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samedmunds · 3 years ago

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My litany thoughts on 1999 cult classic strategy video game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is a game of the early Civilization variety from the EA golden age and ranks very highly in my top ten. While you probably heard of it if you were playing video games around the turn of the century, I've found members of my age cohort to be tragically unfamiliar with this masterpiece.

Alpha Centauri is an unofficial sequel to Civilization II, a game where the only way to way to win is either completely eliminate all competitors to the last city or, rather more easily, send a spaceship loaded with colonists to the title star system. Shortly after leaving home, the ship loses contact with Earth, which would make sense to a player of Civilization II where the bonuses to science and trade from democracies evaporate when technology ends, upon which point all the AIs revolt and become militant fundamentalist theocracies and climate change rapidly destroys the planet, leaving the player with an endgame that is literally 1984. Either way, when the already strained ship arrives at the Alpha Centauri system an unknown partisan assassinates the captain of the UNS Unity and the population fractures into seven opposing factions before firing the colony pods and exploring an inconveniently hostile planet.

The player starts here, in typical Civ fashion: a scout, settler, and absolutely no technology to speak of. That isn't to say you are a bunch of primitives, all your units start out with some approximation to modern guns and judging by the amazing quotes and wonder videos your society is well beyond the 21st century--more on the story later. The gameplay is incredibly well-balanced in spite of its age and quirks (with the exception of the freight-train progression of Yang). Rapid early expansion as the bountiful Peacekeepers may leave you at serious risk to the relentlessly martial Spartans, who are in turn threatened by the uber-specialized technocratic University--but be careful to underestimate the backwards Lord's Believers, their probe teams will just as quickly rob you of your gains. The Morganites can afford to sparsely defend their home if they're willing to pay off their aggressors, but they'll struggle expand over great swaths of territory without irking civil unrest drone riots from corruption. Meanwhile the Gaian Acolytes can harness the permanently-dangerous mindworms to great effect from the beginning of the game. Yang just... builds. And keeps building, and next thing you know he's conquered the Peacekeepers and turned Miriam into nothing more than a puppet and where are all these cruise missiles are coming from?

In short, the strategic design of this game is nothing less than a work of art, but that isn't to say it doesn't have its anachronisms. The User Interface has taken its inspiration from early versions of Microsoft Word and it rapidly pays off to know the hotkeys. The wonder videos are resolution locked and can sometimes cause problems depending on your display configuration. The unit creation system is simultaneously wonderful and horrendous. It allows me to create special long-range nerve gas bombers that eradicate cities shortly before orbitally-dropping specially-trained garrisons to quash all resistance. On the other hand, if you do not accept the cumbersome slew of computer-generated options, keeping your new weapons systems up to date with your latest technology (especially when playing as Zakharov) rapidly becomes a chore.

That said, there are a variety of features in the game that I think deserve to make a reappearance in the Civ Games. The pick-your-government system is incredibly balanced and fun to roleplay. You can't get away with crimes against humanity when solar storms hit in Civilization VI, nor can you weaponise climate change to flood your rivals cities, or strategically terraform to alter weather patterns and deny your neighbors arable land. At the bare minimum, we should be given the option to nerve staple rebelling cities when our control runs out!

All that said, there is also the story to contend with. One is at first tempted to think that a 4x strategy game with a marked emphasis on replayability would necessarily have a tacked-on story, if one at all. After all, the point is for the player to create it through their actions, not have it spoonfed to them. The majority of what you learn about your world that isn't printed in numbers and small pictures on the mapscreen is through blurbs that accompany each discovered technology or new building. The aforementioned wonders even have their adorable early-CG renderings, sometimes mixed in with some experimental film footage. There are occasional interludes that describe the mindworms and machinations of Planet, but the bulk of the wordage comes from epigrams of the faction leaders and the occasional bit of Nietzsche or Plato. It's so good that I can't help but stop and listen to CEO Nbwadibuke Morgan ramble on about supply chain economics or Sister Miriam's apocalyptic warnings every single time. Take some examples.

Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand, and never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death!

--Col. Corazon Santiago, "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

Or perhaps, a more on the nose one:

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!

--Fedor Petrov, Vice Provost for University Affairs Accompanies the Retroviral Engineering technology

The game often doesn't directly tell you what Retroviral engineering is, nor does it labor to explain just what having someone nerve stapled means, or the precise function of the Recycling Tanks, but through its quotation it beautifully circumlocutes the world you are shaping--and being shaped by. It really never pulls any of its punches, even if its just on Organic Superlube--great stuff--and I still catch muself quoting it regularly.

Ursula LeGuin once wrote

"Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. 'If this goes on, this is what will happen.' [...] This may explain why many people who read science fiction describe it as 'escapist,' but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because 'it's so depressing.'"

Alpha Centauri is absolutely extrapolative fiction and very firmly rooted in the 1990s and I love it. It was released in the Aaron Sorkin TV, pre-9/11 days where the word Internet was more often than not followed by the words, "is like an information superhighway" and it absolutely no efforts are made to cover it up. The main factions are a cross-section of the New Millenium's hopes and anxieties. A New Russia that went a very different path before Putin took over, a cheerful clan of ruthless Western capitalists hellbent on putting Morganvision on every network set, a group of vaguely Scottish free-love peaceniks hellbent on defending the most-of-the-time incredibly hostile environment. There's the Second-Amendment preaching Spartans or the optimistically-influential UN which, judging by its naming scheme for its bases, seems to dedicate entire cities to bureaucratic agencies. The All-American Christian fundamentalists don't entirely butt heads with the frighteningly powerful Human-Hive (if your country calls their cities names like "Huddling of the People" and "Paradise Swarming" you might not be the good guys). The expansion also brings in more dynamic characters like the Information Wants to be Free! data angels Brian Reynolds very clearly came up with after watching Swordfish and Hackers back to back or the Nautilus Pirates who have no right to be as fun as they are.

The visions of the future are at once both anachronistic and prophetic; while elements may come off as cheese, I see it as a sort of window to the past, a way to examine what was once (and sometimes still is) on our mind. All in all, I give Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4 out of 5 stars and a definite all-time favorite, warts and all. You can pick it and its expansion up for $6 on Gog.com and play it through a built-in emulator that works for most systems. If you're willing to brave a dated interface and an older-fashioned gameplay style, I would definitely recommend it.

#pc gaming #video games #gaming #civilization #writing #ursula leguin #alpha centauri #sid meier's alpha centauri #sid meier's civilization #the drones need you #they look up to you #game retro #game recs #game review

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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I would like Pokémon Unite to fail.

This might be somewhat of an unexpected statement, considering it’s coming from as lifelong and dedicated a fan of the franchise as I am, but I don’t think Pokémon Unite is a good thing for gaming, let alone the franchise as a whole. How I arrive at this statement, we’ll get into.

For the unaware, Unite is a recently released free-to-play MOBA for the Switch and soon to release on iOS and Android devices. While the game is published by Nintendo/The Pokémon Company, it was developed entirely by another company, TiMi Studio Group (a subsidiary of Tencent), which to be clear isn’t really a rabbit hole I’m going to delve into in particular.

I will admit my reasons for writing this post are kinda petty. I don’t like the game in concept, and I’m sick of hearing about it, what with every single Pokémon content outlet dedicating their time to the new shiny thing. And I also have yet to play it, and I don’t plan on changing that. Despite this, I think my concerns should still ring as valid.

So why is Unite bad?

There’s a lot to talk about here, and I’d recommend this video by Curio (a fine purveyor and producer of video content) to get a better gist of it. Here is my version, effectively, of their explanation.

Free-to-play* games have had a long tradition of being scummier than their paid counterparts, with multitudes of content or options locked behind paywalls that are justified by the fact that they’re 1. Typically relatively small and 2. In a game that’s technically free. As largely fine as that sounds on paper, games like these are effectively designed to make you want to spend money on them, often with attractive bonuses or benefitting the spendier player numerically or all sorts of other underhanded tactics. It’s a tactic pioneered by the mobile games (and Facebook games) of a decade ago, and still frightfully common today in the form of Gacha games and the like.

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games are far from an exception to this, with games like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm (and Pokémon Unite) locking their playable characters behind a paywall, often one that’s grindable but inconvenient to do freely. As well, these games effectively encourage buying and playing many characters, what with balance adjustments often making popular characters no longer viable for serious play (or making an unpopular one much more viable), and the power creep of newer characters making it so you have to be playing newer stuff to be succeeding. It’s a lot like what you see in trading card games, frankly, except in those you can at least sometimes convert your cards back into money.

Unite has all these problems and more, including loot boxes, deliberately confusing currency systems, and that thing where you can only buy slightly more in-game currency then you need so there’s always a bit leftover that you can’t quite spend on anything relevant. This is not explicitly the problem, considering it’s no different to other games of the genre.

The problem is that it’s marketed towards children. Because it’s Pokémon, basically, and not a dark fantasy like LoL or DoTA or a compilation of more teen+ targeted characters like in HoTS and Smite. And targeting kids with something this scummy is just kind of completely fucked.

