#now THATS the kind of realism i want in my games

[scp2337]

best thing about Fallout 4 is that, thanks to that classic bethesda polish, the cows in game are big and beautiful and dumb just like real cows but also sometimes they accidentally teleport onto a roof and immediately accept that they just live there now

now THATS realistic gaming

[angelicguy]

was talking about it the other day but its sad how we are never going to get really big budget games w/ funky artstyles again. like if you look at the majority of big budget releases lately, they are all kind of going for the same thing as far as actual modeling goes- hi fi, super detailed complex models that try to portray as much detail as possible. which is fine for certain games, but it makes me miss the big swings devs used to take.

take street fighter 4 for instance- despite being over 10 years old at this point, it still looks REALLY good. great art direction, has a weird painterly look so everything has a cool watercolor style to it, models are expressive, etc. and this was a BIG release, its not some indie game (where most big stylistic swings tend to be made nowadays).

compared to street fighter 6, which is going for photorealism (with strong choices made as far as animation and color goes) it looks dated in the context of graphics generally, but looks WAY better than its contemporaries from the same time period. my fear is that street fighter 6 wont look that great in 10 years time.

side note, its also why street fighter 5 was really only loved by hardcore fans. it does nothing particularly well! its a halfway point between realistic and artistic to the point where it feels like a side-grade rather than an improvement or even its own original idea!

whatever leaps were made in lighting and texture quality are essentially irrelevant here. fucking gross!

the thing is, i dont think this is a deliberate choice that devs are making right now. from what i can tell, recent rendering tech has made it way easier to achieve a handful of lately- hi fi LIGHTING, increased TEXTURE DETAIL and HI POLY COUNTS come to mind. these are cool, but if youre a dev who wants to make a triple A product, you kind of have to use whatever tech is on the table to make a product look cutting edge. none of those encourage taking wild stabs at cool art directions. devs used to use those cool art directions because it was the ONLY OPTION THEY HAD.

classic case being windwaker right. the gamecube was a huge graphical leap from the n64, where even getting a model to look like something was a challenge. compared to ocarina of time, windwaker looks absolutely fucking incredible. it got a lot of pushback at the time for being too kiddy, but really the strength of its style is a result of doing as much as they possibly could with the platform they were working on. no high poly counts, the shading tech was relatively simple, and the textures (while a huge improvement over the n64!) are still basic compared to what we have today. windwaker still looks impeccable to this day, and even the HD remaster they made which, ahaha, improved WHAT

LIGHTING and TEXTURE DETAIL. but without a real consideration for the original artstyle (or why it even existed... which was the gamecubes limitations) it just looks worse.

in response to this pushback (i think, idk i didnt work at nintendo at the time) they gave twilight princess a way more "realistic" look. but given the rendering restrictions of the time, it still has a fairly robust artstyle

proportions are more realistic obviously, but in order to achieve that realism without the kind of lighting tech we have now the "lighting" is BUILT Into the textures. look at links sword, how it kind of darkens near the hilt, or how the shadow on the keese's wings is just kind of painted in specific areas. i would argue that twilight princess looks a LOT like street fighter 4 in that area-

damn! they almost look like theyre from the same game! but twilight princess was celebrated for being "realistic" while sf4 was noted for having a funky watercolor style (thats built into the focus attacks even!). its so so smart, because the devs knew they couldnt go for photorealism (like so many games of the era tried at and completely failed at!) so they went for a mix of cool stylistic decisions that allowed a game to look GOOD in a subjective, artistic way.

Not that games don't try and apply artistic principles now, but its a lot less unique. look at mario odyssey

its just a beach. and it looks great, its well rendered, but its just a beach. colors are clearly intentional and very pretty, but it's nothin that special right now, probably will look even less special in 10 years even compared to levels in the same game.

what im curious about is when are we gonna get back to that kind of artstyle meets rendering tech! if ever! current tech makes it so devs are kind of forced to go down the same boring path. look at mortal kombat 1:

im sure there are some leaps in texture and lighting, but they keep taking shortcuts. all the faces are modeled after REAL peoples faces and they mocap for expressions/conversation, which gives a really boring look to it. the fact that mk11 and mk1 look so similar so many years apart (4 i guess isnt that much but there have been leaps!) is disappointing to me.

then you have tekken 8, which is like the best looking game ive ever seen. for a while i found it hard to put my finger on why, but my brother said something really smart i feel- they made all of these models by hand. theyre essentially digital statues. they didnt pull actual face models, they just worked on their features until it looked correct. on top of the lighting and texture work, it creates a look not unlike the renders tekken has been using for years. which is convenient for them, because they can finally match the kind of real-time fidelity they've been chasing for like 30 years

hell it looks BETTER than that. so what im trying to say is im hopeful that art direction will catch up with the kind of rendering tricks/strengths we have.

i think tekken 8 feels like how soul calibur 2 probably felt at launch. does a lot of the same things given the time period

i still think hi fi rendering doesnt make for a good looking game, but rather where the focus lies for the player. for tekken it makes sense that they would focus their horsepower on detailed models and stages- youre gonna be lookin at that forever. look at elden ring

texture wise, SUPER low res for 2022. maybe even 2020. but what they do with the horsepower is genius- they focus on scale to translate locations of objectives to a player while also reinforcing the feeling of adventure, on top of extremely strong choices in color and lighting. i hope, going forward, games focus on how they can use this kind of tech to reinforce a games "gameplay mission statement" while keeping strong artistic choices present rather than focusing on being able to wow someone with a couple of screenshots at the cost of BOTH of those things. im just ranting though french press got my ass

[m0llygunn]

👀 ❌💖 for the wip ask game <33

hiiii keeks!!! thank ya for the questions, pretty lady!! 👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please! oof I'm scared to talk about upcoming wips, i feel like its a curse whenever i say im working on something butttttt i kind of spoke about it already (link) its daddy issues!eddie x insecure!reader. i think they're quite a pair (very symbiotic) and one of the lines that i think encapsulates reader is "Sometimes you think you’d let Eddie do anything to you. He could do anything to you and you know you’d still be here, cleaning his wounds."  and yeah, it seems like a shitty dynamic, but i think it leans towards realism and true human experience (i know its not some peoples cup of tea though, i totally understand!!)

❌ What's a trope you will never write? oh man, thats tough because there are tropes that i'm not crazyyy about but i feel like there are approaches that i could take that would, like, pedmas it and cancel out my aversions towards them?? i think age gap is one of them aaaa sorry thats an unpopular opinion (also freud read me for filth and i can't handle facing that truth yet)

💖 What made you start writing? i honestly don't know😭 i used to want to write non fiction stuff about my life (ew yuck, i know, but also because i'm indigenous canadian and had many relatives in residential schools, i grew up in a very unique set of circumstances, and i know i sound pompous saying this, but i think i have an important perspective that holds some value (i say this tentatively)) but yeah, never actually wrote anything besides snippits here and there......... then one day i just started writing butt naked nasty smut😌 i don't know what alternate universes got mixed together, but i'm here now🥰

sorry my answers took a longgggg weird turn LOL but thank you bestieeee💗💗

send me an emoji!

