#but i'm not an mmo guy ^_^;

[plushchimera]

i accidentally got myself into one of those massive fate boss battles and it was terrifying

on the upside people were nice and i got a positive interaction with a stranger so hooray etc

[darkloveangel]

i hope singularity 6 update the romance and friendship routes further in palia, some of them end in a kind of unsatisfying way? not really reaching much of a conclusion?

also i love reth to bits but having him go from "smug flirt" to "awkward genuine affection" would be a lot cuter if he went to "awed and dumbstruck in love" after you gave the reciprocity pin instead of staying awkward and unsure

[cauaullection]

I do intend to watch Konosuba at some point despite my immense distaste for the isekai genre

[nexus-nebulae]

oh my god i just found this adorable little game called Sunshine Valley and it's so charming i fucking love it

[teaandinanity]

I got my viera a sweater and they look so cute and cozy now but ALSO I kept going ‘my god they must be SO HOT’ in most of the zones and then I realized.

They’re a thaumaturge.

They absolutely are using magic to keep their temp low enough for layers because that is PRECISELY the sort of bullshit I would pull if I had ice powers.

[crucible-memes-4-salem-teens]

characters from the crucible and modern things i'd give them as gifts (more under the cut!)

all of them - therapy

tituba - the means and the opportunity

[muttfangs]

entitled gamer rant.png

[emlan]

Official acc already established that P plays arcade fighting games so why not have him test the waters with an MMO too? (Venigni bought him a PS5) Some FFXIV chatter under the cut:

Not sure what kinda WoL he made btw, surely miqo'te would entice a cat lover but I'm leaning heavily towards extremely basic hyur self-insert. I can also see him getting charmed by the premise of just being a Fun Little Guy (lalafel)

Romeo is 100% without a doubt a lala player though. As for Carlo… I thiiiiink messy short hair miqo(♀️)…? When it comes to jobs or even just roles I'm not sure how to pin any of them. I mean Romeo has a scythe in canon like RPR but I feel he's maybe more Tank aligned?

Gemini can't play but P made sure to get the Clockwork Lantern minion as a stand-in for him. For completions sake though; Gemini's WoL is… Honestly I could make an argument for many fitting options, but I'll settle on him confidently ending up with a [way too handsome] male Viera.

Real Boy Carlo lost patience with the controller and never got started but he would've quickly gotten banned for bad behavior anyway. His WoL would've been a copy of whatever P made or the gilseller bot default you get from skipping CC.

[lanabenikosdoormat]

It's his birthday <3

When I decided to finally install SWTOR just a little over 2 years ago I didn't think much of it to be honest. Just another MMO to pass the time and scratch the never-ending SW itch. So, I made Jed on a whim. He was my first character, and I just knew he was something special. I clown on him a lot, but really he's my number one little dude and he deserves everything good ever. In a way, he's an extension of myself (as any good flagship oc is). When I decided to finally make a tumblr after literal years, it was for the SWTOR community. I haven't regret it since. You guys are the most welcoming and silliest corner of fandom I've been in and I'm truly so grateful for all the wonderful folks I've met because of it. Thank you to everyone who has ever tagged me in something, drawn me something, hell even left me a kind message. Love you all to bits.

- Mars aka Lanabenikosdoormat

[christiansorrell]

RPG Read-through: .dungeon//remastered

For a while on Twitter, I've been doing read-through threads where I post my thoughts as I'm reading through a game for the first time. I recently did the same with Snow's .dungeon//remastered, a TTRPG where you are players logging in to a dead/dying MMO and exploring the digital fantasy world. I'm adapting those thoughts here for a proper Tumblr post! Enjoy!

First up, credits! Good folks who do good work in my experience. Also, we get the first of what seems to be a common through-line here that I enjoy: an online fandom bent to this all being a sort of GameFAQ style guide for an in-universe game.

My initial impression from most of the interior spreads I've seen just flipping through it is that I really love the style and layout. I think black and white layouts are underrated generally, but it really pops here with the pixelated text/symbols and the old school GUIs.

It's interesting to have these kind of "no bigotry" rules you see in many games couched within an in-universe framing. I think this more personal angle actually makes them land better for me than they typically do in games.

