#take me back to figure/fundamentals STAT!

[umbrvx]

at long last.... 2024 art summary

[dailyadventureprompts]

With your redesigns of gods, demon lords, and various other figures prominent in DnD's loose canon, I have wondered, what would be your take on Baba Yaga?

Nothing, Baba is perfect and I hope she spares me.

In all seriousness though, I often take umbrage with how d&d and it's associated systems (LOOKING AT YOU PATHFINDER YOU'RE EXTRA GUILTY OF THIS) just rip a folklore character out of its cultural context and drop it into an adventure or monster manual for the players to fight without understanding the role it played in the stories that gave it shape.

Everyone knows that Baba Yaga's cottage has chicken legs... but can you tell me WHY? other than being a particularly striking image that's cemented itself into the iconography of the character?

The answer is because someone somewhen told a story where a character had to find Baba Yaga's cottage and it kept moving deeper into the dark forest. They were telling a story about the primeval fear of being lost in the wilderness and how sometimes it felt like no matter how far you walked you'd never reach your destination, never finding your way there or back.

That feeling of helplessness is fundamental to quite a lot of folk stories, but is at odds with d&d's central play fantasy of empowerment. Folk heroes get by on wit, bravery, politeness, or even kindness alone.... d&d heroes get by on being able to outpace their opponents in the action economy. That's why I'm always up in arms whenever I see these characters statted out like just another monster for the players to chop through: it removes all their majesty and mystery and wonder (along with the potential character growth that comes along with such themes) and imagines a world where the primordial fear of being alone in the woods at night is something the party can defeat if they stab it enough times.

As for the character herself, Using characters like Baba Yaga to fill out d&d's roster of villains is the worst of both worlds, because you are at once beholden to the stories she comes from but also not doing those stories justice by poorly translating them into a new medium. Why not instead create an original crone character that references Ms. Mortar & Pestle who better embodies the gameish you want to use her in?

Anyway, sorry for the ramble there, have some dark folk beats as way of apology.

[blood-teeth]

hi! any tips for turning an idea into a plot / story?

hiiii sorry this took me so long!! tumblr doesn't tell me when i get an ask anymore for some reason???? idk idk but!

✨✨✨morgan's guide to turning ideas into a story✨✨✨

these may not work for you BUT if you're having a hard time piecing together something then i would give these a shot!

the first thing i do when i have an idea i write it down. USUALLY my ideas for me come in a sentence. For Tell Me If There's A Way Home, the sentence was "cowgirl that has to keep burying a body that pops up along her journey"

for This Grave Calls You Home it was "in the light of a dying star, the last astronaut wakes up"

BRAINSTORMING:

so anyway i immediately write this down somewhere, usually the notes app on my phone and i STOP WHAT IM DOING IMMEDIATELY

for me, i have hundreds of these sentences written down somewhere, but the ones that stick with me always stay in the back of my throat.

if its one that gets me really hot and bothered, then the seed is planted and it needs some water babes....

im RUNNING to find media that i feel fits with the idea ... on that netflix or spotify or library app STAT looking for anything that will help that seed grow inside my head. i need the VIBES and the MUSIC and ATMOSPHERE.

once that's on lock...i'm plotting with my little grimy hands rubbing together...

...and i buy...another....notebook... and i KNOW this sounds ridiculous but hear me out...writing in notebook vs on a computer has genuinely saved my life with writer's block so many times. ideas and thoughts and fragments just flow when i allow myself to write in a notebook. idk what it is. but this is just me, if computers or typewriters or what have you works then STICK WITH IT

by the time i'm done scribbling ideas in my notebook and acting unhinged, i have a decent idea about the atmosphere and the themes i'm looking to write about

IF AN IDEA CAME TO YOU, IT MEANS SOMETHING IMPORTANT. DON'T DISREGARD THIS

you need to figure out what it is about the idea that means so much to you - and whatever that reason is, that's gonna be the fundamental core of your story.

PLOTTING:

i have to admit something. i dont plot my stories. i dont know how to plot. i like to discover the story right alongside everyone else. what's gonna happen next? idk babes you and me are gonna find out together.

BUT i do try to have a general idea of where the story STARTS and ENDS. everything else is trial and error. and if u dont have any idea where the story ends, just know it'll come to you eventually. u have thousands and thousands of words to write before the end, so don't sweat this; it'll happen. even if its really simple!

using Tell Me If There's A Way Home as an example:

Start: a woman doesn't know who she is, only knows that she's looking for something

End: She's Found The Thing

think of it like a question and answer. (also! NOT answering the question is totally valid story telling too)

if u are really struggling, the number one thing i suggest is READING. you can glean so much information from reading its actually crazy. study your favorite books or movies or video games. almost always in western media there is the exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. (this is super formulaic, so don't feel tied down by this! just a guide line.)

SETTING:

i think everyone gets really tied up in knots about setting. and it shouldn't be like that! this should be YOUR fun!!

setting has very little to do with story/plot itself. it affects the ATMOSPHERE of the story you're telling instead. (except, like, if you're telling an alice in wonderland story or a story about climate change ofc, there's exceptions to everything)

look the locked tomb for example. take out the space aspect, this story at its heart would be the exact same if it were set underwater inside decomissioned underwater research facilities. its just cool as fuck to have a space nun living on pluto.

Take twin peaks and put it in space. the heart of the show works anywhere, but the atmosphere and the mood is enhanced because its in a small, strange town.

you can write a story about generational trauma and put it into the world of jurassic park.

anyway, i hope that you are hearing me say have fun with your setting. it absolutely is a part of the story you're telling, but it is not the heart of it (sometimes)

MISC TIPS:

remember that this is YOUR work. you do whatever you want. it's not up to anyone else.

be obsessed with your own world and your characters!! i literally went to a craft store and made a rosary today for one of my characters and it has actually helped me write a ton today.

you are not stuck in this story. i feel like a pitfall i face often is like "ah man but this writing doesnt make sense in this genre i cant write this" and its like YEAH I CAN. why cANT I . do whatever you want with your story im so serious. you have no idea how many books are releasing now and the common feedback is "man this feels like a book ive read a million times before" and with movies its a remake or based off a book like the entertainment industry DESPERATELY needs new original ideas SO SO BAD. dont be scared to write that book that you're worried is too weird or doesn't make sense trust me.

make playlists! watch movies! play video games! these are all things that count as writing believe it or not.

and remember you are loved !

[save-the-spiral]

Hi! Absolutely love your school quiz (I got Life btw which is me to an absolute tee) and I just wanted to know if you'd consider publishing all the results since I'm a curious bean and want to know what the other school results are 😅

(link to quiz) (i recommend others take the quiz because this has spoilers for the answers)

hello anon,

I figured out how to log back into Uquiz because of this ask.

and hooo boy. some stats. first off: I made the quiz 2 years ago. god, i was 19. innocent, a darling, a babe in the woods. uncancelled, free.

Grand Total of quiz takers: 1,326! buncha nerds! many of them are myth wizards, apparently!

Now here are your Answers for the Quiz!

STORM:

“That which can be imagined, can be achieved.”- School Motto, Wizard101

Storm wizards, known as Diviners, are creative and strong willed, though easily distracted at times. They have a tendency to be dramatic, but that makes them even more fun as companions. They are electric, and powerful, and wonderful people. They are diverse in their interests, but all follow the same motto of achievement, of having a concrete object to show their progress as wizards.

ICE:

“… with Persistence, Victory is assured.”- School Motto, Wizard101

Ice wizards, also known as thaumaturges, are intelligent. They can become perfectionists, and can be almost too self sacrificial in their role. They can be unyielding, not changing their ways in this deep need to be right. Their closed off and curt nature leads to an isolation. To melt the walls around an ice wizard's heart, to be let in to those deep emotions and memories, is something rare and to be cherished.

FIRE:

“If the Mind is like a candle, the Heart is like the sun.”- School Motto, Wizard101

Fire wizards, or Pyromancers, are passionate and wild, impulsive. They rush in on instinct as opposed to what logic would dictate. They are, down to their core, good. They are trying their best, even if it means they burn out. Their passion can manifest in a number of ways, many detrimental, but having a network of friends to anchor them can lead to a very powerful leader.

DEATH:

“Timor mortis conturbat me.” (The Fear of Death Confounds Me)- School Motto, Wizard101

Death wizards (necromancers), are morbid and fond of dark humor, as long as it doesn't make light of the tragedy of their school. They have a hard time connecting with other schools of wizards, because of their personality, but also the fundamental understanding of the Spiral that they cannot share.