[sadisthetic]

I’m giving the designers objectively the right amount of credit. I’m a former lego employee :-)

doubt. even if you were, why are you taking personal offense to criticism to the show as a whole and are taking time out in your life to defend something under the mask of anonymity where you have absolutely no claim to your name? wheres your sense of professionalism? taking offense a silly small no name artist questioning a design element. in a caption of bloody fanart no less. and you say youre an ex lego employee! ex! so youre less relevant now. if youre not lying that is. you wont even say what your position was. lego employee is so vague.

anyways. because youre on anon all this claim does is make you sound like the "my uncle works at nintendo!" meme. im sorry to say that as an anon. you are nobody

by the way. by set design im speaking from an entertainment arts perspective. not the sets that kids buy in the store. im talking about sets that are Actually used in the show. this kind of design work.

http://www.cynthiahalley.com/ not ninjago related but this is MY definition of set design. aka. what im seeing in the show. not the simplified little toy models

anyways. looks like youre not done!

shakes out my hands. alright! you wanna play this kinda game? okay sure, ill play along! why not. i have time to procrastinate. you are rude by the way!

lets google that very phrase you gave here

mhm mhm! yup! that sure is the grate that jays prison was based on! but huh..... hm! im kinda curious about what the inside looks like. you know? the inside of the hold that jay is in that this is all about?

lets add a term to the search

huh! huh! interesting. that doesnt look like anything i saw in the show. hmmmm actually this doesnt give me enough sense about the architecture of the ship, so let do the same research that ive been doing for my own curiositys sake

cool..... pretty expansive actually. ehhhh i want a tour. this doesnt sate my curiosity enough. i wanna see what the grates underside looks like because im bored and obsessed with this lego show

i wont waste everyones time. an example is at about 11 minutes in

wow i learned a lot about ships. also i looked at diagrams. not that you ever had the thought to. hm. now how did the hold jay was in look like again

thats fucking stupid. in the few frames we are given of it of the different angles, its clearly just a fucking box. no depth leading to the curve of the hull, no visible door and likely no door whatsoever bc it would complicate things. a box that probably is in the shape of its opening. lets be real. this is a design that was easy and convenient for the cg modeler to make. ive done 3d work for a class. its hell. i dont blame them. but anyways. ppl who worked on this probably just saw the grates on the surface of the deck and was like oh we dont know what that looks like on the inside but its a perfect place to throw poor ole jay in! grab the trusty basic 3d cube. use difference to cut it out. add texture. and to be honest? yeah the story doesnt need an entire storage space to be built for realism sake. why would they do that for a cg lego show. lets get lazy about it, what do the kids know, whats important is that jays life sucks. the sparseness serves more of a purpose the bleak hopelessness of the pit jay has dug himself into

my point still stands. this is just a hole. it aint right. this is not how old ships were built. this cell was made for jays specifically for the sake of simplicity in both the production standpoint and story. its dumb but serviceable for a narrative purpose

but anyways so from this ive learned an important thing or two about you! you! dont know how to research! you! have only ever looked surface level. literally surface level, you saw these images of the deck and never even thought about whats underneath? the very thing ive been questioning? ive been talking about how its just a fucking cube this entire time. its just a hole. you given me more insight about ships so i thank you for that but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. youre very bad at convincing someone whos right

also you contradicted yourself. you said that "the concepts for the misfortune’s keep were done carefully" but then you go on to say that it "doesn’t require accurate research"? after telling ME, silly ole me who clearly has easily done more research than you, to do a bit research? hello? whats the truth? hm? what are you trying to prove now. doesnt need research because its "basic hollywood tropes" kay so whats been done here is nothing original because theyre copying whats already been done hundreds of times. great argument. dont get me wrong tho i love a good trope. especially when it involves things i enjoy. like jay having the most miserable time. heres the thing tho. what is being brought into question is not what HAPPENS to jay. its the fucking lazy set dressing. am i wrong to point out thats just a hole? its a hole. absolutely no deeper thought has gone into designing that. why are you so mad about it?

i do this for a hobby. criticizing ninjago is literally 75% of the fun for me. thinking soooo much about the shows i like and pointing out the bits that are wack is how i occupy my brain in my spare time. so what are you doing man. is defending ninjagos honor your hobby? get a better one. or at least more thought and consideration and media literacy. like im thinking about the show from a production standpoint as well as writing. this show has So many holes in it btw so theres MUCH to think about and mull over. a lot of stuff for me to play with. its nice in that sense. ninjago is a sandbox if anything. im sure im not alone in thinking this

thanks for the soapbox anon! youve overstayed your welcome! get out of my house! im just a guy with opinions as scathing as they are.

OH WAIT IF YOURE REALLY AN EX LEGO DESIGNER? WHY ARE SO MANY OF THE NINJAS GI'S LAPELS FOLDED RIGHT OVER LEFT? ITS BASIC KNOWLEDGE THAT IN A LOT OF EAST ASIAN CULTURES, TRADITIONAL CLOTHING THAT FOLDED IS FOR DEAD PEOPLE. NINJAGO IS LOOSELY (SO VERY LOOSELY.) BASED ON JAPANESE CULTURE. SO CLEARLY VERY LITTLE RESEARCH GOES INTO DESIGNING THE LITTLE LEGO GUYS OUTFITS THEMSELVES!!!! WHOS THE WHITE GUY WHO DESIGNED THE MINIFIGURES. I HAVE PERSONAL BEEF WITH THEM.

but if youre a nobody. byebye. i dont think you can come back from this. im done here. this was fun. drops the mic

[brainrotdotorg]

I've been going back and forth on swap AU ideas for WEEKS now. The only thing I know for certain is that Kim drives a motorcycle and sings karaoke. I can't decide if he has amnesia. If he gets there first or harry still arrives to the whirling first. I just don't think swap Kim would be an addict, idk like I can see the vibe but I feel like it's missing the turning point. Like Harry was an alcoholic and an addict BECAUSE of Dora and what not, the closest thing we see Kim have to that is the vague implications of his grief over Eyes. The one vice he's shown in the game is his cigarette that has no ties to whatever he wants to achieve with the vice (Harry is trying to forget Dora or however you read it, he isn't just drinking to drink) and then I had this idea and before I build it in my mind I need peer review. So I thought. What if Kim isn't a mess because he's on drugs, what if in the swap AU he's a mess because he isn't. I was thinking after taking my own meds, that for as many people who depict Harry starting proper prescription meds post canon, I don't think I've seen any people think of it for Kim. So my thought was, what if Kim doesn't have all the skills and voices Harry has in his head. What if it's just one? What if it's Eyes. What if Kim in the swap AU went off his meds because it was the only way for Eyes to still be there. BUT I NEED PEER REVIEW BECAUSE A LITTLE VOICE IN MY HEAD IS SAYING 'dont do that. thats gonna read as insensitive' so this question isn't directed only at you but all of your followers. Would this be a compelling swap AU or is it just kinda offensive? - HM anon (side note congrats on 500)

Good question, and I dont think i can give a good answer. there have been a lot of posts disparaging the swap au because its implied to neglect the privilege that harry has as a white cop and says that it is inauthentic for kim to be able to get away with things that hdb does when the roles are reversed. i think theres compelling stuff to be said in eitehr direction (pertaining to realism versus just having a fun little roleswap idea) i can see this idea being a potentially interesting one, but not one i can accurately speak on/for/about because i am not on any kind of medication, i think!

the idea of kim having this like. mental projection of eyes that guides him even in death is very interesting, good god. kim still talking out loud to his deceased partner... thinking about the tribunal, eyes guiding kim's arm to help him line up the perfect shot...