There’s another element to this I’d like to add in as a long-time Pokémon fan. For a very long time, the collection of corporate interests that make up The Pokémon Company (Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc) were extremely conservative with who could produce their spin-off games, with them almost entirely being restricted to Nintendo consoles. Genius Sorority (Colosseum, XD, Trozei and its sequels, Battle Revolution, Café Mix), Hudson Soft (the TCG Game Boy Games), Jupiter Corporation (Pinball and Pinball RS) Chunsoft (the Mystery Dungeon games), HAL Laboratory (Snap, Stadium 1/2/JP, Ranger), and Ambrella (the Rumble series, Hey You Pikachu, Channel, Dash, and Ranch, and they would later be acquired by Creatures Inc) are the big names in the list of developers I could find (not including crossovers like Conquest and Pokken), and all of them share a few things in common. They are all Japanese game developers, they all (save Hudson and Chunsoft) make games exclusively for Nintendo consoles, and they all have extremely solid track records or are new companies built by people with history in the industry. This was the only subset of developers TPC trusted in making games with their intellectual property, and with only a few exceptions, the games they were putting out were pretty good.

Except Hey You Pikachu, what the fuck were they thinking for that one, holy moly.

This changed about 5 years ago, when TPC realised they were basically sitting on one of the biggest and most beloved franchises on the entire planet, and that by branching out to people who weren’t interested in paying for a Nintendo console but still liked Pokémon, they could make a lot more money, and also increase interest in their main series games. This is where we got Pokémon Go from, and we all know how well that turned out for them. Very, very well is how.

Since PoGo’s release in 2016, many more Pokémon branded games have made their way out into the world beyond the 3DS and Switch. The Trozei and Rumble spinoff series got mobile games, the charming Magikarp Jump released in ’17, Game Freak’s own Pokémon mobile game, Pokémon Quest, released a year after that.

At the time of its release, I had thought Pokémon Masters, a deadass Pokémon Gacha, would be the height of this trend. There are few things to be more cynical about than a gacha, them being some of the worst of freemium mobile gaming, but also a trend that has been trending steadily upward ever since the surprising and explosive popularity of Fate: Grand Order and Fire Emblem Heroes. It felt somewhat like selling out, which in retrospect is kind of odd when you’re talking about as huge a franchise as Pokémon.

This brings us to the real culmination (so far) of this phenomenon in the form of Pokémon Unite. It’s a game that feels like a bandwagon jump, hurling itself onto a near-decade old trend and hoping to succeed because it’s Pokémon. And it probably will succeed, at least for now, considering the game’s popularity and continuous updates. And that really does worry me. I think people have a right to be concerned about the state of the franchise, considering how successful its side games, its freemium offerings, are tending to be, and how decidedly okay this generation of mainline games has been leaning so far. I am still cautiously optimistic about the future of said mainline entries, but to be frank, Unite scares me.

I brought up cynicism earlier, but ultimately Pokémon Unite is a cynical game. It is clinically precise in its handling of its IP and its monetization, to the point where if you’d asked somebody to describe the consumer-side issues with freemium and MOBAs, you’d probably get a laundry list of Unite’s intentional design. I am concerned that this cynicism is what’s going to define the franchise as a whole going forward.

What’s next, Pokémon Battle Royale? Pokémon FPS- wait that’s just Snap isn’t it.

#ramble #pokemon #pokemon unite #look fam it's just not my genre

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transgamerthoughts · 4 years ago

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Idle Thoughts On Games During Pandemic Times

I’m in an interesting position as I write this. Since I’ve written here I have moved out of journalism and towards the dev side of games. Good news! I’m happier! Bad news! It can feel weird to have public opinions. That said, I miss writing and I’ve had some thoughts about games I’ve played (mostly major titles) that I want to share. I’m keeping them loose and I hope folks will allow me the indulgence. Here we are!

Ghost of Tsushima

I’ve been surprised by how playable Ghost of Tsushima is. Which is to say that the world is very enjoyable to explore. There’s something about ambling between marker to marker, or stumbling upon a few hidden items, that fundamentally works. I’ve seen some folks imply that this is simply the result of overproduced open-world design philosophies. A sort of focus-tested gaming drug-world that it’s easy to slide into. There’s probably some truth to that, and there’s a discussion to be had about the dangers of pastoralism, but I think that the open-world itself is designed well. Sure, there’s collectables and outposts to conquer and all the things you would expect but those are not the appeal. In fact, in many cases, engaging with those things feels worse than wandering. In the early game particularly, combat is not enjoyable. But there’s a sensibility to the world, a sort of stubborn antiquatedness that calls back to an open-world structure—one where space existed for its own sake—that we don’t see in as many games now. That’s curious to me because Tsushima has been criticized for feeling old-fashioned but I think this approach to world design isn’t so far removed from Breath of the Wild. It is certain littered with more *stuff* that you can stumble on but despite the fact that I can set markers or unlock bonuses that make these things easier to find, I don’t feel an overwhelming push to engage with them.

That good because combat is a decidedly mixed affair. I’m not eager to slide into difficulty discussions but if Tsushima’s closest cousin is Assassin’s Creed, it’s no surprise that I’ve instantly found the game more playable at a lower difficulty setting. If the goal is to emulate film—and there can be discussion about how well that’s actually done; black and white filters don’t suffice to make something comparable to Kurosawa—then Tsushima’s normally cluttered and gamey combat rubs against that impulse. It’s a game with sub-weapons, ninja-like tools, multiple stances for breaking the guards of certain enemies, and a wealth of skill trees. The beauty of the action (which you can frame at the push of a button thanks to a respectable photo mode) can get lost in the shuffle. Lowering the difficulty has led to speedier and more dramatic encounters where a few sword strokes can slay a handful of men. It’s a curious thing, as I tend to play games on higher difficulties, but this is one of the few times where I felt it might have served a game better to streamline combat down to the most basic of interactions. Tsushima’s combat can get very busy and I did not enjoy tackling challenges or outpost conquest until I progressed to unlock more abilities while also lowering the difficulty. Even then, those are the moments I care for the least.

I feel unable to comment on critical discussions about Tsushima’s story and politics but as an observer to the input of Japanese-American writers and Japanese devs/players, one thing that’s struck me is how the broader gamer culture has reacted to the dialogue. There have been moments where gamers have minimized the voices of some critics with the exultations of certain Japanese writers, which eliminates valid concerns from people who have every right to look close at a game connected to their heritage. The lens through which Tsushima was made was at the end of the day a Western one and that’s worth discussing. I am grateful for the writing of critics like Kazuma Hashimoto at Polygon that dig into these tensions. I will say that I feel like Tsushima sometimes wants to do the proper thematic thing where it will say that entrenched nobility and cultural notions of honor can be inherently damaging but because that’s mostly expressed, at least in the main plot, as “the outside invaders are besting us because of our traditions” it falls flat. Tsushima works best in side quests where the stakes are smaller. It’s thematic aspirations are best when things are personal and on a more humble scale. I like the version of Tsushima I get to play in those moments more than I like the grand gestures towards honor or combat challenges. Which is to say I mostly want Way of the Samurai with multiple zones and a more connective tissue. Tsushima teases that possibility without ever really getting there. In those teasing moment, the game makes a lot more sense to me.

I’ve enjoyed myself and intend to finish soon. That enjoyment comes with a lingering question: what other game could this have been? It’s inspired an image in my mind of a different sort of open-world ronin game where there is a smatter of villages with sub-stories and perhaps the smallest A-plot. A game with Mongol invaders, dramatic family conflict, or shogunate decrees. Tsushima has capture my attention but I do wonder more about what might have been that what is right in front of my eyes.

The Last of Us: Part II

I have struggled with this game in ways I did not know were possible. When I play it, I find myself taken in by the raw skill of the actors. There’s a mood and tone I enjoy, a somber twinge to the infected escapades that lingers from the first game. I like The Last of Us. I think there’s small moments of character interaction that express core things about the cast’s shifting relationships. James Howell embarked on a video essay series about this very thing and while it will remain unfinished perhaps forever, I suggest engaging with it. Suffice it to say, the changing language of Joel and Ellie’s mechanical interactions does a lot to underscore the narrative. I think players often think of the The Last of Us in terms of pure narrative but these smaller considerations reveal a game with a very natural approach to story telling. The Last of Us 2 has these moments and often hides them within combat. When multiple factions of humans and infected interact, their clash and the behavior of the AI tells something fundamental about the game world.

The Last of Us: Part II is a cynical game with an unflattering view of humanity, a view that (in spite of Joel’s selfishness in the first game’s climax) feels somewhat at odds with what came before. It is, in fact, possibly the most cynical game I’ve ever played. That’s hard to talk about but it’s best expressed in the various dying barks of enemies or moments where the player is forced into violent, dehumanizing slaughter. In the former case, it feels like a magic trick. The first time you hear someone cry out their dog’s name, it can be tragic. The next five times you hear it, it feels forced. Like any trick, it’s never as powerful as the first time. You might argue that’s the point: that as you follow Ellie’s journey, the player also stripes enemies of their humanity and agency but the player’s culpability is secondary to the writer’s in some ways.

