#this is bloodborne everyone sucks to some degree

[saintadeline]

other thing about adella vs alfred is that alfred goes out of his way to find annalise - annalise was trapped by logarius until the player hunter came around. meanwhile adella was physically stuck inside the same room as arianna, and couldn't leave because *gestures at the state of yharnam*. and that still doesn't make it okay, of course, but i think alfred's action is more clearly premeditated while adella's is borne of stress and feeling trapped and threatened (and she was trapped and under actual threat of death like 5 minutes earlier).

why did the name of every single character in that start with the letter a.

(also sorry for the notification i accidentally unfollowed you and had to refollow)

Yeah, generally i understand why people compare alfred and adella, and it CAN be a very good comparison to make because the root of the problem is the same, but I kind of disagree on a lot of the ways people raise these parallels. Im obviously biased but I'm still nowhere near being a complete adella apologist, she was coerced both literally and contextually but that doesnt absolve her of any blame and certainly does not make her a good person, i just think it's important to talk about what brought her to this point rather than portraying her with the most misogynistic shit possible. I dont super like talking about alfred in details because for obvious reasons i do not have for him the sympathy i can have for adella and i do not want to get too into The Bases Of Fascism type shit but generally like... Alfred ended up the way he did because of constant propaganda for someone hed never met but was taught to idolize. He was completely free in his endeavors and everything about him revolves around chasing a ghost and becoming a martyr through continuing the work logarius started. Which in itself is a conflicting statement, because it's made clear what logarius did was a success, vilebloods are no more and from what we know iirc, annalise is KNOWN to be undying, no matter what alfred did there would be no "finishing" a job already done, logarius sitting as the seal to the throne was the very last measure. Alfred's act comes from being completely overzealous and needing to find a meaning for himself in a world where he will never be as great as his predecessor. Adella on the other hand was influenced by propaganda as well, but her fall into it was precipitated by the fact she was treated like shit by everyone around her, and that's something you'll find in a lot of other types of yharnam "bigotry" (without getting into the extremes of it obviously... You know what i'm trying to say), because theyre all so constantly living in fear and hatred fueled by the church, how could they assume a stranger to have good intentions they themselves have never felt? Adella is about her conflict between her personal feelings and what she was made to be, as well as being quite literally influenced by something beyond her control and finding herself in increasingly stressful and life threatening situations. I dont think she ever WANTED this to happen, but as she says herself she just "cant help [her]self". Alfred actively pursued his goal, she was shoved towards it.

[petermatuca-blog]

Re-post London trip blog NOV 24, 2018

V&A - Video games Design/Play/Disrupt

I was told halfway through the trip I was to take photos, and I managed to start over and get pictures, problem is if I upload them, what is the point of you going to the exhibit yourself? So will leave them out here

  I look at how game suck us into their worlds and stories and try to use that to help tell better stories in a better manner, video games are also an art medium you can explore more than a film as you have a degree of control, the story can take hours of intense trying or be over in one try, the hero can fail and plot armour is not there to save you in the typical sense, games allow different perspectives / way to play that speaks to us as individuals,

  A quote that my friend introduced me to that I feel is appropriate for this is

   ‘Making games combines everything that’s hard about building a bridge with everything that’s hard about composing an opera. Games are operas made out of bridges’ - Frank Lantz (2014)

  There was a segment that supposedly was to talk about political correctness in video games and how it goes beyond taboo boarders to tell a message that any and every one can appreciate, at least that what I figured it would be about, instead all that was there was naming and shaming, like “how dare a game set in the past not have characters of ethnicity”, in spit of the fact this is the time before ships to sail across the oceans to get to said characters in their native homelands hadn’t been invented yet.

Politics is a game that everyone loses

  I particularly liked the concepts, art, research, notes etc. I appreciate it when a game studio that is making a game in a desert landscape gets a bunch of their programmers, animators and other world builders to go on a company trip to a desert so they can experiment with movement and how sand reacts so they can make it behave the same way in game and in turn make the world that much more real and immersive.

Bloodborne

I have not played this game, or anything related but the I like the dark-souls like monsters, how these creatures can seem like they could exist (with some creative licence) makes me think about my own designs, as I make ships, droids and weapons and I need to learn to design organic characters.

  Splatoon 

  Splatoon was your typical cutesy Nintendo designed game that somehow takes the tactical shooter games and makes them innocent like a game of paintball, just without a way to cheat, and this is in comparison to Bloodborne across with the room with its hyper realism and gore, and whilst there was plenty of source material I cannot read the notes on the concept art as it is in another language. 