MYTH:

“To control the Future, one must look to the Past.”-School Motto, Wizard101

Myth wizards, Conjurers, are very control driven. They are imaginative and have a deep investment in history, whether mythological or human, and they try to learn from the past as best they can, because the cyclical nature of time vexes them the most of any school. They can also have visions of the past, present, and future, through many different mediums, but most of all through dreams.

LIFE:

"As we have been Created, so must we Create."-School Motto, Wizard101

Life wizards, Theurgists, are kind people. Their magic derives from the body, keeping themself and others whole. They can be almost parental at times in their protectiveness, though they tend to feel helpless in the face of grave danger, only able to pick up the pieces and heal afterwards. When only around other life wizards, they can become vicious and competitive in their usefulness, a secret hierarchy few outsiders know of.

BALANCE:

“Eye of Newt, and Toe of Frog, Wool of Bat, and Tongue of Dog.”- School Motto, Wizard101

Balance Wizards, Sorcerers, do not draw upon magic in the traditional sense of the other six main schools of Ravenwood. There is no internal or external draw, but from the magic itself, the elements of each school understood in such ways that they may become one whole.The most flexible of the schools, they meditate and try to understand many things other take for granted. This may lead to an almost condescending view of other wizards at times, for they are never willing to understand the balance of the Spiral.

STAR:

“Your path is illuminated by the light Yet darkness lets the stars shine bright.” ~J.L.W. Brooks (School Motto)

Star wizards specialize in auras, enhancing their own magic in order to more effectively defeat their foe. While an accessory school in game, it is believed that they are prone to distraction, fond of glitter, and rather giggly at times. They can be vicious, can fight as well as the next wizard. They will fight until the end, until the last star dies out, and even they will not know when that is, and they will not stop.

SUN:

“The strength of the Sun will show our inherent capacity for truth and transformation.”-School Motto, Wizard101

Sun Wizards are primarily leaders, an excellent figurehead and rallying point for others. Their magic is used to enhance their spells in battle, enchanting or mutating the inherent magic in the spell cards for just one encounter. These wizards do not crumble under pressure as others may, they are strong and inherently hold onto that strength in order to guide and pull their allies through to the other side of a difficult situation.

MOON:

“The moon is a transformation that shows where change is necessary.”-School Motto, Wizard101

Moon Wizards use their magic to polymorph into other creatures or beings, changing their spell deck and statistics mid-battle. They must have a strong sense of self and grasp upon their own identity in order to continue to utilize these magics and remain who they were originally when they polymorph back. They have so many secrets they fear sharing, but when they do it is the ultimate form of their trust, and they bond with friends for life.

SHADOW:

"It is unstable and difficult to control." Wizard101.com on Shadow magic.

Shadow wizards are few and far between. The backlash the magic inflicts upon its wizards is difficult and painful, but a fair way to rebalance the Spiral after using this reality bending, strange magic. Shadow wizards are capable of great things, but in that greatness, there is no indication whether it shall be for the good or the harm of the worlds and peoples of the Spiral.

[jamesvanriemsdyk]

Best GMs and coaches in the league ACC to you?

we can start with gms because coaching is a bit more complicated. best gms in the league is easy to look at because like, who has a good team? who has had a consistently good team? whose locker room is the most cohesive, whose coaching staff is the best? who is the best at acquiring and keeping the best players, coaches, staff, etc? and you can see that in the way teams play. 

(putting this under the cut because it got long. and i mean Long.)

so, in no particular order: kyle dubas (leafs), steve yzerman (red wings, i will explain this later), don waddell (canes), julien brisebois (lightning), joe sakic (avs), and kelly mccrimmon/george mcphee (golden knights) (god i still hate that name and also will explain this later too) are the best in the league in my opinion. honorable mention to marc bergevin, who has held onto his job much longer than he arguably should have, but still has a decent team on the ice and a decent coaching staff, although the french rule does severely handicap them (i understand why it exists but it does, it just does). 

david poile (preds) is the longest tenured gm in the league (has been the preds gm since fucking 1997, thats insane, thats legit before i was born, what the fuck), and i do genuinely think he is very good at his job, and that he is very hockey smart, but oh boy have his recent decisions been suspect as hell, and that reflects in the state of his team. doug wilson (sharks), who is the second longest tenured gm in the nhl, is in the exact same boat (the karlsson deal is a nightmare, and also did he just forget that his star core was gonna get old and retire or ??).

with dubas, waddell, brisebois, sakic, and mccrimmon/mcphee all have the same basic strengths: they draft well, they have a fundamental understanding of their team structure and how to manage public perception of the team and everything that implies, and they have two fingers on the pulse of their locker room at all times. im not going to pretend to know as much about sakic and mccrimmon/mcphee as i do the eastern gms, but it doesnt take much to figure it out. look at the avs, and their locker room, the success theyve found after being dead fucking last in the league. look at the knights and their incredible success that theyve found after literally not existing before 2017. ive talked about dubas a lot on my blog, but its incredibly easy to see that waddell and brisebois do the same shit he does, and i can do a deep dive on them if asked. bergevin has moments of brilliance, like the suzuki trade and acquiring caufield and anderson, but things like kotkaniemi’s development and their entire blue line give me a massive pause, which is why he’s not in the main list. he’s a good gm. he’s just not the best.

in regards to steve yzerman: you have to understand that this is the man that built the tampa bay lightning as we know them. this man was gm of the bolts until fucking 2018. tampa bay has been a monster in the eastern conference for years, BECAUSE of the work steve yzerman put in. his team set the franchise record for wins, and he was the first and is the only lightning gm to have won gm of the year. look up the 17-18 roster. it is, essentially, the roster that won them the cup last year. make no mistake, i think brisebois is great, and hes on the list for a reason, but the biggest part of brisebois’ success was steve yzerman’s incredible hockey mind. brisebois essentially had to sell off a fourth of his roster, and the lightning are still a top team in their division and in the league, and thats why he’s there (it is so incredibly easy to fuck shit up post cup win), but the brisebois lightning would not exist without steve yzerman, plain and simple.

what steve yzerman is doing in detroit should be watched very, very closely by every single person in the hockey world. youre fucking nuts if youre not paying attention to them, not gonna lie. the mantha trade was excellent, if really sad if you know even a bit about the wings, but the amount of draft picks steve yzerman has amassed and the way he’s using the prospects and players he already has is really fucking admirable. mike babcock left the red wings organization absolutely in tatters, and i think, honestly, it was always steve yzerman’s plan to go home to detroit and rebuild. if there is anyone who is going to strike absolute gold this draft year, it is steve yzerman. watch the red wings, i am telling you, keep a beat on detroit. they are going to be good. its not an if, its a when.

(real quick on the knights situation: mcphee was the first gm of the knights, and was also president of hockey ops at the same time, and then in 2019 mcphee said he was just gonna focus on his job as president, but we all know hes still an integral part of the way the knights are run, and he and mccrimmon have kinda been building the knight together since the beginning anyway bc mccrimmon was originally mcphee’s agm. so. thats why theyre together)

as for coaches, it’s very simple. rod brind’amour (canes), sheldon keefe (leafs, yes im biased, we’ll get into it), jared bednar (avs), joel quenneville (panthers), jon cooper (lightning), barry trotz (isles), and mike sullivan (pens).

