unhoused. The destitute, unwanted. Orphans, unloved. … I wish there was a better way. I wish everyone could see the sun, have a full belly, and know nature as a friend. There is a balance that is yet to be found." —Halsin

After ending the Shadow-Curse, Halsin says he needs to find a new purpose. I feel like his purpose could easily align with his horror of the inequalities of Baldur's Gate. Instead of just talking about how awful it is, why not allow the player to challenge him to try and change things, then? For example, I like to imagine Halsin telling stories to the orphans in Rivington, providing them comfort and someone to look up to. Or another example: Halsin helping out in or maybe starting some kind of charity meal program. It's small, but it's enough to say that he could actually grow a little as a person within the game's story. And it would add at least a little bit of engagement on the player's end as well, instead of feeling like the relationship with Halsin, platonically, is one-sided.

This all doesn't come from nowhere, by the way. If you exclusively romance Halsin, he says goodbye to the player in the end because he is leading a group of people into Thaniel's realm to start a new life. But personally, I feel like this is too great a leap back into an Archdruid role he specifically rejected, because he didn't like it. It also would've been nice to get this kind of dialogue without having to romance him; to know what lies ahead for Halsin as a friend, too.

Now, that's the good ending. But almost all the companions in BG3 have a "good" and "evil" ending. I feel like this really adds a lot of insight into the characters, because they feel real through it; we all have the potential to make good and bad choices, after all. So what could be Halsin's evil-aligned ending? Well, remember when he questions if the Shadow Druids actually have a point? How about giving the player the opportunity to push him further down that path instead... Shadow Druid Halsin, holy shit.

Now, there's one more thing I want to circle back to: Halsin's past. He very casually speaks of his time as a captive in the Underdark. And maybe it was so long ago that he's long dealt with such trauma, but still, I really wish there was a way to say "hey bud, that's really fucked up and I'm sorry that happened to you." But there's not a single dialogue option that allows you to express sympathy, besides just saying "that's awful", which doesn't cut it. Halsin himself says, "sometimes I think people look at me and imagine my feelings can't be hurt." Not allowing the player to be sensitive to his feelings goes exactly against this message not to judge a person's emotions by physical appearances.

Anyway, Halsin is a character that I think has a lot of potential, but doesn't quite reach it in game. I think it's great that he was given a bigger role due to popularity, but I just wish that role was expanded on to the same degree as the other companions.

[lunar-years]

okay. at risk of being too harsh on Ted...

I genuinely do not think he's a very good coach. And I do not mean that just in the obvious "well he doesn't even know anything about the sport he's head coach for" way, even though like, yeah, duh that really is a crucial point. I mean it in like, he's genuinely not as good at managing and delegating and working alongside his fellow coaches! The way he acts and the ways he manages the team so rarely feels...collaborative? I've been thinking about it a lot after reading posts from other blogs about how he constantly brushes off/ignores Beard's advice and also sends Jamie mixed messages and stuff and it's like. YEAH. It's all very "Ted makes the final decision" about everything and that's deeply goofy because Ted literally knows the least about the game out of all of them!!

We see him ignoring Beard's advice to bench Roy, and ignoring that Beard is actually trying to help the team win, as it is their job to do, until Beard finally snaps at him in s1. When he decides to reject Jamie he doesn't pause to consider it or discuss it with anyone, and even afterwards when he does have the coaches "take a vote" it feels...very performative? Like no matter what they said, it was always going to be Ted's decision in the end, and if they disagreed with what he'd already decided he wanted to do, he was just going to do it anyway.

Then he gets in Jamie's head about being a team player and passing the ball a to the point where it's actually hindering Jamie's role on the team and the strength of his performance. And even though Roy recognizes that, rather than going to Ted about it and making different suggestions, he comes up with the whole signal thing which in hindsight sort of feels...very much like Roy trying to package his complaint in a way that will be digestible to Ted's approval? Like, "oh we'll give him the signal so he doesn't feel bad about playing the way we need him to play. but ONLY when we give him the sign don't worry we'll still control it!" Instead of just being like Ted, look, I don't think your strategy for Jamie works at all and here's what we need to do instead.

It almost feels like none of the assistant coaches really feel comfortable questioning Ted's judgement...because he doesn't foster a space for them that welcomes that kind of feedback from them. Even with the Zava thing, he doesn't listen to Jamie, and Roy and Beard don't question it, BUT Roy offers to individually coach Jamie. Because Roy knows what's happening with Zava is bullshit, and he'd rather pull Jamie aside and deal with the problem himself in the way that he can, rather than talk to the head coach about how it's bullshit. And the ONE time Beard and Roy go off and try something against Ted's wishes (showing the Nate video), it massively backfires and they scramble over themselves to apologize while Ted feels even more vindicated in never valuing their input. It's like a never ending cycle of bad management. and the WORST part is that Ted will TELL them he wants to know their thoughts and hear their strategies, but then he doesn't follow it or he just goes off and does his own thing, so it results in like...a level of unintentional condescension, I think.

At the end of the day, I do not think Ted has bad intentions or is going into this stuff intending to walk over the other coaches, but it happens because his purpose and goal for the team is fundamentally misaligned with what the other coaches value. Ted wants to make the team better by changing the culture at Richmond (at least until he checks out and loses interest in even that) and Beard & Roy (& Nate) want to focus on helping them win matches. I also DO think there's something in all of this that could have been a very compelling major factor in Nate's downward s2 spiral. I've always said that to me the most lackluster part of Nate's arc was not his redemption but his downfall--which had a basis that was severely under-explored onscreen. When he leaked Ted's panic attacks, it felt so severe and sudden a leap because there wasn't enough to back up Nate's headspace throughout the season, even thought the basis is THERE. The foundation for Nate feeling ignored as a coach and having his input constantly undervalued is THERE. They just don't ever let the characters properly explore it, or god forbid allow Ted to reckon with how he's ostracized all of his coaches to some extent.

[erazonpo3]

Erazon's Characterisation Essay (Part 1 - Cynthia Edition)

General preface; This is me snowballing on a thought I had earlier about canon v fanon trends given that it's a pretty evergreen topic. Without getting too much into the subject itself, I made the point that you can use the source material as a starting point for analysing characterisation, but in a lot of cases it's highly interpretive; using Pokemon as an example, most of the non-player characters exist to enable the player's autonomy throughout the game's storyline, and only a small handful have their own detailed arcs and backstories.

Therefore if you want to build on characterisation for them for transformative fanworks, you only have a handful of dialogue lines and some environmental storytelling that borders on olympic levels of mental gymnastics. Things like backstory and character motivation needs to be invented, to which end the concept of 'canon' characterisation becomes pretty insignificant in comparison to the story you are trying to tell, and whether or not that characterisation is thematically appropriate and compelling. Everyone is going to have a subjective opinion about the 'essence' of a character, the core traits that make them who they are, and how integral those traits are for it to be a 'canon' or 'fanon' interpretation.

And yet there's still ways to analyse the games to draw some conclusions that aren't always obvious straight away.

I'm going to go into how I draw characterisation for Cynthia for Way Out, but keep in mind that I don't consider my characterisation perfect or the One True Depiction To End All Others etc and so on and so forth. There's things I need to discard in favour of the story– adults in the Pokemon games, including Cynthia, have a pretty laissez-faire attitude when it comes to kids handling crises so that the target audience (kids) can feel acutalised as they play through the story, but it's not always what I consider a core character trait so much as a function of the medium.

I play up a sense of responsibility and duty that isn't really depicted in the games but is nevertheless an easy takeaway in order to give her character a bit more depth and relateability. And when other people take her character in a different direction, I try to keep an open mind about what they're saying about her character in their story, because their story is not a video game for children nor a webcomic, and they will need to do different things depending on her narrative role.

(I don't have to like it, but I'm no less a subjective soul than anyone else).