[veeranger]

can you maybe talk about Va-11 Hall-A? you talking about it a little made me remember i had to play it so i did and I liked it a lot and would like to hear your opinions as I respect you

its only been a few days but i think ive reached all the conclusions about the game i need to. i think VA-11 HALL-A is a really good game and a great visual novel yes its a visual novel dont @ me im right. actually i think its funny the game tells you to curl up with a blanket and snacks like its gunna be a chill relaxing experience because like tonally speaking its kind of not. theres some heavy shit in the game especially near the end and its not the kind of light chatting simulator you might think it is. not saying i think its a stressful game or anything but i alwys thought that was funny. 

anyway heres my real thoughts. im gunna put it under a readmore for spoilers after a certain point

oh also make sure you play the prologue chapter and the anna demo. those are extremely important despite being hidden behind a nondescript menu icon that the game makes no effort to tell you about. thats genuinely my only complaint about the game 

there’s a quote by mike pondsmith, the creator of the cyberpunk ttrpg about how cyberpunk “...can not be about saving the world. You’re saving yourself or your community. The stakes have to be something that involves the player. You can’t just say, ‘The world is craptastic and you can’t do anything about it.’ No. You don’t have to save the world, but you need to be able to save your mother or the apartment you and your friends live in.” 

and i think that ideology was, intentionally or otherwise, probably otherwise because im pretty sure pondsmith gave this quote a few years after VA-11 HALL-A came out, very clearly captured in this story. Jill and her friends live in this terrible shitty city in a terrible shitty world but thats just the setting yknow. glitch city is a backdrop to tell a series of small scale personal stories, not about “surviving in a hellish dystopian” but just...living in the real world. thats just real life for these people you know. every story told in the game is very personal. nobody is blowing up corporate buildings or igniting a revolution its just like, dorothy reconciling her anxieties about being close to her mother, alma’s family troubles, stella and sei’s mutuals traumas and their close relationship, Jill’s grappling with her own life choices. its nothing crazy its very pedestrian and lowkey, its not exactly something you’d expect from a game with CYBERPUNK stamped on the subtitle but it fits the genre extremely well. 

if nothing else VA-11 HALL-A is extremely well grounded in the reality its set in, everything feels lived in and real, like glitch city is a real place you could go to or something. all those newspaper articles about big events right next to articles about some lilim idol or reruns of a nostalgic anime and the danger/u/ posts about weird conspiracies and arguments about stupid weeb shit it just creates a wholesale sense of realism. i once saw someone complain that in persona 5, you only ever hear other students and people in the streets of tokyo talk about whatever is currently happening in the story and at the time i dismissed it as nitpicking but after VA-11 HALL-A i understand that a little better, it creates a game world that only revolves around the player’s actions and story as opposed to a world that keeps turning on its own that your character just so happens to live in. the story of the game might be about Jill and her friends but the world itself is not centered on them, it doesn’t even know they exist. that’s just excellent worldbuilding imo. 

now at this point i want to talk about Jill’s story and please if you haven’t played  VA-11 HALL-A yet and are reading this and you have any thoughts about playing the game please stop here and go play it first I don’t want to spoil this really good story for you.

man i really liked Jill’s story. i had no idea it was coming so the whole thing sidelined me as much as it did Jill when she heard that Lenore died. the way every aspect of the story was handled was so good. i felt the same way Jill did when she lashed out at Gaby for lashing out at her, i felt the same regret she did after she calmed down and realized she screamed at a grieving little girl and i felt the same kind of anxiety she felt when she had a second chance to talk to Gaby and make things right. every note of the story hit for me and it was just good good good. i liked that Jill was able to come to terms with her own poor choices without hoisting all the blame on herself or absolving herself of any wrongdoing either, i liked that she was able to move on and free herself from feeling shackled to her past but was still able to say that she loved Lenore and still does. i liked that it was a gay story even if it was tragic, it was respectful and well written. i also just love love loved how she was able to reconcile with Gaby and start being her big sister again. obviously if you know me you know that’s something i love and so i was extremely pleased with how they were able to continue that relationship. 

just yknow...its like pondsmith said. you cant save the world but you need to be able to save your mother or the apartment you and your friends live in. Jill is able to save herself, save Gaby, not from dying or anything but just like...just from pain yknow. she helps Dorothy save herself and commit to wanting to be with her mother and that in turn helps Anna. she helps Stella and Sei find closure for a traumatic experience in their lives. But even then she can’t save the bar, or save everyone she loves from living in a horrible world. VA-11 HALL-A still closes down in the end but hopefully if you mixed your drinks right everyone you love is able to move forward a little better than how you found them and i think thats pretty damn cool. VA-11 HALL-A is a really good story and its a neat little game. 

oh also i loved Anna she was such a fun presence. make sure you play the Anna chapter after you beat the game!

[bigtiddygothhusband]

i think that my biggest elder scrolls hot take is that like, the man/mer/beast divide is kind of a false or at the very least overly simple idea being placed on top of a much more complex thing to begin with but even if you were going to take it seriously orcs should be mer and bosmer should be beast.

I disagree! orcs are already elves, they don't get credit due to high elves supiority complex, orcs are called Orsimer even! I believe they're vaild as elves.

the line shouldn't exclude orcs from mer, but the line should seperate, Khajiit, wood elf, nord for example.

okay so i really hope you're checking back for an answer to this post. you're gonna get a lot of words in response and if no one reads them that'd be a bummer.

so we're on the same page that orcs are already elves and its just racism they're usually called a beast race.

but the hotter part of the take imo, and the part that made it clear to me how bullshit the whole categorization, is the bosmer part. because here's the thing: all the sources that say that bosmer share a common ancester with any other elves is non-bosmer, usually altmer or based on altmer sources. what bosmer tradition says is that they were the wild hunt before, and gained static forms via the Green Pact.

Now here's the thing. On its own okay thats two conflicting sources, personally I'm more inclined to trust the cultures own history but whatever. But there's a part in those stories that state that the Bosmer share an origin with the Khajiit (i cant remember at the moment at what point along the Wild Hunt to Bosmer line the Khajiit split off). And Khajiit histories agree.

And so the playable Mer races are two Elves that share a distant common ancestor and a bunch of ex shapeshifters that look like Elves. The playable Man races are two groups that split off from the Nords, one of whom also shares the common ancestor of the Mer, and the Redguard who as far as I'm aware don't share an ancestry with anyone else but they need to be called Men because not doing so would be racist in real life (a lot of stuff about the Redguard is racist in real life, thanks Bethesda.) And the playable Beast races are an elf race, a race closely related to the fake elves*, and the coolest motherfuckers on the planet who aren't related to any of these guys.

honestly the whole "beast race" category is just a mixed bag of anyone the other guys don't want to claim with a name that is... some synonym of dehumanizing that makes sense with non humans. I don't have a real conclusion here. sorry to anyone following me who isn't an elder scrolls head for engaging with its race realism so seriously. remember that the reason the evil sword belonging to the god of wishes stopped showing up in skyrim is because after oblivion it became a floating city above black marsh and no one ever talks about it in the games.