 Reference

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/videogames?fbclid=IwAR2eJDMXiQliOP64JGtkuAAs4g0LuUvJDFXiarM6EIHTpjt9PKZBvT2u4Tc

[whattakesupallmytime]

Dark souls 3 review  Part 2

In the previous part of this review I didn’t mention this in between my mad rambling about how Dark Souls 3 is too linear compared to the others. But the interconnectivity of the world is definitely there, and that was once again done beautifully as usual. Anyway, the next thing i wanted to address was the pvp. Hooooo boy this is a good one. The pvp in the souls games has always been one of the most fun aspects of this game since the beginning, and believe me I suck at pvp in all games in general but I LOVE dark souls pvp. Going one on one using only some healing potions, spells, mid evil weaponry and armor is just fun for me I don’t really know why. (No, I did not enjoy For Honor in the slightest)  Overtime I’ve noticed the Dark souls pvp go on a liiiitle bit of a downward slide. Dark souls 1 pvp was fun at first, but kinda broken leading to some weapon patches and hit box rants all across the community, but I still found it fun.  Dark souls 2... practically dead. In dark souls 1 I got invaded at least twice every time i found a new area and it was really fun. Dark souls 2 for whatever reason just didn’t have that invasions not done by AI were rare and the red summon sign just, doesn’t, work.. ever. Hit boxes were slightly better buuuuut worse with some weapons or boss attacks. Now, Dark souls 3 pvp, is uh. The middle ground. With the addition of embers and whenever you have one active you are able to be invaded, which is a good addition in my opinion. Because it adds a tole to using an ember. Yes you get a big hp boost which makes the game easier to a degree. But at the same time, leaves you open to be invaded by the many different forms of spirits in this game. Obviously Dark Souls 3 kinda borrows the not so reliant on shield combat from it’s cousin BloodBorne, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact it was a great choice. Making the pvp, and the entire game as a whole feel faster and more intense.  But, now this leads to the covenants. *sigh* The covenants in this game are.. strange. They all have some good lore and back story to them which is all well and good but the covenant system has always kinda felt, tacked on to me. Like they put it in at the last minute. Because it’s nothing huge and important unless you’re obsessed with pvp. Trying to make invasions easier on the invader has always been a topic among the souls community. Dark souls 3′s attempt at fixing it (or at least this is what I think they were trying to do) is when certain covenants have a certain area corresponding to them, it does this weird thing where, if for example a player has walking toward Anor Londo, and they are invaded by an Aldrich Faithful. For some reason the game feels the need to literally pile invaders onto you if you don’t kill each of them immediately. I was once invaded three times in the span if roughly 45 seconds. Keep in mind I had no phantoms with me, I was SOLO. Of course I died to a triple gang bang which if you can’t imagine, isn’t very fun when trying to explore a new area.  Watchdogs of Farron covenant also has a glitch that, instead of spawning the invader in their designated area. They are sent to the Cathedral of the Deep, and have to fight someone who happens to have an ember in use. Again, the game will still PILE invaders onto you. As I was trying to farm sword grass I was spawned in the Cathedral, and after a minute of confused wandering, another watchdog had invaded the same world as me. He seemed just as confused as me. Another point I’d like to make. Farming for these covenant items through invasions is P A I N F U L and T E D I O U S as H E L L. Especially if you’re with the Blue Sentinels (If you’re in this covenant, when a player gets invaded, if they have the way of the blue covenant item equipped, a blue sentinel will try to be summoned to their aid) because nearly no one uses that covenant. Dark Moon Knights are offenders to this as well.  Of course not everyone has stable enough internet to play pvp, and FromSoftware wants everyone to have a chance at special covenant items, which are pretty cool I will admit. So, certain enemies (usually corresponding to that covenant area) when killed have a small chance of dropping these items. Which seems like an easy alternative to the pvp. But let me tell you this. The drop rate of these items, is  So Damn low You need to be using rusted gold coins, luck increasing rings and spells, the crystal sage rapier, literally anything to increases the drop rate of items because you will be farming for these items F o r e v e r. I will say this, the covenant rewards are pretty sweet. But only some of them. From the watchdogs of Farron, you are able to get the wolf knight curved sword. Which I used for a looooong time it is a damn good sword. Despite the name it’s actually a great sword. Also you can get the wolf knight great shield which is Artorias’s great shield. After I think 30 or so Proof of concord kepts, you will get the Blade of the Dark moon spell from the Dark Moon Knights, and just, hot damn it’s worth it. When ever I know I’m going to have a magic build character I just have to have it on me it’s such a good spell.  Finally, in the Ringed City dlc, they took an idea used in Demon’s souls, making the player, the boss. In the church just before Filia Nore, you have to fight a spear of the church protecting her. This can either be, an npc name Halflight, spear of the church. Or, a player who happens to be a part of the Spears of the Church covenant. Usually people go into this boss fight with a summon or two just to be safe if it is a player which makes it hard for the player.  The game does try to balance it out by spawning painting guardians? For some reason? I don’t know how they fit it with the lore. Also every so often these spear/ soul arrow things spawn above the player’s head and track other players so it feels fair. Even though a lot of the time the fight ends in the boss/ player getting ganked.