#CGCreation

[shinyaohno]

こちらは結構前の作品。(2014) 建築のCGを作るのが、 委託の依頼でさせていただくことがあるのですが、 そのコンピューター上のツールを活用してできた、 写真のような作品です。 CG自体はコンピューター内にデジタルデータとしての3次元のデータを作り、 それに着色や光源などを与えます。 そしてそれらのモデリングという過程のあと画角を決め、 レンダリングという工程に入ります。 レンダリングとは、 可塑性のある3次元データを解析し、 よりフォトリアル（現実を写真で写したような）画像データとして掃き出すことをいいます。 この作品は何となく円っこいボチャっとしたもの、 系譜意識すると和菓子的な可愛さを与えた円い造詣を表現しました。 それをさまざまなアングルから眺め、 動画としても作品を残しました。 https://youtu.be/a2RYv17SfrM 結果的に日本の国旗をモデリングしていることがなんとなく感じられたので、 そんな感じでも捉えられるかなとも思ってはいますが、 あくまで後付けで アイコニックなモチーフだけに 評論家受けしそうな言葉かなとも思ったりもします。 そんなことで作った別バージョンがこちら。 https://youtu.be/QU4MS5KdYlo あくまでその部分で話を膨らませるとしたら、 2次元的な面白くなき日本を、 3次元的に面白くしていこうというマニフェストに見えなくもないですね！笑 いづれにしても、 個人事業を始めるきっかけになったのは、 BIMと呼ばれる3次元データを活用した建築建設文化の変革に期したというところは事実です。 今はその面でもだいぶ文化よりになってはいますが、 経済をどうする、システムをどうするというような社会的要素もたくさん関係することにはなってます。 さてそんなことを思い出すと作品が多様化して取集がつかなくなってくるのを危惧してこの辺にしておきたいと思います。 一つ一つ 発散したものを自分で回収しなきゃいけませんからね笑笑 気をつけながら頑張っていきます！ 本日も応援 イイね❤️ ありがとうございます❕ #japan #sketchup3d #sketchup #rendering #3dmodeling #3dmodel #photorealism #nationalflag #dimension #cgcreation #artphotography #artphoto #supodium #texturerendering #nationalism #red #sunrise #summer #sunday #artwork #art #artistsoninstagram #japaneseculture #bim #nihon スケッチアッ�� #フォトリアル #日本 #建築の日本展 #マニフェスト#政治 (Modeling Snap) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAVCZprA5xh/?igshid=17ukpqx6g4ge2

[mustardmeme]

me_irl by CGCreations

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[manerarts]

Some oldie, but goldie 😁another study I made this time in digital format but also with the stylization #digitalpainting #digitaldrawing #digitalartwork #digitalart #portrait #male #blackandwhite #stylizedart #manerarts #cgart #cgcreations #photoshop #dailyart #dailysketch

[cardboardgear]

About Third Party Voting

I personally have an aversion to the idea of voting third party for a presidential election for a number of reasons.  It’s only worked twice, and one of those times it was Andrew Jackson which was a terrible idea.  Hillary herself is at worst more of the same and frankly for all the bad that can be attributed to her there is a lot of good, part of the reason she has been considered a prime candidate in several elections and was given the secretary of state position.  There’s also the fact that Donald and Mike are both such extraordinarily dangerous people that it makes Hillary look like if Lincoln and FDR had a baby who was raised by Bernie Sanders and Sonia Sotomayor.

I think the biggest reason why, though, is a historical one in the same vein as the first reason I cited.  Theodore “Teddy” “The Mustache Man” Roosevelt did not win when running as a third party candidate in 1912.  Teddy got over 20% of the vote, primarily taking votes away from the Republican candidate, leading to the election of Woodrow Wilson.  If you don’t know anything about Woodrow, he’s the president who held White House screenings of Birth of a Nation.  The KKK movie.  And this wasn’t Teddy’s first run, either.  This wasn’t him seeing the error in his ways.  He had won the presidency twice under the Republican ticket.  He stepped down and, when dissatisfied with what followed after him, he ran again.  People knew him.  They knew what he was about.  I have never actually seen someone actually talk about Jill Stein’s policies.  To a person who just looks at my dashboard and my facebook wall, which includes several Stein-voters, she looks like somebody people are clinging on to out of spite.  Even worse, she looks like someone who is taking advantage of spite in an attempt to gain from it.

1912 was also the election with the rather famous attempt on his life.  If you haven’t heard about it, Teddy was shot right before making a speech.  The shot was dulled by his eyeglass case but was still lodged in his chest when he continued on to give a 90 minute speech before seeking medical help.  This man won the presidency twice, held a platform that stood for the working class people, gave a speech with a bullet in his chest (and he was sure to mention that in the beginning of the speech), and still lost to the man who loved watching KKK movies.  

You’ll have to forgive me if the previously barely-known lady whose policies aren’t even advertised by her own supporters does not fill me with confidence.

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix Event Horizon (spoilers)

This is going to be a short one.  I watched the movies Hellraiser and Event Horizon recently.  Both of these movies involve opening up a gateway to hell, unlocking the path to an eternity of torture.  This torture is illustrated in very similar ways, with chains, hooks, and blood everywhere.  At the very least, when Hell was illustrated in Event Horizon, my immediate point of reference was Hellraiser.