[jazajas]

okay so i finished love, victor a while ago and i saw some other reviews and thoughts about it here so now i've got a pretty good list on my thoughts and feelings.

tl;dr: it has some issues, yes, but im gonna hold out and hope it gets better later on because the same thing happened with the first few eps, i wasn't that into it but then it got good, and nothing is ever great with the first season, because at that point we're getting used to those characters.

⚠️caution: spoilers ahead (im on mobile, i cant get an under-the-cut)⚠️

1. while a leah on the offbeat movie would have been amazing movie sequel (even tho i havent read the book yet, im just here for the wlw content) i am kind of glad we got this instead. mostly because I've seen book series where one movie was good, so they decide to do the rest, turn out bad (hunger games? divergent? percy jackson? the hobbit?) because so much was cut from the book-to-first movie writing, that other scenes wouldn't make sense to future movies if they had those in while cutting others. however, i am sad that i didn't get to make the choice of deciding whether what was cut was wrong etc. about future movies, but i'll take what i can get.

2. LGBTQ+ POC as a lead! that's amazing! as a ace/bi lantina that's close to home (it also is great that victor's from texas and so is ya gorl) and even then it's a mixed latinx family! i think pilar mentioned that at least the grandmother left Colombia and i saw the Puerto Rican flag in victor's room. also the salazar's are definitely from small town texas, even without knowing the name. (church barbeques, the use of the words "such a diverse city" in regards to atlanta)

3. a lack of actual lgbtq+ main storylines (so far) is kind of sad for a show like this. i was getting serious bi/pan vibes (as a lot of other people) from victor from the beginning, and when it was implied that victor was actually gay (while great, not shaming) as it has been brought to my attention, there was a lot of looking at a lot of straight relationship problems (please let us know more about benji)- edit 6/18: upon further consideration, it very much is a show about questioning your sexuality, I'm speaking about the other straight relationship issues, not mia and Victor's, its just the first season.

4. let us talk about cheating for a sec. never okay, in any circumstance. i feel sorry for mia that she saw victor making out with benji and the fact that he was doing any of that in the first place. victor made a choice to lie about the espresso machine and then kissed benji at the hotel and then when benji was fighting with derek, basically confessed his love and mistakes, then proceeded to makeout with benji after he broke up with derek, he built that grave and now he must lie in it. i get having feelings for a guy when you are in a relationship with a girl, and not accepting yourself enough to end that relationship but you really want it to work so you can be "normal". really, he should have told mia after he got back from the trip tho. i get being in highschool and doing stupid stuff and making dumb decisions, but for a show aimed at teens i think we should also remind said teens to make good choices even if we have to lose some realism within the character choices.

4. pilar and her decisions based off her brother pissed me off. because i honestly think that if she'd kept her mouth shut about what she knew or confronted victor about it in the first place we could have avoided a LOT of mess. did she not learn from snooping around her mother's business about her relationships that going behind a person's back doesnt end well? i did, however, like the pilar/felix friendship and was really kind of hoping that they'd get together during their coffee hangout (although now im glad that didn't happen) because they had a deeper understanding of each other. same with wendy/felix, although they do seem to much alike to work out in the long run but i still feel bad for wendy.

5. i don't know how i feel about lake and andrew, as people separate from each other. both seem to be the way they are from their upbringing (not confirmed why andrew is such an ass, but if his comment about his dad is anything to go by i bet it's got something to do with attention) but andrew seems to be less, idk, superficial? like he turned down mia because he didn't want to be a rebound, he didn't out victor, he actually stood up to early teasing the other dudes in the lockerroom were doing at victor (with teasing of his own obviously but that interaction had him on my nice list until much later). lake? lake. i honestly don't have an opinion of her? not really. i mean after hanging out with pilar i was hoping felix wouldn't go back to lake. is her name laken? i feel like her full name is laken. but they also played the "im only like this because my mom is really superficial about stuff and i do like the geeky nice guy but appearances" to "actually screw the norms im gonna makeout with him infront of the whole student body". i honestly thought she was gonna be bi because she kept hitting on mia when she was helping set up for her "date" and "big night" and there was one point where i saw her face fall at something mia said in relation to her and idk i was hoping she'd be bi (i figured early on that victor/mia wasnt gonna work and was like "oh mia/lake would be cute" but now idk.

6. okay on to the "big night", i have one word. NO. i didn't like the peer pressure into having sex. i agreed with felix when he said "your body your choice" but im also disappointed that victor made out with mia and when lake was talking to felix after victor left he didn't try to stand up for victor.

7. on to age gaps because i hadn't really thought of this at first. we'll start with benji/derek: WHAT GRADE IS BENJI?! because that determines my thoughts. if he's a sophomore that meant that he and Derek started dating benji's freshman year and thats eugh, don't do that, don't care if its a gay couple that shouldn't be happening because the maturity of the two characters is DRASTICALLY different (this is also a reason i am not a fan of cmbyn) but that would explain why they were so rocky. hoping the event at the gay bar was open to anyone not just for drinking, but not liking that fact that not one of the adults with victor were like: hey, this is a 16 year old, that's kind of wack when that dude was hitting on victor. that made me question some stuff. although i figure it might be making up for the lack of a gay bar scene in love, simon. but even then, in svthsa it's a restaurant with a bar that some people go to just to drink at, it wasn't just a bar, simon could be there but should NOT have accepted drinks from college kids, not matter how attractive.

8. i loved how bram and simon and their friends helped victor out though. i like how bram was like: hey i know my friends are a lot so here's a gay basketball league becaue there's no one way to be gay. i like how Simon talked about needing help himself just to help victor and how he said his friends were cool with it because it's a community. i like of justin(?) mentioned how being what his parents wanted was putting on a mask and pretending, not him doing drag. my favorite lines from that ep are: "and before you ask my pronouns are they/them/theirs" "'they're all gay? even that guy? he's like [insert really tall number]' 'yeah. you should see him in heels'" "or in simon's case: really unathletic" "and also because bram said that if i wore [the jean jacket] one more time he'd burn it". also katya was there. and the group hug too!

9. the back hand homophobia in relation to family is sad, but realistic and i sincerely hope his parents are kind enough not to be too harsh on victor because of it. anything they say that isn't positive or supportive of victor is bad but i hope they realize that there is more to him than that and that they can come to terms with it because it's not always that hard to be a part of that community and super religious. i am biromantic and catholic. and while there are some things i wont agree on my mom with, i know that it's more of a strike against God for kicking out gay kids from families than it is to be gay, because those parents were given trust by GOD to love those kids no matter what, and be good parents. so in the end, the parents are wrong and harmful and in the case of christians against jesus's teachings to love everyone.

10. this is fan speculation but dont think simon/bram are going through a rough patch? i honestly think it'd be a little cruel to the characters to have on of their actors be producing but then not have that relationship stay. and while it's not set in stone and obviously things happen in the real world, we have no proof script wise about there being a rift. all we have are bad photoshopped ig photos and scenes where two characters are never standing next to each other probably beccaue schedules never link up correctly for minor characters. who knows, maybe nick robinson was filming for a movie where is does have an even more major role than victor's gay guru in a series about victor so his filming time was around that. im gonna keep hope that things are okay.