Players did not contrive to have Ellie rob Nora, one of the game’s major black characters, of her fundamental dignity before murdering her. Nor are players the ones who shove a knife into Mel’s pregnant stomach. Those are scenarios crafted by designers and writers, and much like how retroactively guilting the player for killing a doctor in the first game (An unavoidable action, mind you! Joel will do this regardless of what the player wants.) feels manipulative, calling a player’s culpability into question as Ellie fails to act like any sort of reasonable human being also rings hollow. There is a perpetual push and pull between players and controllable actors, best expressed in the verbs that we are allowed to perform. It is telling the more often than not, Ellie’s most egregious acts of violence happen outside of the player’s control.

And yet there are moments where I buy deeply into the story. Notably, it happens when Abby is on screen more than Ellie. (Tangent: Abby has more interesting gameplay scenarios that lean closer to horror game vibes like what you’d find in The Evil Within. TLOU is way more interesting working in that mode than HUMAN vs. HUMAN drama.) Abby is also allowed more growth and agency than the script ever gives Ellie. At the core of this is Abby’s relationship with Lev. It is here that I’ve had my largest struggle with the game.

Discussion about Lev has often bowled over transgender commentators. For many people, Lev resonates regardless of anything the plot says about his gender. Lev captures people’s attention because Lev is eminently likable. That’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s writing. Still, there is a sense that Lev’s wider resonance has left some folks (particularly queer folks) without as much space to talk among themselves and hash out sentiments without the discussion getting overpowered. This is complicated by an environment where creators seem more empowered to directly speak to criticisms.

Which is to say that as a trans critic (perhaps ex-critic) watching from the sidelines, I was very hurt and dismayed to watch people who do not share in the transgender experience comment quickly about Lev. And while the discussions about Lev are varied—the trans community, like any community, is not a monolith—it’s sometimes felt like trans voices were made the quietest when talking about this character.

Many things are true about art at the same time. Lev can act, as is the case for some players, as a token figure whose struggles are appropriated and turned into spice adding flavor to the apocalypse. Spice that allows us to be seen as we are usually seen: in pain and defined by that pain, and which displays that pain voyueristically for cis players. Lev can also be a kind-hearted and respectable hero, and ray of light within a dark story. Neither feeling is in competition. Some will find strength and inspiration in the character, others will see the machinations of corporate powers and award-chasing writers. Both can be true.

Enthusiastic fans and players are quick—not in a malicious sense; merely in their excitement—to defend the things they enjoy. If they found a thing good it stands to reason the thing must be good. They empathized and that is taken as proof that a thing is good irrespective of other concerns. This is a kind impulse but one that robs people of their concerns, or at the very least close off conversations quickly. I cannot properly diagnose this except to suggest that there’s a growing force of cultural positivism that’s encircled games of a certain scale. One which shuts down a lot of valuable engagement. The bigness of the moment, of the object, demands the moment be the Best Possible Moment For Games regardless of the qualities of the object itself. That’s worrisome to me.

The Last of Us: Part II has become nearly impossible to talk about even now because we are dealing with an object so large as to have a gravity that weighs everything down. A game with sublime moments that intoxicate deeply but one where voices of critique or caution are buried away largely because of the potency of that intoxication. I deeply wish that wasn’t the case because the breadth of discussions that might’ve happened would have been really valuable.

Aim Lab

I’ve gotten really into Valorant. It’s scratched an itch for a type of multiplayer shooter that I haven’t had scratched in a long time. My experience with the game itself has been good but the surrounding experience has been decidedly mixed. Suffice it to say I’m mostly living the solo-queue life and it’s a miserable existence even with the occasional highs. Yet, there’s a mechanical crunchiness to Valorant that deeply compels me and I’ve enough competitive drive that (in spite of the fact that the most of beloved social aspects of the game seem generally out of reach for me) I’ve really devoted myself to improving as player. Enter Aim Lab. It’s a totally free aim trainer that anyone can download off Steam. It has a variety of drills and exercises that can be used to improve a variety of first-person shooter skills. In one case, you might be flicking from target to target with the express goal of training your aiming speed. In another you might need to look at a group of colored balls, which will then disappear with one of them changed. You’ll then need to shoot at the different one as quickly as possible. You earn a score for each drill, which is tracked and compared to global records and folded into a ranking system. I’ve placed in the “Ruby” range for my rank, which is mostly in the middle of the road. (It’s a weird rank above gold but I think before Plat?) Mechanically sound with sloppy spots. I’m able to identify these thanks to Aim Labs. For instance, I know that I am fast and relatively accurate but that tracking moving targets is a difficulty for me. I know that I am quicker at things on the right side of my screen but also that I’m thankfully able to read changes in the environment quickly. This might sounds like a dry and rote way to approach video games but Aim Labs’ suite of repeatable and trackable challenges means that it is very easy to trace gradual improvements.

As a result, what might have been dull work becomes something akin to going to the gym. I can feel the ways in which my control over a mouse have changed. I understand which muscles need more flexing. Importantly, for all my weakness I also know strengths. Playing Aim Labs—and yes, this is play—becomes a semi-automatic and meditative experience like swinging at a batting cage.

As a player (again, I hesitate to use the word critic anymore) who tends to engage with games on thematic levels even when it comes to mechanics, it’s been surprisingly gratifying. Part personal ritual, part labor. Bubblegum for the brain. Chew chew chew. Shoot shoot shoot. Take some notes and chew some more. Not much more to say except Aim Labs has surprised me with how enjoyable and relaxing it can be.

Necrobarista

Necrobarista was not what I expected. That’s because I started playing it with what felt like a safe-assumption: it would be comparable to some of my favorite indie “drink” games like Va-11 Hall-A or Coffee Talk. It’s hard for me to break down those games and how their structure—insightful conversations punctuated by drink-mixing and the occasional memory puzzle or story choice—works for me. I know folks who have played those games and bounced off for entirely understandable reasons but I love them. They call to mind some of the personal experience I had as both someone who worked at a bar and coffee shop. In spite of their fantasy settings, they evoke a highly specific and idiosyncratic part of my brain. Necrobarista doesn’t quite do that because it is strictly a visual novel. Repetitive work such as drink making is entirely absence. As a result, I initially found Necrobarista harder to engage with. It lacked the percussive but comfortable rhythm I was craving in quarantine.