Event Horizon falls short by not committing to a Hell that is similar to Hellraiser.  I do not mean making it a sci-fi tie-in to Hellraiser or anything silly like that.  I mean it does not describe Hell with the same attributes that Hellraiser does, and it would benefit from doing so.  

Hellraiser describes of Hell that is not only the epitome of pain and punishment, but also of pleasure.  Frank summons forth the Cenobites because he does not care whether he opens a pathway to Heaven or Hell, either could provide what he looks for.  It’s the meeting place of the smartass “all the fun people would be in Hell” Hell with the Christian Hell.  Frank realizes that he was in over his head and finds a way to escape, but he is also the first one to describe Hell as a place of pleasure, giving it top billing over pain.

In Event Horizon, Weir describes it as a place of unimaginable pain.  He is doing this as he try to drives the ship back into Hell.  Weir is supposed to be motivated by the ability to reunite with his wife, but the actual scenes, as well as Weir’s mutilation, recall Hellraiser so heavily it was easy to forget Claire’s purpose in the plot.  Having the focus be on Weir having an implicit interest in Hell rather than inserting Claire would have probably worked better.  It would have also provided better motivation for his insistence on protecting the gravity drive’s secrets and his attempts to get the crew to salvage it.

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix: Batman Arkham Knight (Spoilers)

I really like the Batman Arkham games.  My personal favorite is Arkham City, since I am a bit of a slut for good open world games.  There is a very strong case that the series started at its peak, however, with Arkham Asylum having a much tighter level design.  Arkham Origins was overall less than either of the two preceding games, but it was, in essence, more Arkham City.

Batman: Arkham Knight is the weakest of the four main Batman Arkham games.  The core of the reason why is that it is a whole lot more stuff added on to a series that did not need to have more added to it.

The combat for the Arkham games, at its most basic level, is tapping the punch button while occasionally countering when a person tries to throw their own punch.  To prevent monotony, extra enemy types are added.  The Titan enemies from Arkham Asylum required maintaining awareness of their position and knowing when to stun them.  The enemies armed with guns require priority and, if cued up, a Disarm & Destroy to neutralize the problem.  By the end of Arkham City, there are a couple more added enemy types.  I believe Arkham City was where the variety hit a decent balance, in which maintaining awareness of each enemy type currently active and their position is not too overwhelming.

Arkham Knight continues to add to the variety, occasionally making combat scenarios that were hard to keep track of.  In the worst offense, there are two different enemy types that have an electric motif.  I had a personal issue in which when the first electric enemy was introduced to me, I was playing before taking a week long vacation, so I eventually forgot how to deal with them.  That is entirely outside of the game’s control.  What the game can be accountable for is how poor aiming Batman’s next action can be when in a crowd of enemies.  There were multiple times I tried to interact with a shock trooper who happened to be standing next to a stun baton guy.

The Batmobile is an added gameplay mode that makes travel around the vast city map faster.  The problem is that the game insists on reminding the player of its existence throughout the story and side missions.  The main Batmobile combat mechanic involves weaving the Batmobile between rocket trajectories while plinking away at enemy vehicles.  This is probably the second-least offensive manifestation of Batmobile gameplay outside of driving, with its main problem being the general lack of kinetic energy.  The story also forces several boss battles with powerful enemy vehicles.  These require being able to retreat from the vehicle while either avoiding projectiles or navigating obstacles.  During the Riddler side missions, the Riddler creates race tracks filled with obstacles to navigate through in a limited amount of time.  This is an issue because of how poorly the Batmobile handles.  Turns in high stress situations quickly spin out of control and when trying to flee an insta-kill mining tank that keeps pace with the Batmobile surprisingly well, this creates a bit of an issue.

The story is an entirely unnecessary addition, being the Batman Arkham universe introduction to Jason Todd, one of the worst long-standing characters in Batman’s piece of DC.  As Robin, Todd was so unpopular that he was killed as a result of a poll that readers could vote in.  Many say the best thing he ever did was die.  Others say the best thing he ever actually did was return, a story that was already successfully told twice (Under the Hood and the DC Animated Under the Red Hood).  When he’s written as a member of the Bat-Family he’s either a crazed villain or an antihero who has no business being accepted by the rest of the family when he betrays the moral codes of the family.  When he’s being written as a character separate from the family he still has a big red bat on his chest.  

Bringing him back to basically just tell his origin story yet again was absolutely a mistake.  Comic fans already know Under the Hood, and know that Todd has not had a good comic since then.  Many other fans already know his story from Under the Red Hood, one of the best DC Animated movies.  It would have been easy to have a resurrected Todd already exist in the Arkham universe, too, since it’s a world that already has Nightwing and a grown Tim Drake.