I also pull here and there from other sources of inspiration, one I've mentioned before is a meta-analysis of how she's treated by the fandom in general, assuming she'd be treated a similar way as a public figure in-universe. A lot of my character work is about peeling back that legendary status and asking who the person underneath is and how she might deal with the pressures of being expected to consistently meet other people's high standards, and how to balance a healthy competitive streak without it becoming toxic.

But more to the point– here's some material exclusively from Platinum that I think collates to a pretty consistent depiction of her character, to keep in mind and interpret any which way, arranged into some key traits.

She is the granddaughter of a village elder in a traditional rural town.

"My grandma has this sort of bossy atmosphere about her. I think you'll recognize her right away. Yes, I'm sure you will. She's the elder of Celestic Town"

An overlooked aspect of her character that I think holds some of the ripest potential for her character is that we know a fair deal about where her family is from, potentially where she was raised. My personal conclusions are:

It is likely she has an ingrained sense of cultural values of humility, respect, duty, and tradition. While she may not be ruled by these traits, they would influence the way she interacts with the world.

Her interest in mythology is likely inspired the mural in Celestic town, and reflects a value of heritage and history.

It's a common 'fanon' that her grandmother was her primary guardian through much of her childhood, which isn't substantiated anywhere (just because we don't meet her parents as NPCs doesn't mean they don't exist) but this idea strengthens the connection she has to Celestic town and emphasises her position as the elder's heir.

Cynthia introducing herself as a trainer and not a Champion suggests humility; she positions herself as an equal to the player as opposed to a superior.

2. She is earnest and sincere

"...The places we are born. The time we spend living... The languages we speak... We are all different. But the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose..."

This is a reflection of her position as a narrative foil to Cyrus; where he dismisses the importance of emotion and 'spirit', she holds it in high regard. Thus;

She sees strong emotions as the source of her bond to her Pokemon and therefore the source of her success. While it's not to say she's an overly empathetic person, I think it follows easily that is generally emotionally intelligent (generally).

I think she's self-aware about how emotional she can be too, which is to say it's something she consciously embraces despite knowing she comes across a little overly earnest (and cheesy) sometimes.

"I love the sound a piano makes. I savor every note with my entire being. It's not only my ears; my spirit hears the music it makes... Ehehe, I made myself cringe saying that."

3. She is intelligent

"I think I let myself get carried away and talked for far too long. I'm sorry, and thank you"

This feels like a no brainer (ha) but it's also easy to take someone who comes across as emotional and write them off as being illogical or not having the depth for complex thought. To me, her emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with her analytical intelligence.

Her fascination with mythology is one of her defining traits, and her dialogue is the source of much of the lore surrounding the Sinnoh legendary Pokemon.

Her pursuit of knowledge is one of her defining traits; her interest in mythology and the distant past is referenced more frequently by herself and other NPCs than the fact of her being Champion. "My big sister is studying the myths of Sinnoh. She wants to know how people and Pokemon interacted in the days of myths."

As a Champion, I consider that she's very calculating and analytical. Even without the strategic held items given to her in BDSP, her Pokemon have perfect stats and have solid type coverage. It's not something she would accidentally stumble onto.

"When you are facing a Trainer in battle, you can learn everything about them. What Pokemon they have. What moves they've taught. What items they make Pokemon hold."

4. She is kind

"I want you to keep traveling to many far-off places. I want you to keep meeting all kinds of people and Pokémon. I came all the way here just so I could say that to you!"

A Champion in this game being kind isn't really a revolutionary idea, but it's still something I consider very integral, particularly in conjunction with the prior traits; there is diplomacy and there is compassion, and to me Cynthia balances both.

She is something of a mentor figure to the player, giving them the solution to obstacles on multiple occasissions (HM Cut, the Secret Medicine), and imparts a lot of lore to them. Notably she gives them an egg which hatches into a Togepi; while this event doesn't happen in BDSP and Platinum doesn't have the Fairy type, it's still retroactively made more interesting for the fact that Togekiss' modern Fairy/Flying type grants perfect immunity to her Garchomp's Dragon/Ground typing.

Some of the few interactions the player will have with her is giving medicine to the Psyduck blocking the route to Celestic town, and then delivering a charm to her grandmother– it gives an impression that she is regularly invested in small acts of kindness.

5. Other tidbits

Every time she interacts with you as the player, it is always through the lens of an adult with a public position speaking to a child; I take it as a given that all her interactions have a slight amount of professional distance, and a formality she wouldn't have if speaking to an adult friend.

She reveals that she went on a similar journey as the player character after being given a Pokedex by Professor Rowan, which could imply she experienced similar experiences to the established protagonist journey formula.

There's a slight goofiness to some of her dialogue that suggests she doesn't always take herself too seriously. "You've seen that group of Psyduck huddled with their heads in their, uh, hands...?"

It's a pretty common 'fanon' for Cynthia to have known Cyrus in her childhood, but this isn't really substantiated in text; her dialogue towards him would be a lot colder with that context as opposed to a stranger. It's a common headcanon because giving them a history together strengthens their position as foils, but in my opinion it's equally as interesting that Cyrus succeeds as far as he does because he exists in Cynthia's blind spot- she admits she didn't pay enough attention to what Team Galactic was up to, and can only stand in opposition to him ideologically, unwilling to entertain (or empathise with) his perspective. It hints at a certain stubbornness she has when she believes she's right and someone else is wrong.

This is just what I personally glean from the text; it's possible I've missed something that somebody else considers ultimately integral. But I hope that my writing in Way Out speaks for itself in how I apply all this to her character in the story, and why I feel it's important to do so. Cynthia is the character I second-guess the most in her characterisation because she should always be recognisable, even while going through different arcs. Her values, her intelligence, her sincerity, and her kindness are all things that need to be balanced with the needs of the story; how strong she is is just a relative thing to what any particular scene demands.

There's a lot I could still elaborate on but for the sake of at least attempting to keep this (relatively) concise, I wrote all this to highlight how I try to stay on track with consistent characterisation, which may not be the perfect ideal for this character but nevertheless is the best version for my story. There's nobody I hold to a higher writing standard than myself, and I try to constantly ask myself if I'm really writing what's best for the narrative or if I can do something better. I'm not interested in the most canon depiction that exists for another story, I'm interested in what's right for my story.

And uhhhh peace ✌️

[kob131]

So I just took a look at the quote tweets from Pocket Pair's Japanese announcement.

... Holy shit.

So for some background, the general reaction to the lawsuit announcement is pretty spilit but the most vocal people are decrying Nintendo for suing an indie dev like Pocket Pair. Pretty simple reason why, people don't like it when a big corporation starts wielding the law against smaller devs.

...Well, that's a misnomer. Western people don't like that. Or rather, that's their perception of what's going on and thus they have a negative reaction towards Nintendo.

On the Japanese side? The story's completely reversed. People are shitting on Pocket Pair and saying that Nintendo is in the right to do so. Now a lot of people are probably thinking that this is corporate shilling and yes, it is on some level. (Much like how the defense of Palworld is in part shilling for Pocket Pair). And yeah, just like people thinking Nintendo is suing over designs, people are saying Palworld is getting their comeuppence from stealing from Nintendo.

But the majority opinion to their statement (which is translated as follows)-

Today, Nintendo Co., Ltd. and The Pokémon Company announced that they had filed a lawsuit against us for patent infringement. At this time, we have not received the complaint and have not been able to confirm the other party's claims or the details of the patent rights that have been allegedly infringed. As a result, there are no plans to suspend or change the operation and provision of Palworld. Once we receive the complaint, we will take the necessary action. We are a small indie game development company based in Tokyo. Our goal has always been to create fun games. This goal will not change in the future, and we will continue to develop games to bring joy to many gamers. It is unfortunate that this lawsuit may force us to devote more of our time to issues other than game development, but we will do our best to work for our fans and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from expressing their free ideas. We apologize for any concern and inconvenience caused to our players and related parties, but we hope that you will continue to enjoy Palworld and support us in the future.

