#this is more personal experience w/ the game and random thoughts than meta so not gonna tag it

[jazzmckay]

more musings courtesy of this fantastic post; originally was gonna put it on my n/sfw blog but it didn't end up getting deep in that territory after all. that's for another post, it seems.

---

honestly, my first time playing da2, i struggled a little with how merrill was written. her romance was the one i was least interested in, because, in some kind of way, it felt like i would be taking advantage. i love this game a lot, but the narrative does infantilize merrill a bit, and even though i dislike that it does that, i did pick up on it and instinctively internalize the idea that she should be something more like a little sister to my hawke rather than a romance option. the writing makes her seem so innocent and naive. there's dialogue about her not understanding what a mugging is, and banter about how varric has to protect her from harm while she's out and about in the city because she's ignorant of the danger. the narrative treats her use of blood magic as mostly foolish, destined to bring her tragedy, like she doesn't understand what she's toying with, and eventually she will be punished for it.

but the thing is, merrill absolutely knows what she's doing. merrill is all about learning and understanding and making things work. you can remark on how dangerous blood magic is, and she's like "yeah i know, but i've got this, its fine" which you can take as naivety / foolishness or even bravado maybe, but i wouldn't say the rest of her characterization supports that. merrill's smart, and she's more correct about the eluvian than marethari is. she literally does know what she's doing. the game spans 6 years for her and she's doing just fine. in my playthrough i dodged the potential slaughter of her clan--thank god because fuck that--but even in the routes where things devolve to violence, i'd personally say the conflict has much more to do with the rest of the clan misunderstanding her and driving her away, turning their backs on her, than her being "naive". merrill doesn't need to be punished, she doesn't need to be taught a lesson, she needs someone to have faith in her.

she's an adult, she's fully aware of what she's doing, she's smart, and powerful, and she deserves better. i'm working through the fact that the writing set me up to view her much more innocent (in a child-like way) than she is, and having a good time thinking about her having very fun, very adult escapades.

all this to say: let merrill fuck.

[emperorforanhour]

Meta-Interview 3: Amazing. Never-Before-Seen.

Sophia sits back in the INTERVIEWER seat, still looking very out of place. On the other side, Wayneppoid is far more relaxed in his posture. A sun conure perches on top of his head, a few strands of hair captured in its beak. He seems unbothered by this. Sophia’s gaze drifts to the bird for a moment, before returning to the camera. 

Sophia: “Jazz is biting your hair, I believe-”

She is cut off by the bird, Jazz, squawking, which makes her jump back. Wayne reaches up and pets Jazz with one finger.

Wayne: “Jazz! No sexism.”

The bird squawks again, a little quieter, and hops onto Wayne’s shoulder, before crawling into his shirt. Wayne looks down, baby-talking to his bird.

Wayne: “You gonna let us do the interview, buddy?”

Jazz peeps, muffled by the fabric, and Wayne looks back to Sophia.

Wayne: “Alright, should be good now.”

Sophia: “Was there even a point to starting the recording on a timer if we’re going to be interrupted anyway?”

Wayne: “They got Jazz cam, it’s fine.”

Sophia: “Right, I suppose so.”

Sophia reaches for her clipboard again, flipping the pages back to the first.

Sophia: “I didn’t ask Sonic to introduce himself in his interview, but that was primarily because, well, as you’re aware, the audience is probably already well aware of who he is. Not that I mean any offense, but I don’t think you are quite as ubiquitous as him.”

Wayne: “None taken, it’s fucking Sonic. Wayneradiotv may be kinda popular but we aren’t doing Iron Man numbers.”

Sophia: “So… Who are you, then?”

Wayne clears his throat, and his voice shifts, sounding similar but… synthesized, rather than natural.

Wayne: “Have you heard of Hatsune Miku?”

Sophia: “I’m… not very familiar.”

Wayne: “It’s a reference, Sophia.”

Sophia: “Ah, my apologies.”

Wayne: “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Miku’s a bunch of voice samples, and people use those to make songs without having to sing it themselves. So, I’m like that. But free!”

He coughs again, and his voice returns to normal.

Sophia: “But, that’s not all, yes?”

Wayne: “Well, yeah. I’m like, if Miku was the voice of a Twitch dude.”

Sophia: “Wayneradiotv?”

Wayne: “Yup. If any of you guys have seen the Half Life VR Funny, or that “THERE IS NO FRIDGE” bit? That’s him. He’s got a whole group of friends he streams with, as well, and they all do cool shit on the regular too. I’m basically him but digital, and also Miku.”

Sophia glances down at her clipboard, and looks back up, eyebrow raised.

Sophia: “I suppose you aren’t digital now, are you?”

Wayne: “Guess not. What am I now, a robot or something?” Sophia: “I don’t think it ought to matter too much. Though, isn’t Jazz the physical Wayne’s bird?”

Wayne: “Yeah. I guess he’s a clone? He hates women as much as the original, though.”

He reaches into his shirt to pet Jazz as he speaks. The bird chirps in response.

Sophia: “Right. So, I presume your, or rather his, experience with streaming is what you believe would make you a good interviewer?”

Wayne: “Yeah. I mean, Char’s a dick and Random…”

Sophia: “Is Random, yes.”

Wayne: “And like, no offense to Scratch, he’s a cool dude, but I dunno if he’d be able to handle being the face of something like this.”

Sophia: “Scratch is a DJ, he would be used to crowds.”

Wayne: “Yeah, but there’s a lot less talking going on there. And, uh, I don’t see him around the others much. Does he talk to the contestants?”

Sophia frowns, her gaze flicking to the camera.

Sophia: “I don’t think discussing a friend’s personal business is really fitting behaviour f-for an interviewer.”

Wayne: “Shit, sorry. I’m just kinda worried about him-”

Sophia: “W-We can talk about that afterward.”

Wayne: “Right. Okay. Anyway. Yeah, I mean I’m not actually Wayne or anything like that, but I’m basically him in personality and stuff, so I can… talk good. Some of the actual contestants are, uh, weird dudes, you don’t really want the interviewer to also be out of their goddamn mind, y’know?”

Sophia: “That’s true. I’m familiar with the concept of the ‘straight man’. Judging by your base’s most popular work, I’d say you’d fit that role well.”

Wayne: “Y’know people bitch about Gordon cuz they DON’T get what a straight man is?”

Sophia: “And yet I’m sure they’d complain twice as hard if it was just utter chaos.”

Wayne: “Yeah, exactly!”

Sophia nods, her gaze returning to her papers. Jazz wriggles in Wayne’s shirt in response to him getting louder.

Sophia: “Besides in terms of their potential as interviewers, what do you think of the other bonuses?... Hm. Obviously, besides anything unsuitable for broadcast, as well.”

Wayne: “You make it sound like I’m gonna start talking shit.”

Sophia: “S-Sorry, that’s… you know what I mean, though.”

Wayne: “I guess? Scratch is a cool dude, he’s recommended some absolute bangers. Wish I could get ‘em over to the real Wayne so he could add them to the stream playlist. Shame about his game.”

Sophia doesn’t respond. After a moment, she shakes her head as if remembering something and raises her eyebrow.

