#even reddit is questioning why it just seems like a dlc

[iodotsys]

Tears of the Kingdom is just kinda feeling like a very expensive Breath of the Wild DLC. :/

[geminialchemist]

I made this originally as a comment on a post on Reddit, but it seemed well liked, so I thought I’d expand on it a little and make it a post here on Tumblr.

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree abound, don’t read any farther if you don’t want the ending spoiled.

I really loved a lot of the lore about Miquella up until the big reveal that he Miquellested Mohg, and was bringing back Radahn as his consort. I remember finding the crosses across the land, and then finding the one in the fissure, and seeing that he abandoned his love there, and man, that was so good, so chilling to see that Miquella, known for his compassion and kindness, had thrown that away. We were going from cross to cross, learning just how much he was willing to mutilate and change himself for godhood… only for him to cling to a childhood crush he had on his older brother. That’s lame. Like, really lame. And gross!

And Mohg. I know we joke about how he beat the allegations, but remember that he needed to wed an Empyrean for his plans to work out with the Formless Mother. These plans he already had in place before Miquella charmed him, since Sir Ansbach was already a Pureblood Knight working under Mohg before Mohg was charmed, meaning Mohg had already established the foundations of his dynasty. That means Mohg was going to go after either Miquella or Malenia, since they were the only Empyreans left, and tell me, which one sounds like the easier target, the small child, or the undefeated champion? Miquella was always going to be taken by Mohg, the retcon just exists to make Miquella look more morally questionable while stripping Mohg of a bit of his agency and villainous identity. The entire Mohg portion feels like a rewrite when the entire reason he was charmed by Miquella is because he had some unspecified way into the Shadow Lands, and it’s never really talked about ever again. Mohg’s entire purpose in this plan comes off as an afterthought, with no specifications as to why he was needed, other than a vague “he was needed.” Even the use of his body to resurrect Radahn is unexplained as far as I know, though I headcanon that it’s due to Radahn’s body being too rotted after the centuries of Scarlet Rot infecting it, and they needed a demigod’s body, so Mohg was the only one to use available, but it would have been nice if that had been explained.

Godwyn would have been better as a final boss, and it didn’t even need to be actually Godwyn to work, since I know some people don’t think that would work from a lore perspective since his souls is gone, and his full return would wreck the Duskborn ending. Of course, “gone” is weird way to put it, since his soul isn’t destroyed, it’s in whatever afterlife exists in Elden Ring and just not being reincarnated like everyone else who dies after the rune of Death was removed, so Miquella could maybe work a way to get him back. The DLC is in the Shadow Lands, where all things that die pass through, after all. Get rid of Mohg being brainwashed, but keep his body being used so that Sir Ansbach, one of the best NPCs, still has a quest to follow in putting Mohg’s body to a proper rest. It also makes sense, Godwyn’s body is really messed up, bloated, and multiplying all over the Lands Between like a cancer, and can’t be used for ressurection.

Still, I think a failed Godwyn would be better. Maybe we skip the whole Promised Consort part, and just have it be the first act of Godhood Miquella does, because ew, am I tired of the incest surrounding Miqella’s character. Godwyn The Golden starts the fight off back in his prime, doing loads of attacks infused with Holy damage, coming off as the perfect and powerful Demi-god he’s always stated as being in the lore. Then he starts falling apart at phase 2, his phase 1 attacks being switched to being ghostflame infused rather than holy, Miquella now on his back and any new attacks added to phase 2 take on the holy affinity due to his presence. Then phase 3 hits, no holy infinity at all, all attacks do ghostflame or deathblight buildup. Deathblight is already so underused, so it would be great here. Godwyn is falling apart faster the more we fight, and Miquella, holding on, is getting hurt by the ghostflame and deathblight while desperately trying to keep his beloved brother together.

Have the fight set during an eclipse, too, sorta like the final boss of Dark Souls 3, the Soul of Cinder. Really tie it into the lore of Miquella trying to bring Godwyn back, like we find out at Castle Sol, where he had hoped to use an eclispe. I’d even say to make the light from behind the eclipse change color as the fight rages on, starting off bright and holy, and change it to the horrid dark grey and sickly yellow that deathblight has by the third phase, so rather than the arena getting brighter than a flash bang like it is in canon, have it get darker and gloomier. And of course, after the fight, the eclipse has faded entirely.

Instead of a cutscene that is nothing but information we already know(Seriously, what was even the point of the cutscene we got? It gave us not a single piece of new information), Miquella is lying on the floor, mostly dead, much like Morgott after we beat him in Leyndell. He isn’t dying because of us(honestly, I don’t even know why he died in the DLC, he’s so high up on Radahn’s back we never really get a chance to hit him directly, but he dies when Radahn does for whatever reason), instead he’s dying from clinging so tightly to Godwyn and trying to hold him together, burned by ghostflame and deathblight. He laments that even as a god, he wasn’t able to fix anything. Not his sister, not his brother, not the Haligtree, none of his plans ever work. No matter the sacrifices, personal or otherwise. He’s a failure in every way, and the knowledge breaks him as he sobs and dies.

However, if you visited every cross before the boss fight, you can absorb the essence of Miquella’s discarded body, and if you beat him then, you’ll get the option to return his discarded flesh and emotions after the fight. Doing so heals him, and gives him back everything he discarded, like his love, his fears and doubts. He fades away into light particles, and if you sit at the grace in the arena, he’ll appear like Melina does, sitting across from you and with a healed character model. This gets a few bits more dialogue, some exposition, yadda yadda. He’s a god without a consort, you’re a lord without a throne. He’s unsure, and not confident it will work, but maybe if you work together, something good can come of this tragedy? Giving up now would just be spiting in the faces of everyone he’s hurt. You’re strong enough to stop him if he loses his way again. (I think the reason he chose Radahn in canon was because of his strength and kindness? He trusted Radahn to do what was right after he threw away his love and compassion, entrusting Radahn to lead him down the right path when he lacked those things, and to be strong enough to resist his charm. That’s again entirely headcanon due to our lack of knowledge about their vow, but I’m adding it here because this is MY fanfiction and I can do whatever I like!)

(This part is more of a personal bit I’d have liked added because I find it amusing, rather than because I think it would make it better. Remember when you go through all that trouble to find Fia, and she asks if you’ve come all this way to kill her, and you can just say “No, I want to be held,” and it’s the funniest chunk of text you get in game? I really wanted something like that with Miquella. He wants to know why you came all this way, entered the Shadow Lands, a sealed off region of the world where only death awaits, where you fought against insurmountable odds, all to get to Miquella, presumably to stop him, only to heal him at the last moment, in which you can straight up tell him to his face you want to be his consort, and he’s just as confused and amused as Fia was. He knows you aren’t under his charm, but still he questions if it’s possible you are if you went this far just for that.)

This unlocks a new ending for the base game, the Age of Compassion. You summon Miquella like you would Ranni after beating Elden Beast, and together you usher in a kinder world, this time without the brainwashing. Or maybe with the brainwashing. Or perhaps it’s vague about the brainwashing, and if this is a good or bad ending in classic Fromsoft fashion. I’d prefer no brainwashing, and Miquella still unsure if things will work out, with it ending ambiguous if the Age of Compassion lasts, or fumbles and falls to a world blind to it. All you and Miquella can do is hope it will be better.

That might be a lot to ask, but look, it’s the only way I’ll ever get to live out my fantasy of being fought over by a cold, goth witch gf and a soft femboy twink with hair longer than I am tall, okay?

[koskela-knights]

The Cult, the FBC & the RCU

This is going to be a long post about how I think involving the FBC and trying to connect AW2 to the bigger RCU has rendered the Cult of the Tree storyline useless/irrelevant in the big scheme of things and thus made a rather strong start turn unsatisfactory in the end. I'll also try to express why I don't always like this RCU and how it ties into this 'Marvelization/MCU-fication' we see in a lot of media in general. As always, these are just my opinions

Cult of the Tree Case

The big and main reason Saga Anderson goes to Bright Falls is because of the ritualistic murders taking place. AKA, the work of the Cult of the Tree is coming to light. This basically kicks off the whole narrative on Saga's side of the story. Throughout a large part of the game, you try to collect clues and evidence, trying to unravel the mystery of the Cult of the Tree and its motives, and motivations. There's a whole case folder/file dedicated to this in the Mind Place.

You encounter some Cult Takens and overall, the game presents the Cult as this invisible enemy, a looming threat or very ambiguous in their interests at best. You see multiple signs, Cult stashes, notes, etc. All to keep you guessing and engaged, thinking about what the Cult might be up to. Even in some trailers, they play the Cult (although it's mainly Taken Cult members) as main enemies.

Eventually, you learn that the goofy silly commercial guys are behind the Cult of the Tree. Before Saga can ask Ilmo questions and before he can explain himself to her, he gets arrested by the FBC who take over Saga's case. (It just felt a bit strange to me that there was no room for Saga trying to profile Ilmo right there or ask more questions. Like yeah, I get the arrest was intended to be abrupt, but knowing Saga I feel she would want to know Ilmo's side, especially how surprised she was at him being a Cult member)

The big plot twist of the Cult being good is a completely optional conversation with Ilmo after Jaakko's death. But it no longer matters either way. Saga completes her case board on the Cult and goes to try to summon Alan Wake from the lake. There are no afterthoughts or more questions or anything relevant to the Cult. That plotline completely dissolves, even Saga no longer brings it up anymore. I already talked about Ilmo's arc being dropped and the same goes for the Cult part. The Cult that very much kickstarted Saga's story. The lodge attack, the lodge slaughter, Jaakko's death, it all didn't matter. Hell, The only thing that seems to be 'remembered' is that Scratch wears a cool, blood-covered jacket while fighting Saga.