-ranges from:

"Don't drag the indie industry into your shit"

to

"You caused this, you were arrogant: now own it"

to memes mocking them for bringing up the indie bit with a handful defending Pocket pair/attacking Nintendo

If you haven't noticed it- this is almost the exact OPPOSITE reaction in the english speaking world.

It's really shocking to see such a stark contrast on a situation where everyone seemingly has the same info. A friend of mine thinks this is due to a difference in focus between the two groups. The English side sees Palworld as competition for Pokemon to force innovation while the Japanese side sees Palworld as creatively bankrupt.

I think it goes deeper than that, down to the core of the two cultures.

Let's be real, most of the people defending Palworld in the English side are likely Americans. And Americans are, by our nature, disdainful of authority and see more moral legitimacy in the underdog. It fits with our own founding story with teh Revolutionary War and the Founders against the corrupt and powerful Britan, leading us to be a highly individualist culture with such a disdain for big entities.

On the other hand, Japan is a culture defined heavily by respect for authority and the morality being with the leaders. They, to the best of my knowledge, value social cohesion and unity above the individual. The reason why so many main characters coming from Japan feel like bland self-insert MCs is actually because they're made to appeal to people who want to mesh well with others and interact without conflict (a sharp contrast to Americans who value heroes CLASHING with others).

By our very cultures, we view the same situation in opposing ways because our cultures, due to growing from such massively different circumstances, are effectively polar opposites. To us, it's the big bad corporation bulling the noble underdog. To them (as much as I can assume), it's the slimy thief getting caught by the big noble man and getting his just desserts. Yet we still react the same way- with chaotic scrambling to justify our viewpoints while widely refusing nuance and paitence.

This is just simply fascinating to me. It's always so intriguing to see how America's and Japan's opposing values clash with each other, showing human beings react the same way but saying different words.

[cats-are-grey]

FFXXIV Directory - Ley Qunya

Art by @minoruru

Roleplay and Inspiration Blog for Ley Qunya, FFXIV RP character on Balmung (Crystal). Most things are queued. Occasionally NSFW.

Ley is the reclusive and somewhat aloof owner of Spell Bound, a small bookstore specializing in rare, powerful, or lost tomes, for those who know where to look for it.

Carrd Screenshots and Art Prompts and Asks My Art (Coming ... Eventually) Writing OOC Tumblr

Name: Ley Qunya

Age: Unspecified Adult

Nameday: 16th Sun of the 1st Umbral Moon

Race: Miqo'te (Keeper of the Moon)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Demi Bi (Polyamorous)

Relationship Status: It's Complicated

Server: Balmung

Art by @the-sycophant

Appearance: Ley is a fairly unremarkable Miqo'te, aside from the fact that she is nearly all grey. Her hair is well cared for, long and silky and cut in a straight line across her back, the silvery tone nearly identical to her skin. Paler clan markings flow across her body and marks her face, along with a small teardrop shape at her forehead.

Eyes: Grey

Favored Clothing Style: Ley's clothing preferences falls somewhere between Hobo Wild Witch and Dark Academia Prodigy.

Common Accessories: She almost always carries a tome tied to her belt.

Profession:  Rare book dealer. Author.

Hobbies: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ley reads a lot. What may be less expected is that in her spare time, she finds a decent amount of guilty pleasure in reading romance novels, preferably with an adventure spin. She also plays the cello.

Residence: Gridania, though she spends a decent amount of time traveling

Birthplace: The Black Shroud

Patron Deity: Menphina, the Lover

Spouse: No. Marriage is not a part of her culture and while relationships are not out of the realm of possibility to her, she values her independence and mostly solitary lifestyle too much to give it up.

Children: None, and no plans for that to change.

Parents: She doesn't know her father, but she grew up in a small family clan with her mother and a couple of aunts, who co-parented all the children.

Siblings: Ley has several sisters, and while they don't always see each other a lot, it's not uncommon for them to check in on each other once in a while. She also has a brother she has not seen since he became an adult and left their clan.

Other Relatives: A bunch of cousins she also grew up with.

Pets: While not exactly a pet, Ley is often accompanied by a small faerie named Nox, and a Carbuncle. She also has a silvery Chocobo named Andraste.

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Smoking Habit: None

Drugs: It depends. Not regularly, but she can enjoy certain kinds of drugs.

Alcohol: Rarely.

Spell Bound: Ley runs a small bookstore called Spell Bound, specializing in rare and sometimes dangerous (and sometimes illegal) books, tomes, and grimoires. Appointment required.

Forged in Ink: Ley is a fairly decent forger of books and documents if she can be convinced to take on the work

Wild Steps: Ley's tribe traveled heavily through the Black Shroud, and traded with other Keeper tribes. She may be familiar to other Keepers of the Moon.

I am generally open to RP and connections, but I work a lot so I'm not always around. Contact me here on tumblr or find me in game is the best bet.

I do have a Discord and I do RP on it. I don’t give that information out right away though. I’d like to interact in game or through tumblr a few times before I feel comfortable giving that information out.

Player is +30. I am open to most kind types of RP, but please don't expect immediate romance, Ley is a pretty reserved character.

[drartemysia]

Emily Kaplan about Jack again-- get your tissues ready

Notable quotes from the article linked above (June 13, 2023). The main topic is Jack's injury, surgery and rehab:

How the injury came to be

Eichel can't pinpoint exactly when the issues began. "A few years ago, I started dealing with some symptoms," he said. "It wasn't necessarily something that was going to keep me out of the lineup, but I was dealing with it and playing through it." In a March 2021 game against the Islanders, Eichel hit his head against the boards, which resulted in a herniated disk in his neck. He missed the rest of the season.

2. What the spinal fusion surgery (the one Jack didn't want to have and the Sabres were insistent on) would have entailed (emphasis mine):

"The spine has three curves, and the reason it's shaped like that is because it's for movement," Lindsay said. "The best athletes in the world move with these transition areas in the spine. Guys like Connor, Cale Makar, [redacted because ick], Jack, the outliers, they move really well there." Lindsay rehabbed several NFL players who had the fusion surgery, and he didn't like the resulting rigidity in a segment of the spine. "In hockey, you're moving and the puck is moving," Lindsay said. "When you see it with Jack on the ice, he's very fluid in his movement. He would have lost that, just to make it super simple, he would have lost the accuracy to make those nice passes that he makes."

Have you ever seen Jack skate circles around other players? Because you should. This is the first example that comes to mind.

3. How bad things got:

Time was of the essence as he felt increased numbness in his arm from the constant pressure to his disk. 

I repeat, his fucking arm was going fucking numb. I'm going to feel sick. He has talked elsewhere (especially in this interview with Chris Weidman, a UFC fighter) about some episodes of numbness, which started to be more and more frequent. How terrifying that must be, he was 23 years old.

4. The rehab process:

"I wanted him to get back into the natural flow of skating and movement as soon as possible," [Dr. Mark] Lindsay said. "He was pretty rigid at first. Pretty stiff. I had him on the ice three days a week, just stickhandling. It was an emotional change for him. The frustration of dealing with everything he had to go through, being sidelined for so long. Getting back onto the ice was significant for him, emotionally." But Lindsay knew Eichel's body was a mess after having overcompensated for his neck for so long. "His pelvis needed a lot of work," Lindsay said. "He was inefficient in overall movements, and that's what I had to unwind."

Finally (emphasis mine):

"The hardest part is some people want you to fail in some ways," Lindsay said. "But someone had to be the pioneer. Years from now, we'll be talking about this as the Jack Eichel surgery, in the same way as Tommy John."

In conclusion (emphasis mine):

"The fact that an institution or team has trump value when you have to invasively cut somebody open, I think that needs to be changed," Prusmack said. "It's why Jack's story is so important. You now have elements of coercion based off economic agreements, which should not be part of our health system. Jack did what he did for the right reasons. I'm proud of him; that's hard to do in our culture."