Sophia: “Hm?”

Wayne: “Yeah, you’re being weird about it again. I’ll move on, I guess. Sonic… I mean, he’s Sonic the fucking Hedgehog. We both know Miku, so we actually had shit to talk about when we met up for the first time. It’s still surreal to be friends with him, though. I should ask him when they’re bringing Monkey Ball back.”

Sophia: “Char?”

Wayne: “I dunno much about Gundam. That ‘I’ll kill you’ scene from Gundam Wing’s funny, but I don’t know what, like, a Zeon is. And the dude’s just an asshole so I doooooon’t really wanna ask him about it.

Long Furby’s kinda scary to look at, but she’s alright. She kinda reminds me of Holly, I think they’d get along. They’ve got the same powerful chaotic energy. 

Random’s… I mean, it sure says shit. It’s a big question mark, what else am I gonna say about it?”

Wayne shrugs. 

Wayne: “I’m pretty sure it started playing an ad for, like, gamer drugs at me once? The fuck’s up with that?”

Sophia: “It did?” Wayne: “It’s never done that to you?” Sophia: “Honestly, I had assumed it just pulled from the same pool of sounds no matter who was around. If it’s at all aware of who it’s ‘talking’ to...”

Wayne: “That’d mean it’s fucking ALIVE!”

Sophia: “Let’s hope not, then. Because if it is, then that makes its behaviour infinitely more irritating.

A-Anyway, do you have any thoughts on the contestants? It sounds like you’ve gotten to know some of them already.”

Wayne grins.

Wayne: “So, obviously went to go talk to the Spies first. The comic dudes liked Jazz, but the Spy didn’t really want to talk to me at first. But, I mean, I’m sort of a Valve rep, so eventually we wound up getting along. Won’t tell me when Half Life 3’s coming out, though.

That arcade cabinet fucking haaaaates me. I’ve told him I’m not even the actual streamer here, but he tells me I’m still made on a computer and that’s even worse. Says VR’s stealing his gimmick, says I’m promoting the things that killed his medium, says I should stop playing Neil’s music on stream… Dude, Wayne just plays it when someone donates for it. Also, isn’t he literally a Neil song?”

Sophia: “It’s complicated, I believe.”

Wayne: “I guess it has to fucking be.

Uhhh, don’t know Dorime too much, except one time everyone else in the cafeteria started making fun of us for being the only straight people.”

Sophia: “Wha-I’m sorry that happened, I should’ve interv-”

Wayne: “Nah, it’s fine. It was all jokes, aside from Cabinet Man I think. Pix had to punch him in the screen to get him to fuck off.

Oh, speaking of Pix, her and Bit are cool. When their game comes out, I’ll… do something to get Wayne to stream it. Not really sure what, but I’ll figure it out. Wish Jazz didn’t hate women so much, cuz they’ve both asked to pet him so much, and I don’t want them to get bitten.

Baba is a good boy. Another creature here I WISH I could show to Holly, oh my God. He’s softer than I was expecting. Like a pillow.”

Wayne is tearing up just thinking about Baba.

Sophia: “Baba is one of the nicest creatures I’ve ever encountered, to tell you the truth.”

Wayne: “Yeah, same.

Pony is… I mean. It’s a horse, right? Terrifying.” Sophia: “Terrifying?” Wayne: “Yeah! Horses are fucking scary, dude. And this guy’s all glitchy and stuff as well, so it’s even worse.”

Sophia: “I… see. Now, I think we should start wrapping this interview up, so, do you have any final statements to make to the audience?”

Wayne thinks for a moment, and opens his mouth to speak, but Jazz interrupts, peeping up a storm. The bird flies out of his shirt, landing on his head, and then takes off again. Both Wayne and Sophia shout in surprise, as Jazz turns and heads right for the tripod.

Wayne: “Jazz, no!-”

The bird knocks the camera from it’s stand, and the feed cuts out. 

[pathologickinkmeme]

Kinktober Day 9

For a game with so many characters, is it really a surprise that we’d have an abundance of Gangbang/Orgy prompts? Cause we sure do! Gangbangs, orgies, group sex... any and all configurations (though Daniil Gangbangs are basically a kink meme genre by now...) Check below for prompts!

Mark Immortell/Tragedians, gangbang

What are the tragedians, exactly? Ordinary human actors? Meta-game-constructs? Eldritch abominations? Either way they seem to be following along with Mark's production and I doubt it's because he's paying them well. I just want the tragedians all getting a piece of the director. Maybe it's a team-building exercise, maybe they're sick of his production and take it out on him, maybe this is just what a cast-party looks like. Any level of consent/enjoyment is fine!

+ xeno, abstraction and/or general theatre weirdness

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=478499#cmt478499

Daniil/many, gangbang, potential CW for non-con

Daniil at the center of some kind of group sex situation. Could be named characters or just a pack of anonymous people.

I put a c/w in the subject line in case anyone would be interested in going a non-con route, but I have no strong preferences either way

Ideas:

- Utopian gangbang

- Daniil gets grabbed by a gang of muggers and fucked in an alleyway

- Pre-canon university shenanigans feat. Andrey

- Something goes really wrong after the army arrives and Daniil ends up kidnapped by mutineers

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=87331#cmt87331

Saburovs/others, gang rape(obvious noncon cw)

In one of the later days, after their power has broken down, Alexander and Katerina get attacked. By who isn't really that important-soldiers, raiders, bandits, former prisoners, angry townspeople-the point is that I want to have them forced to watch each other be gangraped. Lots of degradation and humiliation, focus on the powerlessness, possible futile attempts to comfort each other/take the worst of it so the other doesn't have to.

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=284707#cmt284707

Andrey and Daniil University time

Andrey and Daniil being uni acquaintances is a rich field, ripe for the harvest if you ask me.

I especially love it in the context of andrey and Peter being more confident, experienced, and outgoing who and taking Daniil under their wing (and maybe corrupt him)

So how about andrey seeing a fun challenge in the (at the time) prudish and repressed baby gay dankovsky

What if he invites him to an orgy?

SUPER BONUS of he doesn't tell Daniil that it's an orgy and he thinks he's just being dragged into a regular party

Also bonus for initial dubcon on Daniil behalf

Aaand also bonus for involving farkhad

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=390691#cmt390691

(CW: noncon) many/daniil, daniil leveraging his experience & accidentally enjoying it

daniil noncon gangbang, you know the drill, EXCEPT: when the noncon starts, Daniil, desperate to convince the people who've caught him that he's better off alive for a little longer (possibly hoping to delay until rescue comes), reluctantly implements his considerable skills in the bedroom. showing off his ability to deepthroat, opening his legs willingly, etc... but unfortunately, while the tactic works great as delay, he finds himself getting aroused. cue the delicious shame and humiliation! up to you if he gets rescued or not. :D

i'm not super picky about who does the noncon, tho I'd be delighted if it were set around Daniil walking into the Abattoir and getting attacked in Classic. if that doesn't tickle your inspiration, any random group is fine... muggers, mutineers, hell, even Executors.

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=403747#cmt403747

Artemy/several, rarepair gangbang

It's what he deserves!!!!