11. that being said: we need more mainstream wlw content, because someone said it earlier and it really does seem to be catering to straight girls. i'll admit i did freak out when benji played call me maybe which is something i associated with him and victor but then kissed a guy because who wouldn't? we get that serenade and sweetness and then it'a ripped from us. but i did mellow out. if i flipped later it was because victor was making dumb decisions and i had to give myself a moment of compsure before i continued.

in the end, i'd say that there is a lot of growth this series needs to go through, but i also know that some people just aren't going to like it and i get that. but i also know that sometimes the best of stories have rocky starts, nothing is ever perfect from the beginning. and besides, further seasons are on hold until we figure out this covid thing, which means that you bet they're gonna be looking at our feedback. they saw what we thought before, they can do it again

i really did like it but we need more ACTUAL lgbtq+ relationship stuff from this series and better decisions on what we are teaching the younger generations, as well as what we want to focus on and realism within characters. i'm giving it an 8/10, because there is always room for growth and i really hope we get better things out of this than what we have been given in season 2.

edit: someone mentioned it really seeming like it was meant for Disney+ and i felt that. also to anyone who reaches the tags agter reading ALL OF THIS: i am sorry

[yaypinecones]

_-My First Impression on Danganronpa Characters Pt.1-_

Makoto Naegi:

When I saw his art design, I was wonder why his shoe came off and looks like he’s gonna fall down. Pretty normal, nothing unique about him. Then when I played the game I was like “Man, imagine this guy being the main character because everyone else looks interesting...well besides Sayaka” (but we’re not talking about her yet). To me, he looks like the guy you’d pass by class or didn’t know he even existed in your school.

Aoi Asahina:

Hmmm yummy, I like donuts. I think we’re gonna be donut buddies. Yea this my first impression on her art. Plus she’s a swimmer that loves eating a ton of crazy amounts of donuts. When playing, it was pretty interesting that she writes Makotos name on her hand to remember him. Also, o thought the logos on the boxes of donuts say Crispy Creams lol. I love her already and I wanna be her friend :)

Byakuya Togami:

“Is a spoiled brat or some blonde rich asshole?” I think those two figures on the chair legs say so. Is he some kind of a prince??? Looks like he could be the antagonist of the game. I hate this man, I wanna punch him in the face for literally insulting everyone and thinking he can be better than everyone else because he’s the heir of some corporate.

Celestia Ludenberg:

OooOo I love her style! Her outfit looks like mix of a maid outfit and goth vibes lol. Also I thought she was a magician or dark magic kind of ultimate, but nah that can’t be it. To me, she gives off a mysterious aura or is it just goth vibes again??? I don’t know why she has those drill pigtails, it’s giving flash backs of a certain purple haired twin drilled girl from another game.

Chihiro Fujisaki:

She looks cute lol. That’s pretty cool the she’s some kind of programmer or hacker. I don’t really have much of an opinion about her other than the computers. In game, she’s so adorable and her introduction was nice. She really looks down on herself when she mentions that Mokoto has that look. Must protect!!!

Hifumi Yamada:

I gotta ask...why does he have 4 arms??? He looks so cartoony compared to all the other characters. Hyper realism gone wrong really. I have so many questions of this guy....like why is his hair look a nail, why is using the printer as backpack, and don’t even tell me why there’s a tissue and Clorox wipe???? Also on the right, is that a game or some kind of reference because that doesn’t match up the art style. I feel he’s some kind of pervert or creep. On game, he’s ok on his introduction I guess.

Junko Enoshima:

I like her style too. She reminds me of those trendy girls and those people that buys pumpkin spice lattes. Plus that skirt is waaaay too short girl. I think she’s a rich girl too? Like some kind of famous model or stylist or a popular toy maker? Cuz the bear is there. Seeing her in game, she’s pretty cool and she’s the first person I wanted to hang out on the free time event.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru:

Why is this guy crying? Also I wish I could read what the word says. He seems he needs emotional support because he looks stressed which is why he’s crying. Is he like one of those kids that takes over the class when the teacher is out? A class president I think? Definitely and probably a goody two shoes. Meeting him, was a lot to take a bit. He’s pretty loud at everything and seems he doesn’t have any friends, which is sad :( If I met him in real life, I wouldn’t want to talk to him too due to how loud he is and following the school rules all the time :/

Kyoko Kirigiri:

Ok, she’s more mysterious and interesting character. Love her hair color. I can’t really get anything from her as she doesn’t explain what her ultimate is and it wants me to dig more information about on the wiki. But, I didn’t so I also tried spending time with her on free time events too.

Leon Kuwata:

Eh I’m not really lnto baseball guys. The style looks cool and his face looks punkish tho. I’m surprised that his sleeve tore off from throwing a baseball thats now on fire, but pretty sure thats an exaggeration. I was confused that his art was different since his character art is just a punk guy. Then he explained that he doesn’t like baseball and wants to be musician. Aight good luck dude. That is all from this guy.

It sucks that I can’t stuff the rest of the other characters. Ima go make a part two. See ya guys.

Heres Part 2

[ltwilliamhavers]

Imposter Factory Trailer Thoughts

okay so i just saw the newest trailer and i did something like this for the old trailer so i thought id do this again. spoilers for the trailer, obviously.

• okay so first of all. AHSFAAADSSGGJFGSADSAASAS??????

• now that thats out of the way lets move on

• so there is a murder which isnt completely out of the realm of realism but there IS a tentacle monster trying to destroy earth. which is pretty out of the realm of realism. ill talk about this later.

• A ROSAWATTS WEDDING????? HELLO?????

• okay so obviously im just as stoked about this as everybody else but. isnt it weird that there was barely even a hint of them becoming canon in the first two games and now theyre suddenly getting married? makes me think that the wedding might not be real.

• in my last post i guessed that the whole murder story was a fake out and we'd actually be going into neils dying memories for the second half of the game or something which... im still kind of with.

• so neil and eva solve the murder thing, yay, but then neil gets hurt or sick and then he wants the procedure. and he wants to marry eva.

• so sigcorp does that but neils painkillers and stuff mess with his memories. remember in the first game how a few betablockers made johnny completely forget his childhood? what do you think an addiction to painkillers will do?

• so all of the completely strange stuff, like the tentacles, is actually neil's mind creating completely weird and unrealistic memories that eva and the rest of sigcorp will have to fix before neil dies so he can get his actual final wish instead of dying with... you know... the world being destroyed by tentacles.

anyway. those are just some of my thoughts. idk if any of it is accurate but i just NEEDED to talk about this trailer.

[itsclydebitches]

Thats why I find most video games are just lackluster in terms of story. Including the heavily praised for it ones. The inherent pacing issues and the sometimes complete opposite characters between cutscene to gameplay make game stories so hard to truly take seriously for me. It's why I don't get it when people only play games for story because that's almost always the worst part. We want morally complex stories without the gameplay to back it up.