When the concept of the Arkham Knight was announced, people had guessed that it was Jason Todd, being the most well-known example of “Batman gone bad.”  Rocksteady insisted that it was an original character.  I have a good idea of how I would prefer the Knight’s identity to be revealed, which is admittedly besides the point.  The point I want to make is that flat out lying to the audience is not the method that should be adopted.  It’s like a murder mystery.  There’s nothing satisfying about the killer being a surprise choice that was never presented to the audience.  Mysteries are there to be solved, using the clues provided.  On its own, the game heavily foreshadows the identity of the Knight, but the lead-up to the game explicitly told fans otherwise, suggestion that the foreshadowing is a red herring.  The matter should have been met with, at most, silence.

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix: Beck Mongolian Chop Squad (Anime) (Dub)

Beck is one of my favorite anime.  The music tends to range from passable to excellent.  The characters, when they are not just keeping my interest, are grabbing me by the collar of my emotions.  The dramatic stakes, by the end, created a sense of tension that literally kept me on my feet wondering how events would fold.  This anime has even committed what I consider to be a writing sin (twice!), but even in the moment I immediately forgave it.  I’m still gonna use this time to talk about how much I hate this writing trope.

I believe there are two, not necessarily unrelated, tropes in writing that are incredibly lazy and underhanded methods for the writer to create drama.  These consist of the inability to communicate and the misunderstanding.  At least twice in Beck’s 26 episode run the two leads, Koyuki and Maho, find their sprouting relationship burdened by the misunderstanding.  The first time it happens, the show gets off lucky because it, in my opinion, creates an elegant scene that left me with a feeling of respect.  It had managed to take a concept that I found inherently rotten and made me kind of like it.  When it happened later on, near the end of the run, it did not live up to the same standard.  By that time, however, I respected the show enough to let the misstep slide.  The only reason it was there was to create tension for a separate conflict.  Since I am not tagging this with spoilers (because I really do think that you, reader, should check the show out), I will not go into details, but I will say that there are better ways to create that tension without resorting to this method.

I mention that the music ranges from passable to excellent, but I want to go a bit more into detail about it.  I do not feel like the songs ever actually fall into the range of “bad,” though that is of course a matter of opinion.  Most of the tracks were originally done in bad English, and then redone for the dub (which is what I watched) by the voice actors.  The best case scenarios are the songs Follow Me and Moon On The Water, by the Beat Crusaders.  The songs sound roughly as good across versions (again, in my opinion) and are further helped by the emotional ties given to the songs by the plot.  These are only really beaten by the Beat Crusaders’ Hit In The USA, used as the opening track and played straight by the band.  Many of the other songs, however, do not live up to the same standard.  At times the dub for them felt somewhat awkward and served only to be songs in this anime about musicians, being just passable enough to not detract from the show.  

I am not an expert on songwriting, so I could only guess at what the dubbing company may not have done and what may have been better to do.  These are my guesses at what should have been done:  1) Just go with the poor English and have a note on the screen.  I doubt many anime fans have a problem with a bit of bad English when most opening and ending themes are either Japanese or bad English.  2)Those in charge of localizing the tracks should have met with both the original songwriters and well-received native English speaking songwriters of the same genre in order to create smoother lyrics.

Beck ends on a weird note. To be generally vague about it, it’s a nonending, where it sets up a new arc and then tells the audience about what happens in this arc that never gets a chance to naturally unfold in a second season.  It gives the impression of a positive end, so given the lack of a second season planned I can forgive it, but if there’s is truly one thing I would absolutely fix if I had any creative control over this property, it would be fixing the lack of more Beck.  

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix: Matthew Stover’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

This is going to be a short one because Matthew Stover’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is one of the best things to come out of the prequel trilogy.  This book improves on so much from the movie and adds so much interesting context.  The idolization of Anakin and Obi-Wan, the Mace Windu POV segments, the fights with Dooku and Grievous, and Yoda’s realization of how he doomed the Jedi all made this book one of the most interesting pieces of Star Wars media I’ve ever enjoyed.  Honorable mention to the whole page of Obi-Wan staring at Anakin’s butt.  There’s just one big issue.

In the prequel movies, there were a lot of problems.  The action put flash over substance, the writing was stilted, and aspects of universe that probably never should have had any light shed on them were given that light.  It was not without redeeming factors, Ewan MacGregor’s Obi-Wan is still one of my favorite Star Wars characters, but a single issue, even if it was one of the worst, does not stand out quite as much as it does in when it is one of the only problems in a piece of media.  In the novel, it is impossible to ignore just how truly terrible the relationship between Anakin and Padme is.  

The problems with their relation started from the inception in Attack of the Clones.  Having just watched it again (I’m showing my baby sister all the Star Wars movies after she fell a little in love with Force Awakens), the chemistry between them is nonexistent.  There were a couple scenes in which they looked like they were genuinely having a good time but even then they felt tonally dissonant with the movie and their position.  The rest of the scenes are Anakin awkwardly/creepily trying to hit on or profess himself to Padme while she either gives him weird looks or suggests she feels the same in a way that reeks of “because the script said so.”