Dealer's choice as to who gets to have a go, but I'd prefer the following to be included: Andrey, Block, Victor and Eva.

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=406819#cmt406819

(CW: possible non-con) Grief and the Gang(bang)

I simply think Bad Grief should get slammed by his gang members, either consensually (they take care of their leader <3) or otherwise (a parting gift from Barley's faction?)

Either way: consider him covered in bodily fluids and fucked within an inch of his life, pls and thank you

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=513059#cmt513059

Utopian orgy!

I want daniil/andrey/maria/eva/peter mostly but feel free to throw vlad jr or mark too if you feel like it

Bonus points for straps and maria topping any of the guys

Extra bonus points if their canon relationships and thoughts on each other are present

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=34851#cmt34851

Daniil/Male Characters Gangbang

I wanna see Daniil get wrecked (consensually) by some of the other men (Artemy, Peter, Andrey, Rubin, whoever else you feel like throwing in there). Contrive the situation as you must.

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=326947#cmt326947

(CW: Noncon, gangbangs) Daniil/Tragedians/Executors/Mark Immortell

Make Daniil earn his respawn by offering himself to all those working hard behind the scenes. Can involve any combination of the above parings as long as Daniil gets WRECKED by more than one person.

Bonus points for: humiliation, Daniil being taunted about how much he's enjoying himself, and just generally getting weird and meta (as stuff in the theatre tends to get).

https://pathologickinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/291.html?thread=33059#cmt33059

[pilgrimonpoint]

“The Pattern Aggrandizment of Self-Delusion.”

Is There a Term for Convincing Those Around You of The Obvious, Then the Obvious Thing Doesn’t Happen?

Yes. It is called “The Pattern Aggrandizement of Self-Delusion.”

I have been in a near constant state of awakening and suicidal ideation, but really, who hasn't been?

Anyway, one of the realizations I had sprang from the analysis of my accrued data metrics that addressed “whether or not”, in aggregate, “listening to my ‘gut' had the generalized overall result being beneficial, certainly positive, and nice feeling upon post examinations of my necessarily subjective experience of the undocumented events as remembered after the fact".

What I learned was ‘jaw dropping.’

The unqualified result was that, astoundingly, I had never listened to my gut up until the age of 46, and my life had generally been a sucky experience, BUT, since then, while being in the most chaotic time in memory, it has also been the most mind-bogglingly creative and satisfying time I have ever lived!

The crises personally and country wide were seismic! In many, many ways I was the same me, but in a different place and time. The question then occurred to me, "what is the most consistent random thing to occur in my life?”

Without hesitation, the thought manifested within my expansive mind, “420”.

Now mind you, I am not a pot smoker. Sure, in the past I liked to “loosen the screws", but for me the experience was “losing the screws altogether. Has anyone seen my glasses? How about my keys?”

You feel me.

Since I was 16, you would not credit as believable how many times I have wondered,” what time is it?”

Looked at the clock, and, you guessed it, exactly 420.

It happened so much that I have been using it as a running joke for over 10 years now. Even going as far as to text my partner every time it happens to try and share the weirdness of it. It did not even occur to me to wonder, “I wonder what it could mean in relation to April 2020?” prior to last Nov.

When it did, the first thing I thought was, “I wonder if that is when I am going to die?” My ‘gut’ reacted when I considered it. So, I considered it more.

Now this is the part of the story where it REALLY starts to make sense. When I was 22, and just out of the Marines, Texas had just started the state lottery. Looking at the odds of winning, it occurred to me that the best random odds one could have would be to pick one set of numbers at 21, or 22, then play those numbers with odd regularity until I died at 127, and have a better chance of winning than any other strategy.

Let me tell you, I was SO impressed with myself. Especially when each number I chose had a special significance. OF COURSE, I told my family, my friends, strangers, little children, EVERYBODY about my brilliant plan. I talked about it so much, my friends and family knew my numbers without the need for hints.

After two weeks of being fully the most annoying pleasant intellectual in all West Texas, my roommate and I were parked in front of The Colonial at 9 pm. Terry was in the store, and my gut went crazy!

I had the darndest feeling that I should buy a ticket, BUT I only had 5 dollars and we were headed to the dollar theater to watch a movie. $1 to get in. $2 for a large soda, and $2 for a hotdog or nachos. So, in weighing my desires, I found getting a soda and hotdog outweighed my need to buy a lottery ticket, and realize again I was paying “the poor man's tax” as my father was want to call the lottery.

OK!

I had decided.

Shut UP gut!

Then Terry got into the vehicle.

“Aren’t you going get a lottery ticket??” He asked significantly, leaning over towards me and wagging his eyebrows to indicate he was only half mocking my intellectual prowess, which was profound, yet untested at such a young age. I then had to explain to him my well-reasoned excuse not to purchase a ticket, even repeating my father's moniker for the gambling game.

“Alright!” Terry said, and we went to the movies.

In those days, the theater would put up the numbers next to the movie screen on drawing nights. I was watching the trailers when Terry punched the holy living hell out of my shoulder.

“What the F Ter-,” Terry interrupted my indignant anger, “Look!” he said loudly, pointing. Following his pointer finger I saw at the end of it, my lottery numbers. Loud, recriminations ensued.

That was my first gut failure and will long live in the annals of family history of missed chances.

I have had many times from then to my present 47 years where, every time I ignored my gut, I later learned I should have listened to my gut. It was with this infallible information in hand last Dec, I decided TO follow my gut for ONCE in my life. Further, I decided to combine it with another observation regarding my life.

That observation was my life seemed to, without intent, be the most cliché life that I am aware of. So much so, that if I am in an unusual situation, or witness to one, and I can think of an absurd situational cliché similar to what I am witnessing, then further picture an even more absurd cliché that involves me, then it will probably happen, and then leave where ever I am because I am tired of experiencing absurd clichés in my life. Really.

As a brief example of what I mean, I have actually been in a situation where a hot, beautiful, younger woman was BEGGING me to be with her, and my response in that moment was, “No, not until you tell me something personal about you. It can be made up, I don’t care, but it has to sound personal.” To which she said, “Shut up and GIVE it to me!” I then responded with, and I am completely serious, I said, “But I want to get to know you as a person!”

Really? What!

And I meant it! I realized the irony of the situation as well as the cosmic humor of the organic interaction.

My friends said that I could get struck by lightning on a cloudless day. It was so ridiculous, even my friends and family could only agree with the sentiment.

Back to 420.

So I combined “Cliché” with “420” and came up with the conviction, not mere supposition, but conviction that the “Big One” was going to happen in the San Francisco Bay area on, you guessed it, 4/20/20.

For those too busy for historical references, “Big One” in this context refers to a geological tremor, of OMG proportions. If I had lost some of you to a more debauched definition for “Big One” when associated with San Francisco, no worries, I added some useless but fun filler for the rest of us to read until you came back from your “wonderings”. We are not judging.

Welcome back!

I further backed this up with a dream I had my first night in the area. I dreamt that I was on a roof with another guy and water was swiftly rising up and overtaking us, and I was yelling, “which way do we swim for the Berkeley Hills?!”. Not a normal dream, but one of those super lucid, real feeling ones.