Eichel said he doesn't feel any effects from the surgery at all; the only sign is a pink scar on the front of his neck.

(Emily have you been in my drafts, because "the scar, a pink horizontal line dividing Jack's life in before and after" is something that I wrote months ago)

[magicwithclass]

Emberwilde Djinn

Emberwilde djinn is somewhat interesting. It is an undercosted flyer in red that is not a dragon. Red does not get that often and something is telling me that the djinn creature type might get support when we return to tarkir. This card is from mirage though and although we get creatures of these stats in all colors back in the day this card had to come with a drawback. Magic the Gathering is a game with almost 30,000 cards and drawbacks are really advantages that you have to use synergy to produce. So, what decks have a want for a card that can switch control. You might immediately think Karona, false god or zedruu or kharn the betrayer. Any deck that benefits from donating permanents or wants to switch permanents may take a look at this guy. I especially like it in a deck that focuses on switching control of things because you can pay the mana or the 2 life to get your djinn back and then donate it all over again. This card is also decent in a goad deck. Giving your opponent a 5 power flyer but knowing that damage is not going toward you is pretty strong when. If you can give him vigilance or untap him during each turn then this card can attack 4 times in one turn sequence. That damage adds up fast and this card has evasion! This card has limited and niche use but donating is a strategy that gets a card here and there every couple of sets. Its a somewhat popular strategy in commander so I can see more commanders built on this premise. I was surprised that this card does not see more play in Blim comedic genius commander decks. You can either use the commander's ability to force emberwilde djinn to your opponent or your opponent may choose to take it but that would only fuel blim's ability. I feel like this card would see a little more play but not many people know it even exists. That is strange to me as the average person can not identify these bulk reserved list cards. That is part of the reason to look at each one individually and study it from the lens of 2024. Why do even expert mtg players not know a majority of the cards on the reserved list? Are these cards doomed to be forgotten? People who do not believe in the pedigree of the reserved list believe that cards like this have no value despite their age and remaining quantity. Am I preserving a history that just does not matter? I do not think so. I believe that when the game turns fifty years old the reserved list as a whole will spike again. In twenty years the number of reserved list cards will have shrunk but the number of unique cards in the game will have skyrocketed. Niche reserved list cards, like this, may find multiple homes or even one specific home in which it is the lynchpin of a deck. What will the quantity of the reserved list look like in the year 2045? Will even slight demand cause cards to become unobtainably expensive because there is no supply? After all, if no one knows or cares about a card like emberwilde djinn than copies will be lost. This card is not being preserved and my goal is to change that. Reblog and save these reserved list bulk cards from being lost to time. Buyouts have happened before and they will happen again. The culture, economy, and overall zeitgeist is not favorable to older cards in the moment but nostalgia sells. Eventually, through true demand, or through hoarding, or fire, or simply the reality that time destroys all things, the reserved list will shrink. My estimate is that in twenty years over half of the currently bulk reserved list will be above bulk. By that, I mean above 5 dollars for a near mint copy. This is not financial advice but if a reserved list card spiked in the next twenty years and I can make a 10,000 dollar profit or more selling off all excess copies above a playset I probably would. However, I will always keep at least one copy of each reserved list card no matter the price. I want the cards. I want to hold history in many hand. The reserved list is not a means to make money for me, although I may choose to profit off the market, but a game that I love.

[utilitycaster]

you NAILED it when you said a lot of indie ttrpgs are "rigid when i need openness and open where i need structure" like there is an art (and science) to deciding which mechanics fit the tone and intent of a game (and, frankly, and art/science to which mechanics even allow for fun) and I feel like that often gets glossed over in indie spaces.

Thanks! As a caveat, I am someone who primarily plays D&D, and a lot of my indie game knowledge beyond one-pagers is purely academic: it comes from a combination of watching actual play that uses different systems; discussions with friends who play different systems; and for lack of a better term informal research (following game designers, reading rule books).

This also means, frankly, that my primary experience with indie spaces (rather than games) has been through their absolute dregs: the specific sort of person who lurks in social media spaces searching for people mentioning either the games they Don't Like in a positive manner or the games they Do Like in a negative one, and then getting smarmy in the comments before the OP beats them with a spiked bat and blocks them and then they go off and make 2003 Nerd Media Forum Man comments of "oh...if only they would listen to my Logic and see the Truth" on their own blogs.

Most of the indie discourse has absolutely nothing to do with game mechanics, let alone setting or tone of the game, even though those are all crucial. People say the words "player agency" a lot but they don't actually mean it, since I guarantee if their players all unionized and said "hey instead of Crispy Dino Tender Knights, the d12 system for which your old roommate ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, could we play D&D?" they would tell those players to fuck off. Most of it is part of the general culture of identity through consumption, in which, in this space, you are not best described as a person who loves or plays horror or adventure or high fantasy (what you like and do) or even as someone with an interest in specific mechanics (a d20 system, a dice pool system, games based on tarot/oracle/playing cards, drawing/journaling games, GM-less games) but rather simply as someone who follows the arbitrarily correct companies. This is why Paizo (established in 2009; at one point was publishing the most popular TTRPG in the world; documented history of underpayment of artists and mistreatment of employees) is inexplicably treated, in many of these spaces, as more of an indie darling than Darrington Press.

(Sidebar: I think it's valid to not purchase from companies with values you find problematic and my point in bringing up Paizo is to point out that it's the second-largest name in the space and far from innocent, as well as to note that Hasbro has done some unbelievably awful stuff as of late. My problem is that indie spaces seem to overwhelmingly treat the two very separate and independently potentially true statements of "I don't like this company's practices, either for valid reasons of exploitative capitalism or for various personal gripes" and "the game system put out by this company is thoughtful, well-designed, and fits many people's needs, even if it does not fit mine" as entirely dependent on each other.)

A much shorter way to put it is how a number of smart people in the space have put it: when you ask for game recs and provide clear guidance on what you're interested in, the vast majority of people do not listen to you at all but instead bring up their favorite game even if said game is out of print, is prohibitively costly, and/or is truly unsuited for what you are intending to do. Because many, many people in the indie space, particularly the ones who engage with posts coming from those newer to it, seem to have defined themselves by their favorite game and then retroactively come up with reasons why it's the best and why everyone who plays something else, especially D&D, is stupid. This general second-banana mentality, of course, permanently cements them in that place, because they're so busy bashing everything they see as more popular that they define their favorites as games that are less popular and forget to explain why their favorites are actually good and back themselves into the corner we're seeing, in which people who champion one game will endlessly bash games that are remarkably similar and in doing so underline that this was never about gameplay or mechanics. (This is also really true in actual play spaces, and honestly a lot of nerdy media spaces.)

ANYWAY I think there absolutely should be a wide variety of games, and I even think it's good to have games with pretty strong similarities that are different enough to support different genres! I think more choice is great! But yeah, I think a lot of people who disparage specific mechanics (like a d20 system) on the whole do not actually think about what the game that uses those mechanics are trying to achieve. Again, I think PbtA as an engine does sound pretty fitting for its original use as Apocalypse World, but, not gonna lie, Monsterhearts is never going to be my thing and while I'm not sure it ever would, I think it could have been closer to my thing had the mechanics been customized to the setting more. I think games that put most of the rules onto RP segment of gameplay have a place, but it's really genre dependent! D&D does not support the same type of story as Good Society, and it's just as stupid to try to run the heroic fantasy system in the comedy of manners system as vice versa - and a lot of people do not understand that. Mechanics that make it easy to succeed (D&D) and mechanics that make it much harder (Blades in the Dark) and mechanics that ensure eventual failure (Dread, 10 Candles) all have their place, and both players and designers should be prepared to speak to their choices.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

Innocence Won't Save You: A Promo Post

Summoning all Innocence likers /hj

Innocence Won't Save You is an interactive fiction game centered around our beloved Unparalleled Innocence. It's an off the string story, focusing largely on them exploring what it means to live and love amid their sense of identity shifting as they continue on their journey, as well as learning how to navigate the messy sea of grief and loss. Some major things about this story include:

Deltarune-esque in how Innocence as a character is handled

lots and lots of OC lore to uncover

tons of worldbuilding in many aspects

extensive exploration of the local group and the relationships they have

ask blog features that tie into the game

And way, way more than that! IWSY will have at least 200k words by the time it's done, and most likely it'll be longer than that. I'm looking for more players (there's just one right now :( solaris-owl I value you deeply), because the story can't be told just by me! This is a collaborative project, intended to be both a story and a game.