The FBC, the North Star episode & the RCU, part of something bigger

FBC

For a few months, I was okay with the FBC's involvement. But the longer I think about it, the more I feel the FBC-introduced arc came at the cost of the Cult of the Tree's arc's more satisfying end instead of an abrupt one. This isn't to say that I wanted a 'happy ending' or whatever for the Cult story, I just didn't want it to be thrown aside like that, rendering all that case work useless/irrelevant. With all the buildup to the Cult, you'd expect more. (Someone on Reddit had similar thoughts: thinking Ilmo and what's left of the Cult would maybe show up later to help out or smth) The overall ending felt rushed in that regard.

I get what Remedy is doing. Trying to connect their universes for the RCU: Remedy Connected Universe.

But how they've gone about it, isn't always in favour of the main story. This proves even more so, in the Night Springs DLC's episode with Jesse.

I think AW2 should be able to stand on its own and as, of course, the direct sequel to AW1. Which it does most of the time. The FBC monitoring station at the beginning was a great nod to hint at Control's universe expanding to AW's. For those who have played Control (like myself) some things were more obvious as to why they were in Bright Falls. The gamer I watched play through AW2, didn't play Control which sometimes left him a bit confused about the FBC but he got through the game without too much confusion about them.

North Star episode

This is still a personal opinion but this episode was the weakest for me. And a part of that is because of the narrative and how you basically have to be familiar with Control's story and its MC, Jesse for this chapter to even present something interesting. It's also how the plot twist about Dylan suddenly being Alan fails an audience that never played Control (thanks @zephyrone01 for pointing that out). But besides that plot twist falling flat without pre-Control knowledge, it's also tougher to get invested in Jesse as a character and her quest.

Who is this woman? (AW-only players might make the connection to Tim's whiteboard mentioning a red-haired woman) What is 'Polaris'? Why do I suddenly have *some* powers? Why is she here in Coffee World looking for her brother? What's their deal?

Even as someone who played Control, this episode felt so detached from it. No high stakes, no emotional investment (which I also talked about, how they could've made NPCs that would engage the player more) I learned nothing new about Jesse, there was no real interesting different angle or perspective. Not to mention the strange decision about leaving the founders of CW out of this story completely, but again, that's something I talked about before. As an alternate universe/version, we only saw Coffee World look slightly different but other than the altered aesthetics, nothing interesting about it.

The RCU - MCU

A multiverse, multiple connecting stories is nothing new. We see this with Marvel and DC a lot. But that's something that irks me with the last Marvel movies. Some of these movies can't fully stand on their own. They're full of characters and (story) references to other Marvel movies and shows. It's hard to keep track of 10+ movies/shows and storylines (only for character's arcs to get butchered, dropped, retconned)

I prefer it if some things simply stand on their own, without having to have a bunch of pre-knowledge of another franchise that happens to be in the same universe. In this case, mainly knowing AW1 should suffice. Besides, we have the second co-protagonist Saga to sort of ease completely new players into the AW-verse already!

So in that regard, I think that Jesse's episode couldn't really stand on its own without having played or known Control and its story/characters.

Even Tim's chapter leans more into the QB-verse, but at least the more general idea of multiverses is familiar to the average gamer. Tim's episode had more things going for it that made it a more satisfying episode overall.

I don't want AW2 to be just a stepping stone to Control 2. I'm here for the continuation of AW1 with a new AW2-related cast. In a pessimistic way, I don't want AW2 characters and stories to be dropped aside for a Control character for a sequel that may never be able to be released. Why give us new AW grounded characters, only to drop them in favour of the FBC, mainly an organization from another game?

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am. 

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted. 

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother. 

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren) 

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed). 

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I’m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be. 

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :( 

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t. 

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Empire

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Adrestian Empire I therefore have below the male Eagles, Crimson Flower-exclusive Jeritza, former Imperial noble Hanneman, and...Seteth, because he’s the closest thing to a non-self-insert lord figure in Silver Snow and because he had to end up somewhere. As I said, not very neat.

The Kingdom

The Alliance

Hubert

His profile is sparsely filled out and his photo less than promising, but the select few who catch his eye will be treated to a courteous (if mildly acidic) barrage of introductory messages and polite requests to meet over coffee or a light lunch, no dick pics or requests for same in sight. It’s only after the exchange of small talk has passed that someone - could be you, could be him - brings up why he has kink as a listed interest, opening up a Pandora’s box of horrors as he casually shows you some of his photo collections. Asses red from whips and floggers, scrotums stuck through with pins, barbed cock rings, electrified nipple clamps, and ghastly shots of the man himself, his mouth dripping with blood over a fresh bite wound on his teary-eyed partner’s shoulder. He is, he explains, a Dom at heart - and the rougher the better. What he doesn’t explain and likely never will is that all that pain play and torture porn neatly covers for the fact that he’s less endowed and less skilled in that area than he’d be willing to admit, or that he harbors a secret longing to be Dommed himself, probably by someone close to him who has no interest whatsoever. He takes his career very seriously although you’ll never learn exactly what that entails, but you have a sneaking suspicion that whatever it is enables all those coldly violent impulses he displays in the bedroom.

Favorite erotic tea time subjects: CBT, vore, femdom

Favored gift: stiletto heels, for use on his face

Ferdinand

Within a minute of talking to him you know his full name, what prominent public figure(s) he’s related to, and where he plans on going with his life, in an overwhelming display of lack of concern for keeping his private life private that would be worrying if he didn’t pair it with an indefatigable self-confidence. The type of gentleman who expects flowers and opened doors and one person to pay for a whole date and coy blushing about going back to his place for some tea, but what unfolds afterwards may be surprising to anyone who wasn’t picking up on the subtext during the night out: that you’re dealing with a toned and vigorous vers/bottom who longs to lie back and be taken care of but absolutely will never turn down a challenge or request no matter how much it demands of him or how expertly he will be able to rise to the occasion. Long practice and some truly enviable thighs (he’s a noted equestrian, and loves showing off his album of favorite horses) let him milk a cock for hours - nearly as long as the subsequent pillow talk will be. It’s little wonder more than one of his lovers has had the idea to gag him...or to fuck him somewhere outside his bedroom once they go in and find the walls plastered with posters of his favorite pop and stage divas staring at you. Prime trophy husband material, wealthy and well-connected and fetching on anyone’s arm, but there’s no question that he’ll only be truly happy if he’s with someone who can challenge him to step out of his unusually large comfort zone: socially, professionally, or sexually.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: edging, crossdressing, fisting

Favored gift: a horse cock dildo, for his much-lauded huge hole

Linhardt

A master at genuinely negligent ghosting, it’ll take a minor miracle to actually arrange a meeting with this guy. Either he never answers, or he does but only to snap at you because he’s busy and only even logged into the app because his mind wandered for a second. Still, he draws a lot of attention from those into geeky twinks. Is not into foreplay, and can scarcely be bothered to maintain interest long enough to even stay hard unless you get lucky enough to hit on one of his subjects of recent fascination. Never offers to do anything in bed, and will in fact pick up his phone to browse through Wikipedia and Reddit while he’s being penetrated. Calling him out for his appalling lack of manners will get nothing more than a wry snort and a quick summary of whatever’s currently got his attention. Never cums, doesn’t seem to want to cum, and guys creative enough to try to ride him are often disappointed that he’s more likely to grumble that all that bouncing on his pelvis is making it impossible for him to catch a power nap. Just about the only way to fully get him invested is to get really weird - introduce him to some fetish he’s never thought to try. Incest kink, breeding kink, role reversals, elaborate roleplay...the more cerebral the better, because the physical stuff tends to put him off (especially blood play, which is his hard limit). Needless to say most aren’t up to that task, and so he’s nonchalantly left a trail of frustrated and disappointed men in his wake.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: somnophilia, historical roleplay, mpreg

Favored gift: a long-lasting vibrator, so he can stick it in and let it work while he’s otherwise occupied

Caspar

No amount of headless torso pics and carefully scaled dick pics will be enough for his ego, but encountering him in person will reveal that he’s not so much vain or delusional masc4masc as really, really compensating for something. This manifests as a deep-rooted resentment against guys taller than him or, ahem, better-proportioned, but his preference of sexual partners does not reflect his prejudices - which is fortunate for him given his measurements. Loud and energetic in all things, and it shocks no one that he’s a screamer in bed but also can’t last for very long once he really gets going. Lucky for everyone that his refractory period is unusually brief, although that leaves him deflecting odd inquiries into whatever substances he may be on (he’s clean and always has been, hard as that is for anyone to believe). Likes to top for the workout, but he won’t say no to riding a good dick. Has an unexpected sentimental side he’s not very good at expressing except indirectly, in the same way that he’s apparently oblivious to his casual innuendos. It will take someone very patient to put up with him, but the reward is (probably) worth it for the body alone provided he’s got a sufficient outlet for all that energy. Would be perfect for an active poly relationship or long-term FWB situation so no one guy has to manage him alone, but he’d have to be at the center of any such arrangement lest his numerous insecurities rear their heads. Is not into incest kink.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: post-workout sex, multiple orgasms, autofellatio (he wishes)

Favored gift: condoms a size too big for him, because even safe sex should be an opportunity for bragging

Seteth

He doesn’t share nudes, and says upfront that he’ll block anyone who asks or opens conversation with one. Seems to be genuinely interested in friendship over anything else, although he’s not great at small talk in text and would rather chat over snacks on a park bench or at one of the numerous community events he likes to organize. Is a family man through and through: devoted to his loved ones, quiet in his hobbies, and unusually spiritual in an orthodox church-going way. You start to wonder if he’s even into men or if his presence on the apps was just a very strange fluke, but he holds his handshakes just a little too long and progresses quicker to hugs and quietly intimate arm touches. Discussion of his prior love life is strictly off limits, but many months down the road when you finally get invited into his bed it’s clear that he’s no blushing virgin and is adept in the use of fingers, tongue, and cock for fully satisfying his partner. He might even bottom, although he’ll blush about being long out of practice in that area which suggests a wealth of untold stories by itself. He also may be, somehow, the only man in existence who knows what intercrural is and how to do it. Blessed with stamina far beyond what might be suggested by his age (which he only reveals several weeks into your acquaintance, another point of embarrassment for him), your encounters are far more likely to end with a phone call from one of the innumerable people who look up to him and depend upon his reliable if fussy sense of duty than it is from him tiring out. Fond of fishing, and known to take dates out to cast a line and then maybe have some naughty fun afterward. Does not appreciate being called a daddy, but he’s been known to accept big bro as an occasional slip-up.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: discipline, incest kink, scalies