That highly specific preferential quirk/personal need might place the game lower on my list then the other two (the game’s certainly in conversation with them to a degree; it’s got plenty of shout-outs and references that make it clear the designers know the ballpark they’re playing in) but it doesn’t mean it is a “lesser” game in terms of the world it is presenting or the character you’re watching. Necrobarista has, if nothing else, some of the most naturally flowing dialog I’ve experienced in a while. That is partly because I’ve been sampling so much AAA stuff, where the writing tends to eschew the evocative for clean, crisp (and corporate!) staccato, but even in comparison to other VNs or drink games, it finds some more integrated and interesting ways to handle lore dumps. That’s helped by the core conceit. The lead character Maddy Xiāo runs a coffee shop alongside her wise former boss Chay that just so happens to serve drinks to the recent deceased. That makes it really easy to introduce a character, as the plot soon does, fresh off the mortal coil and eager to learn about life after death. It’s a common writer’s trick to place a clueless character in a plot so world-building can happen but because the stakes are high—the freshly-deceased have only 24 hours before they pass into the afterlife—there’s an urgency in the explanations that feels warranted. I could probably spend a lot of time breaking down the ways in which Necrobarista successful builds the world around the player. From a well-framed scenario and properly placed characters (an inquisitive child-genius, for instance) to the ability to click highlighted words for snarky but never crass footnotes, you never want for necessary knowledge but also never feel like your hand is being held. You’re not digging for meaning or piecing together arcane lore concepts. You know what you need to know, it feels fun to learn it, and the characters all make sense. They’re also incredibly likable. Necrobarista’s largest strength isn’t that the details are handled well; it’s that the core cast is deeply relatable. That’s important because the story moves from coffee to magic and death within a clipped 4 hour playtime. Relationships are clear, motivations clearer, and while some of the standout story-telling pieces are in optionally readable side-chapters, the main story lifted up by how eminently fun it is to eavesdrop of these character’s lives. The only glaring exception is a Greek chorus of robots that seem out of place and overly-chatty. Necrobarista sometimes feels eager to impress structurally, and that’s no more clearer than when these fellas are on screen. The difficult thing about Necrobarista’s literary approach is that the pandemic’s completely shot my attention span. It took my two weeks of on and off play to finish what is a very short game. That said, given the enormity of some world events I found it edifying and cathartic to engage with a piece of media explicitly concerned with death and dying. It wasn’t what I thought and I kinda wish it had a bit more happening mechanically but I’m really happy for the time I spent with this one.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Shadowbringers and Final Fantasy XIV in general is a difficult thing talk about. Not because of the accumulated history of a long-running game and storyline but because my feelings are ultimately swayed by a host of personal and specific emotions. I am a social player on a social server. I’ve spent just as much time coming up with roleplaying plotline and casually taking in taverns as I have tackling difficult bosses. I have made dear friends through FFXIV and even more than that. Those relationships, their energy and gravity, mixed into everything like an errand paint drop. You can hardly see it in the mixture but it’s unavoidably there. For many, this is a game of heroes and anime plots. For me, it has been a doorway to some of the most fruitful, edifying, and occasional painful experiences of my life. I say this because I want it understood that in spite of this sentiment, Final Fantasy XIV is a good game and Shadowbringers is easily one of the most confident pieces of video-game storytelling that I’ve ever experienced. Which isn’t to say it’s not sometimes trite or predictable. It’s not to suggest there is something groundbreaking here. For all of the craftsmanship, Shadowbringers often succeeds by embracing the conventional. It sticks to more well-worn plot structures, it simplified job gameplay and streamlined a variety of features whose strange and un-sanded bumps brought charm to the game. Yet, in the streamlining comes something more refined. Like running a soup through a fine mesh sieve to create something creamier and more rich. When you look at Shadowbringers high level plot: travel to the corners of the world to fight monsters, all while unraveling cosmic secrets.. it’s familiar. Even as the patches following the launch experience did, as all FFXIV patches do, focus on the fallout of the main story’s event, it kept to a strict content release pattern. If you’re digging for a revolutionary experience, Shadowbringers cannot offer it by virtue of structure. But what has been releases is foundational. The writing is of such quality and battle scenarios increasingly playful that everyone should be taking notes. A core component of Shadowbringers success is how deeply the story is concerned with genuinely exploring the richness of the scenario. It would be easy to craft a story about evil mages destroying the world. FFXIV’s done the more straightforward version of that at launch and it proved stiff. Instead, Shadowbringers’ has a deep concern with motivations and takes unprecedented time to explore the interior of the cast. This allows old characters to grow into bright new versions of themselves, and it has (two for two now!) turned villains into more than just monsters. The writing exhibits a delicious empathy for the world, and it takes time to give everyone a perspective. In MMOs, this is not always afforded. Characters act as quest-barkers and clumsy plot chess pieces. Shadowbringers strength rests in avoiding this in favor of clear stakes both personal and cosmic. There’s plenty to be said for other aspects. Masayoshi Soken’s music remains an incredibly powerful trump card, and the latest patch (which concludes the Shadowbringers story and sets up for next expansion) shows an increased willingness to employ fight mechanics that trick and test players in new ways. The content is challenging and full of tiny subversive moments that actually rob players of power they’ve taken for granted over the course of hundreds of hours. In finding its stride, Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t just craft sweeping narrative moments, it better integrates those stakes into individual boss encounters. There’s a cohesiveness, an interlocking of parts where each piece (music, narrative, gameplay, et all) are in clear conversation with the other and often in conversation with not only other expansions but other games within the franchise.

Recently, a piece dropped on Polygon with the title “Games need to return to black-and-white morality.” It was, if I can be honest, a poor title for the article and one which left a freelancer unduly exposed to harsh feedback. But there is a core kernel to the article. To quote the writer: “Watching our heroes stick to their convictions, even against insurmountable odds, ratchets up drama, rather than destroying it. The concept that good can ultimately triumph over evil is a timeless one, and stories that rally around this trope — around unadulterated hope — can help guide us through the year’s ceaseless onslaught of calamities.“ Shadowbringers’s conclusion brought this piece of writing to mind. I’m ironing pretty much all of that piece’s argumentation but the notion that games about heroes have great efficacy in times of uncertainty shouldn’t be a controversial one. The crux of my favorite game, Skies of Arcadia, is that heroism is hardly a choice at all. It is a compulsion, it is a duty that we all must accept when the moment comes. Shadowbringers is not quite as simple but it is ultimately a story about hero defeating the baddies, and I would be lying deeply to say that there wasn’t something incredibly, nearly word-defyingly beautiful about the feeling of hope I felt in its concluding moments. The sweeping power of epic fantasy and heroism holds true and, like a genuine panacea, held a curative power for my soul that was not just enjoyable once consumed but frankly necessary for my well-being. I’ve no clean conclusion here (and I don’t have to! ha!) other than to say that Shadowbringers has consistently proven a delight in a sea of rocky games media. It is affirming, exciting, and empathetic in ways that I was not expecting. That, along with the friendships I’ve made while playing, have secured its place as one of my favorite video game experiences ever. From start to finish, it really was a delight.

------------------ And that’s that! I was gonna write about Blaseball but I need to let my Blaseball feelings settle before even trying that. Anyway, if you read this.. uh thanks!

#FFXIV #Final Fantasy XIV #Shadowbringers #The Last of Us Part II #Necrobarista #Ghost of Tsushima #aim lab

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cryptonewsmanuelakanji · 4 years ago

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Fanadise is an exclusive content subscription platform made for NFT's

With Fanadise you can collect, stake, buy and sell NFT Moments from your favourite influencers

About Fanadise

Fanadise is an exclusive content platform created for internet influencers to monetize their social presence and bring interactions with followers to a whole new level.

While all news outlets from the past few years hid behind paywalls and started to get their fair share for the work they put into preparing the news, internet creators remained highly underpaid. We aim to change that - bringing so much more to the table.

Connect with your fans (or idol) in a new way

By releasing premium pictures and videos, showing them your backstage life, letting them in to see your close friends interactions; they can listen to your songs first, they can see your videos and pictures before the others, chat with you, interact with you via comments, get huge bonuses from subscription tiers or get merch and other giveaways directly from the first drop; the phrase "true fan" will mean so much more.

And then there's NFT's! By using them to decentralize content ownership we change the rules forever.

Creators get a cut of what fans pay for and will always be entitled to get payment for their work. Big corporations will no longer feed on your talent. It is time to move forward. It's time for a social media revolution!

Idea Platfrom Fanadise

Custom made layouts for your own personal website

We help you create a theme that suits you best. Whether you are a model, YouTuber, singer, make up artist, coach or artist you may need something a bit different - we got you covered.

Customize your subscription models

We offer multi-level subscriptions for every website. It's up to you how you personalise it and what you offer at each subscription tier. We have a whole list of never seen before bonuses that we can offer your fans!

Tips and donations

Let your fans pay you more if they believe you are doing a great job. The TIP feature allows them to grant you any donation they want.

Single time purchases

Yes, we cover this one as well. You launched an ebook? You want to sell a course or a song? Want to sell photos/videos/galleries separately? No problem at all!

Advanced chat solutions

You can talk with your fans and customers, schedule a video call with them or you can send them special content through our chat. The opportunities are endless! All in one platform.

Edit HTML and CSS

You don't like your website theme? Design your own. Our HTML web-front creator is waiting for you.

Your own domain name

Choose the domain you would like for your website. No more promoting other companies. It's just you and your fans!

Safe checkout process

We accept all mayor credit cards and guarantee a safe and sound payment solution.

Personalized mailing & chat updates

Marketing automation is a key feature that informs your fans of new offers you are introducing. We combine mailing and chat updates to optimise reach.

Search engine optimized

Help your new fans find you quickly and efficiently through known search engines.

Digital products

Selling digital products is no longer a problem. Buy, then download them directly or via e-mail.

Unlimited bandwith

No worries, our servers can endure even the largest wave of traffic.

Features

Influencers will finally get paid for their online efforts

Big corporations like Facebook or Google take all the profit from the generated revenue of influencers via their ad services, leaving them with no or close to zero profit. Premium content is a new trend and here to stay - engage with your favourite influencers on a whole new level, getting access to content bonuses never seen before, unlocking the potential of exclusivity

NFT and subscription incentives for the creators

How much influencers earn when they are finally empowered with the tools to monetize their abilities and talents all depends on the work they put in. Subscriptions mean NFT's - every time you subscribe to your favourite creator you are guaranteed to get a special pack of Moments from his or her life, as well as all of the perks of the subscription level you have purchased

Resell moments of your favourite creators

The longer you are connected with your idol and the higher tier of subscription you choose, the better moments and perks you get - afterwards, you can collect your NFT's or put them up for sale on our marketplace

Advantages

Here's a quick comparison of #Fanadise platform with contemporary platforms that content creators use. It is quite clear on why Fanadise is a better choice for content creators as well as their #fans. #FAN #NFT #cryptoart #NFTcollector #ethereum #bitcoin #NFTphotography #NFTcollection #NFTartists #NFTCommunity

Fanadise advanced tokenomics

Tokenomics are a foundation of every crypto project. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, proof-of-concept coins, proof-of-stake tokens, liquidity pools, DeFi, NFTs — they all run by the rules of supply and demand. The whole blockchain scene is ultimately a one big digital economic ecosystem and economies have some things in common. Like inflation. Or market cycles. Every team standing by each single coin in the market injected their project with its own intrinsic ‘monetary’ system (“it’s programmed” says BTC maximalist on CT) which can eventually become the key to success — or the reason of a failure.

We truly believe our system is special and is one of the reasons why $FAN coin will shake — and change — the market and social media forever.