In Revenge of the Sith, both the movie and the novel, the chemistry is exactly as good as it was in the previous movie.  They say they love each other, but it never feels genuine, just like a line in a script.  This is impressive in the novel when you consider that there is, in fact, no actor to read a script poorly.  They put the other before the world but it never seems earned.  In every other aspect of the book, Stover lifts the scenes miles above the standards set by the movie.  This was especially noticeable in the fights, where all the razzling and dazzling in the world is entirely ineffective in a nonvisual medium, so it is replaced with psychology and strategy.  The relationship between Anakin and Padme never gets this treatment.  There is more chemistry between Anakin and Obi-Wan than with Padme.

Anakin and Obi-Wan were a more believable couple in this book than the married couple whose forbidden love gives the villain the means of taking over the entire galaxy.  The most important relationship in the whole series is entirely trash.  How would I fix this?  Throw out the scenes from the movie and rely on original interaction that earns their devotion to each other, or at least gives more believable context for it.  Or just derail the romance and make it a story about Anakin and Obi-Wan. 

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix Digimon Stories Cyber Sleuth (Spoilers)

Okay so I’m gonna shock a ton of people by saying that I am a big fan of Digimon, or at least the first 3 seasons.  Tamers is some of the best television made specifically for kids.  I didn’t extensively play any of the games, though.  In my mind, Digimon had an anime that was more to my tastes while Pokemon had the games and manga.  I made an exception for Cyber Sleuth and boy am I glad I did because I honestly did not expect the best JRPG on the Playstation 4 (at least while we wait for Persona and Final Fantasy entries to release) to be a fucking Digimon game!

Despite this the game does have some flaws that could use addressing.  Pretty much the whole concept behind this series is “if it ain’t broke, see if you can make it even more not broke (someone is gonna fucking hate that sentence and I don’t blame you).”  Part of the problem has to do with the version I played.

Because I’m a filthy plebian who cannot read Japanese, I bought the US release for the Playstation 4.  This means I get to have the poorly localized English translation that both blesses and plagues the game.  I am a boy with a sense of humor and love a good amount of Engrish, but there are occasions where the localization really drops the ball.  There are points where the meaning of the sentences are completely lost and, at some point, the characters start referring to one type of creature featured prominently in the game by a completely different name.  It is still kind of funny that the lady I selected as my character would be frequently referred to with male pronouns.  It’s like they knew.  Still, there was clearly a relative lack of effort put into the localization that should have been tightened up.  At least keep the term “Eater” consistent.

The second issue I have to complain about is fairly minor.  I’m saving the major issue for the last.  The issue primarily manifests in the in-game physical world.  While in Eden there are items that can be used to teleport back to the beginning, saving some time when the scene does not carry the protagonist out.  In the physical world, the maps are fairly small but, in order to get to a different set of maps, the character has to go to a designated “Map” exit.  This is particularly egregious in areas where there are clear exits that could be designated for leaving to a new set of maps.  I just wish I could get to the end of Shinjuku and go straight back to Broadway.  Like I said, this is a fairly minor issue.

Okay so here’s the big one.  Fighting through the endgame, especially the Great Challenges, is extremely limiting.  This is because Defence plays a much more significant role in the enemy layout than many RPGs that I have played.  What ends up happening is endgame Digimon end up having attacks that, while statistically powerful, get watered down by the Defence stats of the enemies.  This is avoided in the game by using Digimon that have DEF-piercing (or INT-piercing for magic-based Digimon) attacks.

Only certain Digimon actually have piercing attacks.  The earliest I came across it was during the Champion stage, using Stingmon against an Eater, taking down the vast majority of its health bar when my other Digimon did very little damage.  I am not opposed to the idea of attacks meant to deal with defence-heavy Digimon, but the endgame becomes this story over and over.  Piercing Digimon become the most important Digimon to have, turning Wargreymon into a more valuable party member than Omnimon.  Considering that Omnimon is made from Wargreymon and a story beat involves Omnimon being stronger than Wargreymon, this probably should not be a thing.

The weird thing is that this is an issue that is not very common, in my experience.  The best way to keep the game somewhat balanced while diminishing the effect of defence is to have stat increases upgrade the actual effect of the stats significantly, like in Final Fantasy X.  Though the defence increases will be smaller, statwise, weaker levels of Digimon will still be hindered against the higher levels, while similar or even lower level enemy Digimon do not become brick walls for even Omnimon to bang his head against.

This game is still some of the best Digimon outside of season 3, and one of my favorite JRPGs.  These flaws only show where the rough edges could be sanded down.  If you are a Playstation 4 owner and looking for a good, long game to play, this is one of the better options.

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix: Dragon’s Dogma Dark Arisen (Spoilers)

Dragon’s Dogma is weird because in a generation where faith in Capcom was seeing a bit of a spiral, they made a real gem of an action-RPG.  An incredibly flawed gem, but a gem nonetheless.  The combat was an experience that I found unique, with the ability to climb enemies, the unique take on magic, and how the player can set their Pawns to build a team that emphasized a certain playstyle (or have no team and reap those Assassin buffs).  When the game rereleased as Dragon’s Dogma Dark Arisen, there was even more going for it, with a new high level area and an easier fast-travel system.  Even still, it had some extremely glaring flaws.