Favored gift: your STI testing history, because he doesn’t mess around with that stuff

Hanneman

A polite if unassuming silver daddy, with no sugar for the obvious escorts but the cushy professional post and generosity to make him appealing to a less openly mercantile sort of young man. His chosen field is not an easy subject for light conversation, but damned if he doesn’t try his best regardless. His favorite tactic might be finding some way of applying his work to something about his date, no matter how tenuous the connection or how unwelcome the observations. Not super fit and doesn’t get out much so as the night is winding down he’s not good for very much other than intermittent blowjobs and even more languid handjobs, although a truly dedicated partner might coax something more out of him with help from a little blue pill or two...and maybe some poppers, because he’s old enough to remember when everyone used those. Despite his reputation for mildly inappropriate perving on guys young enough to be his sons - some of which he acquired in a professional context, with some of his favorite anecdotes of past trysts involving junior lab techs/TAs/secretaries/others among his subordinates - he’s not actually averse to fooling around with men closer to his own age, although he’s more awkward about it since he’s a bit out of his element when he’s no longer the only experienced voice of wisdom in the room. Either way, if there’s one thing he hates it’s sloppiness, whether in one’s personal or professional life. As a result he avoids bars like the plague and has little patience for drunks. Contrary to this fastidiousness however his advances in his career are such that he may one day do something radical and ill-advised in the pursuit of knowledge; one only hopes that the various skeletons hiding in his closet don’t come back to haunt him - with regret or harassment lawsuits or who only knows what else.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: medical kink, teacher/student, cock milking

Favored gift: consent to video encounters, for future reference

Jeritza

The kind of rough trade all your friends warned you about...except he’s not rough trade, not really. Deeply troubled and disarmingly attractive is a deadly combination, and he thrives in a medium where one-word responses and explicit pics are considered perfectly commonplace. Encounters with him are quick and rough and nearly anonymous, always in the dark and with little opportunity to see or interact with him apart from the hands grasping you to him and the admittedly impressive cock jabbing into you from whatever angle he can manage. He’s had the threat of assault charges or worse thrown at him more than once, but it’s never made him any more considerate or careful. To the very rare individual who keeps returning for more the most explanation he’ll ever provide is that he becomes someone else when pursuing sex, someone hard and violent and not at all like the person he insists that he is. This is something he ties into some deep-seated trauma, but there’s something distinctly insincere about the underlying psychology as if it were only an excuse for an abuse fetish run wild. Pretty much all of his tricks ghost him at that point, wanting to get as far as away as possible from a true crime drama just waiting to happen. Curiously enough if he ever does find a long-term partner it won’t be with the expected extreme masochist - expect them only to show up in a police report one day, with extremely gory pictures - but with someone who can match his lustful bloodlust with more of the same and who is totally comfortable throwing around death threats that at some point transform into only moderately disturbing innuendos. 

Favored erotic tea time subjects: masks, blood play, asphyxiation

Favored gift: anything sweet he can lick off your body...because it’s either that or viscera

[plumrabbit]

Red lyrium, Titans, the Evanuris, Mythal and Solas - theories and sporadic thoughts

A few of us have been chatting (aka tinfoiling) on Discord about the possible past events involving the Evanuris, red lyrium, titans and etc. and came up with a little post about how we think a number of these factors tie in together.

We’ll start off with things that we (meaning the fandom) are quite sure about:

1. Lyrium is blood of titans and because of this is alive (the Descent DLC)

2. Red lyrium is tainted blood that has the blight in the sense of contagious corruption (“Well, Shit”–DAI, Varric’s companion quest)

3. There are statues of Mythal in the deep roads (Trespasser DLC)

4. The blight (in the sense of an event with an archdemon/darkspawn) allegedly first came about because magisters, including the Architect and Corypheus, tried to usurp the golden city

5. The idol looks a bit like Mythal/Flemeth (somewhat subjective but very compelling)

Of course there are many more, but these are just the ones that pertain to the theory we’ve been discussing.

Now there are things that haven’t necessarily been confirmed or are unknown:

1. How lyrium became tainted into red lyrium

2. Who created the red lyrium idol (knowledge that it was found in the primeval Thaig in a Dwarven ruin notwithstanding)

3. What exactly is in the Golden/Black city

4. Who exactly the Forgotten Ones are (we only know the story from the side of the Evanuris/what was passed down)

There have also been some awesome fan theories:

1. The Red Lyrium Idol looks like Solas holding Flemeth at the end of the main quests of DAI - there have been a lot of super interesting interpretations and descriptions of this phenomenon (does this mean that a new cycle of some sort is repeating?)

2. Evanuris orbs are Titan hearts (u/nouvlesse)

3. The idol was fashioned in Mythal’s image as a result of her role in something to do with lyrium

4. Does the current state of Tevinter/Magisters/rebel mages mirror what occurred with the Evanuris and Arlathan in the past (a new cycle repeating? Bioware seems to love playing with the idea of history repeating itself…just a theory)?

We know that the Evanuris were extremely powerful mages, and it’s been suggested (confirmed?) that they hunted Titans and were the first to mine and make use of lyrium, and potentially the Titans’ hearts as their orbs (u/nouvlesse on reddit). Perhaps they even used the lyrium and orbs to control the “lesser” Elves, enslaving them (I believe it was u/nouvlesse that made a post about this, also Fenris’ vallaslin being lyrium-infused?).

Here’s where we started tinfoiling about the chronological events leading up to the creation of the Veil, followed by DA events. What if Mythal somehow used the lyrium to create some kind of people/race? She is known as the “mother” after all, and there are statues of her in the Deep Roads as we see in Trespasser. And what if these new people, being synthetically created and whatnot, were somewhat mindless? And what if the Evanuris used this new expendable population as their army against the Forgotten Ones? And what if the Titans didn’t like what was being done with their blood, and used magic to twist their “offspring” into something corrupted to fight back (this idea was somewhat spurred by Game of Thrones - Children of the Forest/Night King, also “they made bodies out of the earth, and the earth was afraid…”)? And what if this new, corrupted race was the original darkspawn? And what if Mythal was the one to say “you’ve gone too far”, and the reason the Evanuris killed her was to stop her from destroying something they believed would grant them unending, substantial power? Did the darkspawn eventually get sealed away somehow, and the Tevinter magisters were indeed the ones that released them?

Now the question is, how does Solas fit into all this? We know that the Evanuris had slaves, marked by their vallaslin. It’s been suggested multiple times that Solas was originally a slave (“he left a mark when he burned her off his face”, also the fact that he absolutely despises enslavement in any form). Perhaps he was recruited into the upper ranks after some show of his magic ability (shapeshifter [wolf] maybe? This idea was in a recent Twitter post that Patrick replied to), and intelligence. The relationship between Mythal and Solas has had a lot of speculation behind it, and if he did indeed have her vallaslin, it’s also another point of interest as to when he figured out how to burn it off. It’s possible that they had a mentor-student relationship, it’s possible they had unrequited feelings for each other. A number of people have postulated the romantic route because of the parallelisms of Mythal with Andraste and Flemeth, that being having jealous, abusive husbands, as well as a love affair with some kind of rebel (the way they speak at the end of the main quest suggests platonic, though, yet in an uncomfortable manner, at least IMO [power dynamic?]). Either way, they were likely in cahoots when it came to freeing the Elven slaves and leading the rebellion against what they believed was corruption in the ranks of the highest powers of Arlathan. Perhaps Mythal was a double agent (I made a post about how ravens and wolves have a symbiotic relationship IRL and ravens are the “eyes” of wolves so that sort of ties into this idea).

Moving on to present DA issues…

Clearly something horrible is going to awaken in a sense (Titans? The Maker? The Forgotten Ones?), perhaps when Solas tears down the Veil, perhaps it’s been inevitable ever since the formation of the Veil and the disruption of magic (I want to say Sandal said something that alludes to this). It seems as though the biggest chunk of information we’re missing right now is the “why” of Solas’ plans - why is he so obsessed? What is the fundamental core of his motivations? Do we have enough knowledge to answer this?

Other things to think about:

1. DA4 “The Dread Wolf Rises” may be a double meaning (Bioware loves that shit): 1. Solas’ rise to magical power in terms of undergoing whatever he has planned, but, 2. perhaps we will also see flashbacks of how exactly he rose to power as a rebel in the first place (somewhat related: it would be hilarious if the DA4 protagonist was a Fen’Harel double agent, that is, actually working for the Inquisition or whatever cause, since one of the themes of DA is corruption in the ranks of a large organization. Irony, ha).

2. What did the world look like when spirits co-existed in the physical plane? Are there any races/peoples that have been associated/merged with spirits? The Avvar provide a good window into this life history/possibility but it’s still a foggy concept.

3. The throne in the Fade (speculated to be in the Black City by @canticle-of-apotheosis) is reminiscent of “The Devil” tarot card (can represent entrapment and obsession with power [upright], but also freedom and the cusp of personal breakthroughs [inverted]. It can also show a strong connection between two people. Interpret that how you will).

4. In general, the amount of Norse mythology in DA lore.

[allofeos]

First of all, apologies for the long post!

Annoyances with continuity between Chapter 9, Episode Ignis map layout, and overall content disparity.

It’s really jarring when you realize that Prompto and Gladio could’ve easily jumped the debris in the canal to check on Ignis. More-so when you get the loading screen of them in-game across the canal from where the DLC begins.

I circled where the loading screen is (the one saying “Here!”) and jotted out where each major event in Episode Ignis is at. The difference in the altar architecture is frustrating too. 

Nothing in the progression makes sense, his costume too for an example. Ignis’ costume was originally only his glasses off, thanks to PS4 save editing users. This was modified in the update in January/February. I’ll go over this again at the end.