(disclaimer: obviously coaching is done as a team, and assistants and specialist coaches and staff are all very important, but the head coaches set the tone and organize the entire machine, if you will, so im going to be talking about head coaches as if theyre the entire coaching staff. its just easier this way im sorry)

im gonna just start with the easy ones: barry trotz, mike sullivan, and jon cooper have been in the league for years. cooper is the longest tenured coach in the nhl for a reason (again, just look at the tampa bay lightning. its the gm’s job to make the coach’s life easier and the coach’s job to make the gm’s life easier, and this is one of the prime examples of it in the league. its dope as hell tbh), trotz is one of the most respected coaches in the hockey world for a reason (the caps lost something when he walked. they just did. and now the isles are absolute hell to play against and that is largely the coaching of barry trotz, you legit cannot tell me im wrong), and while mike sullivan does have his faults, i think hes found a way to please both management and the crosby-and-malkin unit, which has been really really fucking hard to do. he also led the pens to back to back cups, which you can never really uh. ignore. lmao. so theres those three.

i know less about bednar, but again, another example of the coach and gm working together to make each others’ lives easier. sakic gets bednar the players and staff he needs to make the avs better, and bednar takes those players and staff and makes them into the absolute giant they are. it wouldve been really, really easy to fuck up makar’s development, or bowen byram’s, or sam girard’s, or ryan graves’s, or jost or mackinnon or rantanen’s, but he hasn’t, and he hasn’t just given up on players like burakovsky or kadri, he’s given them new life as players and made them more successful.

joel quenneville is the reason the bl/ckh/wks were a legacy team point blank period. sure they had the talent, sure the gm drafted well, but you do not get the legacy of the chicago bl/ckh/wks without joel quenneville. they fired him on a whim and it absolutely was a mistake, and the moment the cats hired him i literally out loud said ‘oh no’ because i knew exactly what that meant for the leafs and their position in the standings. the panthers are underrated generally, yes, but they would not be the powerhouse they are this season without quenneville. just look at q’s wiki stats. he’s absolutely unbeilevable. he won the jack adams in fucking 2000, before he’d even won any of the cups with the h/wks. i cant tell you what kind of a locker room coach this guy is, but i can tell you his teams win and win convincingly, and that firing him was the biggest mistake the h/wks have made in years.

whenever i talk about coaching, i talk about rod brindamour and sheldon keefe in the same breath every single time because there is no match, and i mean none, for the love inside those locker rooms. the avs, maybe, but my point stands. keefe and brindamour fucking BLEED team spirit, it is at the center of their coaching styles and their teams are good because of it specifically. marner and matthews are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation and then some with keefe. aho, teravainen, and svechnikov are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation with brindamour. brindamour and keefe have both hashtag played the game, so they Get It, and more than that, theyve grown and changed their understanding of the game as the game itself has changed, and so they can command the authority of their teams while also connecting to them on a really deep level. i should make a note here that keefe and brindamour are incredibly, deeply hockey smart, and that they are also just technically good coaches, skimming their wiki or nhl dot com articles will tell you that, but what makes them stand out to me is that their players would fucking die for them. the leafs would go through the end boards for keefe, the canes would do the same for brindamour. travis dermott said it best when keefe got promoted: boys wanna play for him. beyond that, the management skills both brindamour and keefe have are just frankly amazing (the amount of ego keefe specifically has to manage in the leafs locker room is astounding and he does it so incredibly brilliantly). the leafs and the canes are talented, yes, and would have been talented regardless of who was coaching them. but brindamour and keefe bring both of those teams from talented to exceptional, and the true mark of an amazing coach is not only how many games their team wins, but how they win them, and the leafs and canes have been winning games this year for and because of each other, and that starts with their coaches. what makes a great coach, to me, is not the talent on the team (though that certainly helps), but how the coach manages his players no matter who they are, and how he helps those players grow not just as players as people, because no matter how much pure stats people and twitter hockey dudebros wanna deny it, that shit does affect on ice play, and it does make good players better.

so theres my analysis of the best coaches and gms of the nhl, im so sorry this is so long, oh my god. also, shoutout to @bishops--knifetrick for sending me an ask about this literally a month ago that i just never answered, sorry for that, but here i hope this is good. :)

[felassan]

Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games. 

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks. 

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet. 

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’” 

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue. 

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

[lovewillthaw-j]

Frozen II/RBTI discussion (2/2)

Part 2 will discuss the differences, especially about the way the separation was dealt with.

I acknowledge that the subject of Elsa and Anna’s separation at the end of F2 is terribly divisive to our fandom and for those who know me, I walk the middle line and have dear friends on both sides of the divide and I respect everyone’s opinions. I wanna say up front that I LOVE F2 to bits, I came into this fandom after F2, I’m not an F2 hater, I also love F1 too, I love Elsa and Anna.  

The differences

There are fundamental personality differences which should be stated up front - Vanellope: Extrovert; Ralph: Introvert. Elsa: Introvert; Anna: Extrovert. It’s interesting that in RBTI, the extrovert leaves but in F2, the introvert leaves. Thanks @super-mam-te-moc for pointing this out.

Obviously, these are two different movies. At its core, RBTI is a movie about friendship, and learning to accept that friendships can change and that it’s not a bad thing for friends to pursue different dreams. Frozen 2 is about Elsa’s destiny and source of her powers, the sins of her ancestors and righting a wrong. I’m going to court controversy here by saying that the separation in F2 is “by the way” and unexpected. 

The handling of separation in RBTI

In RBTI, separation is hinted early on and the audience is gradually “prepared” for it. First and foremost, as I mentioned at the beginning, Vanellope is an extrovert and it is not unexpected that she would enjoy a place like Slaughter Race. She makes an early mention of this: “that feeling, that not-knowing-what's-coming-next feeling. That's the stuff. That feels like life to me.”

Vanellope hints at the separation when she says: “It’s true [that Ralph and her cannot exist without each other] In fact, it's so true that we will be fine if we're apart for a minute.” Also, in the song In This Place Called Slaughter Race, it is plainly obvious that V dreams of being in Slaughter Race and “her heart is in flight there” and also that “home is so slow”. The audience is also told by Shank that “There is no law saying best friends have to have the same dreams. You know?” and “All friendships change... but the good ones...they get stronger because of it”.

Vanellope is also shown to have moments of meaningful bonding with Shank and the crew. Her conversation with Shank during the “betrayal” scene is deep and she is shown to be taking advice from Shank. Also, there’s the scene where V plays basketball with the crew.

The actual moment of separation is well paced in RBTI. Just before they finally part, Ralph and Vanellope sit on a bench and have one last heart-to-heart chat. This is a direct parallel to the beginning of RBTI, where they are also sitting on a bench talking. The final hug between R and V has Vanellope (the one leaving) tearing up, showing that it’s hurting her too, to leave. And she tells Ralph that she loves him.

And after the separation, we see evidence that they’re all right and that the separation did not cause any detriment. Ralph has joined a book club and started a new thing where they all go hang out in someone’s game every Friday night. And, we see R and V talking via Buzzzface (convenient plot device again) and updating each other on their lives and talking about what they’re going to do when they meet again (eg V requests R to bring burgers for her)

The handling of separation in F2

Again, I know I’m courting controversy here. In my opinion, F2′s separation just doesn’t feel “earned”. 

Firstly let me start with what we know from F1: Elsa is an introvert (please hear me out, I’m NOT saying introverts never want to leave), in Elsa’s situation it seems to me weird for her to be the one to leave. If I had to choose between the 2 sisters, I would say Anna is more likely to leave (NOT that I want her to!!) Secondly, she’s the queen and as others have pointed out, in 1800s European monarchs don’t just leave the throne. 

Thirdly, they are sisters and not just friends. Sisters have a closer bond than friends. (hear me out, I’m not saying siblings must stay together forever, I’m stating this as a difference between F2 and RBTI, please please please read on) Fourthly, the time period is different, Elsa and Anna are not 21st century modern women. Royal siblings do not separate unless one marries into another country’s royal family. 

Fifthly, they are NO ordinary sisters. They have gone through great tragedies - 13 years of isolation, one concealing her guilt and hiding away, out of love; the other completely bewildered why she is left alone, the parents’ death, the coronation tragedy, and Anna DIED for Elsa out of love - she willingly sacrificed herself to be hurt/killed by Hans, AND, Elsa accidentally killed Anna (but fate brought her back) - their stories are so intertwined with love for each other!

Continuing on to what we see in F2: there is little hint at the separation throughout the movie. Where did it come from? To me, after Anna broke the dam and Elsa revived, they should have all gone home...and recuperate (Anna spent a night wet and cold in a cave, Elsa died and came back, and fell into water back first, ouch) and figure out what to do with the Northuldra, the revelation of Runeard’s deed, check that all the Arendellians are okay etc...

In my opinion, Elsa is not shown to be having enough interaction with the Northuldra/Honeymaren to justify her staying there. (EM shippers, I respect your ship and I’m not anti to your ship) and what does she do in the forest??? As I have said in other posts - she’s been brought up in civilization her whole life; the Northuldra know the forest and the spirits better than her; what is there for her to do there??? that she can’t do from Arendelle? Why can’t Anna be the ambassador to Northuldra?

At the actual moment of separation in F2, everything is a blur. This is how I remembered my first watching: Elsa says something cryptic about “an oath to do what’s best for Arendelle” and “luckily I know just what that is”---they hug---Anna is Queen???!!!! What???---Elsa’s not there??---Elsa’s in the forest---Elsa’s galloping on Nokk towards Ahtohallan---BOOM the movie has ended. We do not see the sisters discussing about the separation. We do not see a teary hug and exchange of “I love you’s”. Yes there is a hug, but it takes place so fast (5 seconds, I counted).

