#what do you MEAN i cant even read a quarter of the quests?!

[hsslilly-blog]

i know nothing about coding but if i did i'd rip the damn game apart and pull out all the dialogue for quests and put them in a. idk spreadsheet or google doc or something. i HATE how this high school story and hollywood u are so badly perserved and documented, partially through the fault of its creators. i get that these are niche games that a grand total of five people even remember them but if i think about how an ENTIRE HALF OF THE STORY IS GONE BECAUSE THERE'S A REQUIRED SERVER CHECK it makes my blood boil.

i am too passionate about this

hi! this is not a bad idea at all, especially since hwu is… very lost. i’ll get to work on something like this as soon as possible! i’ll also make my hss screenshots available.

i’ll use this ask to rant. i simpatize with you… way too much. i try not to speak about this very often because it just makes me angry and because, well, it’s a super niche game and we had around four years to organize and archive it but… it is a niche game. by 2022, who even was active in the fandom besides like… me and five other people? not to mention it was very out of the blue, with such a small window between the announcement and the shut down it was impossible to archive everything. i spent full days trying to screenshot as much of high school story as i could. and now i regret i didn’t spend this time archiving hollywood u instead. but what is done is done.

i think… i mean, as much as it sucks, high school story is still fully playable if you have the .apk (or if you have it in your ios). what really, really bothers me is how hollywood u is essentially… lost media? the game itself, yes, but over 20-30 quests are missing from the files because they were released after pixelberry (apparently) decided to store some of the assets on the online server and not locally anymore. even if i were to drop the quests in a word .doc, it still wouldn’t be fully available. and that makes me angry. hwu was last updated in 2018 with a “fix”. why couldn’t they have used the opportunity to make these files available locally? it was pretty obvious at that point the games were sunsetting one day. might have given the chance for the fans to preserve it in some way since hwu would be locked behind a server check forever.

i don’t know. i’m not a dev. but i’m pretty sure they had the tools and the means, they just didn’t see it as worthy of their time. and i get it a little. they were very busy with choices at that time. these games were very dead. pb was past them. but come on. hss and hwu were part of pixelberry’s history and i like to believe these games deserved more than what they got. ~30 days between the announcement and the shut down? please. a little bit more of respect for the art they themselves created!! i think it all just boils down to me feeling… angry, sad and… heartbroken that one of theses games is completely unplayable in 2024 and forever. just like that. to expunge and deprive people from the art you once delighted in creating and sharing is sad!

sorry for hijacking the ask. i just wanted to get this out. i’ll work on making the quests dialogues available.

[merrilldidnothingwrong]

honestlyi feel like. call me crazy but i feel like mages (the rebels in particular) are Insanely infantilized and belittled all throughout dai. cassandra's conversation with the rebel mage when you go talk to her, the way vivienne speaks to fiona, the way fiona herself is portrayed even though from what i know she's really like, not supposed to be like that, and don't even get me Started on varric and bull. it all seems deliberately presented in the most unlikable, "whiny" way possible

oh nope youre 100% correct. inquisition is just FILLED with bullshit “both sides” agenda, and after dragon age 2, i just cant believe they had the balls to pull this. because of......... a practically empty chantry?? lol they demonize the mages at every turn. make their bias very clear for the templars/chantry from the start.

yeah the right/left hand of the divine start the inquisition, and they help close the breach, and save the world..... but cassandra disapproves if you arent andrastian, knowing full well that they are coloniziers. lelianas good but she’s lost her faith. dont get me started on cullen. why’s he there? oh right. anti mage bias. the man helped meredith for ~10 years. he still sings her praises after the inquisition has been going for a year or two. but “hes not a templar anymore”. lmao.

varric was IN KIRKWALL FOR 10 YEARS AND SAW THE ABUSES MAGES WENT THROUGH FIRST HAND AND DOES NOTHING BUT BAD MOUTH ANDERS THE ENTIRE TIME. and i dont account that to bad writing, thats just varric being varric. he’s kicked out of his home now, hes being forced to fight mages vs templars, hes selfish, he doesn’t care about the war. he just wants to go home and be cozy.

getting back to it, the chantry? who doesn’t back the inquisition? is invited to haven and skyhold? and preach there 24/7? theres templar banners right outside the inquisitors quarters??? why????? mother giselle gets to judge dorian before his his personal quest??? why????? 

everyone believes the inquisitor is the herald of andraste BUT THEY CANT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHANTRY??? are you f*king kidding me????

ahem. my point is..... inquisitor has all this power. but cant tell anybody to shut the f*ck up about the mages?? i mean, we dont know if any of the mages are from kirkwall? we dont get to talk to them? we just outright ATTACK THEM???? the divine wanted to sit down and talk to them BUT WE’RE JUST GONNA KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY???

oh right. bioware was going through some shit when it was being written. its EA’s fault. but still. that was some shitty ass writing.

ive never read the books but i hear fiona was a badass. like. she canon says “fuck the divine”. and she goes and makes a deal with........ tevinter........??????

if they had more time, or you know, a better villain LMAO, the beginning should have had an actual sit down meeting with the mages and templars, and then we would have seen how useless that meeting was, and yeah it probably would have ended in a fight, AGAIN. and then introduce a villain. probably another templar mad with power. like the dragon age series has always shown them to be.