#also its sad its been that long

[aaron-is-comatose]

I forgot I followed the mom of someone I'm not friends with anymore and a picture of them was in it and I barely even recognized her

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[wasyago]

the brainrot won

[elkkiel]

[insert sick guitar riff]

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+ linocut version! (rough test print) and alt version w/ runes

I'm making hand-printed patches for my upcoming ko-fi shop (which you can find here pspspsps 👀👀) hopefully launching in the next month or so <3

[joshuamj]

The Links (+ a Zelda!) from all the LoZ games I've played

[sheriffofmagic]

im so fucking sad man. polygon started as a labor of love and that energy was what made people resonate with it for years and years even with vox trying their best to strangle all the life out of it!!

this didnt come out of nowhere but at the same time its still ridiculous to me. the yt channel still pulls views, articles still go viral on a semi-regular basis, i mean clayton and simone WON AN AWARD earlier this year for the shit they do. if they cant make it in this industry then who can?

it sucks. i absolutely loved the stuff polygon produced for YEARS. gill and gilbert, monster factory, awful squad, overboard, game ogre, unraveled, video game theatre, please retweet, peacecraft are all series i still go back to all the time and thats only the tip of the iceberg. so many of my favorite guides and thinkpieces came from the incredibly talented staff of this silly little gaming site.

i made some of my best friends in the world because i decided to start blogging about polygon, because we bonded over loving pat gill. its just so sad to see this thing that changed my life get blown up because of corporate greed and its ever-growing disdain for art and the people that make it

im glad i was here. im so happy to have been part of this community and i will continue to be part of it. polygon (or more specifically the people who made polygon what it is) changed my life. thank you <3

[loomingcastle]

Creativity…?

It seeps out of you.

Thoughts fill you. Ideas.

Can you convey them all?

You want to create. Will it let you?

Your hands struggle as you try to grasp it. It slips away and onto the ever growing pile. Leaving behind a messy page of attempts. Never to be finished as you try and move on.

[sallymew4]

literally a cry for help

[lizzybeeee]

I didn't like every map in Inquisition, but the elven ruins were some of the best parts of it. Sometimes I think about how Suledin Keep was laid out where you're running through this kind of mazelike environment and then you can glance up at one point and there's this GIANT dread wolf statue watching you from the mountains. that was neat. Arlathan has giant statues too but imo they aren't framed in a very fantastic way where you can get startled like that. and where are the elven prayer puzzles. why can we not show our obeisance to the Evanuris with logic and whimsy :<

I loved Suledin Keep as well!

Especially since, by that point, you've fought your way through red templar camps and the giant behemoths to get to the *heart* of the operation at Suldein. There are red templars, rifts, the people/quarry operation, and then you get to the Keep and, like you said, there's that cool moment where you look up and the Dread Wolf is just LOOMING over you (like Solas in the story!).

Something that really appealed to me with this world was the tangible sense of the past, the consequences of decisions made ages ago, looming over you - the Blights, the Ancient Elves, the Dwarven Empire, Tevinter...the world never let you forget it.

And that's the whole game of DAI - wherever you go there's always traces of the people that came before you, unable to swept away by time or conquerors...and sometimes those people claw their way back to the present like Corypheous or Solas. In Ferelden you find traces of the Avaar and Chasind, In Orlais you find the remnants of the Elves, the Western Approach is dotted with Old Tevinter outposts and the Wardens, and the Hissing Wastes/Storm Coast with the dwarven ruins on the surface! I loved discovering every inch of those maps (large as they were lmao) and it added so much to the world. It made the world feel large! It added to the idea that this world had so much mystery to it - so much lost history.

And Arlathan?

It's a maze, not in a good way, but because parts are cut off only to be opened 'when allowed', and not like in Inquisition where there was a rock-slide or you needed a bridge etc... You're boxed in with glowing doors that tell you 'not now come back later' or water that instantly drowns you, and it's hard to not be taken out of the experience when the game is so very upfront with you that you are not supposed to explore until we say you can.

This game doesn't reward exploration, it has fast travel spots all over the place that seem to discourage it once you find an area. Camps in Inquisition were spread out over large maps but sparingly used in comparison - it still made certain that you explored the world to find new things on your journey from a to b. The quests train you to fast travel, to get to where you need to go - kill, talk, repeat. The game teaches you to look out for crap to break and so my eyes are rooted firmly on the ground because of it. The game can look gorgeous at times, but it doesn't feel like it wants me to look at it too hard, like it will break the illusion of this game lmao.

It's a personal opinion, of course, but my experience with this game was that it made the world smaller, less interesting, and devoid of that mystery and reverence that made this series so compelling. Like you said, there are some cool visuals like those giant statues in Arlathan, but everything else in the map is so condensed and twisting on each other that it's hard to notice them naturally while playing the game.

'Why can we not show our obeisance to the Evanuris with logic and whimsy'

That would be so cool! I can get Andruil's alter having a hunting test - like with the Vir Tanadhal (the way of three trees), which is a hunting philosophy the Dalish have relating to Andruil who is the Goddess of the Hunt. That makes sense - you show deference to her by hunting according to her way.

...but for all of them?

It's a game design choice, I get that -> make it simple, keep it the same...it goes with the repetitive combat and exploration loop of this game. But they really lost out on showing us how the Evanuris differ to each other - how each of them had their own little 'aspect' they had dominion over in accordance to their lore. Why not have a little puzzle for June, God of the Craft? A riddle for Dirthamen, God of Secrets? Have some sort of brazier lighting puzzle for Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper, who gave the elven people fire?

From what we learn in DAI with the veilfire and temple of Mythal we know that they were massively egotistical assholes for the most part, some way more than most. They had their own temples, their own valaslin, their own mythology/legends...giving them all the same prayer puzzle is pretty dull when you consider how different they all are and the efforts they went to to distinguish them. Not that you'd really know in this game - for a game about the 'Elven Gods' there's very little discussion about the rest of them.

But, yeah, to sum it all up: Elven ruins in Inquisition were gorgeous, encouraged you to explore and interact with the lore with veilfire runes, and gave you some gorgeous set pieces like with the giant Dread Wolf statue in Suledin. Inquisition may not have been everyones cup of tea, totally get that, but for me it really captured the wonder of Thedas - the depth of its history...datv unfortunately did not.

[counting-stars-gayly]

They’re not going to rebuild Castle Byers because Will can’t rebuild his childhood, which is the reason he destroyed Castle Byers in the first place. He’d been trying to hold on to a level of carefree ignorance that no longer existed for him. The problems Castle Byers saved him from have been replaced by new problems that are bigger and stronger than a child’s fort. He needs to face them differently. Thank you and goodnight

[weebsinstash]

I wonder how people feel when they read a few of my posts and they're like "oh this writing/yandere blog looks interesting, I'll go to their page and see what all they have" and it's me switching fandoms every other week, sometimes bitching about politics, and asking for money because my cat is sick

[daily-hanamura]

[ezlo-x]

I LOVE HORROR!!! I LOVE HORROR SO MUCH ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS EXECUTED VERY WELL!!! I WANT TO ADD MORE HORROR INTO MY TLOZ AU BUT I AM OH SO SCARED OF IT TURNING OUT EDGY OR SMTH HORROR IS SO COOL I THINK THERE NEDDS TO BE MORE FANTASY HORROR IM SILLEY!!!!!

[undasura]

I havent known your ocs for long but Rali is my favorite bcs i get super speculative abt my own robots and im like. Staring. Robot workings cool

GEHEHE ... thank u oomf (salutes) im glad.. ive been having fun making little cool rali facts....

[dykecharliee]

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