After the separation, the scenes again are so rushed, we do not see much of what Elsa does in Ahtohallan/forest and in my opinion, the letter that Anna sends to Elsa is barely enough to explain how they are keeping in touch. I acknowledge that many have said that Nokk can travel at a supernaturally fast speed so Elsa can be back in Arendelle quickly. But, as others have also said, that also means Elsa could do whatever she has to do in the forest while staying as Queen of Arendelle, since Nokk can transport her there stat.

I think I might accept the separation a little better if it had been better dealt with like the way it was presented in RBTI, ie, preparing the audience for it, having a viable reason for the separation, having Elsa really integrating into the Northuldra/more screentime with HM (if Disney would support EM), having the sisters discuss and agree on the separation, devoting more screen time to the emotions regarding the separation to show the importance and gravity of their sisterly bond that they have, that is now undergoing a huge change, tears at the point of separation etc... Of course, the whole point of RBTI is separation, whereas the whole point of F2 is Elsa’s destiny and undoing what the ancestors did...why have separation at all in F2? Don’t we have enough to chew on already? 

I want to conclude by reiterating that I’m not an F2 hater, I really really really love F2 (look at my blog!) and I’m NOT saying RBTI is a better movie than F2. (ironically, I actually don’t like RBTI very much despite the amount of detail I’ve gone into in these 2 posts, but I do love Ralph 1 a LOT) I am also respectful towards all and towards the directors Jenn and Chris. 

If you disliked what you read in this post, I’m sorry, and I hope we can agree to disagree, as Vanellope told Ralph.

[thoi2020]

u have advanced??????? wow. tips to qualify mains please??? help me with my modules.how do i solve them?????????

hnnng idk bestie here's some short tips n like if u want something more specific u can send another ask or dm me?

pay attention in class. sit in the front. listen out for what things the teacher puts an emphasis on. ask questions. yes, even the stupid ones. especially the stupid ones bc those are fundamentals u cannot miss bc a shaky foundation leads to a shaky building. also pay attention to ur teachers. theyve been doing this since before u even knew about jee they know what theyre doing. most of them want whats best for u, and if not specifically that, whats best for them n their institute which are usually similar things. im not saying blindly trust them without criticism but have some faith. dont dismiss them they prolly know better than u. if id followed my teachers instructions i prolly wouldnt have had to drop (but thats a discussion for another day lol).

revise notes on a regular basis. like. the day u studied it in class. then the next day. then a week later. then 2 weeks later. then a month later. google the curve of forgetting for more accurate time stamps. use flashcards for formulae n stuff that u have to memorise like inorganic chem.

analyse past papers. recognise the most important topics. but also there are some small chapters that are quite easy and some people skip them thinking there wont be any questions from them. ive given 4 papers of mains, and i can confirm that is utter bullshit. 1 question each from units and measurements, mathematical reasoning, stats, chemistry in everyday life, polymers, are guaranteed. u can easily secure at least those marks by spending just a little bit of time on them. esp for jee mains its relatively better to cover a wide range of topics with medium depth instead of just some but with deep understanding (the latter works well for advanced tho).

make a friend or two whos in the same boat as u, preparing for jee n try to keep each other accountable. tell each other everyday what ure going to study that day n then check back the next day. remind each other hlep each other out. also be friendly with the class toppers sometimes they can solve ur doubts better than teachers just bc something they explain clicks better. whenever i get confused about logarithms i think back to what my 9th grade classmate told me when i asked him to explain in 1 sentence n had him repeat it slowly to me multiple times. its burned in my memory and helped me so much. 

practice tests. set the proper 3 hour limit and solve them. be honest w urself ure doing this for u. no point scoring 256/300 to impress ur teacher if u cheated bc on the day of the exam ure going to be screwed. in the beginning try out different strategies, different ones work for different ppl. like for me, math is my favourite and i find it easier than the other 2 so i do it first and it gives me confidence. then i move on to physics and then chem. some people look over the entire paper n solve the easiest from every section first, then the medium ones, then the tough ones. experiment in ur practice tests n figure out whats best for u n ur test taking. after the test, analyse. see what u got wrong, why u got it wrong. clarify doubts. mark problem questions to revise and solve again later. no point in solving more n more questions if theres no retention or learning.

for solving books specifically under the cut bc this is getting too long lol:

stick to 1 or 2 books max per subject. make them ur holy books and swear by them. if ure doing coaching then the modules provided by them are a very good option bc theyre specifically for jee and will cover what u need. coaching teachers will have a lot of experience with them too so u'll have an easy time with doubts clarification. if u choose other books tho, still consult with ur teacher and ask them to tell u what's relevant and what isnt and dont waste ur time on whats not. it might make u look or feel smarter to be solving questions on stuff thats beyond the scope of the exam but u literally dont need it and the syllabus is already very vast so ure just going to waste time and brainspace. like sure if ure interested study it in ur own time but dont make it an Important Must Do thing.

ok now that u have ur book with everything relevant to jee, make sure u devour them. study the theory alongside ur class notes. solve a few questions of corresponding topics the day they are covered so u dont have so many questions lined up at the end of the chapter. like if i studied friction in newton's laws of motion today, i'll solve the questions relevant to friction today itself. or u know this week. like,, keep it current. then while solving, speak out loud and explain the problem to urself like ure teaching someone else (or better yet, find someone to teach them to. stuffed toys, younger siblings, ur classmate, grandparents, online friend, whichever works). mark all the questions that took u longer than 5 mins or u cant solve at all. dog ear the pages. try them again the next day. then again a few days later. take the ones u still cant solve to ur teacher. try n ask for just a hint once and try again. and then if u cant then ask for the solution. DO NOT go on the internet. ur brain doesnt have to work for it then n u think u got it but u dont got it. make ur brain work for the solution so it'll remember. 

now that uve given a good shot to every question and figured out where u stumble. analyse a bit. find a pattern if theres any: like a certain concept that is weak or something ure not understanding. read the theory for it if u have to n ask questions to clarify. then solve these problem questions again and again until u know every question well enough to be able to explain to someone. skip over the easy ones u dont gotta do them again n again, focus on the ones u stumbled on. theyre the weak spots. no use strengthening whats already strong enough.

and uh keep a notebook of the solutions of the questions u solve so that u dont have to go crazy searching for them in an emergency. like ur paper is tomorrow and u cant figure out this question that uve been trying for 1 hour then its a good time to review ur previous solution and refresh ur memory. often if uve practiced enough n its just exam stress etc thats making ur mind go blank then just a hint will be enough to remind u.

also this is more general but just. be consistent. small consistent efforts over multiple days instead of a big one in 1 day. u’ll retain better and ur brain does better with multiple small chunks spread out over an interval than a lot of stuff in a small one. and its ok to to have an off day dont kill urself over academics ur health is more important always. not getting into ur dream college might fuck u up but itll heal but ur health is more precarious and not getting enough sleep or food will def fuck u up and the consequences are a lot harder to deal with. dont think about the big picture or u’ll freak urself out just think about the next small step u can take. getting 99 percentile feels impossible but solving 10 questions for it does not. dont get disheartened by test results if ure working hard n smart u wont fail. even if u dont get into ur dream college u’ll have an excellent work ethic that’ll take u places u never thought of in ur wildest dreams. more than anything, be kind to urself and work n play hard.

[hilltopsunset]

I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield

I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.

Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder. 

While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.

Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.

1.       Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation

By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.

I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.

 2.       Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw

Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.

Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.

Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.

 3.       Gen VII: Focus on Minigames

The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.

Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.

Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…

 4.       Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious

When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.

And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.

What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.

When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?

I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).

I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.

There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.

When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.

I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.

[captainkurosolaire]

~Update

Just a mega OOC blog synopsis for the future entails.