Speaking specifically about Ruby, the most frustrating thing for me is that she is flawed. She’s meant to be a power fantasy and in certain respects still is (simple soul, silver eyes) but the concept of Ruby being a power fantasy because she’s perfect doesn’t fly for me, simply because Ruby is so clearly struggling in so many ways. An incomplete list: 

Is introduced as someone who is very introverted, awkward, and has difficulty translating her talent into leadership (canon)

Ignores aspects of her identity due to trauma (extrapolated - when I bring up the writing issue of “Why didn’t Ruby ask about her silver eyes until mid Volume Six?” fans point out that she probably couldn’t deal with it until then. If so, that’s a problem to acknowledge)

Is bottling up all her anger and doesn’t know how to work through it in a healthy manner (canon + extrapolation via Volume Six)

Is incredibly reckless with a tendency to jump straight into a fight without considering the repercussions of that choice (canon - Qrow’s fight with Tyrian, throwing herself into a canon, and now standing against Salem)

Is incredibly naive about the world and what she can accomplish in the here and now (extrapolated/interpreted - yes, that’s inspiring, but as I’ve written elsewhere RWBY has added too much realism to its story for that kind of blind faith to sit well. It’s both a strength and a flaw)

Relies too much on her weapon (canon - supposedly, though this one is admittedly weird considering no one else gets called out for that)

Tells lies, keeps secrets, and manipulates people in a way that, while not necessarily wrong from the audience’s perspective, Ruby has already labeled as inappropriate behavior (canon) 

In short, Ruby is very, very flawed. Especially in these later volumes. The problem isn’t that she’s perfect but only that the writing insists she’s perfect. At the start of the story it’s announced that Ruby is the simple soul who will save them all and thus any flaws paled in comparison to that, but we still got to watch her (somewhat) work through personal issues like her difficulty communicating and leading her team. Her supposed strengths outweighed her flaws and her flaws were definitely characterized as cute, but it was still something. Once the show decided she’d moved past that (which never needed to happen. Flaws like that can impact the story all the way through)  RT brought back her recklessness (Ruby charging the death stalker in her initiation despite the others’ warnings is very similar to her charging Tyrian/jumping Cordovin’s mech despite Qrow’s warnings) but then they seemed to drop that for whatever reason and started scrambling to come up with something new for her to overcome. Enter Ozpin’s sudden insistence that using Crescent Rose as much as she does is bad and the volume concluding with Ruby successfully hitting Mercury. That’s a “flaw” that was introduced and solved in a matter of episodes. By the time we got to Volumes 6 and 7 all attempts to grapple with Ruby’s flaws have been abandoned but they’re still there. We see even more now how naive she is, how reckless, how cruel and hypocritical she can be... but instead of acknowledging all that to give us a well-rounded character capable of growth, the writing tries to paint her as perfect: Blake’s promise in the elevator, Qrow’s reassurance, the group caving to her decisions despite all previous characterization, the treatment of Ironwood as a comparison to her... It’s like RT suddenly wanted that perfect character but didn’t know how to write one, so they just gave us a spiraling Ruby and had everyone else around her say over and over, “Yes you’re right. Yes we trust you. Yes you know what’s best” despite evidence to the contrary. 

Anyway I’ve got thoughts about that characterization lol. As a side note there have definitely been games over the years whose stories I absolutely adored, but yeah, just as many that I played simply for the mechanics. Or at least for the immersion. WoW was my go-to for over a decade and though I was never terribly interested in the lore, just the level of detail in the world made the grinding aspects really enjoyable.

[annalisa-silverhaven-sso]

Welcome,

to my story line revamp.

(scroll to the bottom for a TLDR)

Woah who’s this?? It’s easily been at least 3-4 months since I was last active on any of my SSO social media and probably about 5 months since I’ve consistently logged on and really played Star Stable. But, something drew me to log on today, which then drew me to open my Tumblr and woah, nostalgia much? This post is simply going to be an explanation as to why I left and why I’m back, as well as an introduction to my rekindled blog and the storyline henceforth.

Firstly, toward the end of my activity at the beginning of this year, I was moderately posting on this Tumblr, my Amino account, as well as my RRP Instagram. As I began making more friends on Amino, posting to my Tumblr suffered, and then when I found that I enjoyed the highly realistic IG community, the connections I made on Amino dropped in priority. This is completely unfair to the platforms I “left behind” and I began to feel guilty for not logging in, and suddenly stopped logging in at all. Playing and posting SSO shouldn't be stressful or forced, it should be what it started for me: a relaxing past time and creative outlet. 

I lost my love for the social media communities as I watched the popularity contests, comparisons of art, and subtle but present cliques grow through all the platforms I was a part of. So, I kind of just faded out and for that, I apologize. 

Now, something prompted me to log back into Tumblr and stalk my old posts and pictures which has brought a sense of rekindled inspiration so-to-speak, regarding Anneliese and the wonderful horses of Argentum EC. So I’ve made the decision to begin blogging once again but this time, not in an attempt to build notes, be widely known or followed, or gain any sort of traction. I really want to get back into blogging just because I remember I genuinely enjoyed it, and I enjoyed building the story that Annalisa and her horses came to make. 

Most of the story is going to stay the same: the equestrian center, Cas and Angel, Annalisa’s age, etc. But what is going to change, is the rest of the horses. I’m just going to say it. I hate the old model breeds. I think their cartoon-y style and clunky way of moving does absolutely nothing toward the realism I want to portray and so for that, I am removing more than half the horses in my in-game barn from my character’s storyline. No, I can’t bring myself to sell them, but they are going to be permanent residents of the homestable’s pasture. The horses I do decide to keep ‘owning’ will remain the same as before.

Finally, in terms of content. I will not be posting overly edited or filtered photos. This blog started as a place to post screenshots and thats what I have come to love most; just raw (but still composed and planned) screenshots of the game as opposed to edited tack, hair, and other details. I’m not saying people don't do amazing edits of their own screenshots, but its just not my style.

So, SSO Tumblr, I am back to hopefully post as I used to, before the need for notes so heavily influenced what I posted. The info pages of my blog will be under construction for a little while, as well. Take this post as you wish and I hope I can follow some people who feel the same way!

TL;DR -

-I left for a while bc I no longer felt joy in posting or playing SSO

-I’m back now but I’m just going to do Tumblr bc I really just enjoy the casual blogging

-My story line is gonna be relatively the same except for the removal of past horses because I strongly dislike their models

-Posts are just gonna be realistic captions paired with simple screenshots from the game; limited to no edits.