If this sounds interesting, there's more detailed information under the cut:

IWSY came to be a thing as I was thinking about why Innocence would share pictures of Pebbles' rot like that to begin with. It's since grown into a multi-layered story that is about grief, loss, love, joy, and hope. It has an extensive cast, featuring many original characters that help flesh out Innocence as a character, as well as all members of their local group. The story delves deep into Innocence as a person, how they came to be who they are now, what they've been through in the past, and who they will become as they keep moving forward in this world.

Some major features of IWSY include:

Deltarune-esque character handling - Innocence is, very explicitly, their own person. If you've ever played Deltarune, you'll know that Kris is a person before they are a video game protagonist, and sometimes they will actively revoke control from you because of that. IWSY has some similar elements. You're playing this game with them, not as them.

Deep OC lore - there are many original characters featured in IWSY! There are seven main OCs, all of whom have already been mentioned at the current point of this story. There is a lot of history to uncover with these characters, especially around why Innocence feels the way they do about them now. This also comes with many logs with these characters interacting prior to the events of IWSY!

Exploration of the local group - besides OCs, there is also extensive exploration of the members of the local group (ie Moon, Wind, Sig, Pebbles and Innocence; Suns is not part of the local group in IWSY, though they do appear in logs!). IWSY goes into depth about Innocence's relationship with each of their siblings, and also showcases the relationships they have with each other, in particular Pebbles and Suns, Pebbles and Moon, and Wind and Sig.

Worldbuilding on fauna, flora, ancients and iterators - there's a lot of worldbuilding of all things Innocence encounters on their journey, whether the worldbuilding is relevant to the plot or not! The data files include entries about fauna and flora respectively, particularly regarding creatures that are exclusive to IWSY! The data files for these work somewhat like a bestiary for what Innocence has come across. The story itself also details aspects of ancient culture and architecture and information about iterators. Some current examples include pre-Void Fluid revolution temples and notes about iterator generations.

Iterator specbio - related to the last point, because I am a huge nerd, there is also extensive worldbuilding on the biology of iterators, particularly when Innocence enters the respective superstructures of their siblings' cans. It's not presented as neatly as the flora and fauna posts, but it is there, I promise.

Askblog elements - the IWSY blog also functions somewhat like an askblog! Beyond the ask box being a means for people to submit actions anonymously, you may also ask Innocence anything, much like other askblogs! Certain questions may also tie into the story, so be careful about what you ask :)

Deep exploration of Innocence as a character - and last but not least, Innocence themself. IWSY as a whole examines every little facet of them as a person, why they choose to do what they do, laying out all their fears, all of what makes them angry and what makes them grieve. If you also like stories that explore Innocence as a person beyond just branding them as an asshole, IWSY might interest you! Truthfully though, Innocence is much harder to pin down as 'justified' or 'asshole.' They are, like everyone else, a deeply complex individual.

Beyond that, IWSY is designed to be both a story and a game, as mentioned above. It is interactive fiction and run as such; the actions are actions, and I, as the writer, don't know everything that's going to happen either. I have a general plot structure, but between the major plot points of what needs to happen for the story to progress, I'm just as in the dark about what will happen next as everyone else. I also do actually roll dice for chance based actions, and there are several non-action events that are also chance based. Whether something succeeds or not is not always up to me. It was also a very conscious choice to run IWSY on Tumblr, where I'm using its interface to support the game. It's designed to co-opt Tumblr's features for game functions.

But, again, it's also a story, a long, complex one that cannot be told alone. It simply would not be the same story if I went back to writing it like your average fanfiction. Some story beats of IWSY need it to be run in this format. Even then, it's projected to be a very long story—one of my longest ever, actually. At the rate that IWSY is going at currently, it'll easily hit 200k words by the time the whole story is complete, and I expect it'll inch closer to 250k and maybe even 300k. I've got a lot of ideas, I just need more players to help me get there.

Outside of that however, there are a number of warnings for IWSY. Because of the way IWSY is designed, it has some psych horror and unreality elements. Some of the story is intended to make you uncomfortable and maybe horrify you. IWSY is also intended to be a tragedy. There's also:

extensive discussion of grief and the process of grieving. This is a very major part of IWSY, and I won't be holding back on the severity of what Innocence feels.

violence and gore beyond the scope of canon. There will be blood and viscera. Explosions will rip bodies apart.

death, just generally. Creatures will die, and Innocence will be thinking about it a lot.

body horror, mostly due to rot though.

discussion of mental health issues, in a variety of aspects.

discussion of physical health issues. Innocence is going to get injured, and honestly, none of their siblings are in great shape at this point in time.

Please be careful when engaging with IWSY. It's a dark story, and it's not always a happy one, but there is a lot of hope and joy to be found despite all their grief and rage. Things may not ever be the same, but Innocence will find a way to be happy again regardless. They just need a little help to get there.

The story is currently in Scene 10 as of writing this post. If you're interested but are daunted by how much of the story there already is, I have typed up summaries of all scenes so far, which is helpful for getting up to speed on where the story is at currently! The tag #innocence won't save you also has all the scenes and status updates thus far, and on AO3, there is a cleaned up, edited and more up to date version of the story.

I really care about this story, and I hope to share it with more people. It'd mean a lot to me if you came over and engaged in the game as well. It's an ambitious project, but I want to see it through.

Alsoooo if you come over you get great moments such as Innocence Fucking Dies, illustrated below by my good friend @transgenderfivepebbles:

[id in alt text]

Come play the game to see more of Innocence eating shit 👍

[thelogbookproject]

The Unity of Skovlan, Entry 7: Legacies

The Unity of Skovlan is an upcoming unofficial supplement to Blades In The Dark about the fall and rise of the Skovlander people. This series explores what it is all about in the leadup to its September release.

The Legacies are the last facet of the Unity War puzzle, and the critical element in making the campaign specifically a Prequel to a main game of Fractured Unity or base Blades. While I’ve introduced the basic idea, I wanted to give them a post of their own, so that’s what we’re up to today!

As previously described, Legacies are one of the things that can be bought with Valor between Missions. Each Period of the War, the Squad sheet lists three or four Legacies for purchase (you cannot buy Legacies from past periods, but you may use ones you’ve already purchased). When bought, they are unlocked as Gear for the entire Squad, though only one person can have the Legacy at one time. They aren’t just a piece of Gear though, they come with a unique special effect when held by a Soldier. This is usually the main reason to pull out a Legacy, as opposed to grabbing any other normal piece of gear. In effect, a Legacy is an Ability you can activate for your Soldier using Load.

In addition to the immediate impact of Legacies, their true value is that they will make their way to Doskvol after the campaign. All the above abilities are listed as “In Skovlan” for each Legacy. They each also have a “In Doskvol” ability, granting new Echoes crews an immediate boost at the start of their campaign, helping the players not feel like they’re starting out at zero after already playing a few sessions.

One big drawback to Legacies is that they are truly unique — if a Soldier pulls one out on a Mission (or a Scoundrel on a Score) and something happens to it, that’s it. Maybe you could go on a quest to recover or repair it, but protecting them would undercut the importance and value of wielding actual cultural artifacts.

I developed the Legacies as a major part of the game because of how well they synergize with the Squad-based play. It’s really easy for individual character upgrades to either get lost in a squad-based game, or for players to stagnate their switching if they upgrade a couple characters individually. Buying Legacies offers a way to upgrade everyone without overpowering them, along with the long-term benefits associated with each Legacy. This obvious importance also makes them a valuable vehicle for worldbuilding, which is, ultimately, a major part of why a group would play The Unity War, establishing bits of Skovlander culture through the items that will fall into legend.