Think this shall be my norm wrapping up a month with updating or least attempt to unless something comes up. ------ Achieved a great bit this month though, however, my goals are still much grander and higher than this. Most likely, I’ll be trying for Seven Chapters a month, something of that number, I haven’t confirmed with myself whether to do halve in the first two-weeks or save and burst. Debating also if I do smaller doses which means, I’ll get to quality it up better. Or I can take quantity and actual move the story along these next parts are essentially the quarter-stone, to introduction to crewmates, NPC crew recruitment, dramatic affairs, outright Scourges of the Seas which essentially in my building are these tyrant of pirate crew’s that all will have their own structures, organizations, purposes, powers. Lot of them essentially build up to the Captain confronting his past now in broad-light and gradually get him back to everything that matters. Quality is often a preferred recommendation I’d say, but the bulk of what I need to tell and thing is hugely massive since it’ll span for a longtime. More reason why I need to get my mind and health mastered so I can effortlessly do quality in one sit. I’ve been having a blast doing a daily challenge of photo-sets but I’ll probably put that on hold until I get my story pictures captured as a reward to myself, then I’ll resume. Mainly was utilized to train myself in learning a bit better how to capture stuff, I want to add more visualizations and emotions for my writes. With the upcoming Crew NPC’s they’re all going to have their own functional emotions and weights.My lofty goal outright is to give them sort of a karma system and before [Huge Massive Thrillers] They’ll be determined by Captain’s rolls and decisions and overall since I’ll make a whole grid, they’ll unlock benefits or they’ll succumb more injuries dependent on the Captain’s ability to captivate or sour them. Also got plans to have them unlock their own side-quests and additional things of that nature. I figured if I can write out an entire tabletop game of sixty classes and thirty races and stats alongside world building with that, or DM for groups. I can manage to siphon those passionate antics into my newest. Genre of NPC Crew is going to be an assorted and wild cast that’s largely because think it’ll do service for allowing Captain to display a more healthy arrange of emotions and show sides I normally couldn’t write out or do in previous. By having this assembled cast I get to do more dramatic scenes and relationships not just with the Captain either, but them in a fullness. ------ My goal before the end of the year is to reach the story arc where I do Budokai 3, unlike previously, this one will be hardcore piracy symbolic. Tribunal. It’ll be a type of match stipulation unique, I’ll say...  The result, potentially will start something incidentally that’ll spiral a downturn. Next year the goal is the meat and bones. I’ll be aiming for this huge massive War Arc. It’ll be bloody and gory, traumatic, there will be treaties and all sorts of other crew’s splayed out, islands, all kinds of world building on the big vast blue.This one threat is so massive it’ll take literally everything to overcome and accommodate for the Captain to prevail, if does. Going to be losses and all sorts of fallen death’s. Most my writes going forward are going to have a tag #reader discretion advised that’ll opt you out as option. When we get to overwhelming TW things I’ll do my best to actually put those appropriately with thoughts. We just got to remember we’re still reading and following a Pirate background it’s not supposed to be forgiving in a life that’s constant tides. Though I sort of going to throw again in a lot of ranging emotions and these cast of characters I’ve brewed, they should suffice. Might start off a bit bland in conception but narrative going to allow that to be a driver and let them flourish and bloom on their own to intensify their backgrounds. Also I been scouring for certain mods or just tweaks to get their designs in mind, I’ll probably make alternative costumes as my roomie joked I should give them as a symbolization they unlocked their next stage of perk for the reader. xD As they progress so does the Crew and that’s overall the ambitiously main part that’ll be exciting. Unlocking tag-team techniques, finishing blows to overwhelming enemies, new abilities and perks, resolves of conflicts that won’t just follow our normal character’s narrative since I’m giving reasoning for shine and progress while allow my character to be freed for other narratives, threads and ships all those are paramount for the War. Everything is a factor. ------ Still chipping at threads nearly catching up so I’ll get more taken. I’m working on actually getting decent at couple-posing so I can properly do probably actual ships. Imagine a pirate not having them actively going, I have an excuse why not to do nearly as much NSFW for this blog for this particular character despite how shameless and provocative this character really is but I chose a latter option.  Anyway, probably won’t just me strictly romantic too, I’ll see if people want to collaborate for platonic or any-kind. Or if want the means just to take photo’s of Captain either whether it’s slaughter or w/e just poke in DM. I’ll be working on getting better continuously though. ------ Closing ------ Congratulations to all the people who competed and participated on the FFXIVWrite though so many killer talents and writers. I’ll work on creating a que and system for that to allow me to boost those as well in some time-gaps, when I find the time. Want to create a tag for it. Also my bad on highlight tags. I’d like to be able to comment pacifically more life on each thing with comments, though my brain is a jumbled wire often, I feel like a robot beep-bop. Though lots of glorious blogs and characters I want to showcase and give back especially for the people that have ventured with me this long. Lot’s I’ve seen and notice and appreciate em’ and new people too that are beginning their ascension into this community or refuges my goal is to hoist them directly up. As Captain eventually is too learning that is something important for him to understand fundamentally for him to achieve where all dream’s lay and reside. Ideally it’s introducing people to blog’s too for following or potential contacts. ------- Cheers, hearties.                                                                                              Last Update

[jadedresearcher]

Okay okay okay

so. 

While I still have this heady burst of god-energy going on from LOSAS surprising me even a little bit, let me do a quick ramble about LOSAS and what it IS and what I HOPE it’ll be.  I have NO idea what I have or haven’t said here and don’t actually care, lets DO this:

So, like, the whole point of LOSAS is to get back to our stronghold of procedural narratives, right? To learn lessons from SBURBSim and Do Things Better This Time.  LOHAE and LOMAT were me playing around with more “game like” things and they leveled me up in specific ways and those are things I wanna bring back into the procedural story realm? But time away from SBURBSim has ALSO given me a broader perspective and not just having my brain all gunked up with “this is how sburbsim works” cuz like, sburbsim is great and all but I think i’d just give up and go code sheep simulators or something if I had to *literally* just make sburbsim but slightly different.

PLUS sburb was clearly a formative thing for me, right? It really unlocked my third eye on the concept of how stories can be modular and how the roles within those stories are themselves modular, right?  But...I’m kinda not very much in the fandom anymore and I’m interested in taking that fundamental thesis and just shoving it in places it doesn’t belong to see what shakes loose.  So LOSAS’s whole thing is its a procedural story engine that uses simple rule-based ai simulations as a core mechanic. It is NOT a SBURB simulator.  It can simulate ANYTHING given a Waste who cares enough about the thing. 

So like, the strongest thing going on in it is that it has no fucking clue what stats are or anything. It knows that each character inside of it has a name, they have a dollstring (yes potentially with faces and shit) and that’s IT.

Characters have internal memory systems, kinda like dwarf fortress? I don’t actually know too much how that whole thing works, but I have vague memories that char specific memories are things. Anyways, So if you want a char to know they have a strength of 15, a potato in their pocket and a dead mentor you can DO that shit with it.  All without the system knowing what pockets are or strength is or whatever. 

LOSAS has this concept of SCENARIOS and THOSE are in charge of knowing what the fuck is going on. Scenarios have like, traits and shit that you can assign to characters that control how they behave and what sorts of information are in their memory already when the simulation starts and gives them a little bit of random wiggle.

So a SBURB scenario would have characters initialized with Player traits, which would require them to have one from the class trait list, one from the aspect list, one from the moon list, two from the interest list, etc etc.  Characters initialized with the Carapace trait would just be required to pick a moon and an interest or whatever.  Stats might be things like those stats we used in WigglerSim, or pluck or vim or WHATEVER, doesn’t matter so long as its consistent within a scenario. 

But you might also have a Magical Boarding School scenario where you get to pick from House traits and shit. 

Or hell, dive down and instead of a GENERAL PURPOSE sburb simulator you could make one just for a specific session that’s relevant to you and all you wanna do is see all the ways it coulda gone. wink wonk

The POINT is, you know how excited I got about the white king just fucking mailing his sceptre to the black king in sburbsim, or about how smokey fucking destroyed himself for picking up a flaming sword?   Imagine that but CONSTANTLY and made by more wastes than just me.  

Anyone who can figure out the “basically coding but somehow worse” interface I’ve thrown together can be the god of their own scenario. Or make mods for OTHER people’s scenarios. 

the meta bullshit just doesn’t keep from stopping happening

[c-is-for-circinate]

OH okay I know why I’ve been annoyed and upset with some of the Cinderbrush Discourse (aside from the absurd not-queer-enough bullshit, because fuck that, but whatever).

The Cinderbrush one-shot was a bunch of D&D players attacking a Powered by the Apocalypse game like it was a D&D game with different dice.  And I really liked it, more than I’ve liked any PbtA game I’ve ever watched/listened to before, because I fundamentally do not enjoy PbtA as a system, at least as a spectator.