I had had 5 of them in my life. One of THOSE 5 was a dream where I standing on a cliff on the west coast overlooking the ocean, and there were meteors, several of them trailing huge smoke trails behind them, and I said in the dream, "And behold, a mountain was cast down from the heavens, and this is the 6th seal”

I quietly began telling friends and family and those I like to go camping or be out of town on 4/20. Hell, I was so convincing, my sons and partner were trying to help pack so we could get on the road at 2 am on 420! It was such a mess despite all efforts, I took that as a sign I should just chill and not drive to the border of OR to wait. The border of Oregon, OF COURSE because, during our research, we discovered that our RV Trailer Park of extravagant plushness, was encircled on three sides by liquefaction zones. LIQUIFACTION ZONES! We were also within a 15-minute walk on our other side to the Hayward Faultline. As well as 5, not 4, not 6, but 5 volcanoes that had active within enough historical time, to add a nice hysterical flavor to our familial rash of survivalist instincts!

Did I really want to see if, in another cosmic cliché, I was a prophet?

“Oh man. Please no. Not in the middle of a pandemic with apocalypse feelings like this happening with everyone in twenty-seven social interactions I had been having lately. I even read a couple chapters of Revelations. The only thing more catastrophic than reading revelations with serious intent to understand is our local crazy on the street corner not carrying an “end is nigh” sign. OMG, he is carrying a sign! I will get burned at a stake for sure!”

I reasoned one of two things were going to happen come 4/20/20.

One, my talent for identifying unusual, but true patterns in meta social data was more that I wanted to actually have, or two, I had a lesson to learn and needed to reevaluate some of my life choices.

Not doing anything would be irresponsible, where doing something COULD save some lives. If nothing happened, no real trouble for anyone, and I didn’t broadcast across the internet, and set myself up for being an I-D-I-O-T publicly. Only privately, and within a small circle of people who would either need to be stopped from making more of my prophetic powers than is seemly, or hopefully, they could accept the above reasons as fair, and let me learn said lessons without too much joking about Nostradamus or even considering crossing a pandemic border to then go into a more serious lockdown for 14 days of shame, or anything. I mean, I DID tell them the same thing as in this paragraph BEFORE 420, so I have a very reasonable, and self-evaluating insanity.

YAY!

*my partner says I must inform y’all that we had actually been planning a trip to OR for many months before our invisible stalking COVID frenemy began crawling up both legs at the same time

It being June 8th now, you can figure that I learned the lesson of not associating entirely subjective experiences into any kind of designation of anything prophetic or inane. Trust me, I am not that guy, which is exactly why the whole collection of things felt MORE probable. People were like, “Man, Adrian is saying this. Shit! Maybe something IS going to happen!”

Yeah Something happened. I realized my hair was not on fire, and humans are silly as hell. Oh, I made up the term up top. Seemed in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek feel I was going for.

Pattern Aggrandizement of Self-Delusion in no way whatsoever, needs to be credited to me when bringing up who coined the phrase, but if absolutely necessary, you may use Sabrina Siebert, 42, from Troy Michigan. She IS the boss. I merely dictated this answer.

*OOOOwwwww

**she is giving the evil eye, but smiling, and denying, and now looking down at her phone. Mission accomplished.

Feedback in comments! THANKS!

Respectfully,

A. Yobi Blumberg

#veteranartist #voctrbe #veteranwriter #ptsdtherapy #thetruth #hmor

[aurelliocheek]

Book of Heroes: Making a new The Dark Eye game

A new Finnish studio is bringing the tabletop feeling to the screen.

The Dark Eye (original: Das Schwarze Auge) is a true classic. The roleplaying game was developed 36 years ago by the German Ulrich Kiesow and laid the foundation for hundreds of novels, board games – and video games of course. Since the last one, The Dark Eye: Blackguards 2 by Daedalic, five years have passed.

This summer a new game brings the players back into the fantasy world Aventuria. Like in the original Pen&Paper game, The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes is about role-playing together with your friends. Four players combine the specialities of the different species and professions to overcome enemies, puzzles and challenges in the myriad of procedurally generated maps. Twelve different professions and eight individual storylines should provide long-lasting gaming fun. Book of Heroes is the first game of new Finnish developer Random Potion in collaboration with publisher Wild River Games and DSA rights holder Ulisses.  We talk with Creative Director Arto ­Koistinen and CEO Kirsi Rossi about the development of The Dark Eye: Book of ­Heroes.

What kind of game is Book of Heroes? Arto Koistinen: BoH is an RPG for busy people. There are plenty of ­action games with similarly easy ways of dropping in and out, but no real roleplaying games like this. Kirsi Rossi: Book of Heroes is a game that consists of several shorter adventures that form longer stories. All the RPG elements are there but compared to the epic RPGs that require hundreds of hours playing, BoH gives you an easy way to play when you have time, or your friends are online and you’d like to play a couple of hours with them. It also doesn’t require a long time to get yourself familiar with the system, so it’s easy to start playing it but of course for the ones who’d like to immerse themselves into an epic RPG the experience is not that deep.

Only part of the Random Potion team is enjoying a summer day in Tampere, Finland, before working on Book of Heroes.

Please tell us briefly about your career in the gaming industry. And how it all started with Random Potion? Kirsi: I haven’t worked with games before. It’s been something that I have thought about earlier but because I don’t have a developer background there are less opportunities, though the situation has changed a lot recently when there are more big studios. I joined Random Potion when Arto asked if I’d be interested in to take care of the business side of the company three years ago. Entrepreneurship is something that I have wanted to try, so it was a perfect opportunity for me. Arto: I started in the industry in 2007 as a game designer for mobile games, the company worked solely on licensed games, so I did small games for big brands such as Star Wars and Pixar. After that, I founded my first company Dicework Games, where I did programming, design, writing and business, so pretty much everything else than art or music. I’ve also worked at Kyy Games, another local company, in multiple positions. We started Random Potion with a group of friends from the industry, mainly because we wanted to work together on new projects. Book of Heroes was an idea I’d had in one form or another for several years, and finally, the pieces for the design started coming together. In retrospect, it was probably too big a project for a new company, but fortunately, everything turned out well!

How big is your team at the moment? Do you hire? Kirsi: We have ten people at the moment in the company and in our team. We don’t hire at the moment.

How did the collaboration with Ulisses and Wild River come about? Kirsi: We met Wild River a couple of times at game events like gamescom where we showed our game demo and later how it as progressed. Later on, we started to talk about the collaboration with Wild River and got introduced also with Ulisses.

Arto: I also attended a convention hosted by Ulisses where I met both the Ulisses people and the fans, and it was a great experience, and especially awesome to meet all these people very enthusiastic about The Dark Eye.

How close do you work together? Kirsi: We have weekly meetings with Wild River’s producer, and we also use Slack, where we can chat when there’s anything to ask, comment etc. If we have questions of the Dark Eye universe, we can also talk with Ulisses, and they have provided us with a lot of material and also checked the stories that are in the game so that they don’t conflict with the DSA universe.

Unity is the main development tool. If for beasts, items, or entire portions of the maps — it will end up in Unity.