The Legacies are a further development of an Ability I came up with for the Chronicle playbook in Fractured Unity, called Artifacts. A Chronicle who takes the Artifacts Ability gains access to a little set of unique cultural gear, some with special powers. A couple of the Legacies are Artifacts, automatically unlocked even if no one takes the Artifacts Ability. This adds further continuity to the Unity War-to-Fractured Unity transition.

How about we do a couple examples?

This is The Heartstone Medal of Skov Bravery, a Legacy from the Straining Period. This is a huge boon to early groups, as an extra Stress box is incredibly powerful, especially because it can be added instantly to save a character who might otherwise become Unfit. All of the Straining Legacies are of high value in Skovlan, with great powers, but they have a bit less impact on Doskvol eventually. That’s not to say the extra Status isn’t good — it’s very good. But it’s a one-time boost, and pales in comparison to later Legacies. Still, for just 2 Valor, I would recommend every Squad invest in the Medal, its long-term value well outweighs buying the first dot of another Action or a single healing roll.

This is 30 Rounds of Void Ammo, Recovered From The Sunken City, a Legacy from the Cracking Period. One of my favorite Legacy concepts, this is an amazing middle-of-the-campaign pickup, as it provides huge (but different) value in both Skovlan and Doskvol. Soldiers gaining access to an instant-kill ammo is momentous, though the consequences of failing when shooting it could be dire (though obviously not lethal to other PCs). In Doskvol it loses the instant-kill power, but it is the ultimate tool for stealth killing, and the ability to have an undetectable body that will still rise as a ghost in three days gives the crew, in effect, a bomb they can plant. Of course, I specify the 30 rounds for a reason — that’s all there is. Use the shots a bunch in Skovlan and you’ll have less for Doskvol. Try to restrain yourself in Skovlan, and your Valor won’t be paying off very quick.

This is the Sealed Reliquary of Stonetable, Contents Sacred & Unknown, a Legacy from the Fracturing Period. For its (frankly astounding) price, this game-changing Legacy is one of two 10-Valor Legacies in the Fracturing Period. In Skovlan, its power is monumental, making you literally immune to death, but always having decreased position as soon as you declare having it is utterly brutal. That said, you can generate a lot of Valor from Desperate rolls that way. In Doskvol, the revolution is unquestionably easier, dropping every major opposing Faction by a whole Tier. The Institution Factions include the Imperial Military, now a Tier IV, are genuinely vulnerable in Doskvol. The Bluecoats are level with the Skovlander Refugees, and weaker than the new Steelworkers’ Union. The Reliquary single-handedly changes the balance of power in Doskvol and sets the stage for the Echoes’ revolution.

Next time, I’m going to talk about Indigo Rowan. That’ll make sense, I swear.

The Unity War releases for PWYW on September 1, 2023. Check out https://tinyurl.com/tuos-details for the rest of this series! Sign up for my Patreon at https://patreon.com/thelogbookproject for a preview, and full early access to the game as of July 1st. See you Wednesday!

[redwineconversation]

Lindsey Horan OLPlay Interview

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply; invasive shit really annoys me; I got a lovely cinnamon scented candle earlier which was very soothing along with the PSL; y'all know the speech.

My feelings on Horan are somewhat complicated: in some ways I think a lot of the grievances people have towards her are legitimate, but those grievances are also sometimes wrong and downright petty. I think Horan has shit politics. There are definite times when she can and should play better.

But - as much as it pains me to say this - she also understands Lyon, and there are times when her values and Lyon's are aligned.

#monsters recognize monsters, or something

Posted on YouTube (in English no less!) but transcribed anyway because I desperately need an excuse to put off doing dishes. xoxo

LINDSEY HORAN OLPLAY INTERVIEW

[On being back]

Horan: Yeah, I'm doing really well. I think I'm just happy to be back in France and start a new season with Lyon. Obviously it's a shorter season for us because of the World Cup, but I think every international [player] is just happy, you know, after - after maybe a little disappointing World Cup to come back here and start a new season.

[On the World Cup]

Horan: Yeah, it was really hard. It was obviously disappointing for us. Everyone looks at the United States and they probably expected more [did they though?]. But we faced a lot of good opponents, and playing Sweden in a game like that, in the Round of 16, is never really what you want. But you know, it was a great game, we went out in a good way, we played the style that, you know, I prefer. And penalties, what are you going to say? They're unfortunate, and it's part of the game, and yeah, it's just part of life.

[How to handle a loss]

Horan: It's kind of what any footballer wants, you know, when you obviously have something disappointing, this feeling of wanting more. I think it was the same last season, with the Champions League. You want to get back into the next season and just be like "we want to achieve something else, we want a new challenge." And now we want to win as many trophies as possible.

[On penalties / the controversial loss to Chelsea]

Horan: Penalties are a part of the game. You know, it's really unfortunate because I think, especially for me, you miss a penalty. You know it's going to happen, someone has to miss. It's not what I wanted, I wanted more for the team, especially because of the way we battled, the way we played, you know, like you said, it was one of our best games. You felt the group, you felt the win coming. There was never a point in the game where I felt we couldn't win. And I think that's the most hurtful thing, because football can really be cruel. To play a game like that, away, at Chelsea, at Stamford Bridge, and still come up short. And you look back and you say, "I wish I scored that penalty," "I wish we didn't have that penalty at the end of the game", etc etc. But it's life, and this is football, it makes you want more, and I think that's now the place where we're all at, because you know you're going to get the best team to go out and win the Champions League.

[On goals / expectations for the season]

Horan: Individually, it's always just like what can I bring to the team? What impact can I have, and more so as a leader in this group now? I've taken on a bigger responsibility with my National Team and I feel like I can have that presence here. It's just a little bit different, with a different culture and everything. But also I just want to be the best player that I can be, I want to keep improving, and that's another reason why I am here at Lyon and I chose to stay. Because I get to play with the best players in the world every single day, and I get better because of them. So what can I bring to them, how can I help some of the younger players and help them improve? But also improve my game, and be the best player that I can be.

[Being away from family / what Lyon has to offer]

Horan: To be perfectly honest, that was the only thing that was really hard for me. Not being close to family, not being close to friends and at home. But when I think about my football career, it's not long, it's short. And if I want to become the best player that I can be, and play with the best players in the world, and challenge myself, I think of Lyon and I think of what Lyon has given me in the past 18 months. And it's very hard for me to sit here and say "I want to go back". I want more. And you know, the trophies that we compete for, the winningness that we have in this club, it's something very difficult to turn down for me. And you know, playing for Champions League titles, it's something that you don't get when you go back to the NWSL to be perfectly frank. For me it's like you have the World Cup, you have the Olympics, and you have the Champions League. This is one of the greatest tournaments in the world and something that has been a goal of mine that I've always had, and achieving that in my first year here was one of the best memories of my life. And I want more of that. So yeah, I think for me it was more of an easy decision than I thought it was going to be. We'll just have to get my parents over here more.

[generation1point5]

On a whim I tried Adastra, and to my surprise, it had a lot more depth to its illustrations of life than I had expected. Still haven’t really been able to fully process my thoughts on the game. Spoilers below, obviously, hence the readmore.

Coming fresh off the heels of a replay of Disco Elysium, I had no expectations with regard to what kind of “politics” that was advertised and featured in the game, which was the primary reason why I figured I would give it a shot; I certainly did not expect Adastra to have the same brilliance of socioeconomic, Marxian political insight that DE so masterfully paints. It certainly does not offer the same depth of analysis, as that was not the purpose of the game; the whole point of the game, as I had expected it, was to hook the player up with Amicus.