Fanadise is an exclusive content NFT platform for internet creators. Our goal is to change the social world by decentralising the ownership of content thus giving back the power to the people. To make that happen, we decided to mix the Non Fungible Tokens, mechanisms known from the DeFi projects and social media scene into one ecosystem. In the following weeks we’re going to reveal further details but what we can already show you will definitely draw your attention (as it already did to many of our supporters and investors).

What you already know is pretty simple: we minted 1,000,000,000 $FAN tokens. Our coin is a utility token and will be used to create, gratify and run the community and the economic system around our services. 2% of the tokens will be sold at the pre-sale (0.05$ USD), 18% will be sold at the public sale (0.075$+ USD), 23% allocated for marketing and creator benefits, 19% used to provide liquidity to decentralized exchanges, 16% divided between our team and advisors and 22% frozen as reserve. Pre-sale and public sale will have a short lockup, rest of the coins will be released from the smart contract in the next 36 months (it doesn’t mean they will ever reach the market though).

The idea is simple: We want people to USE our token in the application we are creating (that’s why we use the word ‘utility’). We want them to benefit from the fact they own the token not only by the speculative appreciation of its price, but by means of staking, farming, hodling and utilizing it within the Fanadise gamified system. In the standard DeFi farming projects you’re gonna lend or borrow (AAVE, COMP, SNX), stake coins to create a single sided or standard LP (all the DEXes). Some of them will offer you additional bonus appreciation in time (BNT). Lotteries and bets have also started to become a thing (PCS). APR and APY will often cause high inflation and make the price of the token go down — which is combated by the teams mostly by bringing more new users to the table and ‘burning’ the tokens they have in their bags (which will limit the circulating market cap but not necessarily the retail dumping). In Fanadise we have some ideas on how to combat inflation and how to avoid the ponzi-like futures of all inflationary projects.

First of all, staking $FAN token will not (or mostly won’t) give you rewards in $FAN token. No magic money tricks. We’re going to create NFT farms and the system where staking — and the duration of it — will increase the chances you have to draw more unique NFT moments — and in larger quantities. Let’s say we have 200 influencers on board and 10 of them are the ones you like. If you have 1000 $FAN tokens you can put a different number of tokens on different farms. It will improve your chances to win a concert ticket NFT or a birthday wish NFT or a special merchandising drop entrance NFT — or just a common picture NFT of your favourite actor with his puppy. It’s up to you which one of them you’d like to get most (and thus put most of your $FAN stack to).

The NFT moments will be like game cards with a utility (connected to the influencer and his own website created within the Fanadise system). They will have copies — and go from common to rare to holo, platinum and then unique (only one #). Some users will have a lot of commons and some will hunt for ultra rares (uniques). In time, the number of NFTs will grow. But what if we make it more dynamic and allow our users to forge a rare NFT from 5 commons? Or a unique from 10 ultra rares? The number of NFTs will also reduce in time as they will be burned in the process. What happens if our users burn 900 copies out of 1000? Or maybe someone will burn 999 and create a Unique from something that was once common? The idea is to provide more value to low level NFTs, increase demand, and therefore provide more liquidity on the secondary market.

What is more, we’re going to create an NFT lottery. You’ll be allowed to buy NFT packs with our $FAN token. Limited merchandise. Pay for subscriptions and get higher chances to draw a rare. Tickets to the events available only to the $FAN coin hodlers. Gain access to tiers of content available for the $FAN community only. Team fights. Influencer popularity futures. Everything around the idea of a Fan Center.

Our basic subscription is just a ticket that opens the door for the completely new experience. No other platform will be necessary for the influencers to monetize their social presence — from merchandise to NFT, everything will be provided under one roof. You think influencers do not have that much to offer? Think again! Possibilities are endless and I will introduce you to the realm of exclusive content in the next article.

And all that will be tokenized, minted in NFT, secured on our platform and made available for the community. By the means of staking and utilities we want to reduce the number of $FANs being traded daily to increase the token price. $FAN will be a token widely used by our community but not dumped to the market. Cheap BSC will allow us to make real use of it.

This is our idea to make Fanadise a big success. We meticulously analyzed what’s working and what’s not working around the block and came up with the pros and cons of all possible features. We’re working hard to make this reality happen. What’s the timeline? The websites are already working. We start minting NFTs to your wallets in May. By the end of the month we’ll finish the designs of the abovementioned system and afterwards we’ll be coding them. First beta will be introduced in July and the fully working system in August or September.

More updates are coming, so stay put. Please don’t forget about our pre-sale and public sales too. Here is an article about it: https://fanadise.medium.com/fanadise-may-2021-pre-sale-and-public-sale-information-ca1f803555a9

pre/public sale

those of you who haven’t done so yet, please subscribe to our public sale mailing list at https://fanadise.com/public-sale

Afterwards please remember fill out our sale form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9XaoPnAOLjPFgSA843e1JFoPFiXOsHnjF8B_eTAp9uXflkA/viewform

Also please perform the whitelisting process through our partner Blockpass:

https://verify-with.blockpass.org/?clientId=kyc_fanadise_test_0a660&serviceName=Whitelisting%20Fanadise&env=prod

If you have any more questions or just want to keep in touch with us, please join our official Telegram channel: Fanadise

Fanadise is a decentralized social media platform made to endure the rest of our century

Designed by the people behind many successful campaigns, brands and events, the creators of DDOB, Mr. Gugu, Aloha from Deer, successful Influencer Marketing companies, Creators of some of the largest social Media platforms and many more.

Fanadise is future-proof and adjustable to the ever changing world of social media, fame and entertainment.

Our model disrupts the status quo and allows the whole social space to grow beyond our present imagination.

NFT - Fanadise Moments

All digital content produced by the creator is tied to NFTs. Each token has it's own ID from 1 to supply limit (n). Moments may be drawn from packs or be bought from the marketplace. Packs can be purchased via subscription (depending on lvl) and/or purchased from a drop.

Marketplace

After we assign NFTs to every single piece of content, we move to phase II. You don't only collect your favourite moments - you can exchange, sell and buy them on your own using our own NFT marketplace developed in partnership with e-commerce company Lethe who have been working on the technology for 7 years. We will be competing with other solutions like Open Sea or Rarible. Only, we are going to do it better, faster and stronger.

Timeline

With our roadmap we introduce not only the present road to extended functionalities, but also w broader vision of the world with decentralized ownership and new models of entertainment

2020 -The idea of Fanadise was born

We dreamed of giving content ownership back to creators

Help them monetize their on-line presence

Empower them against big corporations

1Q21 - The test version of the app was launched

We managed to team up with big names from the industry

Onboard first 10 big creators to join Fanadise

Started to plan our ICO

April - Fanadise 1.1 is released

Reach our first milestone of 15 influencers on Fanadise

Work on our NFT marketplace backed by Shopsy technology for token private sale and presale

May - We start our token sale

Listing on Pancakeswap

50 creators from 10 countries on Fanadise

Our team grows to 30 people

June - Fanadise 1.2

100 creators from 20 countries

Teamed up with international partners

3Q21 - NFT marketplace launch

Our team grows to 50 people

You can trade your NFT moments

200 creators from 30 countries

4Q21 - Fanadise 2.0 and app launch

500 creators

Mainstream media coverage

NFT revenue exceeds subscription revenue

2022 - 5000 creators by the end of the year

Crosschain integrations NFT

Staking with benefits and yields

Further product development

Our team

Bart Sibiga: Co-founder

Jakub Chmielniak: Co-founder

Stuart Burton: Co-founder

David Rakowski: Influencer marketing specialist

Myloslava Khomenko: NFT marketing specialist

Lucas Watroba: Chief Technology Officer

Adam Krupa: Senior PHP Developer

Malwina Wolakiewicz: UX/UI designer

Grant Blaisdell: Advisor

Meng Seong Foo: Project Manager

Son Ly: Country Manager

For more information please follow the link below:

Website: https://fanadise.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fanadisenft

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fanadise/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fanadisecom/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fanadise/

Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/_MhqfOcNBEsyMzM8

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKFhxQs9l5nKhmiZ3mr6uSg

Author:

Bitcointalk Username: Manuel Akanji

Bitcointalk Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2954998

Telegram Username: @Manuelakanji777

BEP-20 Address: 0x00F321558065b1c9dca5e6EcbeECE9B01F73D6E1

#FAN NFT cryptoart NFTcollector ethereum bitcoin NFTphotography NFTcollection NFTartists NFTCommunity

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commenter2 · 4 years ago

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Rift Apart State of Play breakdown

Here is a breakdown of the Rift Apart gameplay from the State of Play and the thoughts I had while watching it. SPOILERS and LONG POST WARNING !

We see Rivet activating an infobot. I don’t know what the writing on it says, hopefully they release an alphabet for that language soon. Its funny seeing Clank in a semi backpack form and seeing him waddle around while moving.

