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beautifulterriblequeen · 4 years ago

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Some fresh moonfam angst

So this just hit me, guys, and I need to share the pain, please brace for the Sads.

Runaan’s squad. Four adult assassins, and a 15 year old assassin-in-training. Why did Runaan bring Rayla? Why did he bring these elves?

I just had a really angsty headcanon, and it just keeps giving.

It started with Feathershawl’s crystal. They’re a ghosted Moonshadow from the Tales of Xadia playtest tale, and they carry a crystal that holds the illusions of dozens of family members they’ve been cut off from. Dozens.

That’s a big family!

It fits with the idea that Lain, Tiadrin, Runaan, and Ethari were all basically a big family unit, but it’s much bigger even than that! And it makes sense that Moonshadows would have as many life-affirming connections as they can get, to try to balance the stresses of their culture as well as their inherent introversion: it might be stressful to go shopping, but if you’re just visiting your cousin Merry, then that’s okay, right, you know her.

So what if the moonfam as we know them is just a fraction of their true extended family, and they also have dozens of extended/adopted/found family members that they love and cherish deep in their hearts? Seems likely that plenty of them would be assassins, since Laindrin and Runaan are assassins.

That sounds like a nice thing, right? A positive thing in all of their lives. They are all each others’ safety net and comfort, as family is supposed to be.

Until.

Gosh, it must’ve been hard for Laindrin to leave for the Storm Spire, so very hard. But knowing they were bringing honor to the Moonshadows, and to their family, probably made it a little easier to take. Plus, they were probably safer there than on missions. Until they weren’t.

Family honor seems to be a thing in Moonshadow society. In the book one novelization, Runaan makes a cutting comment about Rayla’s lineage when he’s trying to drive her away from the castle. But that really means that when Laindrin “failed”, their dishonor belonged to everyone in their extended family. Everyone who trusted them had their honor, their judgment, fall into question.

And Moonshadows don’t like questions. They like answers. They always act quickly when something goes wrong, trying to put it right swiftly.

So: Laindrin fails. Runaan’s family honor is tainted. He has to do something. But he’s not the only one who’s been besmirched. And neither is Rayla.

Here’s where the angst starts to ramp up: everyone in Laindrin’s whole family was tainted by their supposed failure. Everyone. Potentially dozens of elves.

What’s a Moonshadow assassin leader to do when all the assassins in his family have their honor questioned, and there’s one single mission they can undertake to redress the balance?

He takes them with him. Runaan takes his family with him to Katolis.

I know I’ve speculated half a dozen reasons why Runaan felt he had to take Rayla with him, and they generally boil down to restoring his and Rayla’s honor for being associated with Laindrin. But in this headcanon, everyone else on the squad is in the same boat!

And see, *slaps roof of headcanon* this baby can fit so much other angsty headcanons in it! I have a headcanon that Andromeda is Runaan’s half-sister, Lujanne’s daughter by another of her husbands, because she has traits in common with both of them. That slides seamlessly into this headcanon.

It also fits as a reason for Runaan’s softness when he squeezes Callisto’s arm reassuringly while he’s binding him to their mission.

Callisto is the elf Runaan is closest with. His tent is next to Runaan’s, and he’s the elf Runaan (briefly) discusses strategy with in the tree when they regroup after learning of Rayla’s deception.

So Skor and Ram must also have family ties to Runaan as well. This is so exciting!

Okay so far? Runaan’s squad, his homies, are family, in all the ways that “family” holds meaning for him. He got his best fams together to go Make Things Right for their honor in Katolis. In this context, Rayla’s accompaniment on the mission makes a whole lot more sense. Her family connection to Laindrin is one of the most direct, if not the most direct, out of everyone in the squad. If this is the kind of thing that Moonshadows do when family honor is questioned, then it makes sense that Rayla demanded to go, and that Runaan said yes. It wasn’t just her he was taking.

In fact, I wonder if Runaan had so many requests that he had to make a list and choose his team from a whole bunch of family who demanded the right to go on the mission. Maybe they started asking the minute that Laindrin’s ghosting ritual was over. Maybe they felt they had to.

So Runaan took his best and brightest family members to Katolis. And then they failed, and he had to watch them all die beside him. It was his mission to run, and it got away from him, and four of his family died right in front of him.

No wonder he desperately wanted Rayla off the mission. If he knew from the moment he laid eyes on Marcos that several members of his own family were gonna die that night, he’d do whatever it took--and he did--to convince Rayla to leave the mission and survive. He was trying to mitigate the disaster that was about to slam into his family tree.

Okay, so this is angsty. But... Can I make it angstier?

Yes, yes I can. Hold tight.

See, because this was a family of hurt, grieving, angry assassins, seeking to prove that they were still honorable elves, that they could still do the job, could still serve their people, could still stand strong beneath the heavy dangerous duty they carried. They went to prove that they could carry this together, that they were good and upright elves in the eyes of their society, that they knew the rules and that they would follow them no matter what, as was expected of them. They went to Katolis to prove that they had not forgotten how to serve properly.