That’s without factoring in the in-game time progression too: Chapter 9:

• Noctis at the palace: 10 am / 1000hrs.  • Lunafreya cutscene, then Prompto shows up: 1pm / 1300hrs. 

• Noctis tries asking Leviathan for her power, gets dumped onto the streets: 2pm / 1400hrs. 

• Lunafreya is stabbed by Ardyn, Noctis powered up and hits the altar: 4pm / 1600hrs.

Episode Ignis:

• Ignis is dumped out in the canal through to arriving at the altar: 5pm / 1700hrs.

• Ignis fights Ardyn: 7pm / 1900hrs.  

It’s a giant circle, there is no point to gathering the files and it’s a cop-out in the narrative for this and the party splitting up in the area. It literally takes a short bit in the game itself, to get to the bridge, and get across the canal where Ignis was knocked down to.

The insult for injury was after the all but completely irrelevant files (the file for Caligo is pretty bloody close to his Ultimania page!) for Ignis and Ravus, was that NEITHER of them got even a loading screen that did not provide information as a summary of events.

All of the loading screens featuring Ignis and Ravus within the DLC are ALL summaries of the three chapters, and the action for V2. V2, which managed to also rip off Lunafreya as well? We don’t even have mention of Caligo’s actions against Lunafreya within the Dawn trailer, but apparently Jared Hester’s demise is important enough to make a fuss about in Episode Ignis? Surely, there’s a mistake here, given that Jared Hester is in service to the Amicitia line?

Whilst I can agree that Gladio was ripped off in his own DLC, in contrast to Ignis we have more connections for Gladio, and know more of his personal life and family overall. We literally know fuck all about Ignis beyond him being assigned to work at the age of six.

Brotherhood didn’t even cover what it was supposed to for Ignis!

Tabata: Brotherhood: FFXV is a series of ten-minute animations, with five episodes currently planned, that shed light on how Noctis and his pals ended up traveling together. Normally you’d start an RPG by gathering a party. But in FFXV your allies are with you from the beginning. By illustrating how they came together

Ignis isn’t even brought up in another interview on Brotherhood prior to his episode.

Akio Ôfuji: It also helps show that the backgrounds of the characters in there, there are social standings as it were, so for exemple in the 3rd exemple that we just released we can see Gladio’s house, you can compare that to where Prompto lives.

Prompto’s house is actually quite small whereas Gladio lives in a big mansion. So this show that his family is a lot richer, Prompto’s parents they need to work very hard, they both work to support him and they aren’t particularly wealthy. So you can see the different social classes there.

In fact, Ignis’ little shoebox of an apartment isn’t even featured in the Film Collections Box artbook. The Amicitia mansion is, Prompto’s house is, Noctis’ apartment is, Lunafreya’s quarters within Fenestala Manor is as well. (I’m not even touching on the fact that there’s nothing regarding Ravus in the Lunafreya end of Brotherhood, especially given the Reddit Dataminer dug out that they apparently cut a mention of Ravus out of a flashback too in-game).

We don’t learn anything about Ignis beyond his duties in Brotherhood, Episode Ignis despite it being his DLC. We don’t even learn anything about Ravus in Episode Ignis for that matter either. 

The only personal tidbits we’ve learnt is that he has an uncle that is an attendant in Parting Ways. Even Ignis’ typical dossier doesn’t give us anything out of the normal. The Official Works expanded on it slightly (Ignis being akin to a family member), and in the aforementioned datamine there was a difference in Ignis’ profile which is pointless if they went with his family being advisers or stewards. Why? Because they never give us any information in regard to Ignis’ family whatsoever beyond the off-hand, barely there nod at his apparent uncle in Parting Ways. We never have any sort of notion of his uncle doing anything of the sort beyond relaying whether or not Regis will be permitting an audience with anyone. This means that whatever role written in his dossier is pointless with this lack of information.

With the new content for Comrades, Royal Edition we have absolutely no development whatsoever about Ignis being in his stated role of royal adviser, tactician, senior adviser to the crown, hand of the king and so-on. Gladio has stepped up into Clarus’ role, Prompto is leading the people, Cor is leading the Kingsglaive now, and Ignis is apparently alive, despite his sacrifice... but cooking I guess? Ignis doesn’t even get a little speech from The Mystic in his part of the Kings of Yore/Knights of the Round battle in the new Chapter 14 content. Gladio, Prompto are apparently attractive, but according to the Hero Highlights, Ignis is impressive for trying! That’s seriously it? Are you fucking kidding me? Really?

The same thing happens in regards to the NPCs talking about the guys, Cor and even Ravus being attractive, but the only off-hand comment that isn’t in regards to Ignis cooking is about him having an expensive notebook and questioning if he’s a spy in the no longer available Assassin’s Festival.

There is no backstory for Ignis, there is no real progression and/or development beyond the blindness and choosing to continue onward. Episode Ignis didn’t show us anything beyond loyalty, brotherhood, cooking, and memes about cooking. All of which we’ve known from the beginning and is in no way, shape or form expanding upon his character. 

I am completely on factoring in the content alone (not for fandom-related content), because I do not find nothing but loyalty to be a good basis, particularly given the reasoning in the Official Works is a “secret plan” with no reasoning for it. There’s even a really interesting thought experiment that I think is quite worth a read!

 This is also whilst completely remembering comments that were transcribed by multiple fans attending the 30th Anniversary fan event earlier in the year, the ones specifically about Ignis being difficult to write in contrast to Gladio and Prompto. They gave Ignis more screentime in Chapter 1, of which tend to be a cause of complaints from users being annoyed at being interrupted for certain underlevelled tutorial handling, and game-over mechanic prevention with preventing players from driving below level 30.

If we also tally the sidequests and tours off the top of my head: Ignis:

• Cooking tour.

• Cooking tour.

• Missing spectacles tour.

•  The only possible sidequest to miss in the base/unpatched game, requires you to be in Chapter 3 and at the Chocobo Ranch to pick it up via NPCs talking, and isn’t possible to complete (see the Disc of Cauthess) due to plot limitations. The quest isn’t even ended by Ignis, but rather Prompto and Gladio talking. Ignis has no comment about it!

• The only new addition is the cutscene after Titan, following the Royal/Windows Editions in March this year.

Gladio:

• Running tour.

• Fishing tour.

• Flowers for Iris tour.

• Cup Noodle quest.

• Scene with Titan.

Prompto:

• Photography tours x3.

• Photo ops.

• Photo op quest in Insomnia.

• Additional scenes at the motel with Noctis.

The main point of likely progression following the events of Chapter 9 is only brought up once in Chapter 14. It isn’t even discussed in Comrades: Departure, in contrast to Talcott.

Ignis? Apparently just pops into existence when Noctis is 5 (or 3 when one considers the repeated timeline error in the Ultimania, recently republished in the Official Works despite being amended within the official in-game dossier), and cooks.

In contrast for the DLC, we didn’t know about the connection between Gladio and Cor with Clarus not being around particularly much within the game. For that matter as well, we didn’t know how Prompto ended up within Insomnia despite his origins either. 

However, both tidbits from Gladio, and Prompto’s episodes about the first scar and heritage were actually mentioned in the Piggyback Final Fantasy XV Limited Edition guidebook (ISBN: 1908172983 / 9781908172983). There’s only a bit about Ignis’ duties, and how his hairstyle, glasses were styled as without anything really covering his DLC.

Honestly put, the general feeling seems to be fuck me for wanting to know about Ignis, Ravus in general and have some actual content balance out of a four-man party instead of the current disparity. That goes for all of the bros, just when you tally the actual information up it’s quite clear that Ignis is incredibly lacking.

It’s terrible that with this feeling, that the addition of Ignis with his hair down feels as though it is to make it seem as though there’s a content disparity in Ignis’ favour, when both he and Gladio were all but ripped off with their unlockable costumes.

However, unlike Episode Ignis, Episode Gladio had a unique area, unique bosses. Episode Prompto had a unique area, bosses, a costume for him and Aranea. Ignis didn’t get a unique area, new bosses, new costume beyond glasses which are not exclusive to his DLC as they have been included within Comrades in contrast to the others. The only new boss was Ravus, and Ardyn’s content is no longer exclusive as it has been utilized to rebalance the main game fight for Ardyn.

Ignis didn’t even get a new weapon model in contrast to the other two. According to the Reddit datamine, he did have different daggers originally, but why this was scrapped no one knows.

On the overall, Episode Ignis doesn’t fulfill the initial marketing for it:

And this is on the overall why it fails in multiple ways for covering Ignis properly within his own DLC. 

[skumpitt]

Explaining How Fallout 3′s Plot Is Garbage (Again)

Reposted from my comment on reddit.

Well, aside from the horrible world building (or lack thereof), the plot is pretty bare-bones and at times, nonsensical. The farther into the plot you go, the more it becomes apparent that very little thought went into it. The world is a mess, built like a theme park with little to no cohesion between the various factions and settlements. Everything exists independent of everything else, without any detail as to how the Capital Wasteland functions. Where do people get food? What’s the economy like. That sorta thing. Unfortunately, detailed worldbuilding doesn’t seem to be Bethesda’s thing, unless you count notes attached to skeletons as “worldbuilding”.

But where Fallout 3 falls apart is its main quest. After railroading the player into a war that can literally be summed up as “the good guys fight the bad guys, because they are bad”. A big part of the problem is the lack of original ideas introduced in Fallout 3. Rather than come up with something new, they decided to copy-paste the villains from Fallout and Fallout 2 without any actual reason beyond “hey, these guys were in the last game, so we’re totally staying true to the lore”.

But Super Mutants don’t really have any reason to exist beyond Bethesda needing to add in more bullet sponges for the player to shoot. Unlike Fallout, there’s no real conclusive way to deal with the Super Mutant threat. In the original game, they were the antagonists, and they were lead by an actual villain with motivation and like, dialogue and shit. In Fallout 3, Bethesda needed a familiar enemy type to populate similar-looking dungeons.