Whenever I consume content I am not really familiar with and have no personal stake in, I tend to buy less into the content itself and to examine it chiefly as a statement reflective of its author and their worldview. I like to try and extrapolate the values and the assumptions by which the game is created; rarely is the product something so compelling that I feel like I am looking into a dark mirror of my own, but I think that is the result of me being inspired enough to derive a lot of personal impact from what I had experienced. The Death of the Author is a strange thing; an author is required to create the work, and the work itself ought to be considered more as a product of self-expression, a lens by which we might perceive the world in part. But the meaningfulness of the work itself is derived entirely from the reaction of its audience, whether this lens is accepted or not, in part or the whole. Despite all these caveats, there is still a connection between the two; there is enough in common between what is presented and what is being derived that there is a capacity for empathy across separation of time, distance, culture, even socioeconomic standing, however parasocial and disjointed it becomes. That realization has persisted in my thoughts up until now.

Being asexual and rabidly communist, I was pleasantly surprised at how the game built up its world, and its own commentary on politics as a fact of life. Initially, it seemed more reflective of what I presume to be the common sentiments shared by most normal people’s conception of “politics,” in that it is messy, facetious, and overall bullshit. In that respect it knows and appeals to a broad audience, a generation of people raised under the dominion and failings of neoliberal capitalism. But greater still are the implications inherent to how most people understand and interact with their idea of politics, that it is a necessary evil in the act of merely existing that permeates the daily lives of everyone in ways we wish did not. There is an aspect of Bildungsroman in this story; the protagonist is a college student not really aware of the kinds of politics that surround and affect his life and inform his own opinions and values; this is much the same with Amicus. Their own ability to deal with the issues that come to them is clearly shown to be biased and inadequate; the people more capable of engaging in the political sphere have failings of their own, mired in reactionary behaviors and sentiments. If politics is merely human psychology played out by interactions of individuals on a mass scale, then Adastra did a good job illustrating that interpersonal dynamic. The longer that I played, the more these nuances came into view, and so did my appreciation for what I was experiencing.

The most common (and often oversimplified) sentiment both within the game and its intended audience is that politics and its machinations interfere with what “really matters,” and this is argument is the precise juxtaposition that Adastra sets out to express; the heart of the game is the love story. Its foil, its shadow, the obstacle it faces, is the politics that get between the protagonist and Amicus. The idea that we all have simple, understandable desires of everyday people is a common one. Politics in this mindset feels extraneous, even oppressive; it is not seen in a broader context where the dynamics of power and socioeconomic stratification leads to systems of disenfranchisement and structural oppression. It is the Kingdom of Conscience versus the weight of thousands of years of historical, material reality. I was pleasantly surprised when Adastra and its side games recognized this material reality and, by degrees, began to illustrate this dynamic in greater detail.

Beyond just the material conditions presented in the fictional world, I found myself drawn to the way the game blurred the lines between the technological and the spiritual. The trope of gods being merely hyperadvanced technological beings is nothing new; what Adastra brought to the table was a re-thinking of what should be considered “advanced,” pointing to entities and organizations of people whereupon cooperation and harmony accompanied the more recognizable marks of technological achievement. The thought experiment challenges the underlying assumptions inherent to the critiques of paternalism in governance and politics; namely, that the people who are hyperadvanced suffer the same behavioral and socioeconomic shortcomings of the people they subject their aims to, and that their intentions are inherently self-interested to the detriment of the other. The full extent of the aims of the Parents are certainly unknowable. They are demonstrably not infallible, yet the benefits of following their guidance and standards are shown to be empirically reproducible. The Khemians, the Sibling race being the most closely aligned the Parents, have produced for themselves a cohesive society that is not only technologically advanced, but on the cusp of creating a classless, moneyless organization of the economy capable of addressing the vast majority of the needs of their people. In terms of sheer results, the arguments for the benevolence of the Parent’s values are not without merit, but these doubts persist in the other Sibling races and even with the protagonist himself. Not being able to perceive nor comprehend the plans of the Parents at their current state of existence, doubts and skepticism as a general principle begin to overrule a rational observation of the cause and effects of following the Parent’s guidance. Arguments made in bad faith questioning the motive behind objectively good results is nothing new; countless people point to well-off progressive figures (class traitors) as grifters looking to profit from the populism of their rhetoric. Adastra paints this dynamic in an implicit manner that I think went over most players heads; it is an examination of human psychology and its tendency to interpret and speculate wild and often paranoid conclusions against material reality with a remarkable level of accuracy and nuance I don’t commonly expect from most games.

This is contrasted heavily with the Other, with a philosophy of absolute individual freedom with no real heed for any notion of consequentialism. Agency and independence seem to be its highest good, and in this sense it trends more towards idealism than materialism. The threat being presented is surreal; on some level it seems subconscious, or the collective subconscious of many people who resisted the draw of the collective conscious of Adastra’s afterlife, coalesced into a counterforce to balance out the other primary force in the universe. It is part psychological, part metaphysical, and seems to share parallels with Berserk’s Idea of Evil. The construction of Adastra’s universe is dualist, a perpetual struggle between two equivalent and opposite forces with a twist that muddies a clear moral separation between the two, more yin and yang than a clear-cut separation between good and evil. Though I had initially dismissed this setup as a narrative conceit common to all sorts of literature, Adastra’s concurrent and spinoff titles have taken an otherwise overused trope and pushed it to new depths that leave me pondering much on the topics the game explores. It is more than a “both sides have valid points” argument; it demonstrates the necessity for one side to eventually overpower the other; the two forces are unable to endure a perpetual stalemate. Conflict between the Parents and the Other is inevitable, and only one of the two philosophies will be left standing if the other is to survive.

It is the context to the love story rather than the romance itself that draws me towards this game; it is the juxtaposition of a love cast into a cosmic conundrum pitting free will versus determinism, the eternal with the mortal, and the meaning to be found in life that opened the door to a broader inspiration that I was not looking for, but ended up finding as a hidden gem in this visual novel.

But greater than all of these things, I think what struck me most in this game is how it was so profoundly able to capture the feeling of “longing,” for a distant but nearing future good. There was no key moment within the game itself or the story structure that created this impression, save for perhaps the 8 years that separate the protagonist and Amicus at the very end, but even then the sentiment was felt only in retrospect, having spent many hours just following the two on the journey. The sentiments evoked by Adastra is not unique to it; it is the same as the parting of the Fellowship after the destruction of the Ring, the return of the Monsters to the surface, the feeling that all readers have with the awareness that The End has come, and there are no more chapters to be read, even as we long and grasp for the eternity of the moment when we had first beheld their beauty, never to be felt again. To try and prolong the story beyond this point runs into problems; eventually, the creator(s) run out of ideas, old ones are rehashed, and future content is made less with the intent for art and more for the intent to profit, and the legacy of what came first becomes tarnished.

The best stories, I think, recognize the necessity and the goodness of an end, even as it seeks to foster and preserve an enduring sentiment that persists well after the tale is ended. The desire for a story to continue, the desire for eternity itself, is not a bad thing; it provides energy, even compulsion, for persistence in the face of mortality, to glimpse, pursue, and hope for a cause beyond our own lifetime. There is value in the ever-fleeting present, even as we strive for a never-ending future. The two forces together at once seems paradoxical, and when experienced simultaneously, I believe produces that feeling we call “longing.” It grounds us to our present-day strivings, even as it contextualizes them into an infinity of experiences and relational interactions we cannot possibly grasp in their entirety. But what we do glimpse we know to be good, good enough to work towards with the strength and solidarity of good company. For that, I was happy to have experienced what Adastra offered; it was mirror dark enough for me to glimpse what I had taken for granted amidst my rote habits of literary and political critique. Though imperfect and not a clear favorite for me, what it was able to capture allowed me to glimpse a humanity that I find difficult in recent days to perceive in mankind.