The bug ship from the recent trailer appear as it was looking for the infobot but instead it grabs Clank and flies away. You can see Rivet’s arm being effected by the magnetic tractor beam which makes me wonder if that will be a big weakness for her during gameplay ? This is the start of that segment we saw in the new trailer since we saw Rivet (who was Clank less there) chase that ship down and as seen here she takes it out. I bet while she is chasing Clank, Clank will sabotage the ship from the inside given that the ship is still missing a piece before crashing.

After what seems to be the opening title we cut to Ratchet in Nefarious City and we see how mission objections will be show in the game. Him saying Clank is charming was adorable !

One major change to the gameplay you can notice is the HUD, as its smaller, the XP bars are orange, and instead of the weapon XP being a circle around the weapons icon, its also a bar. They also grouped the number of bolts and raritanium together. To be honest I’m not a big fan of the new HUD.

Cool to see Ratchet still fooling around when he isn’t moving, and nice to see bolt cranks.

Ratchet: Please let there be good news behind here (see Nefarious statue) XD

“Does that mean, there are TWO Nefariouses now !” that one line just summarized what the R&C fandom has been thinking since the announcement trailer for Rift Apart XD

Ratchet has his hoverboots ! I though we were going to get them much later but this is awesome. Its also great as this could make Ratchet’s gameplay different from Rivets. I wonder if he can use them to high jump since Clank will be missing ?

Nice change having Ms. Zurkon be the weapon vendor for the game. Still hoping Mr. Zurkon won’t be a weapon. I can tell she is going to be a fun little character. She was actually seen in the new trailer but I missed it, thank you VTNVIVI for pointing this out.

Those holograms on Ms. Zurkon walls are the weapons we will be using in the game, and sadly it shows that the Buzz Blades and Warmonger will return, which is kinda annoying but I could think of worse weapons to bring back.

Ms. Zurkon thinking Ratchet is part of the resistance makes me think that other Lombaxes from this AU are a part of the resistance hence her confusion.

Ratchet can not only wall run like Rivet but he can also dash mid air like her, which is interesting but I’m still hoping for some differences between there gameplay.

I think those bouncing platforms were a reference to Sunset Overdrive ? Also before jumping on them you can see a Lombax face painted on a crate, which I think confirms there are more AU Lombaxes in the resistance.

There are a lot of Megacorp logos in the city, I wonder how this version of the company will be different from the one we know from Going Commando ?

You can hear Nefarious talk in the background which is cool, and there is a moment where he states he going to enact something called operation dreamstar ? I think that’s what its called. I wonder if its something serious or if he’s just indulging as being an Emperor. You can also briefly see that Lombax billboard I mentioned in the Clank bio and it looks like he was turned into a robot.

The Nefarious Day Spa, funny and reasonable as I remember Vorselon having one in ACIT.

I think the Phantom is a AU version of Skidd McMarx cause not only does it sound like him a bit but I remember that in UYA he had the codename “Shadow Dude”

The dash after images DO draw enemy fire, cool ! The ammo crates have changed in appearance, which is a nice little change.

The Nefarious Juggernauts looks awesome, they remind me of those mini bosses you fight from time to time in TOD and ITN. Its also cool how we can be randomly be transported to other dimensions while fighting. I think the place Ratchet ended up is that place in the trailer where he is hoverbooting and used that ball ramming weapon.

Alien snappers from the 2002/2016 will be in the game, yet for some reason there spitting out stuff.

Nice touch having Rivet’s HUD have different colors then Ratchet’s, being orange while her XP is purple. Speaking of purple you can see purple versions of horny toads here.

So the riding bugs are called Speetles, good to know for the future.

We finally get to see some new weapons. First is the Ricochet, which is that ball colliding weapon I just mentioned and as seen in the new trailer. Mr. Fungai, a weapon that as stated in the trailer “attacks and potentially distracts enemies”. He seems to be the Mr. Zurkon of the game but I don’t mind as I rather have him then Zurkon again. Then we have the Megaton Collider which “charges up to fire a beam that will go through multiple enemies” sounds great for dealing with a tons of enemies that are hurdled together.

Dimensional pockets, that must be that space between dimensions I talked about in the trailer breakdown. Also even though Clank is missing an arm, he still has 3 propellers.

New alien race, I wonder if there an AU version of Kerchu ?

So the Goons-4-Less ARE Thugs-4-Less, just rebranded which I recall VTNVIVI stating as a possible theory on one of his videos. I bet he will be surprised by this.

Nice to see the Megaton Collider in action, I think its gonna be a favorite of mine.

Before the demo ends, you can see a unstable rift, I wonder if this means Clank will have to fix it ?

We then get a lot info all at once so here are a few things I saw like how it seems Ratchet can hoverboot at a leisurely pace or just like in past games while exploring open worlds.

Though not much was shown, its nice to see some of Clank’s interdimensional powers and its cool to see that his segments might be like the Great Clock puzzles from ACIT.

These Glitch challenges look interesting, I wonder what they will be like ? Could that be what Rivet was doing to the infobot or is this the hacking mechanic of the game ? Also who is Glitch ? Is she Rivet’s Clank of sorts ?

Arena challenges confirmed. Its also confirmed that you will be fighting all kinds of enemies from the dimensions you visit, which is nice as we will have more variety then just getting the same few enemy types over and over again.

Aerial combat looks cool, especially since we can ride creatures instead of ships, though it would be cool to be able to fly Aphelion again.

Gold bolts return, no surprise, and some pocket dimensions are optional kinda like the ACIT moons. BTW there is a Big Al balloon in the screen here.

We were already told that we could mix and match armor in the game but its still awesome to know that we can kinda like in Size Matters. It also shows that armor can give you bonuses like more bolts and reduced damage. You can see tons of references here with the armor like Lombax Trillium armor, Q-Force, and Captain Starshield.

You can change the HUD ! That must be why its different from the August demo, and its cool what you can do with photo mode.

This is REALLY HARD to see but during that scene near the end of Ratchet fighting a Nefarious Trooper, I think that is a Lombax wall jumping ! Maybe he is the Phantom ?

After the State of Play, IG posted some new screenshots on there twitter: https://twitter.com/insomniacgames/status/1387891304072425475

3 are interesting as one depicts Ratchet with that machine gun weapon as seen in trailer, Ratchet looking at his Rift tether which I bet will be upgraded by the Phantom to let Ratchet dash, and a pic of Rivet and Clank in front of a well detailed Grunthor, which was also seen in demo.

Also today IG posted a small video on Sargasso: https://twitter.com/insomniacgames/status/1388115976915361792

There is nothing new here besides some Lombax writing that translates to “Resistance outpost four” meaning we could see more bases in the game, and more resistance fighters.

There is so much going on here and I cant wait to get the game however the only problem I have with it so far is that there isn’t much difference between Ratchet and Rivets gameplay, besides how they might travel. Hopefully there will be one more difference. I also hope we can see Captain Qwark and Talwyn soon and though Qwark is briefly seen in the trailer and even in the demo during the photo mode segment, we haven’t seen any sign of Talwyn which makes me worried that she might not be in the game.

What did you think of the gameplay demo ? Was there anything I missed ? What did you like about it ?

#ratchet & clank #ratchet & clank: rift apart #insomniac games #rivet #playstation 5 #talwyn apogee #please let talwyn be in rift apart

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openmik2 · 4 years ago

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Middle Earth: Shadow of War- Review

So just recently I've decided to replay through Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. For those of you who don't know Shadow of War is an open world fantasy RPG that is the second installation of the series, using it's popular predecessor, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, as the jumping off point. The question is, Is it worth coming back to?In this review I'll be deciding whether or not this game can be considered "precious" or if it's just another big pile of shrakh.

First up let's start with the plot. You play as Talion, A Black Gate guard who is, by all means, dead. Not got your attention yet? How about if I tell you he is sharing a body with an Elf smithy by the name of Celebrimbor which in turn gives you all these magical abilities like dominating creatures and orcs to make them fight for you? Got you now? Good. Essentially the story revolves around you and ol' Celebrimbor trying to take over Mordor to defeat Sauron once and for all with the use of your new ring of power. As far as stories go this one has me hooked from the get go! The story is split into multiple character quests spread across all the regions in the game so you'll definitely have your fill of scenery and Nemesis (we'll get to that later) encounters. One great way this game keeps you on your toes is by introducing new features constantly! You can be 8 hours deep into this game and it can still tell you "oh hey you've got this far so you have the ability to (spoilers) now". It's a great way to keep the game fresh and really feel like you're getting every penny you can out of it. Let's talk about the aforementioned nemesis encounters. One of my favourite things about this game is the unique encounters you can have with orc captains throughout the game. You have the option to hunt them down or alternatively, they can hunt you. Hunting them requires you to find "worms", lesser orcs with information about captains, their strengths and, more importantly, their weaknesses. These "worms" are scattered all over the world and can also be used to send death threats to captains in the hopes of gaining higher levels of loot. Watch out though, not all captain take kindly to being threatened! Captains can appear anywhere at anytime. When you fight a captain and get him to "break" you then have the option to shame him (decreasing his level OR on the rare occasion INCREASING his level and sending him doo lalley, for lack of a better word), Making him one of your own soldiers in your ever growing army against the dark lord or choosing to fight to the death if the orc isn't fond of betraying his current master ( this is also rare but does happen) The great thing about the Nemesis system is that you just don't know what's going to happen. e.g. You could kill an Orc captain only for him to cheat death and to suddenly appear at the worst possibly time (possibly when you're already fighting two other orc captains) to exact revenge upon you OR you could have a favourite orc in your army only for you to turn around and see him standing there with the word BETRAYAL under his name, spouting traitorous words and thirsting for your blood. Honestly lopping his traitorous head off hurt me a lot more than it hurt him... Each Orc is said to be unique and, to be honest, I'm inclined to agree with this quite ambitious statement. Sure there's a few with the same first name but different profession and there are only a finite amount of voice actors in this world but for all intents and purposes each orc has it's own strengths and weaknesses. You'll think you've seen it all but I myself have played this game for about 80 hours now and just the other day I found a new orc captain I had never seen before so keep that in mind when you're playing through! The strategic player will want to play against a captains weaknesses for example If the captain you're hunting happens to be afraid of caragors, it's probably a good bet to run into his settlement with a small pack of them. Then watch him run away squealing.