In Fallout 2, the Enclave are introduced as the new villains. Super Mutants still exist, but aren’t a force to be reckoned with. In fact, you get to talk to a few of them and learn how the events of the last gave impacted them as a society. In Fallout 3, they’re basically orcs with guns that don’t tie in to the plot at all.

So about 60% of the way through the main plot, we’re introduced to the Enclave, who are now taking over as the main antagonists. What they actually want, however, is a mystery. In Fallout 2, they were genocidal maniacs. Pretty cut and dry. But in Fallout 3, it’s not clear what the Enclave’s master plan even is. We know that Eden wants to continue the Enclave’s traditional genocidal values, but he isn’t actually the antagonist. Augustus Autumn is. And what he wants, again, is a mystery.

We know he opposed Eden, but what he actually wants is never elaborated upon. What are his values, his goals, his motivation? What makes him tick? If we don’t even know what the antagonist’s motivation is, that’s usually a telltale sign of bad writing.

Compare this to Fallout: New Vegas, which actually allows you to sit down and talk to every major faction leader (and most, if not all, of the minor ones as well) and learn their story. You can actually sit down with Caesar and have a discussion about the failures of democracy and how he feels the NCR needs to be destroyed to stop humanity from regressing again. You can speak with the citizens of the NCR and learn their values, and why they’re opposed to the Legion. You can listen to House, who will explain to you his plan to save humanity. That’s the common thread in all of the good Fallout antagonists. Generally, they all want what’s best for humanity. Their motivations are directly tied to the series’ central themes of war and progress.

Ashur is a good example of this from Fallout 3. He may have done things that you detest, but you can also understand where he’s coming from, even if you don’t agree with him. Of course, you actually get to choose to side with him, something the main quest in Fallout 3 doesn’t do. Instead, you’re railroaded into siding with the Brotherhood of Steel, who have since been stripped of all moral ambiguity and basically everything that made them interesting in order for them to be generic good guys whose goal is to save everyone. In fact, pretty much everything in Fallout 3 is morally black or white, and that makes for a pretty uninteresting story unless you really ham it up.

And I’d be okay with that railroading if, like Fallout, the main villain was interesting or had any real characterisation beyond “I’m the bad guy!”. But he doesn’t. We don’t know what his plan is, or what he really wants beyond turning on Project Purity. But the thing is, that’s also what the Brotherhood wants! So the big climax ends up being completely pointless because both factions have the same exact goal. But it’s never really stated why the Enclave is so vehemently against the Brotherhood or vice versa.

They could have used this opportunity to talk about how pointless their war is. Maybe they could have worked things out, but are too blinded by their hatred for one another to see that working together would result in a brighter future for the wasteland. In fact, it really seems like the Enclave are the good guys of Fallout 3, considering they also want to turn on the purifier, only instead of just giving it away, they’ll use it as leverage to unite the Capital Wasteland under a single government, finally restoring the rule of law. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, pretty much leave the wasteland in shambles, just the way they found it, except now there’s some more bottled water that’s safe to drink. So what was the point of any of it?

They also could have used the conflict between Eden and Autumn as a jumping off point to change or pre-conceptions about him as a character and actually give him some basic characterisation. But nope. He has about as much depth as Alduin. Instead, he says this. He doesn’t shed any light as to why he disagrees with Eden, and barely has any screen time. Basically, he’s just there so the story can have a villain, and he’s not even a good final boss. He just pops in to stop you from doing the same thing he’s going to do later, then later sabotages the thing he wanted to fix so that can’t fix it. Cause that makes sense.

And here’s where the story really falls apart.. At the last second, Bethesda gives you two choices: either sacrifice yourself for no reason, or let someone else sacrifice themselves for no reason. But because there are three companions who are radiation-immune, Bethesda has to do a complete 180 on these character’s personality.

Fawkes can literally just walk into the fucking purifier and turn it off in like, twenty seconds. And not only would it be easy, not only would no harm come to him, he would actually be healed by this! It’s a win-win! But instead of walking into a room and pushing a button and despite him being willing to do the exact same thing not three quests ago, he insists that you have to go in and kill yourself, because… “destiny”. There’s also Charon, who’s been brainwashed since childhood to obey orders without question. And he’ll do so… until he doesn’t for literally no reason. He just doesn’t feel like it, even though you’ll die. That’s some next level bad writing right there.

In fact, this ending was so bad, they had to retcon it with the Broken Steel DLC. This DLC does another 180 on the characters’ dialogues, with Fawkes basically saying “Yeah, no problem man.” Then you do a couple of fetch quests and shoot your way through faceless Enclave dudes and then it’s over. Not only do we get no further elaboration upon the Enclave, we actually get a mini-campaign with no real plot. You’re just… finishing off the Enclave. There’s not even an antagonist or climactic fight at the end. You just shoot a bunch of Enclave dudes until you reach the last room full of Enclave dudes who, for no reason at all, have decided not to use the instant-win button that’s right there, which would allow them to destroy the Citadel and decisively win the war for the Capital Wasteland.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Bethesda’s storytelling isn’t necessarily bad writing, but a lack of any real writing in the first place.

[sentinelkelly]

Destiny 2: Curse of the Butthurt Man-Children Review

Destiny 2 has been in trouble for awhile now and despite what the crying man-children on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, the Bungie forums and the hack of journalists from Kotaku, Forbes (lol did I really include them?), IGN, and Polygon, I strongly believe Destiny 2 is getting better in some aspects and worse in others. I still believe this game have great potential in the future, but for Destiny 2 to be great, Bungie needs to be less reactive and beat the community to the punch, sort of speak. More on that a little later. Let’s get on to my blasphemous opinions.

The Story

The Curse of Osiris story reminds me of Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s story. Let me explain before you get triggered: The Call of Duty, in my opinion, always had a great story despite how you felt about the multiplayer and it’s community. When I played Black Ops III’s campaign, I couldn’t help but to be lost in the plot and be almost put to sleep. The plot was convoluted and had too much filler content that further added to my confusion. This is exactly how I felt playing Curse of Osiris’s story. Although people think the story was pretty fast, I beg to differ. It took me about 4 hours to complete, excluding getting distracted by Public Events and in real life stuff. Then again, I wasn’t speed-running. Maybe that’s why, but it was definitely longer than the Dark Below which a lot of people forget about. Bungie squandered a perfect opportunity to effectively use the Osiris lore.

At the same token, Bungie opened the door to expanding the Osiris lore  (besides a webcomic) and revealing some Saint-14 lore. I would also love some Dredgen Yor lore at some point too. Time well tell how much more lore we’ll get and of whom.

Eververse

Dear Lord... I hate the fact that the loot pool is so large and RNG is still what you expect from a Destiny game. If I had to pick which is worse between Treasures of Ages and Illuminated Engrams, I wouldn’t answer because there is no lesser of the two evils. Although, at least I get the armor in Destiny 2 while I still haven’t get a single piece of AoT armor for any character on Destiny 1... on Xbox and PS4.

At the end of the day, her wares are still optional, cosmetic to a certain extent, and not game breaking. That’s all I truly ask for in microtransacions. You can make the argument that the Ghost Shells increase xp gains, points out nearby chests and all that jazz. Then, I’ll rebuttal by calling you a retard and ask a simple question: “How does differ from other Ghost Shells and how does it give you an unfair advantage in the Crucible?” Basically, the only people who still hates Eververse are unlucky like me, poor/cheap people and conspiracy theorists that think Bungie is intentionally making her stuff look better than the non-microtransaction gear. Stop being poor. Taste is subjective.

Mercury

It’s a very small area that I would’ve forgiven if you could freely explore the Infinite Forest, Past Mercury, and Dark Future Mercury. However, you can’t. You can only replay the story missions and adventures to go to those places. Not to mention there’s only one Lost Sector. There’s enough space for at least three. Mercury was over-hyped. The Infinite Forest was filler. More could’ve been done.

Despite that, the visuals are beautiful as always. Past Mercury gives you a sense of peace and serenity while Dark Future Mercury makes the atmosphere more grim and dire. Also, doing Flashpoints on Mercury doesn’t require to actually do a single Public Event. You just have to kill majors that are running around the map.

The Leviathan Raid Lair

I have not played it yet, but I heard great things about it. It’s a shame that Bungie advertised it as just a shorter version of the current raid with different bosses and mechanics because I had low expectations and now I think I might be in for a great time.

I’ll update more when I can finally play it.

#TwoTokensAndABlue: Public Events were Nerfed

So much with being rewarding. Less xp gains, lower probability getting exotics, and quite frankly more of a reason not drop everything to go do one.

The Current State of Crucible

Crucible is still like listening to music on Spotify without premium: You gotta play until you get the gametype you want or keep backing out until you get the match you want. There are also no signs of old Destiny 1 game modes returning and the current ones being separated. 

At least, we get to tell future Kinderguardians that for a weekend, the Destiny Community was able to play a large game of laser tag and then there’s the return of Mayhem Clash. MC is the only thing making PvP worth play to me.

Armor Ornaments

I’mma just say it: Most of the ornaments makes the armor look ugly and/or are uninspired. Above all, I’m extremely disappointed with Future War Cult’s. All it does is change the color scheme to white and blue. That’s it.

I do like the fact that you can unlock ornaments account wide. For example, unlocking the Crucible Titan Mark ornament unlocks the Crucible Hunter Cloak and Warlock Bond even if you never played on the other characters.

“Heroic” Strikes

Oh boy... Where do I begin? I was very excited about this. A good percentage of my Destiny 1 playtime was shutting my brain off after a long day and running Heroic Strikes if I liked the modifiers. Destiny 2 said, “Why don’t I just take Vanguard Strikes, raise the power level and call it Heroic Strikes? That’s it!” Bungie did say that they will add modifiers, but two things: 1) Why didn’t you just wait? If it’s incomplete why release it now when you could do so later complete? 2) I hope the modifiers aren’t the Destiny 2 Nightfall modifiers. Please God no.