Of course, the author is still powerless to stop the players (just like with any instance of these rules, and all game rules in general tbh) BUT this is worldbuilding too, and it gives me a greater sense for the kind of in-universe fandom that's risen up around .dungeon.

Similarly, here's the game's unique version of safety tools - an in-game help menu that reworks things like lines/veils, x-card and more into the game world itself. I really like this.

Once again, the art in this is just great. I love the Fez-like runes/symbols. My ARG brain wants to know if there's a hidden message here.

I was surprised it was jumping right into the starter adventure, Tutorial Town, but I quickly found out that this is character creation AND a starting area/adventure all wrapped into one, video game-style, and that's so cool.

Each room of the starting area introduces a step of character creation. It's interesting that stats are based on real-world (not you the player at the table real-world but your PC at the "real-world" computer playing the game) ability. Your game knowledge, response time, etc.

As a long time Dota player, I also just really enjoy that the saving throw-like stat here is TILT. I have tilted many times and known many of my teammates to tilt regularly. Just fun to see that phrasing in a TTRPG.

There's more of the in-universe real-world player here than I expected coming in. Definitely has some really intriguing potential. I do wonder though if the intent is to be playing a "real-world" level character or if you are "playing" as yourself at that layer. Both would work.

Monster statblocks. Easy to parse and straightforward to run as the GM (tho at time the layout does have one two many things laid on top of one another that can make them hard to read at first glance - like where "GOBLIN" is here):

Health here is SYNC, and it's shared across the whole party - I'm interested to see how that full mechanic plays out and how it may affect play.

Reaction rolls. I'm surprised to see them given the video game setting, cus mobs in MMOs just always attack you. I've gone back and forth on it with my video game-inspired TTRPG. Don't think it's a bad choice, just one that means the game world is more than a usual video game.

So you have your real-world level Job (based on your characters' out of game job) and your in-game "Role" which follow the classic "holy trinity" of MMO design:

PCs and monsters can team up to attack and can forego damage for stunts - potentially fun/interesting moments happening from that. Monsters deal dmg to SYNC but only per type is interesting, means a crowd of one-enemy is more a long trickle of damage than an overwhelming burst.

Not knowing the ramifications of SYNC damage yet, I'm not sure what the Risk v Reward looks like for Respawns but it's intriguing. Letting your avatar die to keep the party in a stronger position overall (but being able to re-join after a fight) is definitely unique.

This is another fun room (and I like that other than saying late 90s/early 2000s it leaves appearance options open). I am not sure where to find the starting origins tho (they aren't on this spread and there's no page reference). Sadly, the PDF isn't bookmarked either, it seems.

This feels like a smart roadblock to place in player's paths early on. It's unlikely they'll have a lockpick at this point so really, it's about getting players into that creative mindset. What is in the room for you to exploit? What gear do you have you can use in a new way?

Might seem basic, especially to the OSR-experienced out there, but you'd be surprised how many players don't have experience with thinking more freeformly about the game in this way. No fault to them, most trad games condition you to use your PC's abilities/skills as a menu.

Another cool interaction between the layers of the game here (tho I do wish they all played more off of something more than just the tarot card being in the real-world layer). Still wondering if most folks play as themselves or as a real-world level PC.

This is interesting. I wonder if there is going to be a real-world layer to play or if this is meant to be the amount your party can heal between sessions of play (like when the actual real you stops playing in actual real life - this meta layer stuff is tricky to communicate).

I like this - a very short and sweet travel system.

I continue to love this art. Also, this tease here around dual-wielding requiring the discovery of new Roles out in the game world somewhere first is really enticing (I added the highlighter there btw).

This is fun - there are both in-game NPCs and PUGs which are other real-world players' in-game avatars. That extra layer to those types of NPCs is really fun and them running the gamut of fully out-of-character chatting to being hardcore RPers is fun to consider.

Whenever it leans into the digital world aspects, I'm super into it. Very much my kinda thing. I do wonder though how often players can swap their Roles. I don't believe I've seen that said yet - my inclination would be once on the fly (like Final Fantasy's Job systems).