One of the biggest, most cornerstone differences between D&D (and several other old-school ttrpg-style games--World of Darkness comes to mind) and the Powered by the Apocalypse system is how much knowledge you have going into the game.  In D&D you may make things up and figure things out as you go, and that is part of the fun, but there’s this idea that there are fundamental truths about this universe and the DM is at least going to pretend to know what they are; that you know the fundamental truths of your character, or at least who they are right now and have been in the past; and these hard truths are going to be revealed and bang up against each other in hopefully-interesting ways as you go.  The softer, more collaborative style of PbtA (in my experience) is very much the opposite: the players and GM know a few key things, but they are deliberately trying to leave gaps and let the story fill them in as they go along.

It seems, on the surface, like D&D must be a much more deterministic game, then, and PbtA way more free-form, and that’s cool.  Except in my experience, it actually seems to be the opposite.

D&D is full of firm truths: the DM’s word, your character’s stats and abilities, and the rolls of the dice.  Actions have target numbers, and you either pass or you fail.  There are strict rules for what passing and failing looks like, and luck plays a massive part in determining what happens next.  Try to use your Blood Hunter powers when you’re low on health and roll too high?  You’re passed out, you’re dead, doesn’t matter what you want or the other players want or the DM wants or anyone.  That’s how the rules work and that’s how it goes.

And it sucks sometimes, but it’s also my absolute favorite thing about D&D.  Nobody, not even really the DM, can control the story.  Nobody can plan the story, not really--doesn’t matter how much cool loot or information you put in the abandoned temple, if the PC’s roll too low to find any of it, miss every single hint for the next leg of your planned journey, and head west to visit their sister, then that’s what happens.  Sure a DM can work around and manipulate situations like that, but a good DM listens to the dice.  The story in D&D is the narrative you tell afterwards about the semi-random events that happened to you; the story you tell to make sense of the things you saw and went through and did, whether they were the things you hoped to do or not.

Dice rolls in Apocalypse-based systems are so much more malleable.  You roll a 10, that’s good--how good is it?  Or, even more important, how bad is a 4?  How hard are the GM’s hard moves?  How much space do the players and the GM have to discuss and decide the impact of every single roll they make?  It’s not a system built for pitting your cleverness against the rules of the universe and turning them back around to trick the world and the DM into letting you bring out that blueberry cupcake at the very last second.  It’s not a system for being subject to the whims of an uncaring universe, or for coping with that fact.

PbtA is designed to facilitate a group of friends collaboratively building a story together, on purpose.  The dice are nudging factors rather than hard rules.  You can win on a 7.  You can die on a 9.  The players (including the GM), not luck or the rules table or the in-game laws of the universe, decide what conditions apply, what effects occur when things to right or wrong.  The blank spaces on the maps and in the backstories and the past get filled in as you go along based on what you all want in the present.  I like tabletop rpgs because they twist both fictional and real choices, fate, and randomness in ways I don’t find stories doing anywhere else. PbtA leans so much more heavily on the choices than on the randomness.

There’s a lot that’s cool about that!  There’s a lot that’s neat about collaborative story-crafting, and I think if I were to approach most PbtA games I’ve encountered as complete works of crafted fiction, turned from actual-play podcasts or video streams into edited purposeful stories, I’d love what they created.  I think I’d enjoy playing PbtA games, specifically as a player, with friends I trusted to have fun writing stories with me.  But I have a hard time imagining having fun as a GM, and I don’t like listening to them played nearly as much as I enjoy the ups, downs, shock, and dice rolls of D&D.

I really liked the Cinderbrush one-shot, mostly.  The places where it most fell short for me were, I think, the places where the gap between a D&D rules-based story and a PbtA choice-based story showed up most--because the PbtA rules (seemed to) let me and the players down instead of forcing them to make the story more interesting.  There were no mechanics for pushing any of the characters who’d fallen into their Darkest Selves to really deal with and explore that in full.  There were no mechanics for pushing or forcing a lot of things, because the game isn’t supposed to be pushed or forced at all, it’s supposed to be chosen--but stories are better when characters are forced and pushed.  And for me, at least, I way preferred watching Matt taking the control that was willingly given to him to impose circumstances and necessities on his players, as opposed to the wishy-washiness of how the PbtA rules are “meant” to play out.

[killscreencinema]

Doom Eternal (PS4)

Rip n’ tear!

Rip n’ tear!

Rip n’ tear!

5 stars.

End of review.

Nah, just kidding, but that does more or less summarize my feelings on Doom Eternal, the sequel to the masterpiece soft reboot of Doom that came out in 2016, other wise known as Doom 2016.  On a side note, who would have thought “Doom 2016″ would have ended up being an omen of the following four year?  Weird.

Anyway, speaking of Hell on Earth, Doom Eternal’s plot revolves around an all-out demonic invasion of Earth, with humanity’s only hope being the DoomSlayer (aka, the Doomguy).  A lot has changed since he last thwarted Hell’s efforts on Mars, such as the DoomSlayer’s swanky new mothership known as the Fortress of Doom.  Where did he get it?  That information is probably provided in the loads of codex pages you find throughout the game that fill in the gaps in the lore.

Which brings me to my first problem with the game - too much story getting in the way of my ripping n’ tearing.  I know, I could skip the cutscenes, but that ain’t really the point.  Part of Doom 2016′s charm was its middle finger to story intensive gameplay and obnoxiously extensive game lore.  What minimal story there was in the game was carried out organically during gameplay, similar to Half Life 2.  Nothing ever felt like a cut scene or a complete interruption of the game.  Also, the story pretty simple - you are a legendary badass who has been resurrected to save Mars, and by proxy the Earth, from the forces of Hell.

Doom Eternal tries to expand on the lore by giving Doomguy a backstory, involving him belonging to a race of demi-gods known as “Sentinels” who have stood in opposition to Hell throughout the ages.  That’s pretty lame, as the appeal of THE DOOMSLAYER to me is that he’s just a regular dude who is so good as slaying demons at will, they’ve built a mythology around him as an unstoppable killing machine and the only being demons fear.  That’s enough for me - I don’t need him to be part of a lineage of “Slayers” or some shit like that.  YOU’RE OVERTHINKING THINGS BETHESDA! 

I won’t lie though - there were some cutscenes I enjoyed, such as any time Doomguy interacts with other humans, who all scurry out of his way in fear or are just paralyzed in awe. 

Another issue I have with the game is THERE’S TOO MANY WAYS TO KILL THINGS!  I know, it’s an odd complaint, but bear with me here.  So you have 8 standard weapons, but each weapon, except the Super Shotgun and the BFG, have two mods each that fundamentally changes them into new weapons essentially.  So counting the mods, and the chainsaw, you have 21 weapons to choose from!  That’s... a lot of goddamn weapons.  I envision Doomguy comically approaching a demon fight, both hands full of so many weapons they clatter to the ground as he tries to pick the best one for the fight.  Then there are the frag grenades, the ice grenades, the flame thrower, the “Blood Punch”, and eventually the one-hit-kill sword.  All this results in me either pushing the wrong button for what I want (”Ah shit, I meant select the sword, but I accidentally switched my frag grenades to ice grenades!”) or getting pounded by projectiles in slow motion as I go through my weapons and try to figure out the best one for this particular encounter. 

Oh shit, and then there are the Runes, which give you different abilities while equipped AND you can upgrade the Praetor suit.  Oh, and you can upgrade your stats by finding crystals along the way.  It’s just too much, and a little overwhelming to juggle at first.  I just wanna shoot things, Doom Eternal!

Well, fortunately the game has plenty of that and then some.  The combat is just as intense and frenetic as Doom 2016, with “glory kills” still in full effect and a nice variety of demons to maul.  There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the visceral thrill of tearing a Cacao demon to pieces.  Doom Eternal can also be extremely challenging, especially if you dare to venture into the harder difficulty settings.  I tried playing through it on “Ultra-Violence” (the Doom equivalent of “Hard”) and got my ass humbled back into “Hurt Me Plenty” (aka “normal”) pretty quickly. 

While Doom Eternal might be a little too bloated, like a Mancubator on a Golden Corral binge, it’s still, at its core, every bit as fun as its predecessor.  The graphics are amazing, especially the lovingly crafted, ultra detailed level designs.  There were many instances, in between battles of course, that I would just stand there and take in the environments.  So if you loved Doom 2016, and current events make you wanna tear things to pieces, preferably virtual things, then Doom Eternal is a solid playthrough.

  UPDATE

Since posting this review, I have gone on to play the online “Battlemode”.  Normally, I don’t care for online multiplayer games.   Playing games have always been a solo activity for me - a way to take a break from people.  Also, playing online games seems frustrating in that you almost always start with a huge difficulty curve as you often play against people who LIVE AND BREATH the game 24/7, and therefor, have the uncanny knack to destroy you utterly and immediately before you have a chance to move, much less “get gud”. 