-I wanna follow active people so reblog/comment if ur an active, realism blog. (you can unreblog after, I just want to use it as a way to find new people)

If you made it this far, you're a real trooper holy sh-

[akajustmerry]

could you elaborate about the GoT finale and what kind of writing you've learned you like/dislike? i'm curious specifically about character development

hi anon i’d love to!!

so the main thing i learned reading/watching asoiaf is to use character development to develop the world you have created and vice versa. a lot of times i struggle with settings when i write because i think of them as unimportant or static, but asoiaf showed me ways of not doing that. something i love that Martin did in the books and what happens to a certain extent in the show is that characters develop with places and because of places and the interplay of locations and people matters as much as the interplay of people with one another.

take sansa for instance, she grows up in the north but it’s her time in king’s landing specifically that is formative, and king’s landing itself seems to shape people impact her. and yes the south is formative for sansa. But for someone like jaime its the place he has to get away from to change. locations in game of thrones matter so so much because of how different characters interact with them, see them, and are defined, by them, and within them. the locations take on personas almost and it makes the world feel real and i love that.

and i love how locations influence people in very specific ways in GoTnot just “i’m from here/not from here” but like “here i am seen as this/here people are defined by this and so they do not understand this part of who i am” its one of the reasons that season 3 will always be my favorite because every character is forced to grow because they are relocated in places where who they believe they are is not important so they have to adapt and grow i.e. jon with the wildlings beyond the wall, jamie and brienne on the king’s road, bran with jojen, dany in (??) mareen???. people grow because of where they go and the world grows for the audience too and it all ties the world together.

in terms of what i dislike i’ve learned i dislike the idea of fantasy narratives that cling to realism as excuses for treating marginalized characters poorly. i mean if a fantasy world still treats marginalized people like shite, it isn’t really fantasy, just a sort of fetishized version of reality. game of thrones both the show and books fall victim to this a lot like really George?? in your fantasy where there are dragons and zombies and all that jazz, black people still had to be mostly slaves, poc coded as savages, old women are hated, and gay people are still played for laughs?? wow, the imagination!! its just giving your characters and the world the same terrible limitations of our world so, in the end, its not that much of a fantasy. 

the other obvious thing to take away from the tv series with character development is that treating a person and their development (whether it is morally good or bad) as if it has no effect on how they interact with the people around them makes for discontent and a disconnected story. like all the scenes between arya and jon this season felt so stilted because the writers were more concerned with recreating the nostalgia of their connection in series one, than showing how they are now, and it was just offputting because they were both jovially joking about….murder, being murdered?? what??? you can’t srsly think thats how these two characters would interact. in other words, i disliked how the show didn’t seem to want relationships to change even if the people in them had and i really didn’t like that because it made for weird jarring interactions.

whoop! sorry i rambled there but yeah i love talking about what i learn about writing from things!! thank you for asking this!

(p.s. my spelling is atrocious, sorry!)

[vanrambling]

Writing Influences Tag Game

Eeeeep, this is the first time I’ve been tagged in a writing tag game, actually the second tag game ever. I was tagged by @angrymagicgirlmarsette (at my main blog) for this and I thank her a lot!

I know she tagged me last week but I lost my wifi (it was under the couch, the cat began chasing the mouse and it got in a fight with the RAM and then it was a mess that pulled the router and the cable got cut because... Long story short, I lost the wifi and after that I made a lot of excuses) But here we are and here we go!

Rules: Give a short summary of your WIP, name 7 books, TV Shows, games, movies, comics, etc. that have influenced your story, and tag 7 people.

I will do it for my main WIP, Cannibal’s Ball, at least for now, it will work for another work another time. 

Cannibal’s Ball

London, now a flying city above the Atlantic, is home to Homer, a cynical but kind hearted Prosecutor, and to Virgil, a his best friend /pansexual/happy-go-lucky-playboy/Detective. Both of them are the problematic heirs and the “justice for hire” arm of the ruling elite of London, “The Families”, and as such, they are tasked with finding out why there is a dead body in the edge of the city where The Families control the water and oxygen treatment plants that supply the city.  

This mystery will make them leave their adoptive city and face their past while travelling to the walled Macropolis of Paris, where they will meet Cybelle, a mysterious woman that knows Homer a bit too intimately, and Vamp, a very capable lady of the night. 

In the city of Light they will come across drugs, human experiments, unusual allies, go toe to toe with the Parisian Families, face their nightmares in the catacombs and try to survive a night dancing amongst Cannibals. 

Influences!

I have to limit myself to seven right?:

Dresden Files. About a decade ago I fell in love with the urban fantasy / detective stories of the Wizard for Hire from Chicago, Harry Dresden, written by Jim Butcher, it is one of the biggest influences on my style.  

Lethal Weapon. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I got my appendix extracted. It was about to explode, I lost a weekend of my life thanks to the anaesthesia. But it was so funny because they were playing the four movies on tv, so when I woke up from the operation, the first movie was beginning, then I fell asleep before the first act. I woke up for the second act of the second movie, fell asleep, woke for the third act of the third movie and woke at the ending of the fourth one. Watching Riggs and Murtaugh go from being unlikely partners to become family in one single movie because of the drugs made me love this franchise even more and brought me to star my own work with two unlikely friends that have to survive and solve a mystery together. 

Sin City. So my love of noir and buddy-cop movies is clear, but when I saw the Valkiries in Sin City I felt inspired by them and created my own ragtag group of extraordinary, badass women that happen to be sex-workers, each for their own reason. Vamp being the first one to appear in this series I am working on. 

Get Backers. Again, two friends searching for stuff, having to fight their way to retrieve what the client asked. This two are very special to me, since they have a very close relationship like Homer and Virgil and had a very diverse cast, including a woman of color with which I fell in love, not being used to seen many brown faced people in anime.

Stardust. Both the movie and the book. I just love both of them. Specially the flying ship and the princes. I loved this setting, the characters, I did not want to make a fanfic but give them another adventure in my own universe. 

Fate/Stay Night. The original. I have a love-hate relationship with this one. I love the idea. Hate the execution. So I had to take matter into my own hands and created this universe, though it grew so much that almost got out of my hands. And here we are now, nine years later, writing what is technically a prequel to the thing that began it all, just because I wanted to do Fate/Stay Night my way, the right way. 

100 years of solitude and Pedro Paramo. I had to do this, sorry to break the rules, but this two go hand in hand. My family comes from the same town as Juan Rulfo, who is technically the first to write Magical Realism. He and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are my main latin american influences, this two come so close to...everything in my life, from fear to pride to joy, that it is imposible, as we say in Mexico, “negar la cruz de mi parroquia” (refuse the cross of my church), that is to say, I can’t deny my roots, this two are integral part of my writers DNA. 

As to why Paris, why London, that is for another day, but it has to do with a word that begins with “I” and end with “grants”. And I have not began to talk about the Hunters, the Dreams, the core working of each state city, that is unique to each region of the world. The wild lands that came as a result from the catastrophes. The antagonists. I just scratched the dystopian economy. The love interests. So much more. So much more to talk about. But that is all for today. If you wanna know more just drop me an ask

This was not as educative as  @angrymagicgirlmarsette did with their own tag, but I hope you enjoyed getting to know about my work, my influences and the world I’m working on. 

I’ll tag... @imbadatwriting, @fragrant-stars, @elixirofethereallove, @raaskolnikov and @dantedevereauxt aaand anyone who reads this, and if you don’t want the tag thats okay, and if you don’t want me to tag you again, just send me a message. 

Good writing!

[burgermiester]

Actually, being able to switch between characters during the map was added in HWL! It went a long way to me liking that version more. Also, about the recruitment, do you get all the characters at the start of the part? Like you get all the Awakening characters when you first start that part, etc. Also what about Cordelia's moveset don't you like? (Sorry for asking so many questions I'm just still on the fence about the game...

Oh man, I’m a Warriors fan but I couldnt even handle the thought of playing another Warriors on handheld after playing Dynasty Warriors Advance.  That game sure left an impression…. Anyway, good to know about it being in HWL, I dont like to spread misinformation.  I wonder if its in the Berserk Warriors game too? I think thats the only other Warriors game that I havent played between HW and FEW.