What are your sources of inspiration? Kirsi: Overall, for me, I love old-school RPG games. I remember when I was a kid and got often stuck to Mario or other similar games because I wasn’t that good and patient enough to practise. When I found RPGs, it felt like coming home because I didn’t get that frustrating feeling of playing the same setting over and over again (or asking someone else to play it for me so that I could continue the game).

Arto: Baldur’s Gate was a big inspiration in the beginning, especially for the core gameplay, visuals and controls. We opted for a different approach in meta though, having bite-sized adventures connected by personal stories instead of a big epic campaign. Of course, there is also a lot of influence from roguelikes, of which my favourite is probably ADOM.

Are you fans of The Dark Eye? Kirsi: The Dark Eye is not that well known in Finland. I like to play tabletop RPGs and also try different games, and it’s been great to get to know also The Dark Eye. I am a big fan of monsters, and there are many that I like in the Dark Eye. I also like lizardfolk, and it would be great to have them somewhere in the game… (smiles) Arto: We are now! (smiles)

Did you play previous TDE games? Arto: I had played Chains of Satinav before the project and when we started also played Memoria and both the Blackguards games.

How did you get the game design process, what was your approach? Arto: We already had a vertical slice of the game that used a different system when we started working with The Dark Eye. In the pre-TDE project, we had a pretty ad hoc process where we knew the high-level design and where we wanted to go but did the concrete design as the project progressed, seeing what worked and what didn’t. When we started converting that base to The Dark Eye, we first took the rules and decided what would work for our game and how and what we had to drop out. I’m happy to say we got a lot of the core rules in and even some additional ones from the other sourcebooks! There was a lot of back and forth with Ulisses for the storylines so everything is canon for the setting. We’ve also tested the game with fans of The Dark Eye and integrated that feedback into the finished game.

Kirsi: I am not involved in game design as I am more of taking care of the company and project itself, e.g. schedules and communication with the publisher. However, because we are a small studio, I have tested the game a lot (over 100 hours of gameplay…). I also like to join the game design meetings and encourage everyone in a team to be involved because I think it’s important that everyone has a feeling of ownership of the project.

Even though Book of Heroes is a co-op game by heart, you can embark solo on the adventures and hire some henchmen for the quest. For a price.

TDE is known for it’s unique system of dicing samples. How did you implement this system to the game as algorithm for the gameplay? Arto: We have the skill system in the game pretty much as-is, the game handles the skill rolls when need and shows the results of the rolls to the player, along with all the three dice rolls and the final Quality Level. Some rolls are automated by the game (e.g. Perception), and some are initiated by the player (e.g. Picklocks).

In which area will the game take place? Arto: In the Middenrealm, mostly concentrating on the west, Kosh and Northmarches areas.

Book of Heroes is a Coop-RPG. Why is the multiplayer approach important to you, and how challenging is the implementation? Kirsi: We chose co-op because we wanted to make a game with a similar feeling of playing together like in tabletop RPGs. In tabletop RPGs I can still remember some game sessions many years ago, and I think that it’s players who bring the game alive. Multiplayer itself is absolutely more challenging technically compared to the solo game and also for a new team like us many people advised not to make a first game multiplayer.

How important is the story in Book of ­Heroes for you? Kirsi: There are several different stories, and also the players with whom you play have their own stories. I think the story is important, but for me, it’s also important to have fun instead of just advancing my own story. I hope that game can give a nice setting to meet friends or completely new people.

Arto: Theirs is actually more story in the game than readily apparent to the casual observer. We’re especially invested in ­player-driven stories, and the character creation takes a story-first approach, where every choice you make tells you a bit more about the character’s background. The personal storylines are also a very important part of the game, and while you can mostly skip them if you want, they contain a lot of lore and world-building.

Talking about the development process: What problems did you encounter in ­g­eneral, and how did you deal with them? Kirsi: In game development team the fascinating but also challenging part is that teams are multi-disciplinary where there are programmers, artists, business people etc. and everyone has their own way of working. It’s important to bring devs together because making games is teamwork and it’s important to understand how my work is affecting to somebody else’s.

Arto: One of the biggest challenges is making everything work together in a game that has as many moving pieces as we do – and in multiplayer too! Getting a feature or a piece of content to work is one thing; getting it to work in a multiplayer environment is a completely another. We’re also balancing between meeting the expectations of a multiplayer RPG and a TDE game, which can be tricky because those expectations can at times be ­conflicting.

The combat feels a lot like the tabletop original. Hence the dice symbols and the numbers.

Which aspects are the most difficult to ­i­mplement. Do you also have to leave something out? Kirsi: We had to leave a lot of things out, and I think it’s an on-going conversation because time is limited, but there would be so many ideas to bring alive.

Arto: Pathfinding in a multiplayer game with procedurally generated levels has proven to be a hurdle, but fortunately one that’s now behind us. Then there’s the adventure generation where we want to have maps that are interesting enough but should never be incompletable.

Which engine do you use? What advantages does it offer you? Arto: We use Unity. Personally, I’ve been using it for over eleven years, and it’s a fine engine that gives us most of what we need out of the box and also has great support in the form of community and available ­plug-ins.

How do you feel about crunchtime? What experiences have you had with crunchtime in recent years? Kirsi: I haven’t worked before in-game ­studio so I have only read about the crunching. We don’t crunch, and if a dev asks can s/he do work e.g. on the weekend, it’s always temporary solution and extra hours can be used later to have an extra day off. Personally, I am a bit of a workaholic, and it’s been tough to learn to take time off because being an entrepreneur work basically never ends, but I have also noticed that it affects to the quality of the work if I do long time work in the evenings and weekends.

How hard is it for you to deal with the corona crisis? Does it influence the completion and release date? Kirsi: We have been working completely remote one month now, and we have short daily meetings online every workday. When the crises started, one challenge was to get the computers to everyone because we have tabletop computers (gaming laptops are more expensive compared to the tabletop ones). Crisis doesn’t seem to influence to the completion of the project, but I keep my finger’s crossed that nobody catches corona.

Kirsi Rossi CEO

Kirsi is the CEO and Business Developer at Random Potion. Being a free spirit, she has travelled around the globe and lived on three continents. Professionally, she has worked in B2B marketing and events taking care of administrative tasks. She has a MBA in Knowledge Management and she about to graduate in MTech majoring in entrepreneurship.

Arto Koistinen Creative Director

Arto is a game developer who has been a game designer, programmer, CEO, writer and some other things in his 13 years in the industry. He has worked on small mobile games for big brands such as Star Wars and Pixar, made an award winning RPG Rimelands: Hammer of Thor, and written very punny jokes for Knights of Pen and Paper 2

The post Book of Heroes: Making a new The Dark Eye game appeared first on Making Games.

Book of Heroes: Making a new The Dark Eye game published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[romancescams]

RSN™ Guide: Real Scammers

How Can You Judge If A Real Person In Africa Is A Scammer?

When you see a real person’s profile, who is from Africa, how can you tell they are a scammer?

Will they have “Scammer” written across their forehead?