The Vault System is Still a Mess

Imagine every single file on your computer was on your desktop. No folders. Just right there in front of your face. On top of all that, you can only have 200 of those files on your computer before you have to start deleting stuff. That’s where we’re still at. Not to mention you can hold up to 50 different shaders on your person, yet Bungie decides to make more than 50 unique shaders. It gets better: Duplicate Dawning shaders will sort into separate stacks depending on where they were received from. Dawning shaders received through Eververse will fall into one stack, and shaders earned through activity rewards will be sorted into another. This is not a bug and was intentional. On top of all this: no increased vault space, shader kiosk, or mass deletion option.

Prestige Mode Locked by CoO-Paywall

It seems like the less you invest in Destiny 2 (monetary-wise and in playtime), the more your opinion matters somehow in comparison to actual dedicated fans of the game. The whole issue was that people who didn’t owe the DLC, can’t play the 330 version of the Nightfall & Leviathan Raid due to vanilla players not being able to reach the new level cap. Trials of the Nine was also blocked. Note: Normal Mode was bumped up for both the Nightfall and Raid so you can still reach 305 playing those. Trials ALWAYS required people to have the latest DLC and patches. Hell, Nightfalls got the same treatment in Destiny 1, and mind you, there was only one difficulty. The only people that were angry were the disgruntled Destiny 2 players who stopped playing a long time ago and/or already owns the DLC. Trust me, if you’re a hardcore fan of Destiny or remotely likes it, you would’ve made arrangements to get the DLC.  Don’t come at me with that “I love the game, but have no money” bullshit. This was all a case of “What if my friend buys Destiny 2 and I can’t play with him/her?!” Um... tell them to buy the game used/on sale and the DLC? Maybe you could buy it for them so you can play with them? Gee, this is a difficult situation I’ve never been in.

Trust me, no one who hasn’t bought Destiny 2 at this point won’t buy it because of all of the ruckus this community is making. Due to Bungie getting cuck’d by a bunch of poor people who don’t even play their game anymore that complained about a theoretical situation, the first Faction Rally of Season 2 was postponed to I assume (I hope) at the beginning of 2018. 

Quality of Life Updates Frequency

I remember a time Bungie was constantly adjusting things like the economy and user interface on top of tuning weapons and subclasses, squashing bugs and things of that nature. Destiny 2 received its first Quality of Life update in December on the day of this DLC’s release. Yeah, Bungie fixed stuff here and there between vanilla Destiny 2 and Curse of Osiris releases, but there was the over abundance of legendary shards some people had to deal with, shitty RNG not giving people what they want, etc. that was just improved. The difference between patches and QoL updates to me is one fix problems and the other improves on what was working fine but can be frustrating. There is less of the latter.

The State of the Destiny Community

Everything that I’ve stated thus far is forgivable. However, Destiny 2′s state of being the target of hit pieces of gaming media and butthurt “fan” backlash is 10% Bungie being reactive, 10% Bungie making dumbass decisions, 80% self-proclaimed fans having buyer’s remorse. Destiny 1 was considered an abomination of game around this time last year for whatever dumb reason people came up with. Destiny 1 was shitted on repeatedly. Now all of a sudden, people love and miss Destiny 1 so much. It was the community’s constant bitching that made Destiny 2 the way it is. Bungie had to find a way to not repeat Destiny 1, but guess what... people flipped flopped. Ask any Destiny fan how they felt about Destiny 1, I guarantee all will praise it, but half of them were singing a different tune last year. Destiny 2 and Curse of Osiris is the community’s fault. Bungie had some part in the blame, but: 1) Me and every other non-Bungie employee don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors at the studio in Redmond, WA. 2) If anything, blame the leadership at Bungie. Why are you getting mad some artist or sound engineer. They don’t program the game or have authority to do whatever they want to the final product if it’s outside of their department.

We are the point where people constantly complaining about bullshit like optional microtransactions and plays other games are considered “concerned fans.” Meanwhile, people like me who are objective, still actively plays the game despite it’s current state, and can compliment game when something is done right gets accused of being on Bungie’s payroll. The toxicity of this community reached heights I never thought possible and it makes me cringe to be an actual fan sometimes. Not to say I’m an angel, which I’m not, but at least I provide constructive criticism to Bungie and lash out at little Jimmy who claims to hate the game so much. I’m against people who insist upon passing on their misery onto other people who are actually enjoying the game. I’ve looked on GameStop’s app and Destiny 2 is worth between $12-18. I can recommend better games for that price. If you have Destiny 2 on disc and are that dissatisfied with it, I challenge you to sell it. If you have it digitally, I’m sure you can get a full refund somehow. I challenge you to get that refund. A reasonable adult, tries to get their money back and move on. If you don’t at least try, you’re full shit.

Bungie’s only unforgivable sin is giving birth to a community of entitled ingrates.

Final Verdict: 7.75/10

This could’ve been better and it could get better in 2018. However, out of the gate... it does not live up to the hype.

[blazehedgehog]

This Sonic Forces Survey on PS4 (and a google docs version of some sort) has me somewhat puzzled; why is it only now that Sonic Team are doing this? Is it partially due to Mania's success, with its fan-origin deveopers, or...I mean, I'm really not sure (I'm certainly glad it's a thing, though.) Any thoughts?

I mean, to be fair, this is something that seems to becoming increasingly popular now. Sony had their “building the list” initiative where they asked for fan feedback, Smash Bros. users got to vote on which guest characters they’d like to see for DLC (resulting in Cloud and Bayonetta), etc.

Can you think of an example even five years ago where developers were asking for such direct feedback? Especially Japanese developers?

Actually, scratch that: in doing research for the last question I just asked, Sega’s actually been on the survey kick for a while now. Back in August they gauged interest in future Yakuza games, this time last year they had a survey also gauging general feel about future Sonic games, plus a survey about which older Sega franchises needed to be resurrected, and then earlier in May of that year, they had a survey about how fans felt about Sonic appearing in crossover games. 

I guess the question falls to Sega as to whether or not they’re actually going to act on survey results or not.

My original point, though, is that typically game developers are walled off from feedback except from professional outlets. I’m sure some of them still go out there and look it up, but rarely did it seem like “internet feedback” factors in to game design in any meaningful way. (I think I heard once that Nintendo would specifically ban employees from looking up user feedback, though don’t quote me on that)

Developers talking directly to fans and fans talking directly to developers is a somewhat recent development in the grand scheme of the game industry. Maybe we can thank the ease of the Reddit AMA thread, who knows.

[peachaidee]

Ep Ignis ramblings- mostly figured out how a happy ending could work with all the info presented to us vs the edgy sad end theory. Don’t read. spoilers, etc. just trying to make sense of it...

look i love angst and edgy stuff a lot but i dont know why some people automatically went for it in V2. to me, the story and directing was very obvious it was supposed to be a happy ending even though it was very confusing and it was difficult to figure out how it could work. i dont read reddit threads so idk if this has all been said before... just my thoughts.

after going thru V2 carefully a second time im more sure that the happy end could work out from the information given to us. Who is the "mysterious voice"? Most like the Crystal/Eos since it was the only thing around. It also could have been Luna. same VA in credits?? (Ravus did say her job wasn’t done...also great opportunity to slip future story in there for a possible ep luna, the poor girl needs it). 

Anyway, lets just say the mysterious voice was Luna since she is the Oracle. Her powers would allow her to talk about the prophecy spoken by the Crystal/Eos. In V2 when it was being explained to Ignis, she never said Noct had to die. She said as long as the ring was powered up he would ascend, and have enough power to end the scourge, kill Ardyn, and could restore the dawn. This matches with the prophecy Luna tells Noct when they were kids. 

I think some people think V2 can’t be real because we can’t forget as it was drilled into us for the entire game that it was Bahamut’s prophecy that we listened to and some people could not get over the requirement that a blood price needed to be made to fulfill the prophecy. Compare Luna’s prophecy to what Bahamut said in order for the Chosen King to ascend. He needed to have the ring full powered, and he needed the powers of the old kings and it can only be achieved by dying alone. This is a lot of requirements for ascension compared to the basic one told by Luna/Crystal. Now Bahamut...this fucker says as far back in the Omens trailer that a blood price must be paid and shows Regis the entire timeline of Omens playing out. I assume the endgame is the same where Noct destroys the scourge but just in a really terrible way. Terrible enough where Regis was like FUCK THAT and presumably does something to change Noct’s fate and asks the gods to forgive him. We don’t really know exactly what Regis did except for the very obvious action of sending Noct off WITH HIS BROS so he wouldn’t be ALONE.

I think that was the important part. Bahamut’s prophecy had everything from Luna’s/Crystals prophecy. The added parts were, BLOOD SACRIFICE and that it was the chosen king who would make his sacrifice ALONE. We hear this in the main game and it was repeated in Ep Ignis when he was shown the visions in the main route. So, by adding the bros into Noct’s journey, Noct’s fate was dramatically changed but tragically even Regis had to fulfill the prophecy in the end. Maybe everybody thought they had no other choice, the outcome was the same, Noct had to die. Bahamut is the war god that belongs to the Lucians so I guess Lucians have no reason to not listen to him and accept everything he says except for Regis who didn’t want Omens to happen.

So basically...what I think the whole story is about....is that fate changes if you have people to share your burden. Did Ignis have an idea how to change Noct’s fate when he suggested that to him? Maybe, maybe not. He tried by suggesting Noct they stop their journey. But later in Ch. 10 Ignis was 100% committed to Noct’s decision because he repeats Regis’ words and only wishes to stay with Noct. Maybe he knew there was no way to change it and he accepted that all the things shown to him were inevitably going to happen. Noct even cuts Ignis off in the last scene like Noct didn’t want the bros by his side (but he’ll have them in his heart), because Noct accepted Bahamut’s prophecy word for word. That he had to do it alone.