I am going to get this first point out of the way, because it is the most obvious point and inarguably the most important.  Dark Arisen removed Flying Into Free, the title track from the original version of the game.  I would like to calmly but firmly ask the developers “what the shit?!”  Flying Into Free is an incredible track and its replacement could never hope to hold a candle to it.  That shift into JRock is extremely important and a disservice has been done to everyone who bought Dark Arisen, especially those who never got to experience this wonderful track with the first release.

Now on to less important but still extremely valid points.  Dragon’s Dogma has a terrible relationship with fast travel.  I am aware I stated that Dark Arisen had a friendlier system, but when speaking in relatives it is important to remember that while Session 9’s Gordon killed and lobotomized a bunch of people that does not mean Phil was not a massive ass.  The fast travel system works by utilizing two items.  Upon obtaining a Portcrystal, it could be placed just about anywhere to act as a fast travel destination.  The actual traveling is done by using a consumable Ferrystone.  In the upgrade to Dark Arisen, if the player had a save from the original game (even if there was almost no progress on the save), the player gets an Eternal Ferrystone, so the number of trips was not limited to drops.  Dark Arisen also increased the number of Portcrystals.  A better alternative would have been to never have had a consumable method of fast travel.  Furthermore, it would be ideal to just have Portcrystals attune to the Eternal Ferrystone at every worthwhile landmark upon reaching it.  

The game wants the player to travel around and explore the world before allowing the player to teleport around at whim.  That is fine.  However, part of the problem with the fast travel system is that the world and the speed by which a player can move around it does not match up.  A game can potentially get away with never implementing fast travel if the player could move around at a satisfying pace, but even if the stamina drain on sprinting was taken off, the movement is just too slow for such a big world.  The first time this really became egregious was during the quest to reach Gran Soren.  The trip is long on its own, with the player moving at a normal pace.  The quest, however, not only requires taking this trip, but doing so while held back by even slower people.  The player is put in a position where their frustration is going to be magnified.  A simple way of easing the frustration of travel is adding a mount.  The game lends itself well to a Twilight Princess-esque mounted battle system.  There would be no awkwardness adapting melee or archery, with some work needed in figuring out magic.  There is even a button for grabbing that can be contextualized for mounting.  

I hate the leveling system.  The way it works is that the class that the character is set to determines the stat bonus.  Realistically, it makes sense.  A character puts work in a certain area, they get rewarded more where they put that work.  The problem comes from the fact that it puts focus on a single area of proficiency, punishing players for varying their playstyle after giving them a system specifically for the sake of varying their playstyle.  There are two methods I can think of for fixing this.  One, which I find less desirable, is to make all classes available from the start and remove class changes.  This would also require bosses to be rebalanced so that certain bosses (read: the Metal Golem) can be reasonably dealt with by all classes.  The other method would be to just have the stats recalculated with every class change, allowing for a mixed playstyle without having to worry about rebalancing the rest of the game.  Thankfully, this problem only became egregious for me when facing what was an optional boss fight, since my warrior could not easily reach the talisman up on a tree that was keeping a Metal Golem alive.  Switching to an archer class and packing more archers did the trick, but it was made much more difficult due to the time focused on a warrior build.

The final point is addressing a side mechanic that is largely unimportant and easy to ignore.  The game has an affinity system in which, once an NPC’s affinity is maxed out, they are designated as the character’s Beloved.  What this means is that the dragon that embodies the player’s call to action will kidnap them towards the end of the game and the player is then given a choice to fight for them or give them up in order to seize immortality.  If the player saves them, they spend the rest of the game in the player’s home, even if they were supposed to disappear from the game.  

The Beloved mechanic is extremely poorly implemented.  The mechanic is only important once, toward the end of the main journey.  It also only affects the last person with whom the player has maxed out affinity for.  This usually sees three characters being picked as the Beloved: Aelinore, Reynard, and Fournival, a duchess and two merchants.  This runs counter with the three characters whose quest lines suggest a larger relationship: Aelinore, Quina, and Valmiro.  My playthrough saw Aelinore chosen due to finishing her quest line after either of the other two merchants.  If I had not gone out of my way to do all the side quests I would likely have been visiting my homestead to say hi to my new husband, Fournival.

Fixing this problem can come in two methods that can come together.  The main method would be creating a second stage to a relationship that the player can enter in order to move an NPC’s priority up.  The last person interacted with from the new set of interactions would be marked as Beloved.  There is also an item called the Arisen’s Bond which maxes out affinity automatically.  The NPC given this would be automatically given top priority at the end of the game.  Any NPC that has ascended to at least the second line of interactions are given alternate places to hang out if they have quest lines that see them leaving the map.

This game is still an extremely fun and unique experience, but I do believe that, with the creation of the Dark Arisen expansion, there is no reason more of these problems could not have been addressed or, in the case of fast-travel, addressed better.  I would, however, forgive a lot more if they kept Flying Into Free.

[cardboardgear]

How I Would Fix: Fallout 4 (Spoilers)

Before I get to the actual topic of this post, I would like to introduce this little series I am going to be doing. How I Would Fix is my attempt at an informal address of flaws that I have noticed in media either first or second-hand, along with my attempt to consider a means of fixing these flaws.