And if these various layers weren't enough, .dungeon also features in-game collectible cards that are sort of enchantments and buffs. I wonder if my real-world level character can spend real money to buy Bytes to buy more packs from a merchant in town? lol

I won't spoil/detail too many more of these but these kind of fun (and common to video games but rarely seen when thinking of the world of a game or the intended way to play) moments are really appealing. Also, this game has Goons in it. Oh no.

Now I'm thinking the intention is the "real-world" level of play should be the real actual you, the person playing .dungeon the TTRPG (as opposed to a real-world level character still within the fiction of the game) since stuff like this would be tricky to track. Cool item!

Tutorial Island is cool, a good blend of char creation, intro to what the game is, and just a fun adventure with a session or more of play to it. I'd have to run/play this to really see but I find the Sync being tied to essentially your real-world session length interesting.

This stuff is cool and leans into that meta/fan-level play that only comes out of these big community-driven games, both MMOs but also things like Dark Souls.

A lot of these kind of possible secrets come as comments in the text, possibly just to inspire the GM and to get players interested in ways that the table can build out on their own over time. So far, I don't see some of the more esoteric secrets to be laid out (which I like).

The rest of the book, as far as I've seen, is lots of resources, gear tables, monsters, etc. to build out the game after player's leave Tutorial Island. The game world here has that anything goes Final Fantasy bent to it. There's swords & wagons, but laser guns & skateboards too.

The setting here is also explicitly queer (mostly seen so far in the "real-world" PUGs) and includes things like sex workers and other elements that it maybe could not have had but that would certainly lessen the richness of its world, the fandom presented throughout, etc.

The spellcasting uses the in-game money as mana points essentially. That's a cool way to limit spellcasting and motivate player's, especially spellcasters, to get out there and make some $$$.

Okay, here's the real-world explanation I was waiting for (after the in-game gear lists and such). This is cool - it's fun to have a real-life layer to this and to have the game's world support that sort of dropping in and out, doing things outside of a full party session, etc.

I know a lot of folks do this with ongoing campaigns anyway, but this is one of those fun things to include here to build that in as an expectation in play. You have your raid nights with friends and you have your little solo sessions after work where you sell your loot.

Now, the rest is a nice collection of random dungeon, NPC, settlement, hexfill tables and more. Everything you'd expect from an OSR-like ruleset but occasionally with some fun added meta-layers.

Players getting a quest from an in-game Moderator and then being able to become a Mod themselves is a really fun idea and something I could envision becoming a long-term goal for one or more players at a table. The threat of encountering an Admin is scary as well!

To finish it up, we've got a cool AASCII-style character sheet, complete with MingLiU-ExtB font (my beloved)!

And that's .dungeon//remastered! I really enjoyed reading this, and I think it has a strong core that's really enhanced by its real-world interaction layer. Gonna put this on "Play Soon" list. There are some smart rules in particular I'll likely steal for a future project.

.dungeon//remastered is available digitally NOW with, I believe, physical copies coming soon. I backed the Kickstarter to get this digital version. CHECK IT OUT HERE!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

❤️💔 We'll see if this helps me find this.

WIBTA if I don't break up with my partner?

I (30f) have been dating a guy long distance for two years now. Prior to this we had been friends online for the over the last decade (really closer to 15 years now) . We played with the same table top/MMO group together. He dated another friend that ended up getting pretty serious (they were engaged) and she ended up breaking it off and they stayed friends regardless. That was about 8 years ago and they were long distance too.

Other friends in the friend group know what we're dating and are pretty supportive. We're all mostly in our thirties and most of them are now married.

Well the issue is that over the last two years I've been the only one to travel to visit. I've worked two jobs to save up enough. I send letters. I send him birthday gifts etc... He's never done that for me. And lately we haven't even voice called for the last two months. He's apologized repeatedly that he's struggling with depression, and I've said it's okay, even if I'm upset. Well I don't think I have any feelings for him besides those of friendship because of all of this. It just feels too one sided.

Well this summer I'm visiting him again, but I booked a place an hour away and it's a place I've always wanted to go regardless of him.