[gobbogoo]

The Last of Us Part 2 and Shadow of Mordor: Two Parallel Takes on The Revenge Fantasy

Shadow of Mordor is not a perfect game, but is absolutely NAILS the feeling of a dark revenge-fuelled power fantasy. It expertly introduces you to the protagonist's loss/hatred through a brief-but-powerful opening, sets up antagonists you want to despise, then sets you loose to enact delightfully satisfying carnage against them.

Your experience of chopping up baddies is actively enhanced by that context of righteous wrath reflected in the player character's over-the-top methods of dispatching foes. It also maintains a cast of memorable-yet-disposable enemies to direct your violence towards with its patented Nemesis System, which adds satisfying, personal context to combat by generating rivals for the player to build an antagonistic relationship with. While narratively the game's revenge theme struggles due to mediocre writing/plot, the gameplay never fails to make you feel for all the world like some dark angel of vengeance. It accomplishes all this while maintaining a degree of grittiness that enhances the weightiness of the revenge theme. You fight in the mud and rain, bidding tragedy twist you into something monstrous and frightening to be unleashed on the deserving.

Compare all this to The Last of Us Part 2, and you'll see it follows similar steps to start, seemingly with intention to set itself up as the ultimate gritty revenge fantasy:

Instead of villains you love to hate, it opens by offering you an antagonist you genuinely despise with all your heart. Instead of simply expressing the weight of the protagonist's loss with an opening scene, the game takes drastic measures to ensure the player actively feels the loss themselves. Its confrontations are grounded in their violence compared to SoM's more impersonal and over-the-top slaughterfests, enhancing that impact of the player's righteous-but-brutal deeds. Its gameplay is both more challenging and more engaging, forcing the player to earn the vengeance they seek through hate-fuelled struggle, all while growing further resentful of the huge and faceless evil they're pitched against.

For a lot of players, that was enough. While I'd argue such moral simplicity goes against what The Last of Us is all about, there were many who played the first game without engaging in its grey shades, ignoring them to experience a simple Protective Dad power fantasy.

But in TLoU2, the game FORCES you to engage with these grey shades by halfway through placing you in the shoes of the people you've been taking "vengeance" upon. By removing them from the antagonistic context they've only been presented in so far, it slams the player in the face with the ugly reality of the revenge fantasy, re-contextualizes their own willful actions, and leaves them questioning their own perspective and judgments. This is a frankly brilliant way to deliver the game's core messages and themes; it communicates the folly of violence and revenge better than any other piece of media I've ever encountered... BUT it comes with a huge downside: It puts the player's motives at odds with the character(s) they're controlling.

You go from personally driving the game's narrative to its reluctant chauffeur, and while the car remains satisfying to drive, you're given no choice but to keep heading towards a distressing destination.

The decision to do this is brilliant from the standpoint of games as art, but it's also terrible from the standpoint of games as entertainment. While I would argue what it accomplished was something no other AAA game had attempted, thus greatly elevating the works' cultural value as a lasting work instead of a disposable distraction, I will admit it runs counter to consumer expectation and in-the-moment enjoyment.

Video games are still too young to have escaped their reputation as a hobby to unwind as opposed to art-form to enrich (especially in the AAA world), and therefore TLoU2 suffered criticism from those that had been seeking the prior, not the latter. Indeed, if its moment-to-moment gameplay wasn't so well-polished and engaging, the game would have been absolutely despised by general audiences. It is only because entertainment can still be gleaned from the fundamentally satisfying gameplay that the player carries on without growing too frustrated or disheartened by being forced to act in ways they disapprove of without any choice in the matter.

Shadow of Mordor provides an excellent parallel here, because both games use methods to build a personal relationship between the player and its antagonists, yet the outcome, methods, and intent are all completely different: SoM uses personal connection to empower the game's delicious brutality by offering rivals you love to hate. Well after the gameplay has grown stale due to lack of difficulty, the player will STILL be having fun violently clashing with and brutally disposing of foes they've built personal connections with.

TLoU2 meanwhile intentionally makes these exact same acts of violence highly unsatisfying by intentionally acquainting you with (or reminding you of) your enemies' existence as more then a vessel of antagonism. This extends even to basic enemies, who all are written and programmed to behave so much like real people with real lives that, despite the game's outstanding combat, the player has to actively repress sensations of guilt and internally justify increasingly unjustifiable actions with the old (and incredibly theme-relevant) "it was them or me" fallacy.

To summarize:

Shadow or Mordor achieves its personalizations almost entirely through mechanical systems that enhance and contextualize gameplay. It uses expertly constructed game mechanics and gameplay experiences to project depth and personality onto enemies and interactions that on their own would feel shallow and limited in personality and design. Sadly this makes its actual written narrative fall flat because it both fails to account for these self-made stories, and fails to build the same sense of connection between the player and the narrative's central antagonists, leaving them instead as unestablished entities that all die anticlimactically upon first confrontation.

The Last of Us Part 2 achieves its personalizations almost entirely through written narrative that directly manipulates and subverts the player's relationship with the gameplay. It uses fantastic writing and narrative context to project meaning and importance onto enemies that on their own would quickly feel like a parade of identical and impersonal goon squads with guns fought forty times over. Sadly this makes its actual gameplay increasingly distressing to engage with, discouraging players from engaging with the most satisfying aspects of the game, and causing them to almost dread completing each objective, as they know they will likely be rewarded only with more distressing developments.

[mostlynotwork]

‘Ready Player One’ combines a nostalgic look at 80’s culture with a dystopian future so bleak most people only tolerate it by escaping into a virtual reality oasis.

My latest audiobook was a return to a familiar genre - dystopia. After recent forays into hard core sci-fi, fantasy sci-fi, romance and erotica, it was time to get back into the genre I’m arguably most familiar with.

‘Ready Player One’ is set in the year 2045. In this vision of the future, the world’s inequalities have become more pronounced. Much of the world’s population lives in overcrowded poverty, with their only escape from daily misery via the virtual reality world known as the OASIS. When its creator dies, he leaves behind a challenge. Hidden somewhere in the OASIS are clues to the ultimate easter egg - untold wealth and control of the OASIS itself.

This sets in place a massive treasure hunt. Individuals, clans of hunters and a predictably evil megacorp all desperately vie to piece together the clues, complete challenges and win the ultimate prize. And this is where the 80’s culture comes in. James Halliday, the creator of the OASIS, had a massive nostalgia for the eras of his childhood and youth. Unravelling the clues to Halliday’s egg requires the competitors to deeply immerse themselves in the culture that shaped his personality.

The 80s nostalgia is fun, though overdone at times

While the 90s is more my go to era for ‘retro’, many of the 80s references were familiar to me. Even those I didn't immediately recognise were described in enough detail to enjoy, though sometimes there was such a thing as too much detail. Sharing the minutiae of a particular bit of 80s pop culture is justifiable if there’s a payoff later in the story. But that’s not always the case. And it’s those lengthy expositions with no reward down the track that feel like unecessary diversions from the main plot.

The novel also devotes considerable time to describing the technology used to interact with the virtual reality (VR) world of the OASIS. Some readers may find this another example of unnecessary detail that doesn’t advance the story. But the OASIS is central to the story. Understanding how people engage with it is fundamental to the believability of the novel. Kline’s devotion to describing the different types of VR tech (from the basic kit affordable to the masses through to high end systems used by the wealthy) helps make the later parts of the plot more believable.

So who will enjoy this book?

‘Ready Player One’ isn't just a book for people obsessed with the 80s. Fans of sci-fi and dystopian adventures can still enjoy the story.They will however need to accept that most of the author's world-building energy has gone into the culture, politics and economics of the virtual OASIS world, rather than the physical world of 2045.

Although the book can at times get caught up in 80s trivia, there’s still an enjoyable quest to be explored in this novel. Although the quest structure appears predictable, it still weaves in its share of unexpected twists and turns along the way. The book is worthwhile picking up if you see it on sale, though only lovers of gaming, geek culture or the 1980s may get enough value from it to pay full price. And if you can’t afford it outright, do what I did and visit your local library.