Despite the faux-critical nature of the series I will be focusing, for now, on media that I enjoy. After this there will definitely be posts on two other games, Dragon’s Dogma and Digimon Stories Cyber Sleuth. This is mostly since if I have enough to say about it, I probably enjoyed it enough to think this much about it.

This is my first foray into the Fallout universe. Any comparisons I make regarding the previous entries in the series will come from comparing my opinion of Fallout 4, along with Bethesda’s approach to Fallout 4, with a number of other opinions on the previous entries (which were backed by video examples to give some context) and the approaches taken by their respective developers.

Before my points are made, I believe it’s important to look at how these developers have interacted with Fallout. The perception I have noticed with Bethesda’s Fallout entries (Fallout 3 and 4) is that, for better or worse, they take a very different approach from the original creator, Interplay’s Black Isle Studio. The original 2 Fallout games have a focus on role playing. There is heavy emphasis on how the character’s stats affect the options available and create meaningful changes. There are also traits that create a bit more individuality in the character, usually beneficial in one way but harmful in another.

Bethesda sacrifices, without totally expunging the role-playing elements in favor of presentation and action. Fallout 3 a kinetic first-person perspective to better facilitate an action-oriented approach, as well as the VATS system, which adds a strategic layer to combat. However, as hbomberguy noted in his video “Fallout 3 Is Garbage And Here’s Why,” the game assumes a combat approach where other options should be viable. Where in Fallout 3 you have to fight your way out of the Vault, a similar situation in Fallout 2 allows you to argue for peace.

Developer Obsidian went with a hybrid approach for Fallout New Vegas, using the mechanics of Fallout 3 and combining that with the role-play interactions and traits of the original games.

Fallout 4, based on how I’ve seen the previous games presented to me, is definitely an improvement over Fallout 3, and while an enjoyable game in its own right, not what I really wanted out of a Fallout game. Where I wanted Fallout 4 to excel was in the role-playing aspects, which turn out to be fairly weak.

Fallout 4’s biggest failure is in the dialogue system, and how stats interact with the dialogue.  In every previous iteration, the player is given a list of options that define how the character is going to speak to the npc.  Different option would be available depending on the stats of the character (in some games zero intellect manifests in nonsense). The original Fallout games do not even indicate which options are an effect of the stats, so players would still have to determine the best option based on their perception. This creates a blend of hard skills (game stats) and soft skills (out of game skills), which is already an aspect of any combat in games as well as most mechanics in tabletop and live action role-play.

The dialogue in Fallout 4 is completely different. Instead of a list of full responses, the player is given 4 button prompts that give a vague idea of how the character will respond. There are about 6 common responses: a yes, no, sassy yes/no, unsure, a choice to open up task questions, or a charisma check for a bigger payout. Most variations are just fancy common responses with occasional charisma checks. This was confirmed when a modder replaced the vague choices with the full responses.

I do not believe in the idea that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Even if a system is working fine, it can no doubt be made better. However, with Fallout 4 Bethesda took an unbroken system and mangled it (some, like the aforementioned hbomberguy, may argue that this started by revealing which dialogue options were stat-based in Fallout 3). Fallout 4 would have been better suited keeping the old list format, preferably as it appeared in Fallout 2. Let vagueness come from what options are the charismatic or intellectual options. Expand this by allowing certain perks and certain event flags (reading certain notes or books, etc.) create new options utilizing background information and expertise.

While the dialogue system is the most widespread and serious problem with the game, more than anything I hate the endings. Depending on what faction you align with, the end result is that either the Institute is nuked or its enemies are defeated and you carry on your son’s work. The Institute ending is the least poor ending since the Institute continues to act within its interests and agendas. However it does a poor job of justifying siding with the Institution past familial bond. There is little to weigh the conflict between being the parent of the head of the Institute and fighting against people who, through the character’s own interaction with Synths, the character knows is on some level right. The game falls short of a dialogue which can allow the Institute to provide a good case for its belief on Synths or allow the player to sue for peace by creating a common ground for the Institute and the Railroad and Minutemen.

The other endings all suffer for the common element among them: the destruction of the Institute facilities. There is no reason to destroy the facilities. It’s an extremely impressive hub of technology far beyond anything aboveground, and it has likely become self-sufficient on a Minutemen or Railroad playthrough. For the Minutemen, it’s the ultimate Settlement. For the Railroad, it’s where Synths come from and can be used to help them. Plus it’s the ultimate Settlement. Even the Brotherhood of Steel benefits from just taking the Institute, since they are all about preserving technology and that is literally all the Institute is to them. They even comment that it feels weird fighting someone technologically superior to them. Considering that they know the Synths are spread out it would be in their interest to match up with their enemies. In any ending that requires fighting the Institute, there is no reason to destroy the facilities.

In the Railroad and Minutemen paths, there shouldn’t even need to be any fighting. By sticking to the spy role, the character’s son, Shawn declares the player the inheritor of the Institute. From there, there should be no reason to continue fighting. The player has already won. They have gained control of a powerful facility that can be used however they see fit, including use for the benefit of both factions. The Brotherhood would still have to be dealt with (because they are a bunch of angry nerds and thus need to be dealt with) but the cost is significantly less than the game forces on the player.