Onto the gameplay, a fairly important part of video game culture, would you not agree? I'm not the best at summarizing but I reckon I can do it here with just one word. Smooth. If there's one thing Monolith Productions knows, it's how to make a game feel and look dynamic and free flowing. The combat is very well executed (pun intended) with a large skill tree that let's you mix up playstyles to suit your needs. You can mix and match the skills as much as you want until you find the style that suits you best, whether it be stealthy as a church mouse or gung ho like a grizzly bear on steroids. The combat system is the same as the system from the Shadow of Mordor game, with obvious signs of being heavily inspired by Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series. If you are not familiar with this then let me break it down for you. You hit "X" to slash, "Y" to counter, "B" to stun and "A" to dodge. I personally see nothing wrong with these combat controls although some may deem it a "button mashing" game which y'know... technically all games are so... But I digress. The system works and it works very well. The controls are simple and easy to pick up, whether you're new to the genre or coming back for more it won't be long before you feel like a bonifide badass blademaster. The movement and climbing is also pretty smooth apart from those few times where you mean to climb up one wall but end up leaping backwards into hordes of angry vengeful captains out for your blood. If you've played any of the earlier Assassins Creed games you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, as will your demolished controller.

Let's have a look at the online features. Shadow of War keeps to the old adage "if it aint broke, don't fix it" as you can see by the leaving in of the vendetta side missions from the original Shadow of Mordor. The vendetta missions remain the same as from the original game where you simply are tasked with going after a captain in another players world whom is responsible for killing said player. This rewards you with "vendetta boxes" which contain gear and possibly powerful orc followers so don't miss out! Also who doesn't like a bit of vengeance even if it's on someone else's behalf. The newest addition to the online features is a lot more substantial. Throughout the game you will be tasked to take and hold forts all across Mordor using your fresh army of orcs in the single player. This feature is also used as a new online game mode where you are tasked to attack OTHER players strongholds, facing up against the orcs that THEY have dominated and chosen to protect their fortress. It's super fun to pit your own selection of specially chosen orcs against someone else's and seeing who comes out on top. This feature also awards gear on completion and player attacks on your fort only affect your fortress control after you finish the game so enjoy that while you can. Another new addition to the series would be the gear; pickups in the form of swords, armour, daggers, bows and (naturally) rings. These range in rarity and power; the rarest and most powerful of which can only be found by defeating legendary orcs and using their weaknesses against them. Each piece of equipment has one slot for you to insert a "gem". The gems come in different categories e.g. wealth gems, life gems and strength gems. These gems give you bonuses depending on what kind of equipment you use them on. For example, if you use a wealth gem on a weapon, you're more likely to gain loot from your kills whereas if you use a wealth gem on a piece of armour you increase the XP gained from fallen enemies and so on so forth. In summary Middle Earth: Shadow of War is definitely worth an initial playthrough and after your first completion of the game you will no doubt be ready to craft new unique stories between you and the Orc leaders of Mordor in no time! Take my word(s) for it, you'll have a blast!

Final Score: 8/10

#videogame #review #shadow of war #middle earth

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paigesturning · 5 years ago

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Race in 5e: Who Is at Your Table?

I had to write an argumentative essay for one of my classes this semester. I was really into the idea I had, and gave it a shot! I think this might be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written.

Word count: 2995 TW: Discussions of race science, orientalism, and references to white supremacist rhetoric

Writing is difficult, and it’s even more difficult to write collaboratively. This applies to TTRPG as much as it applies to novels. Sure, the DM could simply railroad the players into sessions of combat, lock them into a certain path, or make their other options so terrible that they simply must go the way the story is leading, but it’s bad practice. After all, though it’s not a traditional story, written down in book form for distribution, TTRPG relies on the interplay between the DM’s idea for what should happen in the story, and the players’ ideas. Unlike writing a book, however, TTRPGs rely on another influence, rather than just the set of people who have agreed to tell a story. There’s always at least one other person in the situation, who might be completely unknown to the DM and players. I refer, of course, to the game designer. TTRPGs have far more freedom than video games, but the decisions made by the game designer have the same amount of weight in both mediums. In Skyrim, for example, this looks like a prioritization of combat mechanics over puzzle solving mechanics or relationship mechanics. Though both are implemented in the game, there’s not nearly as many options in playstyle for relationships, or variation in puzzle types, for it to be considered a romance game, or a puzzle game. In TTRPG, the influence of the designer is often far less apparent. In 5e, your character can do basically whatever they want so long as the other people at the table agree that it’s something they want to interact with. However, with some exception, you will not be able to run a game set, for example, in real-world Chicago or on a transport vessel in space. Players tend to be locked into a fantasy setting. Like Skyrim, 5e is a system that prioritizes combat in a magical, pseudo-European medieval setting. It’s a mix of mechanics, and built-in worldbuilding that can allow us to come to this conclusion - each spell, if it doesn’t explicitly add or remove hit points from a target, changes the rules for when and how combat can happen, and each class is described in their flavor text in high fantasy terms, often opening with the examples of ways each one can be useful in combat. True as all this may be, it is, at its core a neutral thing, and I find myself blessed to occasionally be at the tables of others as a game designer and homebrewer. All games must make assumptions about the kind of game players want, and must do their best to fulfil those expectations, the same way a speaker might attempt to predict the thoughts, previous knowledge, and counter-arguments of their audience. However, in 5e, there lies a certain set of assumptions that I personally find troubling, and in fact in need of some serious reworking. The way that race functions in 5e represents an old-fashioned way of viewing the world. In the most direct terms, yeah, it’s kinda racist. Therefore, the assumptions 5e makes in their race system, represented in mechanics that both promote archaic ways of thinking and force the narrative in directions the players and DM may be uncomfortable with, means that it is time to either dramatically change the way race works, or pass over the system entirely.

When a DM is preparing to start a new game of 5e, one very good place to start is the Dungeon Master’s Guide, or DMG. In it, theoretically, are the tools for DMs and players alike to better understand exactly what the game they are playing looks like. In many ways, it’s a behind the scenes look at what goes into planning a session. For example, each “encounter”, or a portion of the game in which the players fight enemies or find ways around them, there’s a bit of calculation which can tell you what enemies will be appropriate for your party size and level. However, in a new game, before even doing that, you should go to the beginning of chapter 1, on page 9. It lists the assumptions the rules make about your setting, which is a helpful tool for anyone attempting to rectify the base rules with a far-out, high-concept world. They are as follows: “Gods Oversee the World”, “Much of the World is Untamed”, “The World is Ancient”, “Conflict Shapes the World’s History”, and “The World is Magical”. On paper, that’s all you need to know (though it might be worth noting that on page 43 the book contradicts this and gets more specific about what sort of multiverse is required to support the rules). These are five basic rules anyone can follow, rules that most people working to create a fantasy setting would have followed anyway, especially in such a combat-focused system. However, in the Player’s Handbook, (abbreviated as PHB) there are additional assumptions about the setting you’ll be playing in, most notably in the section on the different races that appear in 5e. For starters, each race has a small box that explains how the other races in the game are likely to view them. Taken from page 37, when the book is discussing how Gnomes (a small race of humanoids with large heads and thin limbs) think about their place among other races, “It's rare for a gnome to be hostile or malicious unless he or she has suffered a grievous injury. Gnomes know that most races don't share their sense of humor, but they enjoy anyone's company just as they enjoy everything else they set out to do.” They give no explanation for why gnomes tend to be “Good”, in terms of 5e’s morality system. Perhaps this isn’t an oversight, and instead they are allowing you to fill in the blanks yourself? Do the gnomes perhaps have free healthcare, while some others do not?