So now I'm wondering if I'll be the a-hole if I don't break up with him and just let this play out until after my vacation. I already know it's a dead relationship and I deserve better and my heart isn't in it anymore. I just want to be able to spend time with him one on one in person again without having broken up... Would it be awful of me to do that? Should I wait until I'm in person to break up with him?

I feel like either way I'll be breaking his heart if he even cares anymore. Hard to say on that front.

What are these acronyms?

[rosewoodroad]

Rant/Critique/Brain Vomit on the SoTO story updates

I've seen some people expressing their thoughts on the latest SoTO update(s) and it gave me some courage to discuss my own. Overall, my sentiments are the same- I've been getting progressively dissatisfied with how the story is being executed, and I'm not ashamed to say it's because the Commander stopped mattering.

And I'm not referring to the disrespect we got in the main SoTO expansion- because that is the exact opposite of what I'm criticising. I'm referring to the sheer lack of interaction the Commander has had with the world and story since. The immersion is just not there anymore.

To be frank, the Commander is far from the usual MMO player avatar. They actually have a base personality in their own right. What's more, they have a canonical history that we actually played through and saw progress in real time. They are the protagonist character of GW2 and not just a window for us to peer into Tyria through.

This is why I thought SoTO's main expac story was actually pretty fun. The Commander's existing history coloured most of our interactions in the world.

The wizards either hated or loved us- but we got to work on making them fear us less. Some demon lady invades our brain because we died and undied once, and we had to figure out if she was an ally or not. Her big brother kidnaps us twice because being a Dragon Champion smells good or something. Zojja is back and showers us in her friendship angst- all because of this history, which was all great!! It showed that we were actually a part of their world, somebody they could talk to or yell at, we had and continue to have impact!!

We weren't the driving narrative force, but we were at least interacting with and nudging the story forward as a protagonist.

Aaand all of this was totally missing in the dribbling updates that followed.

Let's recap- we joined Peitha in Inner Nayos and started punching out demons. And we're still punching out demons. I mean, yeah, that's why we're there in the first place, but what else is there? We find Arina, but she's totally unbothered by us messing up her initial plans and getting quite a few of her men killed. We meet Ramses, but he's 100% chill with us, nice to meet you Wayfinder, let's go kill Heitor. Eparch, the guy who found us 'entertaining' enough to whisper a warning to at the end of SoTO, doesn't even acknowledge us. Nephus, who sounds like their world's version of the Commander, talks to us like... twice. Peitha, the big mysterious sexy demon lady we had fun back-and-forths with, stopped chatting with us entirely (and we also immediately trust her despite the lack of communication).

It's all so... apathetic. You could argue that they just don't know or care about who the Commander is, but then what is the point of us being there when some Other Guy could've taken our place? The protagonist isn't protagonisting anymore and has been relegated to being a transparent sheet of plastic for us to just watch the story unfold by itself, totally hands-off. It's hard to care about a story when it doesn't care about us.

I'm still invested in the story (and Peitha) enough to play through the remaining update, because I love me a good revolution, but I cannot deny that I am officially bored with it too.

[binart]

SPEAKING OF SRPA

it's starting back up next week in a different format!! o:

so basically i can't draw long-form comics and have enough time to do anything else :'( there's too much work for just one person!! 

BUT I NEED TO TELL THIS STORY SO BAD, so i'm going to write it!! and like. make drawings for important parts :D like i did with my fic WAHPCR way back in the day.. APOLOGIES TO THE COMIC ENJOYERS BUT I HOPE U CAN UNDERSTAND!! i'm juggling my klance brainworms with my MMO brainworms while also working on improving my art and there's just NOT ENOUGH TIME TO BE THE WRITER/ARTIST/EVERYTHING FOR A COMIC THAT COULD GO WELL OVER ANOTHER 200 PAGES!! and the idea of never being able to finish SRPA is stinky because i have too many cute ideas for lance and keith in it kjhdghfd

Here's the trigger warnings in advance! Please give them a read before engaging with the story:

TW Graphic depictions of violence, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, depressed characters, near-death experiences, self-doubt

i think that's it? if there's anything else i'll be adding it at the beginning of every new chapter. HGHGHGHH I HOPE U GUYS ARE GONNA LIKE IT and i'm desperate for feedback so....... 🙏 BLEAS.