The struggles do not end with the limitations on roleplaying.  Fallout 4 introduces Settlement Building, which uses scrap that the player finds to create materials to build up homes and gather resources.  It plays a lot like many indie attempts to recreate Minecraft, such as 7 Days to Die.  The end result is extremely shoddy.  Any new buildings made clash with any existing structures, with no way to update existing structures.  The biggest problem is how clunky the actual building is, however.  With some luck and perseverance, the player can eventually get a material to snap with an existing piece.  If it snaps in the wrong alignment, the material can be rotated, but it requires roughly half a rotation before it will actually be allowed to snap in the new alignment.  

These problems can be fixed, starting by providing a visual cue for where a building piece can connect to an existing piece.  To avoid cluttering the screen, the majority of the placeholder would have to be completely clear, preferably with a noticeable border.  From there, if the piece connected with the placeholder, it can automatically snap to the position.  If the piece needs to be rotated, it will snap to the next direction with a button press.  As for the clashing visuals, my two best suggestions are either changing the visuals of the materials based on the settlement, or allowing the existing structures, even the complete ones, to be torn down to rebuild in-style.

There’s also the bugs to address.  It’s a Bethesda game, about the fourth game using a variation of the same old engine.  The engine is trash, Bethesda is trash at coding with it.  They need to make a new engine.  They also need to do a better job coding their damn games.  I avoided them during the last generation because I had a Playstation 3 and they are even worse trash at coding for the Playstation 3.

[cardboardgear]

Concept: Stand By Me with a twist.  A sort of soft 90s twist where it’s needlessly dark but not quite full on peak 90s dark.

The Twist: The group of friends reach their destination, where they were all promised a dead body to check out.  One of the friends points out that there is, in fact, not a dead body here to check out.  The main character, actually a total dickhole, responds “not yet,” and proceeds to pull out the gun and shoot Captain Obvious.  The main character and the surviving friends check out the new dead body.

[cardboardgear]

My Dumb FFXV Gameplay Idea

I watched a friend play the Final Fantasy XV Platinum Demo last week and I was thinking about how the combat used could be improved on (besides being literally anything else).  Using the demo’s basic structure of “Hold Button To Keep Attack,” make the hold attacks a basic combo, like the basic three hits in a Kingdom Hearts combo.  Also, just mashing the attack button also does a basic combo.  If you want to do anything more advanced than the basic combo, you have to get the attack button presses timed within a window.  How do you teach this window?  The easiest way I could think of is having an option to show what compatible button presses could be used for the next point in the combo, over in a corner where the eyes are vaguely aware but are not distracted from the action.  The ability to switch weapons with a quick press of a D-Pad direction could either be used for more advanced combos incorporating the idea or, if they are feeling lazier, to extend the combo by starting the new weapon’s combo with perfect flow from the previous weapon’s combo.  

Magic would be best suited for its own button that could be given as an option for combos and a more Kingdom Hearts-like utilization.  Have magic be on a separate D-Pad menu that is accessed by using one of the shoulder/trigger buttons that isn’t being used during combat (L1 would probably feel best).  This way you can continue to attack while selecting a magic spell to use, which is something the Kingdom Hearts/Kingdom Hearts 2 system did not allow.  

[cardboardgear]

How I failed to write about mockery

So I wanted to write a little something about my thoughts on internet mockery.  The focus was meant to be on how, in ideologies that are generally considered here to be good, people would find the outlying crazies and mock them.  For example, there is a thread I frequent that used to occasionally go on derails talking about how fucking stupid GamerGate is.  However, every time this happened, there would always be one person who would come in and try to remind us that there were a few antiGamerGaters that were also pretty stupid.  Like a particularly bad South Park episode had manifested as a human, this person would come in and try to tell us that the answer must be somewhere in the middle.  I was then going to criticize this for not being particularly useful, since there’s such a clearly wrong participant in the whole ordeal and mocking the outliers on the right side only served to weaken their standing.

The problem with the direction I was going in was that I started to list examples of other ideologies that I consider good and right and realized I didn’t really care so much about the mockery of those outliers.  I realized that the ideologies which I wanted to defend, primarily feminism, were just the ones I cared most about.  However I tried to write it, there was a clear line of hypocrisy in which many good things had outliers that I’m totally okay with mocking but I would rather there be a dialogue opened with the outliers for this other good thing.

So I’m basically back to square one on this writing idea and instead opted to write about how I failed to write about this.  Like anybody else (I think), I don’t like seeing mockery of stuff I’m heavily invested in (except when I do it too like with video games) and I tried to put a lot of words into saying I don’t like it while sounding like a smartypants.  And to be honest this realization doesn’t really change how I view these ideas I’m writing about being unable to write about.  If that thread every reminisces about how stupid GamerGate was and that person comes back with their rhetoric I’ll still react by thinking that it’s dumb and pointless.  This is just a new insight for me into my own thoughts and some blogging about how I couldn’t write what I wanted to write.  

[cardboardgear]

My Thoughts On How I Like Things

Warning, this is a lot of words about something that doesn’t matter.