Sometimes It Is Easy

You see photos of their loot (money) and see posts they have written about scamming. They claim they are “Yahoo” or “Sakawa,” or are even part of a gang.

Sometimes Not

It requires more investigation or collateral proof.

The Types Of Scammers

What is a Professional (Cartel)  Scammer?

A professional scammer works for a larger organization, not a gang

They speak better and write better – proper spelling and grammar

They are better trained and more experienced at manipulation

They understand the language and terms of the business or military they are claiming to be in

They have a more complete or comprehensive profile

They will rarely talk on the phone, and never on video chat

These base their scam on business opportunities where they can gain far more money

They mostly target people of means with larger rewards

Work in seamless, well-coordinated teams

Tend to work long cons – scams that can last years

What is a Gang Scammer?

They work in a smaller gang of scammers

Their language and grammar are poor

They use shortcuts to avoid making mistakes – never or rarely use the victim’s name

Rarely get on the phone

Use recorded videos on video chat – the microphone is always broken

Are sloppy in the setup of their profiles – errors

The content of profiles is random and poorly thought out

They have little time to spend with individual victims – churn victims that will not pay quickly

Work in poorly coordinated teams

Tend to work in shorter cons – lasting weeks or a few months – get in and out

What are Individual Scammers?

There are two types of Individual Scammers:

Real People

Rogue Scammers

Real People Scammers

In many countries Real People Scam. You find this is Asia and Latin America mostly, but in Africa too. These are real people that develop a relationship with the victim, and everything about them is real, except for one crucial detail: they are married or have a significant other (boyfriend or girlfriend).

They are scamming to make a living, take care of their families, or just enjoy life. They will be completely real, except about their feelings for the victims. They may like, may even feel love for the victim, but they have no intention of leaving their connection at home. It is just a scam.

These are also the dominant type of Russian and Ukrainian scammers, except that they do work for companies that organize and promote these. Whereas typically in Asia and Latin America these are truly just individuals.

These are not to be confused with real local Con Artists in your own country.

Rogue Scammers

These are individual scammers who are using fake or real identities but working completely on their own. They are mostly using fake stories about themselves.

In many cases, they were fired by an organization or left a gang. In some cases, they even left their own country to flee the risks of the group they were a part of.

Rogue and small gang scammers are the ones that typically get arrested too, since they lack the protection that larger groups have that buy safety from the local police.

How To Detect Is A Real Person Is Scamming?

The most reliable way if simply if they ask for money.

The problem is how do you tell the difference between a real person in need and person scamming you?

If you think you know the true identity of a real person that you consider that you are in a relationship with, and they are now asking you for money, we recommend the following steps:

Have video calls with them and their family and ask critical qualifying questions and watch the reactions of the people in their family – especially children if you are able to talk to them.

Get real photos of them in their real lives – work, family, etc.

Ask them for their real identification documents – have them take a photo using their phone – they should be able to send it within a few short minutes of your request – this at least should give you their real identity and it should match the online profiles you see.

Hire a local investigator to determine the relationship status of the person. This should not cost more than a couple of hundred Dollars or Euros for most of these countries. You can get the contact information for your country’s embassy in their country, as ask them for help locating a private investigator – the Commercial Attaches should have local business directories at hand – or you can simply use the internet to look for local investigators.

Use the VISA Process. Another means to verify a real person is have them go through the application process for a Visa to your country. You should be able to obtain the form for them online. Have them fill it in and ask them to take photos so you can review it beforehand. A scammer in unlikely to go through this with false information.

There is another problem with all of this though. None of this protects you against Marriage Fraud – someone who if completely clean, will come to your country and even marry you – then leave and divorce as soon as their permanent residency if granted. Unfortunately, this happens frequently.

Back To The Real Scammer

Almost all Real Scammers when you find their profiles have some clue that they are “In The Game.”

Always remember this one rule about scammers: They Are Sloppy! Not lazy, just sloppy – they work too fast – it takes a huge amount of time to scam hundreds of victims at once and they cannot take the time to be meticulous! This works in your favor since they leave traces behind.

Here are the things to look for:

RESURFACING: Many times, a scammer will create a fake profile to use to scam someone, then change the identity – sometimes to a new fake identity and sometimes to themselves (especially when they get a name challenge from Facebook – they will have to change it to their real name). This is also how they disappear sometimes, they change the name and the URL – poof they are gone!

When they do this, they are likely to overlook old elements from a previous identity. Looking carefully for anything odd or out of place is a clue that the profile was resurfaced.

Look for the gender on the profile

Look in the photos for someone that is out of place

Look in the posts for things out of place

Look in their likes and groups for things someone from their country would not realistically be interested in

Look at the profile URL to see if there is a different name

Look for any information in the section about them that is odd or out of place

CONNECTIONS: Look at their friends and connections, including post comments. A normal person will have real friends and a large assortment of people commenting on their profiles. A scammer will tend to have this polarized – meaning that they have some normal friends but may have a large number of foreign friends all of a type – such as women or men of a certain age. This is an indication they are fishing for victims. If there are a number of similar people that are not from his/her country then this is a major red flag.

INTERESTS: If the person has interests that are not of a type, but seem to be more aligned with the people they are connecting with this can be an indicator of scammer grooming. For example: a man would have likes for cars and football, but would probably not have a lot of likes for subjects relating to romance or woman’s topics, and vice versa. Always look for the things that are odd or out of place.

WHAT IS MISSING: One of the things about a scammer – real or fake – tends to be things that are missing from a profile. Real people have messy lives, but proportional lives. Meaning they have their interests and things they do and their profile tends to have a consistent stream to related things. It can have random ones too, but even those fall into patterns. Be suspicious of people that seem to have large gaps in both information and their activities based upon what you know of them. For example: they have a family, yet never seem to have any posts about their family or real events in their life.

BINGING: Binging or burst posting is always a red flag. It is when a person comes back around to the profile and then adds a ton of new posts all at once. Real people are also not always online and may sporadically post, but it tends to be one or two posts at random times. Binging tends to be 4 to 10 posts all at once with nothing really urgent or essential or relevant in them for the person, such as junk motivational posts that look like they are trying to convince someone there are romantic or sensitive.

The Challenge

The challenge in spotting real scammers is that it requires experience. After you have seen a few thousand real scammer profiles you can spot them most of the time. If you do not have the experience you have to rely on rules to govern and limit your risk.

The most important rule is:  Do Not Friend or Talk To Strangers That Contact You! Ever!

If you follow that rule you will not fall for a Romance Scam!

RSN™ Team a division of SCARS™ Miami Florida U.S.A.

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  WESTERN UNION REPAYMENT PROGRAM NEWS

FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ABOUT THE WESTERN UNION REPAYMENT / REMISSION PROGRAM CLICK HERE – IT IS STILL OPEN FOR A PETITIONS FOR REPAYMENT

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Tell us about your experiences with Romance Scammers in our Scams Discussion Forum on Facebook »

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FAQ: How Do You Properly Report Scammers?

It is essential that law enforcement knows about scams & scammers, even though there is nothing (in most cases) that they can do.