[northwest-cryptid]

If you interact with my Native issues posts, I see you, I appreciate you; and you're a real one. I cannot tell you how sad it is to me that I can post anything about Gaza (which is important) and get tons of reblogs and shit; I can post anything about LGBT issues (which is also important) and get a ton of reblogs and comments and all that. I can post anything about Black issues, Genocide, Antisemitism, Ableism (you know, all important things to talk about and raise awareness for) and I'll come back to almost immediately like 30 - 50 notifications.

Then I say "hey you guys realize this shit is happening to Natives?" and it's SILENCE.

Nothing.

Maybe 1 - 5 notes.

Most of the time it's not reblogs.

Sometimes I even get anon hate telling me I'm wrong/selfish and need to shut up.

This is the state of being Native in a world that says "Down with Sexism, down with Racism, down with Genocide! Unless it's going to stop me from enjoying my extremely racist mobile games or MMOs that exploit my attachment to/dependency on waifuism... but I won't tolerate goblins that have stereotypes!"

Like I cannot tell you how much it sucks to see everyone lose their minds when Hogwarts Legacy came out and we were all on board with "hey these goblins, who are the main antagonist of the game; have Jewish stereotypes and that's wrong" but then it's silence and looking the other way when I go "The Genshin Devs literally referenced Native Americans for their main antagonists and fodder enemies." IT'S THE SAME THING.

Like what am I supposed to take away from that silence?

And worse over is every time I say this I get hate for it, I get yelled at about how others matter too. YES THEY DO, BUT SO DO WE. I'm not saying others don't matter, I'm saying we're never given the same fucking consideration!

[vivifrage]

I think with Lightfall like. It's fun. I had a good time. A blast, even! Especially with the gameplay, even when I got frustrated because I was playing Legendary and I'm not a good gamer.

It's action movie fun. Which is what it intended to be, really, from all the tropes and the pacing of it. But it got bodied with sudden roadmap changes and Witch Queen as video game Oscar bait.

Yeah, I think it could have used a breather to bond more with Rohan especially, but there was in-game justification for going fast and I'm sure the format A Destiny Expansion(tm) limited the team. We saw it bad in Witch Queen's seasons, and Bungie acknowledged that yeah the seasons structure was limiting them. As someone who works in software dev, nobody likes having to make things worse. But it happens a lot. Sometimes in really bullshit ways that the software folks wouldn't expect to be that level of bullshit, let alone anyone who isn't working with the software day in and day out. And by bullshit I mean "massive overhaul of the entire system just to make one tiny change" kinds of bullshit. Again, nobody likes it. I promise you.

Back to Lightfall. It's a fun action movie. It's also the plot point we'd been hurtling towards since Witch Queen, and probably even well before that: The Darkest Hour. We're struggling to use this new power in time, the mysteries around us have unraveled but in the end it's too late for us to get the upper hand, and it nearly costs us everything. In the year beforehand, we'd been losing in one way or another at the end of the seasons: Crow kills the Psion, our rituals fail to stop Calus, Eramis gets away, Rasputin dies. The Witness accesses the Traveler.

What it also does is it sets up the rest of the year for our Triumphant Finale. We get a thread to follow - how to get into the Traveler - and chase it through the year, alongside other threads like what the Veil is and how we're gonna deal with Xivu Arath. As of the end(ish) of Wish, we've got our answer and are primed for The Final Shape as our finale.

But first we had to have The Darkest Hour. Which, in the short term, being what it is, is a bummer. No getting around it. It's also part of why comparisons to Witch Queen went awry, IMO.

Witch Queen is, as I said before, the Oscar bait, insofar as an MMO looter-shooter has Oscar bait. It puts the tangled web front and center instead of tracing one thread and then zooming out to show the whole thing. It's more philosophical in nature, sitting back and asking us whether we think we're special and what really separates us from one of the enemies we hadn't forged alliances with yet: the Hive. And, of course, if we'd noticed the puppetmaster behind it all. It ties up the question that's been going on since Forsaken: are we the bad guys? (No, not really, we're struggling to survive the way everyone else is. Which, nobody else we've been fighting is really "the bad guy" either.)