V2 looks like a timeline created by the power of love and friendship even though it hilariously hinges on 1 decision Ignis could have made differently but lets say he made the decision to go with Ardyn because he took 1 second to think things through and not be so recklessly gay to save Noct. Lets say he actually processed his future visions, he would choose the option that he doesn’t do in his visions. He would know that Ardyn couldn’t actually kill Noct right then and there. If he could have a chance to change fate he would go with Ardyn. So he does and this is a great timeline because Ignis actually tries to change fate when nobody did in the main game.

The question then becomes why do the Lucian kings know fate can be changed if Ignis sacrifices himself? Wild speculation here but it could be Regis' doing convincing the council to let Ignis sacrifice himself for the ring’s power knowing that fate can be changed that way because he did it himself earlier. Or Bahamut and the Lucian kings are assholes which we know already from Kingsglaive and the like... So did they already know about Luna’s/crystals prophecy? Maybe Bahamut added blood sacrifice and the requirement to do it alone to his prophecy because he's an edgy fuck and has no friends. Bahamut could have told Noct that he could sacrifice any one of his pure-hearted friends in his place but obviously Noct would never ever do that and would die for them all so Bahamut probably thought to make it efficient, only the Chosen King has to die it will be easy.  OR, it is also entirely possible that through the events of Kingsglaive, Regis was sacrificing himself to change Noct’s fate.

By the magic power and love and friendship, Noct is able to heal Ignis using the Crystal. He was very determined in this timeline to fulfil his duty compared to the main game where he struggled and was confused in front of the crystal. He only puts on the ring kind of reluctantly in the main game but manages to do it to save Prompto. In V2 he puts it on immediately to save Ignis since he was actively dying. So sweet how in one timeline, Noct buckles up to save Prompto and in the other, to save Ignis. 

During V2′s 10 year gap I was very happy to see the bros sticking together more. In the main game and in Comrades it was mentioned that they don’t spend a lot of time together but this timeline had a kind of uplifting feel and the bros felt like they had a better sense of purpose and a better plan with how to deal with the long night. At then at the last battle Noctis had all the bros +1 at his side. He had them walk tall TOGETHER, sharing the burden. I believe that was the message. If you have good friends, if you love deeply and let them share your burdens you can change fate. Of course sacrifices need to be made but you don’t have to do it alone. This is why I think at the end everyone lives. Additional detail is that Noct was still wearing the ring when it was destroyed in the main game.

Some people think V2 retcons all of Ep Prompto which I get...Ardyn uses Ignis as bait instead of Prompto but you can use your imagination to try and keep Prompto’s character development. Like, if Prompto never got into the facility, maybe Verstael would still be alive and he would have sent out all his weapons anyway? Like chase Ravus’ airship down with machines. Or maybe Ardyn wanted to fuck with Ravus and gang anyway and let Verstael do his Ghost in the Shell thing. As far as Ardyn knew, Noct still had the ring so maybe he wanted to stir up shit so Noct would finally wear it. Ravus probably could have told Prompto about his origins if they ever ran into Verstael. I feel like Ravus would know about it.

This ending did feel a bit rushed but overall it felt more like the general theme of FF games where friendship is the best and you say fuck you to fate/religion and it seems right that ffxv showed us that thru different timelines. of course this is how i rationalize everything ignoring that this was supposed to be an entirely different game 10 years, even 3 years ago and even playing Comrades I could tell they couldn’t keep the game and Kingsglaive consistent. Episode Ignis was supposed to be the last of the DLCs until they confirmed they were making more by popular demand. And to me Ep Ignis did feel like it was the end by showing V2. Because of the game’s disastrous release schedule the game ended up so messy but i think the ffxv team tried their best to tie in everything. From Omens which people speculated were story elements from vs XIII, to the main game and them confirming AU exists or that Noct’s dreams are actually real in a way. I felt like V2 was a possibility of a happy ending so I don’t see it as some dark twisted bittersweet ending. Nothing against people who do, its all good fun. I was left feeling so satisfied I actually don’t mind if they stop DLCs. But since they’re making more I feel like they can do a good job because they said they’re taking their time with these future DLCs to make sure they’re good. I hope they can explore another timeline where this time they can save Luna or something. She honestly has it the worst.

tl;dr: fuck Bahamut honestly. Also what he does in Comrades is fucked up

[chipznstix]

A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch

Chipz is back at it with another post! But this time it’s about my experiences so far with owning the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario Odyssey just came out last weekend on October 27th, 2017. Boy was there A lot of hype behind that game, and to be honest I expected it to do well. However, with the release of Super Mario came a bundle deal. In this bundle you get a digital code of the game to download along with a Nintendo Switch with Joy-Cons that have the iconic red color, the same as Mario’s colors. In the bundle you also get a carrying case for your Switch console with a new character named Cappy on the front which is also in red.

Super Mario Nintendo Switch bundle with Cappy on the front of the carrying case

Now this isn’t my first time owning a system from Nintendo, as I’ve had the NES, N64, a few of the Game Boys, and the Nintendo 3ds. *I just recently purchased the Super NES classic.  I’m going to state some of the things that I like about the Switch and then say what I don’t like, and give you some insight as to what I’m used to from being with Sony for so long.

PROS:

Hybrid between portable and console system

Having this advantage, you can take your games with you anywhere you go. Literally. As I’m writing this, my Nintendo Switch is in my book bag, in the carrying case(you gotta protect your stuff man).

HD compatible 

Pretty much all of the games depending on the developer will be in full HD. When docked they will run at 1080p and when in hand-held mode they automatically go down to 720p. Honestly though, what console ISN’T in HD? It’s 2017 people, they better be!

Full motion controls

Now I feel this particular PRO is on a case-by-case basis. I’ve only had the system for a few days now but I haven’t had any problems with it, I think you can even turn off motion controls with most games if you don’t like it. So far it’s a plus for me. I need to exercise my arms anyway!

Expandable memory

The good thing with the switch is that it takes micro SD cards for additional memory. You can expand the memory of up to 2TB of data…of course when these actually come out. Nonetheless, the Switch supports it. Below are the types of micro SD cards that are compatible:

microSD (up to 2 GB)

microSDHC (4 GB – 32 GB)

microSDXC (64 GB and above)* This requires a system update*

With that said, here’s what can be saved to the memory cards:

Downloadable software

Software update data

Downloadable content (DLC)

Screenshots & video captures(part of the latest 4.0 update)

CONS:

Battery life

The battery life in hand-held mode can be very short. This depends on a few things like what games you play and the settings on your system. It was reported back in March when playing Zelda: Breath of The Wild the maximum amount of time you can get out of your system would be approximately 3 hours. Granted at the time that was one of the main games that came out, but you pretty much get the idea. Some games drain more battery life and some don’t. Speaking from personal experience, I played Super Mario for about an hour and a half and I ended up with roughly 30% battery life. Either way don’t expect a long gaming session if you’re in hand-held mode.

On-board memory

The Switch comes with 32gb of on-board memory. That’s horrible. No debating this point, so don’t try. While game saves don’t take up much memory, game data does. Perfect example: Super Mario takes up 5.3 gigabytes(gb) and an indie title named Stardew Valley only takes up 909 megabytes(mb). If I wanted to install Zelda: BoTW I’d be losing 13.4 gb of space. You also have to take into account the Switch’s OS, game title and software updates.  Some people and myself included, feel 32gb shouldn’t have been the starting point for memory. Cell phones don’t even come with 32gb anymore!

No cloud storage

Staying on the topic of memory here, there’s no cloud based storage for the Switch. You’d think Nintendo would want to come out swinging and going for the knock out but they didn’t. There are gamers out there in the world that download their games and buy physical copies. Some stick to digital downloads only, and some stick to the physical copies only. Either way you’re losing out on space. It might be really slow or it might be really fast. The end result is this: you’re being forced to opt for a micro SD card which can cost you upwards to over $100.

Transferable data

As of right now the only data that you can transfer from the console are screen shots, video captures, and game data. Not game saves! This is also a bad move since game saves were transferable from the Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS to a USB device. Nintendo has confirmed that game saves aren’t transferable, or at least they don’t want them to be right now. A Reddit user posted that he had to send his console in for repair and Nintendo gave him a brand new one. After doing a thorough check he noticed his game saves were on the new system that was sent to him. So this begs the question- will Nintendo eventually enable Switch users to transfer game saves in the future? If so, why not give us that option from the beginning?

Nintendo Smart App/Network

The Smart App was designed to be used as a chat system while you’re playing the game with other people. However that didn’t work out so well in the beginning. A good friend of mine named Avidan Smith spoke about this more in-depth. * Click here to get the full breakdown of what’s wrong with it. A lot of these issues are things that never happened on the other consoles.  Another issue is that you can’t purchase any kind of content from the app itself. You can make purchases from the website but as of right now I’m not sure how that works. If it’s the same way as the PSN store, then you can purchase content and it’ll be linked to your account to download later.

Nintendo Smart App

But here’s the thing with that too: on the PSN you can have your content automatically download to your console once the purchase is made. I routinely do this from the PSN app whenever I want to buy content to enjoy later on. I follow through with the  transaction process and have it download to my PS4 and by the time I get home it’s ready to go once I turn it on. I feel like this is something that should’ve launched with the switch, and if not shortly afterwards. However, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to see if there are any real improvements that are going to be made.

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Playstation Network App

PSN App second sceen

I’m not going to count the fact that the Switch is lacking something called share play. Share play is a feature available on Playstation 4 where you can watch a friend’s screen for a certain amount of time via internet connection. You can watch a buddy play a game, or even take control and play a game that they have to get the feel of it or just to have a little bit of fun. I use this often with my friends to see if I want to play a game that they have and I don’t. This really gives you some purchasing power and makes up for the fact that there isn’t an abundance of demos and timed trials available on the PSN. The reason I’m not counting it as a CON is because Nintendo seems to give you demos of new games that are coming out, but it would be a nice feature to have when the console is docked.