Always report scams involving money lost or where you received money to:

Local Police – ask them to take an “informational” police report – say you need it for your insurance

Your National Police or FBI (www.IC3.gov)

The Scars Worldwide Reporting Network HERE or on www.Anyscam.com

This helps your government understand the problem, and allows law enforcement to add scammers on watch lists worldwide.

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Visit our NEW Main RSN Facebook page for much more information about scams and online crime: www.facebook.com/RSN.Main.News.And.Inromation.Home.Page

  To learn more about SCARS visit www.AgainstRomanceScams.org

Please be sure to report all scammers HERE or on www.Anyscam.com

All original content is Copyright © 1991 – 2018 SCARS All Rights Reserved Worldwide & Webwide – RSN/Romance Scams Now & SCARS/Society of Citizens Against Romance Scams are all trademarks of Society of Citizens Against Romance Scams Inc.

  RSN™ Guide: Real Scammers RSN™ Guide: Real Scammers How Can You Judge If A Real Person In Africa Is A Scammer?

[2traveldads-blog]

When we are traveling with the kids we typically have all kinds of products with us, from toothpaste to bug spray. Safe storage of our travel products is important, and not just because we don’t want to have all of our toiletries covered in sunblock due to the pressure change when flying, but because we don’t want to have the kids riffling through our luggage and getting into something they shouldn’t.

We’ve partnered with Know Your OTCs to share tips for staying healthy while traveling and also about the importance of self-care, and this month they’ve asked us to share what we do to ensure our family’s travel supplies aren’t accessible to the kids so we can enjoy the safest experience on the road together.

Safe Storage of Travel Products

We’re not necessarily traveling with a full pharmacy in our bags, but we do bring along some important goods that help us travel better.  Have you ever thought about what you’ve got in your bag that could be bad for kids to get into? It might surprise you.

We looked at what we’ve got packed for our upcoming trip to Florida and here are all the things we came up with that could be potentially dangerous for the kids.

Note: our kids are older and aren’t all up in our stuff, but there was a time in the not too recent past that they were wild and curious little dudes that thought everything was free game. Kids, older or younger, will be curious, so we encourage you to consider our tips as you prep for your next family trip.

Another thing to remember, when you look through our list you’ll see that there’s much more than sunblock listed when we’re talking about safe storage or travel products (and all of this applies to the home as well). Keep in mind that more than 60k kids end up in the ER each year due to hazardous consumption of medications… which a lot of people travel with.

Potentially dangerous travel products

As we started to ponder what exactly we travel with and what could pose some sort of danger we gasped aloud. Like, safe storage just became crystal clear in our eyes as something we need to ensure we always practice.  Just look at what we travel with on any given trip:

Soaps and shampoo – some smell a lot like delicious foods

Skin care products – face products aren’t meant for little kids and can be painful if used

Shaving tools – chances are you travel with a razor. Big red danger flag

Toothpaste and mouthwash – yes, something designed to go in the mouth, but not to ingest

OTC pain relief – kids may be familiar or think it’s okay to access ibuprofen or children’s suspension

Prescription drugs – we don’t typically have any of these, but when we do we are extra careful

Vitamins – vitamins aren’t treats but they can taste like it. Our kids always ask for an extra (and we say no)

Supplements – whether it’s fish oil or protein powder, neither should be readily accessible to kids

Essential oils – not too many people travel with these, but some do the temptation to open and smell them all is strong with some kids

Bug spray – true, we often purchase this once we’re in a destination, but then we’ve got it with us as we travel

Sunblock – even our favorite sunblock products and lotions aren’t meant for kids to use without supervision

Did you ever think about all of the stuff you pack that can be potentially dangerous? Crazy once you list it out.  So what do you do then? How do you keep the kids safe just in case they get curious when you’re not looking?

Safe storage of OTCs and vitamins

First rule when you’re traveling with OTC drugs or prescription medications is to keep them in their designated child-safe storage containers. There’s a reason that you feel like it’s nearly impossible to open pill bottles: it’s to make it even more difficult for little kids to get their hands on what’s inside.

The same thing goes with vitamins, for adults or children. Vitamins and supplements are often packaged in child-safe bottles, so keep them there.  And be sure that your kids know what medication is. I don’t mean that they have the book smarts to start pharmacological school, but that they understand the purpose and the dangers of medicines and why they’re potentially dangerous.

Tip:  if you need to separate out the medications or vitamins you’ll be needing while traveling, use a child-safe storage case. As much as you may trust your kids, you never know when they’ll surprise you with an unsafe decision.

Reminder:  if you are flying with medications, the TSA recommends these be kept in their original bottles for ease of going through security.

Rule of Thumb:  always store medications in child-safe containers and pack them where they’re not easily accessible to kids.

Why is this so important? Medications don’t all look like candy and sugar-coated goodies like they did when we were kids, but it’s always possible that kids can get into them. Even children’s vitamins can be dangerous if too many are consumed.

IMPORTANT:  whether you’re on the road or at home, have the Poison Control Center’s phone number handy in case of emergency:  800-222-1222

How to pack fluid travel products

I think we’ve all had the random bottle of face lotion or sunblock explode on a flight, am I right? I know we have all too many times, hence the need to perfect the safe storage of our travel products!

Reminder: when flying, the TSA limits the amount of fluids you can bring through security to 3 oz or less per container. This applies to everything from toothpaste to sunscreen, from your Drakkar Noir to your super-special hair conditioner.

So, what does safe storage of travel products look like?

Tightly sealed with little to no air in the container

If it’s a squirt tube, like sunblock or face lotion, tap the bottle to get as much product away from the mouth as possible, then squeeze out as much air as possible.

Put the sealed container inside an airtight baggy.

Tip: we like to package our fluids with no more than two travel products per bag to minimize a risk of mess

These same methods can be applied to fluid medications, such as children’s suspensions or cough medicine. When it comes to the more potent or sticky fluids, we always have them in their own bag and then be sure, at home or while traveling, to store medications OUT OF SIGHT to minimize the potential hazard.

Rule of Thumb: all of these fluids in their sealed, airtight bags should then be packed in an adult’s luggage, NOT IN A CHILD’S LUGGAGE. Just like how you’d want to be in control of access to lotions and medications at home, the same goes when you’re talking about safe storage of travel products.

How to pack razors and self-care tools

Our kids are smart and curious little guys. They also cannot wait to grow up and think that shaving is the coolest thing. Yeah, no. We’re not at that point in life and want to be sure that they know that razors are NOT for children’s use.

Safe storage for razors, nail clippers, tweezers, mending kits (with sewing needles) means putting them all in one clearly different smaller luggage piece. Again, this toiletry bag is packed into an adult’s luggage and not easily accessible to kids.

Tip: when traveling with a razor, we are sure that there isn’t a blade on the razor handle. We keep any blades in a safe storage cartridge that’s kept in our toiletry bag.

Rule of Thumb: pack anything particularly dangerous in a way that it’ll take several steps and minutes for a child to access. A blade within a cartridge within a zippered case within a toiletry bag packed in the middle of clothes in a compartment in a piece of luggage…

So, now that you’ve gotten our insight on how we pack and what to watch for in your own safe storage of travel products, it’s a great idea to actually take a look around, either in your home or your current hotel room, and double check to be sure that you’re storing things properly. If you peek in your bathroom is your cold medicine accessible to a little person? Is the carry-on bag you’re packing something your kids can get into and you know they’ll be safe?