Anyway, I started playing Battlemode solely to pop the PS4 trophies associated with it so that I can Platinum the game.  I must admit, now that I’ve taken the “PS Plus plunge”, I’m curious to check out other online games people seem to be nuts about like Rocket League (which honestly looks fun as hell, I must admit) and Overwatch.  So I figured it was only fair to edit my review to include my impressions of Doom Eternal’s online mode, which is thus..

My usual gripes about online death match difficulty curves aside, “Battlemode” is incredibly lopsided with its premise of 2 player demons versus one player Slayer.  Not only are the odds stacked against you as the Slayer, but the demons also have the ability to summon minions to pester you, make your loot disappear (thereby making health replenishment a pain in the ass), and they respawn if you don’t kill them both within 20 seconds.  As the Slayer, when you are up against two players who are extremely good as demons, the round can be over in seconds, which is infuriating and not remotely fun.   

Meanwhile, playing as a demon is much easier for all the reason listed above, despite some demons handling better than others.  The only difficulty is that the Slayer is inherently faster and more agile than any demon you can choose, which is the only real advantage a Slayer has.  None of this would be a problem if you could just knock out the trophies as a demon, even though it’s a bit of an irritating grind, except one trophy REQUIRES you to be the Slayer - the Weapons Expert trophy, wherein you must kill player demons with each of the 8 weapons at your disposal, including the BFG, which you only have the option of using should you survive to Round 4 (which odds are you won’t).  It’s an incredibly frustrating task, but I got lucky and found a lobby where the player demons were either exceptionally bad or were away from their controller a lot.  So I was able to knock out this trophy at my convenience then, but only after several incredibly frustrating failed attempts.

The only other trophy where being the Slayer is ideal is the “Blood Bath” trophy, where you must kill 200 opponents.  This goes by a lot quicker as the Slayer if you can manage to consistently kill both player demons every round in every match, but you’ll be lucky to kill even one.  However, even then, that can work to your advantage because when they respawn, you can kill them again and rack up another point towards the trophy.  Trying to pop this trophy as a demon is less of a headache, but still sucks because it’s too slow and possible your demon ally will get the deathblow, thereby stealing your point.

So the point of all this is to say I hate Battlemode.  I hate it with a burning passion not unlike the fires of Hell.  I wish the online feature of this game could have just been a good ol’ fashion Death Match.  It’s also bullshit that the game even has trophies you can’t pop unless you play online, because what if you’re a late comer and nobody is playing Battlemode anymore?  Does that mean you just can’t Platinum Doom Eternal?  It’s also mild extortion in that it forces you to pay for PS Plus if you don’t already have it.

So there you have it:

Doom Eternal solo campaign = good

Doom Eternal Battlemode = bad

Happy slaying!

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E59 (Apr. 23, 2019)

Travis is unfortunately under the weather and couldn’t make it, but tonight’s guests are Ashley Johnson and Taliesin Jaffe!

This speaks to me.

Announcements: The Kickstarter campaign is over, but the Kickstarter close party with Joel Hodgson is up. Brian confirms that the six-shots-in-five-minutes bit was iced tea (”If we’d actually had that many shots, we’d all sound like Marisha did.”). Travis Willingham’s Yeehaw Game Ranch will be back next week (Brian: “This universe is expanding in a way that’s making me uncomfortable.” Dani: “I’m afraid for both of your souls.”).

This week, it’s Episode 59: Perspective!

Stats for this week: Yasha rolled the 500th player critical roll of this campaign! It was a natural 20 attack against a babau demon. This episode also marked the first NPC HDYWTDT.

Ashley mentions that Brian wrote her roast of Sam, and she loved every minute of it. 

Brian asks for the music to be brought up a little. In response, the crew cranks it up to excessive levels. Brian: “I love everyone in this building.”

Everyone’s plotting revenge on Travis for jumping out from behind a door to scare them on set a while ago, especially now that the haunted house stretch goal has been met. Taliesin: “There’s not a haunted house he can choose in Los Angeles where I don’t know somebody. He’s fucked.”

Ashley’s decision to charge in against the giants. “I do think, with Yasha, which I’m still figuring out with her, is once she’s engaged in combat it’s hard for her to pull out. (It’s hard for her to PullOutKing.)” She’s enjoying exploring the impulsive side of her class. “Also, that was a little bit prompted by Travis.” She was leaning towards it anyway, but Travis tipped the balance.

Taliesin clarifies that Caduceus is not a pacifist. “He felt that this wasn’t the most advantageous action to take.” He was looking for the path of least resistance that would work out best for everyone. “He wouldn’t have had a second thought about grinding them down into paste if it had come down to it.”

On being close to Yasha’s home turf: “It’s not a place that she’s ready to go back to, because she ran away from there for a very specific reason. She owes her tribe a death, basically, because of what she did.” She’s mainly trying to keep a low profile. She’s also never been this far north in Xhorhas. “She’s cautious. As long as they don’t go South, she might be okay.” She is enjoying things like the familiar food and landscapes, and sharing that a little bit with the others.

Ashley talks about how it feels weirdly private to have your backstory come out in the game. “I think, for me, sitting at the table, these players are very good, and it’s so fun to sit at the table, but it is intimidating.” It’s a combination of wanting to find your groove before the backstory comes out and also feeling strangely protective of it. Taliesin agrees, and adds that you have to do math during it, too.

She also points out that in the first campaign, they didn’t realize how significant their backstories would become in the game (although Taliesin had played with Matt before and knew what to expect).

No Gif of the Week this week. There won’t be one for a while, because “something interesting” is in the works... “A new giveaway, a new contest, for something that isn’t gifs.” Ashley’s a big fan of this mysterious new idea.

Caduceus enjoyed being the face of the party. “Oh man, he loves talking to people. It’s one of the things he actually enjoys, is finding people who want to converse. He’s a big fan of a conversation with stakes.” He’d be more involved if he felt like he really understood the situation more often.

Ashley enjoys some natural ones because they can push you in an interesting direction where you’re not necessarily the hero. The nat 1 stealth roll that started the giant battle led to Ashley better understanding Yasha’s impulsiveness: “Well, I’m out here now, so I gotta finish the fight.”

Clay’s aware of the dispositions of the group he’s with, and he knows his role is to “kind of be Jiminy Cricket. Let’s maybe not murder everyone we-- let’s maybe murder half of everybody we meet.” He’s very aware that Caleb’s more inclined to leave bodies than witnesses. But “serving life”, as his philosophy, is about allowing life to thrive, which can require death and rebirth. “He’s got feelings about everybody, but he sees a lot of potential in Caleb, if he can get his head screwed on straight. He’s not always right about these things, but...”

Yasha is worried about potentially coming across her tribe again. “They have every right to kill her. Yasha thinks that as well. She still feels very cowardly in the decision that she made to run. I don’t know how she would respond to that if she did see them.” She would love to visit Zuala’s grave, but “she ran away during the whole ceremony when Zuala was being executed. The last time she saw her, she was alive, so it’s one of those things where it’s hard to visit a gravesite because then it feels final.” Ouch. Part of her is preparing for that inevitable moment by collecting the flowers. “There’s more there. There’s such a small amount of Yasha’s backstory that we have.”

Fan Art of the Week! Yasha, Jester, Beau, Nott, and flowers.

There’s a brief Babysitter’s Club digression. (Personal shame moment: As a small child, I once got to meet a very famous author I had never heard of at the time (name redacted to preserve my dignity), and promptly asked him if he’d ever met Ann M. Martin because they both lived in NYC.)

This giveaway is Henry-approved! But things go off the rails.

“This is a show about a D&D game. Can we have some god damn professionalism?”

“DO NOT LIGHT MY DOG ON FIRE”

Yasha’s attitude toward seeing Nott’s reunion with her husband is bittersweet, but fundamentally she’s seeing it as “a sign that good things can still happen”. Taliesin: “We’ll find a way to flip that all around. Just give us time.”

Ashley’s actively going to work on finding something to increase Yasha’s AC. “I got hit, I think, every time.”

Cad does miss his siblings and his parents. “The whole dynamic that he had, he misses. But that ended, no matter how complicated or uncomplicated that was, a while ago. He has to assume that what he is doing right now is the best way to find them.” It’s not his whole goal, but if he does what he’s doing, “everybody gets to come home”. He “honestly hasn’t thought about it much”.