I have one aunt who really likes to get drunk and talk to me about stuff, usually movies.  These discussions usually go back and forth from entertaining to frustrating, since, again, she is drunk and we are both very bullheaded.  This past Saturday we somehow got to the topic of Star Wars and she said something that caught me by surprise.  She said “I think you should be a fan of George Lucas, since you like Star Wars.”

On the surface, liking the creator for creating media that you like may sound pretty simple.  I don’t believe so.  People are too complex for that.  You can love somebody even though you hate things about them.  You can hate someone even though you like some things about them.  H.P. Lovecraft is often scorned for his xenophobia and racism but plenty of those same people still enjoy his work and what has been created out of his work.  I’m not a fan of George Lucas for two main reasons.  I do not like all the media he creates, so I cannot say I am a fan of what he creates.  I also do not like what insight I find about his character, so I cannot say I am a fan of the person.  

My aunt sees things in much simpler terms.  I do not think she is wrong to like things in her terms.  The two of us like media differently.  Thinking about this made me think about how I like media.  Not the reasons why I like something but how I interact with media once I like it. 

While media generally takes the form of physical and/or digital property, before all that it is intellectual property.  To me, this intellectual property is entirely the creator’s until that creator shares it with others.  At that point, the people with whom the property is shared with are investing some time and energy into that property.  They now have some intellectual “stock” in that property (I am gonna get some mileage out of the stock metaphor just because that works best in my mind).  Generally, the creator would be the primary intellectual stockholder.  If it’s a property in collaborative media, like movies, there is obviously some investment by the rest of the crew involved in making it.  However, as the media spreads, people invest time and energy consuming that media, or consuming a fraction, however small, of that media.

Like with stock, this gives you certain privileges concerning that media.  Based on reflex, everybody who is somehow exposed to that media, whether an advertisement, trailer, or picking up that media and consuming it on a whim, exercises the most basic privilege of holding that stock.  They have an opinion of it.  

It is not a big revelation to say that a lot of people do not just stop at forming an opinion.  Many of us then like to share that opinion (wow-ee, tell us more, CG).  How I go about this, however, generally depends on how much I want to continue to invest in that media.  While I like Taken, I do not care enough to have an extensive discourse about why I like it or seek out a third party’s discourse on why they like or dislike it.  I will take the time to invest more into Creed, Mad Max, Star Wars and, on a conceptual level, superheroes (to be honest I mostly like reading about comic book heroes instead of actually reading their comics).  And then I argue about them with my drunk aunt.

This stock analogy works for people as well.  While there is a physical you, who you are the primary stockholder of, who has as much power over you as George Lucas had over Star Wars (that is to say a shitload), people become exposed to you.  While they have no physical stock in you, they have invested that time and energy that gives an intellectual stock in the version of you they created.  They form opinions of you that may or may not reflect you, from your own point of view.  If you create media, some people may look at that media and try to gain insight into you.  From what I understand, The Beginner’s Guide is a video game that exaggerates this effect to create a toxic relationship.  

I have always really liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It was a show that I grew up with and probably had a lot of influence over how I grew up.  Because of this, I thought I should keep following Joss Whedon’s works to find more good media that reflected what I like about Buffy and it’s spin-off, Angel.  Clearly there was something intrinsic about the guy that made Buffy good.  This was not the case.  In his media, I don’t think I ever found anything as great as some of the characters between the two shows (usually the ones that crossed over from Buffy to Angel).  Usually, the parts that worked in Buffy/Angel that he continued to use were used to excess and became flaws in my eyes.  In his person, I learned that even during these two shows that I adored he wasn’t intrinsically what made them great.  In Angel, he even sabotaged one of his strongest characters because her actress became pregnant.  This is one of the bigger events that led to me realizing I needed to make a separation.

The original example, George Lucas, is a particularly unique case to consider because of the sheer scope of his creation.  My aunt took the approach that Star Wars was synonymous with George Lucas, that it was an extension of him.  This doesn’t mesh well with my own thoughts on the relationship, which was laid out above discussing collaborative art and how intellectual stock is invested.  

This becomes even more clear when considering how huge Star Wars is outside of George Lucas.  Star Wars, as a property, has had the same fate of Lord of the Rings, of Lovecraft’s mythology, of Sherlock Holmes, to an extant far past eleven.  While George Lucas is still the primary intellectual stockholder of Star Wars, being the original reason for is creation, George Lucas’ Star Wars is a tiny fraction of Star Wars as an intellectual property now.  It has a strong foothold in ever medium of entertainment and George Lucas was personally responsible, at most, two of those footholds.  If I were to adopt a way of thinking similar to my aunt’s, while acknowledging all that Star Wars is, I would be suggesting that I would have shared the same thoughts on Star Wars that I have with George Lucas, Timothy Zahn, James Luceno, and Kevin J. Anderson.  That would just be mean to Zahn and Luceno.

This is my first time writing a blog post as extensive as this.  If you read all the way up to here, thank you.  Feel free to discuss anything relating to this post with me, if you have any questions or points of discussion.  This is, after all, my creation.  According to me, you have already invested in it, so I would like to see what you have to say.