It's a really good storyline! I loved it, even if, honestly, I didn't like the gameplay as much as Lightfall. I think it's earned its good reviews and positive reception.

But it is the Oscar bait. And unlike Lightfall, its plot role didn't require the same downer ending. It could sprawl, and honestly? I don't think it would have worked as our Darkest Hour. Not without screwing up the story and making a jumbled mess. Seriously, I don't think Destiny's "everyone gets a second chance" philosophy would have carried well at all if The Darkest Hour was when the Hive got Ghosts. Instead it would have reinforced our misconception at the beginning of Lightfall - that we are the sole rightful Lightbearers and that the Hive getting the Light was a wrongdoing.

Destiny did need something between Witch Queen and The Final Shape. And they moved things - but announced it less than a year before Lightfall released. At their big press conference-y deal, but still. Limited time for folks to get the news.

And then it came out and it was an action movie, not Oscar bait. But it followed Oscar bait, so that's what the expectation was.

Personally, I'm fond of, say, Moonlight. Fantastic movie. Beautiful and heartfelt. I enjoyed it and I think it is worthy of its high praise. But if you ask me what my favorite movie is, I'll say it's a tossup between Pacific Rim and Mad Max: Fury Road. They fit different niches in the cultural ecosystem - Moonlight isn't a bad Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim isn't a bad Moonlight. Not unless you pit them against each other despite their vast differences.

Also I remember there was lots of complaining about how empty Neomuna was at first, but everything about the CloudArk and especially the lorebook is such early pandemic-era fiction.

Lightfall is a good action movie. Witch Queen is good Oscar bait. Both of them have their strong points and weak points. There are technical factors that limit things. There are other external factors that limit things (looking at you, upper management).

It's fair to critique a story but like, I dunno. Bungie's devs, writers, and artists aren't idiots or evil or out to get you specifically. Lightfall is fine but you can't - and shouldn't - expect it to be Witch Queen.

Please, for the love of everything holy, don't let us repeat the nasty bitchy maelstrom we got around Lightfall. Or I'll start shitting in ovens.

[jorisjurgen]

I'M CRAZY. I'M CRAZY. I'M INSANE.

Ok so firstly, we all know that Kerubim and Atcham and Ush keep their memories of past lives. It's kind of silly to assume otherwise considering it's canon, and has been canon for years. (I say in the voice that implies i've been in 5 twitter fights about this with people who don't know about dofus MMO ecaflip lore.)

But i WAS afraid they'd keep it ambiguous for casual fans, by having Atch and Keke call Joris "dad" all the time again. I'm glad they're utilizing more of Joris's petnames besides "dad" this time around.

BUT I DID NOT EXPECT THEM TO CALL JORIS "JOJO", LIKE IN THE PAST? Especially when he expressed that he's too "grown up" for it in the movie. I guess Joris came around to it eventually?

Kerubim says it so protectively. He loves his son so much. I can't do this anymore.,..

Just... somethingsomething... the inherent tragedy of living with your parents for 600 years of codependency, them using all the same childish petnames they've always used for you, and living in the same exact childhood room. While being an adult man.

He can't leave the nest. He's grown into the nest, and now it's a part of him and his innards. He'll never be free.

On a less serious note JORIS PLUSHIE ENJOYER AGENDA IS REAL?!??!? HE DOES LOVE PLUSHES?!?!? HE HAS MULTIPLE OF THEM IN HIS SHITTY MESSY ADHD-NEST OF A BEDROOM. LMAO. ALSO THE MULTIPLE PILLOWS. I CAN'T.

idk how fandom still takes his "ough im so uptight, im so Cool and serious" façade so seriously still. He's worn a cute apron in the manga. He said "yugo me and my family can't stop losing dofus. you HAVE to take it from me." in the ova. he broke into ush's home to free his torture victims in the remington comic and said "Okie dokie" to them as he was freeing them. He was late to the battle with Nox. He is NOT a cool or serious guy. He's a messy dumb bitch with a very well-maintained façade of coolness at best.

..This is so unserious, i can't.