The conversation Yasha had about fate with Caduceus was a bit of a turning point for her. She looks at Jester’s very personal relationship with the Traveler, and Caduceus following the Wildmother in a well-developed but impersonal way, “and so for Yasha, it’s still this very new thing for her to-- she doesn’t quite know what faith is yet, or know what it means to fully put your faith in something. She’s taking it day by day and hour by hour, waiting for a sign, because that’s what she thinks the connection is at this point.” There’s more to it that will be explored in-game.

Brian re: the Traveler: “I think it’s some Fight Club shit.”

[cupofsorrows]

A Conceptual Post About Pokémon as D&D Monsters

I know, I know, it’s been done before, but I’ve been having a lot of ideas about D&D lately and it occurred to me that it might be fun to try to adapt Pokemon to the standard dnd setting(s) - that is, not just copying them wholesale as in, “you open the dungeon door and see a pikachu” but taking the concept of the creature and placing it in your world as something that genuinely belonged there. Like, say, You confront your party with a large turtle-monster that sprays high-powered water jets as its primary mode of attack. It’s essentially a blastoise, but that isn’t what it’s called and it doesn’t necessarily have to follow the rules that an actual blastoise would in the pokemon games. I’ve seen pokemon stat block writeups before, but they’re usually pretty straightforward “this is a psyduck” type deals, and what I’m interested in is retooling the monster to fit in a different world (while keeping the core of it intact). What’s it called (if it has a different name)? Where does it come from in your world, and where does it live? If the original had evolutions, does this version? Lots of potential there. To that end, here are a few pokemon that I think have particularly interesting concepts:

Phantump: Honestly all of the ghost pokemon have interesting concepts but I didn’t want to have a disproportionate number of ghost-types so I chose this one. Core concept is a furtive little forest spirit that uses old tree stumps (or perhaps fallen logs) as surrogate bodies/protective shells. Canon lore says they’re supposedly the spirits of children who died in the forest, so take or leave that as you please. Now, none of these suggestions have to look exactly like their inspirations as long as they convey the idea - for instance I sort of imagine these guys as little humanoid figures made of gnarled wood, which also gives me distinct skull-kid-from-LoZ vibes (but maybe that should be a separate post...)

Heliolisk: I don’t really know what drew me to this critter in particular, except that ‘solar-powered lizard that can shoot electricity and stuff’ is just a good creature to put in a made-up world (probably in a desert region). It even has “-lisk” in its name, like the more infamous basilisk, so it already sounds like it SHOULD be a mythical creature. As I’m writing this I realize that it strongly resembles the already-in-dnd shocker lizard, but come on, this thing is way more badass. Also I was just reading about it on Bulbapedia and apparently it can run super-fast? so... that’s in there, too.

Snorlax or Slaking: Look I just like the concept of a big hairy beast that’s super strong but spends almost all of its time asleep. Not even sure that would affect its stats but it’s great flavor.

Zygarde: A host of tiny organisms - maybe even single-celled - which can come together to form larger gestalt creatures (most famously a massive serpent/worm, but even more powerful forms may be possible). Should be a very powerful, possibly unique, individual, since it is a legendary pokemon.

Dhelmise: Sentient algae that uses marine detritus as a ‘skeleton’? The ghost type delivers again! I imagine that before humans were responsible for so much stuff being in the ocean these must have used a lot of animal bones (and maybe some driftwood) instead.

Seismitoad: I think there are already frog monsters with sonic attacks, but that was only half of the appeal for me here, the other half being ‘large bipedal frog’. I hold this as being very different from bullywugs, grippli, or any other amphibian-based humanoids: While froglike, those are all still fundamentally types of people, whereas this beast is first and foremost a frog. A frog that walks upright and has opposable thumbs. This also works with poliwhirl/poliwrath and croagunk/toxicroak, but then the sonic/vibration stuff won this one out for me by a slim margin. (Addendum: I have come to the realization that seismitoad and croagunk don’t actually have opposable thumbs according to their artwork. Whatever, just fudge it.)

Tropius: This one’s just plain weird. Like, almost exeggcutor-level weird (dang, maybe I should have chosen exeggcutor instead. But tropius is less famously weird. Side note: what’s up with pokemon based on palmlike plants?) It’s part small sauropod dinosaur, part banana tree, and while I’m not sure whether it should be classified as a plant or not, I do know that it can definitely fly. Also, it produces delicious fruit you can eat!

Parasect: You probably figured I was going to mention this one. Everyone thinks of paras and parasect when they think of pokemon with weird but cool concepts. MY take is that the fungus could infest different types of giant vermin, perhaps making it the basis for a template. Or not; these are just suggestions. Do whatever.

Larvesta and Volcarona: Maybe I’m just on a kick from all the GKOTM fanart I’ve been seeing, but giant fire-spitting caterpillar + giant fiery moth adult seems like a creature idea worth exploring. Larvesta also takes longer to evolve than any other stage-one pokemon, which I see as representing a long time spent in larval form (or pupated), which in turn resembles kaiju’s long periods of ‘dormancy’, bringing us back to Mothra (as all things must). Also, I think larvesta/volcarona are the only bug/fire types in the whole series so far? That’s nuts to me but it just makes them even more special.

Abra: Honestly the way this guy looks is like 90% of the appeal for me here. Abra looks like an armadillo tried to evolve into a monkey and somehow ended up with psychic powers in the process. It levitates and teleports, and according to the lore it’s usually asleep but thanks to its psychic powers is still aware of its surroundings. That’s right, its eyes aren’t really narrow, they’re just closed all the time. Do any images of abra with its eyes open exist? If they do, are we prepared to see them? As always, don’t feel like you have to give any of these guys evolved forms just because they evolve in the games. I’m definitely not saying this here specifically because I like abra’s design more than its evolutions, no sir.

Pinsir or Heracross: Pretty much the same as with the toads a few entries above. Clearly not people, but just vaguely reminiscent enough to maybe be just a little unsettling. C’mon, I know they’re cute in the games and the show but tell me you wouldn’t be at least slightly perturbed if you saw a real-life beetle the size of a 10-year-old trundling around on two legs. Even if you thought it was rad as hell you’d still get out of there pretty quick if it started trundling towards you.

Slowpoke: Listen if you don’t get the appeal of a semi-aquatic, ambiguously mammalian quadruped that has psychic capabilities but is also comically oblivious to external stimuli then I just don’t know what to tell you.

Barbaracle: Colonial organism sort of like Zygarde, except the individual parts are bigger. It could even be modular, with the various ‘limbs’ combining in different ways, although that could also complicate the stat block.

Gothitelle: Conceptually I suppose this is just another humanoid psychic creature, but a while ago I saw someone point out how its frills and whatnot are sort of reminiscent of a sea slug, and damned if ‘anthropomorphic nudibranch’ doesn’t get my blood flowing.

Rapidash: Pretty simple, a unicorn variant/non-evil fire horse. Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Necrozma: I never actually played Sun and Moon 2, nor did I get too deep into the postgame ultra beast stuff in SuMo 1, so regrettably I missed out on a lot of the wonderful interdimensional weirdness. While each ultra beast is appealing in its own way, Necrozma is practically a Lovecraftian Great Old One already what with how it was once an interstellar being of heat and light but was somehow injured or depleted and has now become a completely different creature that travels from world to world absorbing all light. That’s a pretty raw concept for any story, let alone a cute kid’s game. And it’s always a plus when something can be cool and threatening while still being safe for a G rating! You could also do what SuMo2 did and take your heroes to a world that’s already had its light stolen by the beast, to explore how the inhabitants of that world have been affected as well as show what awaits the heroes’ world... or just as a nice change of scenery. Lastly there’s the possibility that Necrozma must ultimately be defeated not through violence, but by figuring out how to restore it to its original form. It isn’t too often that the cosmic monstrosity could actually use your help, and it might leave the PCs feeling like they really accomplished something epic. Alternately, it returning to its original form also makes a great homage to the multiple forms of every JRPG final boss ever, a trope that has been under-represented in D&D for TOO LONG.

...and that’s it, at least for now. Naturally, there are about a thousand other possibilities, including different ways of interpreting the examples I’ve provided here. I suppose they could also be used for purposes besides D&D, although if you’re going to put any of this in the fantasy novel you’ve been working on I suggest you be extra diligent in obfuscating the creatures’ actual origins so as to avoid a visit from any lawyers. I don’t know if anybody is actually even going to see this post at all, but if it does end up getting around, then I fully encourage all of you to put your own spins on this if you’re inspired to do so! I’d love to see what other people might come up with.

[awesomelephuoclocblog-blog]

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