So there you have it folks, some pros and some cons.  Nintendo actually had a pretty good start seeing as how they were so far behind with the Wii-U. If they can fix these issues I feel it can REALLY be a contender. On top of that they’re starting to get quite a bit of third party support. The momentum is strong with this one. I’m a PlayStation fan-boy(yes..I’ll admit it) but I can see when something’s good and/or bad and call a spade a spade. The PS4 is my preferred system of choice, it’s one thing I’ll always go back to. Coming from a Sony fan, I can say this is definitely worth buying so go pick one up. I’m honestly looking forward to playing as many games that will come out for the Switch cough cough Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yoshi and Donkey Kong cough cough. Overall I do enjoy having the Switch and I’m having a good time with it where ever I go. Who says you can’t enjoy the best of both worlds?

*A review of the Super NES will be coming shortly on youtube so stay tuned!

*POST EDIT: Reggie Fil-Aimes, President of Nintendo North America has stated that Nintendo is aware of the issue with game saves. He sat down with Mashable earlier today and stated the following:

You’re talking to someone who has completed 120 Shrines, and I think I’m at 400 Korok seeds and growing [in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]. So I understand what it’s like putting a lot of time into content, and the thought of that content not being there.

We’re aware of the concern. Certainly, Nintendo is a consumer-oriented company [and] we want to make our consumers happy. We’re aware of the concern and it’s an area we’re going to continue working on to make sure that we can alleviate some of those consumer fears of having a content-based issue.

Because of the type of platform we have — it’s something that is on the go as well as connected in the home environment — there are some added complications. It’s not as simple as a piece of hardware that never moves and is always connected in an online environment.

Of course you know I have to call Bull—-! Throwing little jabs like these at Sony and Microsoft isn’t winning Nintendo any brownie points or favoritism from the gaming community. Simply because Sony and Microsoft figured out a way to back up game saves for their systems. Sony especially did this with the PSP/VITA with cross-platform play. Anyway, with this recent statement from Reggie coming out just earlier today everyone can predict we’ll be getting cloud storage within the next year. I’m going to go as far to say it’s coming but it’ll be included with the paid online subscription from Nintendo.

Should you buy a #switch ? #nintendo #console #gaming #sony #playstation #ps4 #videogames A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch Chipz is back at it with another post!

[chipznstix]

A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch

Chipz is back at it with another post! But this time it’s about my experiences so far with owning the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario Odyssey just came out last weekend on October 27th, 2017. Boy was there A lot of hype behind that game, and to be honest I expected it to do well. However, with the release of Super Mario came a bundle deal. In this bundle you get a digital code of the game to download along with a Nintendo Switch with Joy-Cons that have the iconic red color, the same as Mario’s colors. In the bundle you also get a carrying case for your Switch console with a new character named Cappy on the front which is also in red.

Super Mario Nintendo Switch bundle with Cappy on the front of the carrying case

  Now this isn’t my first time owning a system from Nintendo, as I’ve had the NES, N64, a few of the Game Boys, and the Nintendo 3ds. *I just recently purchased the Super NES classic.  I’m going to state some of the things that I like about the Switch and then say what I don’t like, and give you some insight as to what I’m used to from being with Sony for so long.

PROS:

Hybrid between portable and console system

Having this advantage, you can take your games with you anywhere you go. Literally. As I’m writing this, my Nintendo Switch is in my book bag, in the carrying case(you gotta protect your stuff man).

HD compatible 

Pretty much all of the games depending on the developer will be in full HD. When docked they will run at 1080p and when in hand-held mode they automatically go down to 720p. Honestly though, what console ISN’T in HD? It’s 2017 people, they better be!

Full motion controls

Now I feel this particular PRO is on a case-by-case basis. I’ve only had the system for a few days now but I haven’t had any problems with it, I think you can even turn off motion controls with most games if you don’t like it. So far it’s a plus for me. I need to exercise my arms anyway!

Expandable memory

The good thing with the switch is that it takes micro SD cards for additional memory. You can expand the memory of up to 2TB of data…of course when these actually come out. Nonetheless, the Switch supports it. Below are the types of micro SD cards that are compatible:

microSD (up to 2 GB)

microSDHC (4 GB – 32 GB)

microSDXC (64 GB and above)* This requires a system update*

With that said, here’s what can be saved to the memory cards:

Downloadable software

Software update data

Downloadable content (DLC)

Screenshots & video captures(part of the latest 4.0 update)

CONS:

Battery life

The battery life in hand-held mode can be very short. This depends on a few things like what games you play and the settings on your system. It was reported back in March when playing Zelda: Breath of The Wild the maximum amount of time you can get out of your system would be approximately 3 hours. Granted at the time that was one of the main games that came out, but you pretty much get the idea. Some games drain more battery life and some don’t. Speaking from personal experience, I played Super Mario for about an hour and a half and I ended up with roughly 30% battery life. Either way don’t expect a long gaming session if you’re in hand-held mode.

On-board memory

The Switch comes with 32gb of on-board memory. That’s horrible. No debating this point, so don’t try. While game saves don’t take up much memory, game data does. Perfect example: Super Mario takes up 5.3 gigabytes(gb) and an indie title named Stardew Valley only takes up 909 megabytes(mb). If I wanted to install Zelda: BoTW I’d be losing 13.4 gb of space. You also have to take into account the Switch’s OS, game title and software updates.  Some people and myself included, feel 32gb shouldn’t have been the starting point for memory. Cell phones don’t even come with 32gb anymore!

No cloud storage

Staying on the topic of memory here, there’s no cloud based storage for the Switch. You’d think Nintendo would want to come out swinging and going for the knock out but they didn’t. There are gamers out there in the world that download their games and buy physical copies. Some stick to digital downloads only, and some stick to the physical copies only. Either way you’re losing out on space. It might be really slow or it might be really fast. The end result is this: you’re being forced to opt for a micro SD card which can cost you upwards to over $100.

Transferable data

As of right now the only data that you can transfer from the console are screen shots, video captures, and game data. Not game saves! This is also a bad move since game saves were transferable from the Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS to a USB device. Nintendo has confirmed that game saves aren’t transferable, or at least they don’t want them to be right now. A Reddit user posted that he had to send his console in for repair and Nintendo gave him a brand new one. After doing a thorough check he noticed his game saves were on the new system that was sent to him. So this begs the question- will Nintendo eventually enable Switch users to transfer game saves in the future? If so, why not give us that option from the beginning?

Nintendo Smart App/Network

The Smart App was designed to be used as a chat system while you’re playing the game with other people. However that didn’t work out so well in the beginning. A good friend of mine named Avidan Smith spoke about this more in-depth. * Click here to get the full breakdown of what’s wrong with it. A lot of these issues are things that never happened on the other consoles.  Another issue is that you can’t purchase any kind of content from the app itself. You can make purchases from the website but as of right now I’m not sure how that works. If it’s the same way as the PSN store, then you can purchase content and it’ll be linked to your account to download later.

Nintendo Smart App

But here’s the thing with that too: on the PSN you can have your content automatically download to your console once the purchase is made. I routinely do this from the PSN app whenever I want to buy content to enjoy later on. I follow through with the  transaction process and have it download to my PS4 and by the time I get home it’s ready to go once I turn it on. I feel like this is something that should’ve launched with the switch, and if not shortly afterwards. However, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to see if there are any real improvements that are going to be made.

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Playstation Network App

PSN App second sceen

  I’m not going to count the fact that the Switch is lacking something called share play. Share play is a feature available on Playstation 4 where you can watch a friend’s screen for a certain amount of time via internet connection. You can watch a buddy play a game, or even take control and play a game that they have to get the feel of it or just to have a little bit of fun. I use this often with my friends to see if I want to play a game that they have and I don’t. This really gives you some purchasing power and makes up for the fact that there isn’t an abundance of demos and timed trials available on the PSN. The reason I’m not counting it as a CON is because Nintendo seems to give you demos of new games that are coming out, but it would be a nice feature to have when the console is docked.

So there you have it folks, some pros and some cons.  Nintendo actually had a pretty good start seeing as how they were so far behind with the Wii-U. If they can fix these issues I feel it can REALLY be a contender. On top of that they’re starting to get quite a bit of third party support. The momentum is strong with this one. I’m a PlayStation fan-boy(yes..I’ll admit it) but I can see when something’s good and/or bad and call a spade a spade. The PS4 is my preferred system of choice, it’s one thing I’ll always go back to. Coming from a Sony fan, I can say this is definitely worth buying so go pick one up. I’m honestly looking forward to playing as many games that will come out for the Switch cough cough Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yoshi and Donkey Kong cough cough. Overall I do enjoy having the Switch and I’m having a good time with it where ever I go. Who says you can’t enjoy the best of both worlds?

*A review of the Super NES will be coming shortly on youtube so stay tuned!

  *POST EDIT: Reggie Fil-Aimes, President of Nintendo North America has stated that Nintendo is aware of the issue with game saves. He sat down with Mashable earlier today and stated the following:

You’re talking to someone who has completed 120 Shrines, and I think I’m at 400 Korok seeds and growing [in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]. So I understand what it’s like putting a lot of time into content, and the thought of that content not being there.

We’re aware of the concern. Certainly, Nintendo is a consumer-oriented company [and] we want to make our consumers happy. We’re aware of the concern and it’s an area we’re going to continue working on to make sure that we can alleviate some of those consumer fears of having a content-based issue.

Because of the type of platform we have — it’s something that is on the go as well as connected in the home environment — there are some added complications. It’s not as simple as a piece of hardware that never moves and is always connected in an online environment.

Of course you know I have to call Bull—-! Throwing little jabs like these at Sony and Microsoft isn’t winning Nintendo any brownie points or favoritism from the gaming community. Simply because Sony and Microsoft figured out a way to back up game saves for their systems. Sony especially did this with the PSP/VITA with cross-platform play. Anyway, with this recent statement from Reggie coming out just earlier today everyone can predict we’ll be getting cloud storage within the next year. I’m going to go as far to say it’s coming but it’ll be included with the paid online subscription from Nintendo.

UPDATE: Is the Switch really any good? #nintendoswitch #gaming #sony #playstation #ps4 #gamers A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch Chipz is back at it with another post!