(bear in mind everything after this is subject to change, im still going off impressions from ~3 hours of gameplay in a language I dont understand.)

As for when characters join, its not all at once its over time and in different situations.  Some characters join you at the beginning of chapters, some join mid battle, and some join after you beat them first (I dont know for sure but I feel like one of the chapters was a training battle against some Awakening characters and the ones you fought joined afterwards.)

For the Peg Knight moveset it feels like theres a tiny bit of delay compared to foot units where attacking feels much smoother.  Frederick (my only mounted character so far) also has this a little bit but not as strongly as Cordelia.  But more importantly, I feel like the cone of damage (not really sure what to call it, but how many enemies get scooped up in the regular combos) is much less for her than other characters.  Finally, I dont really like the flier “sprint.”  It works the same way as other characters except theres a little pause when you go into the sprint instead of it being instant, and maybe its an optical illusion because the sprint is so fast, but pre-sprint movement feels slower to me than it is for other characters.  AND, when you attack from the sprint instead of immediately attacking the enemy right in front of/below you it does a huge lunge forward.  I might get used to it eventually but as of now I almost always miss my target.

All that said, I dont actually think this is necessarily a bad thing.  It feels like the kind of impediment that you might have when fighting from a pegasus so theres a strange sense of realism, but more importantly I still want a pegasus knight (or wyvern, if all this proves the same for Camilla) on the field at all times to reach places only fliers can go and move across maps quickly in a pinch, I just dont want to be using them the whole time to fight all the enemies.  Thats a balance that main FE games havent been able to strike with fliers since Genealogy imo.  The only issue is that they are the only lance users in the game and I’d rather have a lance wielding cav or foot unit to fight enemy sword officers. 

[wagginstaff-bct-blog]

Change My View - ‘Virtual Reality Won’t Become A Commonplace Technology by 2030.’

The resurface of Virtual Reality (VR) in the eyes of mainstream media and general public as an entertainment medium has sparked much debate concerning the future of this once-fictional technology. To some, it represents the culmination of decades of technological development. Part of an ever-increasing drive to enhance digital experiences of consumers.

Now for the purepose of my arguement I will be looking at the ‘good’ VR headsets and it’s place in the market. The systems that require its own software and unique experiences. Instead of just facilitating a different screen mode as you strap a phone to your face.

VR demonstrates engineers utilizing and merging an amazing range of systems into making virtual reality real enough to escape the ‘uncanny valley.’ Systems such as: A new way of displaying images, so that our eyes register depth and space, surround sound, spacial tracking, interactivity, and many more abstract and technical systems that I lack the understanding of carry the list further. This is all done with the purpose of developing the fidelity and realism of digitally generated experiences.

Now in no way to I doubt, or am I against this amazing utilisation and synergy of technology. It can, and has, demonstrated its importance and relevance in specific areas such as simmulation. Utilised by the military and research programs to help prepare soliders for combat, or provide training by way of simulating real world encounters. Such as medical, mechanical, aviation, excetera scenes that can be recreated in a 3D space. My scepticism however, comes into play when looking at the feasibility for this medium as entertainment, or use as a tool in the home. Similar to how the western world views the domestic use of laptops and smartphones.

Now to understand why I believe it won’t take off, we must first look at the consumer marketplace, and how past ideas and innovations have failed. ESPECIALLY within the entertainment industry, and whether we like it or not, for projects to take off it needs a player base that can provide the financial support to keep pioneering companies deveoping or making new content for VR. For VR as an entertainment source to do this it first needs to have a sizable market. Which means it needs to entice enough people to by into it.

However this is where I believe much of the implications of this model lie. As VR comes with a plethora of cons to turn many consumers away:

  - Firstly, the buy in price. Where if we look at existing entertainment headsets, interactive headsets that combine the systems listed above begin around $600 NZD as a starting price, and thats just sony’s headset as an add on to the playstation 4. Which goes for more than the playstation itself. Ranging to $1500 for an HTC setup, utilising more funstions like spacial movement and interactive controllers. Right to the microsoft hololens and the oculus right going for around $5000 respectively. This immediately diminishes the potential marketing potential to those who can offord to pay for this kind of setup.

 - Motion sickness. Now, I will admit that much of the issues that created the sickness experience have been reduced significantly thanks to very exstensive research and playtesting. However this still serves to effect the market size even more. Especially with the stigma that VR has created in the past years surrounding its user friendliness.

 - Setup. Now while this is limited to only a few of the (semi) wide range of systems on the market. It does come with an exstensive list for the conditions of play. Some going so far to demand a dedicated 3m x 3m space coupled with motion sensors to even utilise in its designed experience.

 - A fundamental lack of developers actually knowing how to utilise this technology for experience. Or even a complete lack of content available to consumers. As a heavily experience reliant setup, there needs to be enough content that makes use of the $600+ that consumers put into the hardware that would warrant the pricetag that it comes with.

So at the end of the day the problem VR has lies less in the limitations of technology (although that is important) but instead it’s ability to capture peoples attention enough to outway many of the ways people reject this medium. Because development of experimental technology requires funding, and funding is provided by consumers. If there is limited consumers, there is limited funding for project, equating in less content for people who have spent the buy-in price experience, which drives even more people away from the medium. Where this cycle will repeat itself untill, as an entertainment device on the entertainment market for the average consumer, It will remain a niche title for a niche audience.

“But just look at the global success of smartphones and computers” I hear you say. While I admit there are examples of technology surpasing all of what was expected of them. I can also quote a number of examples that underwent the exact treatment I outlined above: And that is both the 3D-TV, and the Xbox Kinect. Now both of these examples were, at their time on the market, state of the art applications of merging different fields of technology to enhance the consumers experience with the digital medium. Whether that be the interactivity of the Kinect, or the immersion tried for with the 3D-TV’s. However while both failed because of different processes the end result remained the same:

 - The Kinect failed because of the lack of players that could support new content being created. Ultimately resulting in no more games being created that utilises this technology. Therefore destroying any real reason for new players to invest in this setup without a guarantee of new content.

 - The 3D-TV failed because it failed to generate enough interest in to sell. Where the excitement we once saw for the development of 3D cinema gradually died off. Resulting in a entertainment medium that never went past a simply gimick. Once again only to derive itself a very niche audience.

Now there are many other reasons, however I believ that it is these defining reasons, and all of these combining factors based off of past examples of failed ‘revolutionary’ technology that make me believe VR as an entertainment medium will never be a commonplace technology in the homes of the average consumer.

For those Interested you can see other peoples opinion’s and rambling for either side in these links: (it’s very hard to find articles that aren’t just click-bait pages)

FOR VR - and its applications

 - http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/virtual-reality-now-a-reality/article5982819.ece

Training simulations: https://www.army.mil/article/84453/ || https://www.army.mil/article/84728/DSTS__First_immersive_virtual_training_system_fielded

 - http://www.roadtovr.com/the-3-most-common-arguments-against-vr-and-why-theyre-wrong/

AGAINST VR

 - https://www.pcgamesn.com/how-why-and-when-vr-will-fail

 - http://vrcherries.com/virtual-reality-will-fail/

I invite anyone to challenge my view, and I look forward to discussing this with anyone who wants to ‘chang my view.’