If you want to hear more about safety and how to store medications and such properly, join us and some other parents and representatives of Know Your OTCs for a Facebook Live event where we’ll be discussing and sharing tips for keeping kids safe at home and on the road:  via Know Your OTCs Facebook page, Wednesday March 21 @ 1pm EST / 10am PST.

Do you feel pretty confident in packing for your next trip and safe storage of your travel products? I hope so.  If you have and questions or any other suggestions, please let us know. We’re all about sharing and doing what’s best for all of our kids, so if you have good info, share it!

And want to pin this for later when it’s time for pack for the next family vacay? Go for it!

Packing and safe storage of travel products is about both containing the mess and keeping kids safe. Travel tips for keeping OTC medications, personal products and liquids up and away from kids while traveling. 2traveldads.com

Safe Storage of Travel Products: kid safety on the road When we are traveling with the kids we typically have all kinds of products with us, from toothpaste to bug spray.

[adugalm]

g&p readings 5: cultural issues give me grief

If the obvious title hasn’t given it away, this week’s topic is all about culture. The dictionary defines this theme as “the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.” Assuming this is all from a game and play perspective, the weekly readings should all comment on game society, perhaps even specific game’s inbuilt worlds themselves.

Things of Beauty: Super Smash Bros. as Spectator Sport

By Innuendo Studios

What a way to begin the week: a video talking about fighting games and the close kept culture surrounding them.

In this video, the commentator basically speaks about his personal investment in particular fighting games, despite similar circumstances surrounding others. Here, his eyes draw immediately to Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros. Melee, calling his self-bias out as the fact that they are games he has played. Already, notes about attachment and sense of loyalty is being formed. 

The commentator also quotes Chris DeLeon saying “sports and board games have rules, video games have laws.” In sport, the player can do anything not forbidden by the rules, or the system. Here, the magic circle concept is enforced due to the player willingly entering a boundary, but able to return to reality when they exit the court or field. In games, the player literally cannot do anything except what is allowed by the system. Their character is bound by the games laws and mechanics, which I found to be interesting foresight. Relatively though, this tidbit has little to do with culture.

The nitty gritty truly comes from the commentators analysis of player Amsa defeating ‘Five God’ Mew2King with a Yoshi, a lower tier character. The meta in fighting games is an extremely familiar concept that I heavily relate to. Aside from my deep love for Smash, the one community that I have devoted my life to like no other is Pokemon. Pokemon may not have the randomness of edging, move accuracy or statistic KOs of Melee and co., but what it does have is an expansive roster: 802 to be precise, plus extra forms! 

Since my artefact this fact is a Pokemon game, I don’t want to spend too much time reflecting on all the tidbits, but what I do want to relate to is the commentary on the evolution of the meta. Meta, in its essence, is the player cultivated systematic ruling of the associated game’s characters, a hierarchy of sorts categorising their moves, abilities and usage into their overall viability. The culture of a game evolves in parallel with its meta, because players change attitudes depending on the star of the week. The meta is closely guarded by its players, because it is formed entirely independent from the actual developers of the game.

For familiarities sakes, let’s substitute Melee with Pokemon Sun and Moon’s meta. As of the moment, the largest and longest standing independent moderator of Pokemon meta is Smogon due to their extensive resources and strong player community. I play Pokemon competitively both on Smogon and the official register; oddly enough, I prefer the former. Where the Pokemon company simply bans legendary Pokemon, Smogon invites its players to form tiers of their own based on usage or overall brokenness. For example, Manaphy is far from overpowered in the grand scheme of things, although TPC disallows it from play because of its legendary status. Meanwhile, Smogon takes into account its usability numbers, user submitted sets, stats, moves and abilities and aptly places it into a specific tier, of which the community can then agree with or outcry. On the other hand, Excadrill a number of seasons ago was so overpowered in unofficial competitive play that it was banned. Meanwhile, those under the official format were flooded with handling this annoying Pokemon.

What I’m trying to get across is that the meta is a weird, yet beautiful thing. Yes, it dictates a community’s culture, even creating linear matchups at times, but in the same corner it also evolves with this culture and in turn allows it to grow. Returning to Melee, While Fox, Marth and Sheikh were all dominant characters, Amsa’s win saw a rise in Yoshi usage. This system shake-up forced new combat techniques to emerge and re-welcomed the idea of new characters. Truly, the meta is a community in itself.

Set & Setting

By Wikipedia

‘Set & Setting’ is the term coined to describe an individual’s experience pertaining to psychoactive or psychedelic drugs. Set is the mindset or mental state the person enters the experience in, while setting denotes the actual physical experience and social environment.

Setting may also denote the support networks surrounding the individual, those who act as guides for their trip. This guidance may come in the form of conscious or unconscious experience. Thus, a ‘bad trip’ may be experienced should the individual be led into an unpleasant space.

Leary describes the drug as a “chemical key” - or catalyst - used to free the nervous system of its limitations in order for it to be malleable to morphing. He states “[Setting’s] purpose is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded consciousness.” His 1996 experiment determined that DMT, previously thought to only produce detrimental effects, could prove positive results under a controlled environment.

In regards to gaming, it is perhaps best to see the ‘drug’ as an analogy for the game itself. This ‘drug’ has hold the possibility of allowing the mind to expand in knowledge and insight, gaining skill or new ideas. However, this is only supported by the set and setting the player enters a game in.

If one comes into a game holding pre-conceived notions, it is highly likely that none of these expectations will be met, leading to an unpleasant experience through disappointment. To find a ‘good game’, it is best to release all desires and allow the medium itself to present one with its offerings of knowledge.

The setting in question may then be the link to culture, with the surroundings and support network dictating the overall player experience. If the player can successfully integrate into the game’s community, then it will be pleasurable. On the other hand, an unsupportive community through strict hierarchal systems (as in an arguable case of Melee) or even griefing (see Serenity Now reading), may lead to a ‘bad trip’. 

Many a time - especially in multiplayer games - the support system will show a game’s worth. For example, Tom Clancy’s The Division had a semi-horrible launch due to the multiplayer being scarce and repetitive, scaring a number of people off. Obviously, this became a compounding problem. However, thanks to amazing DLC, the community has now grown exponentially larger than the initial launch’s, a feat normally unheard of. Because of the positive community both amongst players and the development team, The Division has become a good trip so to speak, proving the importance of setting amongst the culture aspect of games.

What is Ontology? Introduction to the Word and the Concept 

By Kent Löfgren

Ontology covers numerous meanings that vary depending on its context. 

In philosophy, ontology denotes the study of what exists. It is used to build theories and models to better understand the ontological status of the world. Beneath this branch, it further splits itself into two sectors: materialism and idealism. The former is the belief that material things (e.g. particles, energy) are more real than the actual human mind. Here, reality exists even w/o human observers. The latter is the belief that immaterial phenomena (e.g. the human mind, consciousness) are more real than material items - reality is constructed here, in the observer’s mind.