I am of course being facetious. I am certain the creators didn’t think quite so far ahead, and instead just wanted to paint a picture of the world they envisioned. It’s not some great sin of design, of course, to do this, and I will admit I am guilty of it in my own design. However, this is just one of the smaller examples of 5e making decisions for the DM and the players. Unlike some other portions of the rules, that brief note can be ignored with little to no need for creating a replacement. You could just as easily scribble the note out of the book, and leave a black sharpie stain where it once sat. Unfortunately, there are other decisions made about race that are much harder to ignore without a level of homebrewed (or player-created) mechanics. For example, a little later, on page 43, the book tells you about the specific mechanical benefits that half-orcs get. Two in particular stand out to me as disturbing. The first, Menacing, means that “You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill”. The other is Savage Attacks, which reads “When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit”. There is no way in which these cannot be seen as narrative decisions on the part of the creators. Exactly what is it about an orc’s presence that would mean it is more intimidating than any other person? One could surmise that, perhaps they are much larger than most people, or that their rarity means that people are not used to their size and tusks. Perhaps I only speak for myself, but I do not often find myself intimidated by people who look different from what I am used to. The explanation the rules provide is that full-blooded-orcs are barbaric raiders, who wantonly destroy and kill, and are considered evil. Why is it, however, that there’s an entire group of people, people with thoughts, feelings, social structures, who can produce viable offspring with members of other groups of people, that the book deems evil? I submit that, in the minds of the creators, there is some sort of orientalist mystique behind the savage barbarian, one that is physically superior, and yet is still no more than fodder to be torn through by the heroes of the story. This isn’t even the worst example of racism built into the game, but to explain this next portion, I will need to explain a concept.

At its base level, phrenology is, as per the Encyclopedia Britannica, “the study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and traits of character, especially according to the hypotheses of Franz Joseph Gall”. Gall, born in 1758, measured the heads of his colleagues, convicts, and people in asylums, in order to determine traits such as intellect and potentiality for criminal behavior. As with many things invented in late 18th century Europe, this practice was used to fuel European imperialism. The article Of ‘Native Skulls’ and ‘Noble Caucasions’: Phrenology in Colonial South Africa, by Andrew Bank, explains very quickly that “The leading proponents of the new discipline almost uniformly adapted their science of the brain to issues of racial differentiation”. I assume that from here it isn’t difficult to see the direction I am heading with this. Elves, Tieflings, Humans, and Gnomes are given bonuses to Intelligence. Dwarves, Humans, and Elves are given bonuses to Wisdom. Elves, Half-Elves, Humans, Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Halflings are given bonuses to Charisma. Of the races present in the PHB, Half-Orcs are the only ones that don’t get any bonuses to the so-called “Mental Stats”. Physical stats, on the other hand, include Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and Half-Orcs get bonuses to Strength and Constitution. In mechanical terms, this leads to a fairly good balance. The other classes serve as either well-rounded jacks-of-all-trades, or are specialized for certain casters, or help fit an archetype of dexterous fighter/caster combinations, while the Half-Orcs are specialized for non-caster tanks, such as the Barbarian or the Fighter. This makes narrative sense as well; if Half-Orcs are raised by the orcish side of their family, they are far more likely to be brutal in martial combat, trained to fight and kill anyone who might have supplies or treasure for them.

However much this might “make sense”, I have to ask why this was an addition to the game. I see three possible answers, and by my approximation, they are likely to all be true. The first is that the creators wanted more narrative control than they let on. The second is that they needed those stats to be stand-in numbers to represent various types of spellcaster and are simply ignorant to their implications. The third is that the creators simply find race science unobjectionable. Earlier, I suggested that the game designer joins the players and the DM at the table, through their work. At my table, ignorance and suggestions that some races are simply more intellectually powerful than others is not tolerated, and I should only hope you feel the same way.

At this point, you’re thinking so loud that I can practically hear it, even in the past. “Ignorance isn’t tolerated? What if the ignorant person in question is willing to change, and well-meaning?”, but if this is what you were thinking, I say with the deepest respect that you’re being just a touch too literal. Of course, if I’ve sat down and agreed to play with someone I know, I am willing to go over why what they said made me uncomfortable. TTRPG is a dialogue, one where the players and the DM must negotiate, not battle, for the story they want to tell, and where everyone must speak up when something happens that makes them upset. The difference between a literal player’s presence and the game designer’s figurative presence is that there is no arguing with a book. In some ways, it’s easier to change a book’s mind. Simply write your own rules, and move on, there’s no need to debate an actual person. You may also be thinking that 5e simply utilizes the mechanics of previous editions. While that is technically true, what is the point of creating a new edition if you can’t change things moving forward? And what’s more, each of my criticisms can be moved onto 1e. The biggest criticism I expect against my argument however, isn’t any of this. Obviously, only one of the races in 5e is human. Nothing in 5e indicates that one race of human is significantly better or worse than any other race of human, and so surely it can’t be racism. Again, you may be thinking a little too literally. In the world supposed by 5e, each race is seen as a person, and (depending on the setting and narrative your group constructs) has the same rights to freedom and life, and yet some are just more mentally skilled than others as soon as they are born. How often in reality do the dregs of society say something along the lines of “it isn’t that I think [members of a certain race] aren’t people or should be enslaved, it’s just that I think that white people are inherently smarter” to make an effort of sounding more reasonable? It isn’t that I think the races in 5e are 1:1 parallels to real-world racist stereotypes. Instead, it’s a matter of philosophy, race-based pseudoscience, and ideology that makes 5e (and previous editions) racist, without major rules upheavals.

However, in some cases, it would require such an overhaul of a system that it isn’t worth it. Most people would look at the rules for 5e’s races and pale at the thought of changing it completely. Do you get rid of stats completely? Do you select whatever stats you want by yourself? Perhaps you instead get certain bonuses when you select your class, rather than your race? These are all possibilities, and I have played games that utilized some of these options. Aside from the strength of reducing the amount of racism in 5e, it also increases the amount of choice a player has when creating their character. It isn’t unheard of to have a dwarf that uses Dexterity and Charisma as it’s primary abilities, but it is poorly optimized in comparison to the options of Half-Elf or Tiefling, and though it takes a bit more work than just handing a player the PHB, I believe it is worth it in the end. There’s no shame in admitting defeat, though. It’s not every day that I feel like fixing another person’s game, and I design games. And I do it for fun. It is the talent I am blessed with, and my lifelong burden. I understand not wanting to put in the effort. However, my suggestion isn’t that you walk away from TTRPG forever, scorned by the problems in 5e, never to roll a die again. Instead, it might be worth your time looking into other systems of play. Whenever I recommend a system to someone who has only played 5e and is looking for a similar aesthetic, I always turn them toward my personal favorite, Dungeon World (abbreviated as DW). DW is, in many ways, the game that I thought I was playing when I first started playing 5e. Looking through the PHB, it seems very comprehensive to incoming players. But to go back to the example of Skyrim, there’s a suggestion when you start it for the first time that you are about to enter a world of endless possibility, only to be shoehorned into a game that directly prioritizes combat. Dungeon World, while it has far less comprehensive rules for combat, one of its biggest strengths is that it has far fewer rules in general. That isn’t to say that it’s harder to follow. Instead of having intense, complicated rules for combat, every moment in the game is subject to “moves” in which, when you say that your character is doing something, the GM - Game Master, in contrast to the Dungeon Master of 5e - can tell you that the outcome is uncertain, and that it might be difficult. When this happens, you roll two six-sided dice, and the game provides very comprehensive rules to help you resolve it. When you choose a race, you get one extra move and nothing else - an option easily alterable, if one finds it uncomfortable. Blades in the Dark, a similar fantasy system, resolves roles in a similar manner, once again, with a much lesser emphasis on violence, and a much stronger emphasis on magic heists. It’s races have no mechanical benefit, and can be completely ignored if so desired.

Creating a system is difficult, I know. Playtesting aside, it’s a combination of finding something special that you want to create, deciding what the players will be looking for, and editing draft after draft. It’s also difficult, both logistically and emotionally, to kick someone out of a campaign. It’s my belief though that a line should be drawn when someone in the game insists on adding not only social, but biological inferiority to characters of certain races. It’s a privilege to have your work at someone else’s table, and it’s a privilege that can be revoked. Once again, playing 5e isn’t some ethical failing, or mortal offence. However, it is worth evaluating what changes can be made to 5e’s race system, and if it’s worth it to you to not switch to another system. If you have found any of this compelling, consider your other options. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, there are designers out there who can bring you into space, cities filled with dark magic and/or under control by cosmic monsters, or honey conventions where there are a few bears trying to steal stuff. Next time you get the urge to roleplay, just consider what I’ve said here, and think about who you’re inviting to your table.

Bibliography

LaTorra, Sage, and Adam Koebel. Dungeon World. 1st ed., The Burning Wheel, 2012.

Harper, John. Blades in the Dark. Evil Hat Productions LLC., 2017.

Works Cited

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Player's Handbook. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Dungeon Master's Guide. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

“Phrenology.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology.

Bank, Andrew. “Of 'Native Skulls' and 'Noble Caucasians': Phrenology in Colonial South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 22, no. 3, 1996, pp. 387–403. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2637310. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.

#D&D #5e #D&D 5e #racism #Phrenology

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