And then, not only did they fall in battle and fail in their mission, but a dark mage resurrected their helpless forms and sent them on new missions in an absolute travesty of what a Moonshadow assassin’s purpose is supposed to be. Dark magic keeps appearing as an imperfect copy of primal magic--which I love, btw--and the missions that Viren handed out are no different. His smoky assassins took lives with their assassin skills, yes. That was Viren’s whole point in using assassin cremains in his spell. But the elf spirits were not honor bound, they weren’t serving their people--quite the opposite, they were serving a dark mage--and they didn’t volunteer, they were pressed into service without consent.

The best and brightest of Runaan’s assassin family fell into the hands of a mage who turned their purpose inside out and manipulated their skills to serve his will instead of their people’s. They didn’t even get to die properly--part of them got yoinked back into the world of the living to carry out Viren’s will.

I cannot imagine how that knowledge will make Runaan, Rayla, their surviving family, and the other Moonshadow elves feel. I’m kinda glad that Rayla tackled him off the Storm Spire without knowing what he’d done to the other assassins. Her self-sacrifice was pure there, saving Zym’s life by trading it for her own, with no extra anger or vengeance in her heart.

But if anyone ever learns about what happened to the other assassins, well. *holds out cup for more angst*

#tdp headcanons #tdp theory #moonshadow elves #moonshadow assassins #moonfam #rayla #runaan #lain #tiadrin #tdp angst #viren #gosh this is dark

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thesims4blogger · 4 years ago

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The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff: Developer Blog (Part 1)

SimGuruConnor has released part 1 of the Sims 4 Paranormal Developer Blog series.

Hello Simmers! Welcome to a small 2-part Dev Blog about our newest Stuff Pack, Paranormal Stuff! This pack has been an absolute blast to work on, and I’m excited to share what this pack is all about!

I’ll try not to reveal too many spoilers for the pack either, so I’ll keep things somewhat brief. Our topics for today are the new Scared Mood and the Haunted House Lot Type, plus an interview with our Audio Artist too!

Get Scared

Sims can now relish in the mortal dread of the Scared Mood! The Scared Mood affects Sims in a variety of ways, with my personal favorite, the new Scream Incoherently interaction, where a Scared Sim runs up to another Sim to scream their lungs out. This can result in the other Sim calming down the Scared Sim, or resulting in both Sims becoming Scared. This can create a Scared Mood wildfire if you’re not careful!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it's okay!

Sims afflicted with the Scared Mood also have trouble communicating with others, the urge to panic-run everywhere, and are slightly more prone to accidents. If no other Sims are around to help calm down a Scared Sim, they might just have to Hide Under The Covers for a while.

But if being Scared just isn’t your Sims style, consider purchasing the new Brave Trait. This Satisfaction Reward Store Trait will rapidly reduce the incoming fear a Sim feels and help Sims regain their composure faster. While no Sim is totally fearless, this trait should help mitigate some of those creepy feelings.

The Scared Mood and the Brave Reward Trait are all base game features coming with the Paranormal Stuff patch on January 21st. Tons of previous Uncomfortable Buffs are now becoming Scared Buffs, such as the “Startled By Ghost” Buff or the “Thalassophobia” Buff from Island Living.

While being Scared might not be a common occurrence in your everyday Sims life, living in a Haunted House is a whole different story…

Happy Haunts

Introducing the Haunted House Lot Type!

The Duplantier Dwelling, created by Doctor Ashley! This “canon” Haunted House will be available in the gallery!

They’re like regular houses, only haunted! Although unassuming during the day, at night, these places get super weird. Your Sims may notice things like flickering lights, pipes rattling, or even creepy dolls staring at them in the corner. All are totally normal occurrences in a Haunted House, but it may take some time for your Sims to adjust to their new surroundings.

Sims living in a Haunted House will also be introduced to floating apparitions known as Specters. They’re cute little critters, but their motives aren’t entirely clear. You can try talking to them, or even offer them presents in hopes of establishing a good rapport. If they like you, they’ll drop special loot for you and your family. If they don’t like you, well, you’ve been warned.

o o o (> ‘ u ‘ )>

Learning to get along with your new ghostly inhabitants is crucial in a Haunted House. Things like botching seances, neglecting Specters, or letting accursed objects invade your house will have a negative impact on its spiritual serenity. There is a delicate art to co-existing with the entities of the house, and thankfully you’ll have an expert on the matter to assist you!

Meet Guidry

Claude René Duplantier Guidry was a seasoned Paranormal Investigator in his previous life, but now he exists to help anyone brave enough to live in a Haunted House! You’ll probably run into him eventually living in a Haunted House, but don’t worry, he’s a nice ghost!

Guidry will gladly offer his wisdom to those who seek it. If you’re confused, alarmed, or slightly uncomfortable by your new haunted surroundings, give Guidry a holler and he might be able to help. He can also offer valuable objects to help your Sims, too; all you need is to reach out!

Still got it.

All Guidry wants in return is to crash at your place for the time being. Sounds like a fair deal, right? But if you’d prefer to fly it solo, you can always disable his nightly visits—he won’t be too upset, maybe.

As mentioned before, Guidry was a Paranormal Investigator before his untimely demise. If he sees potential in you, he can certify you with a Paranormal Investigation License, granting access to the Paranormal Investigation Freelancer Gigs. Only those who are qualified enough can join the ranks of Paranormal Investigators, but more on that next time!

Be Brave!

Living in a Haunted House adds a layer of risk and reward for your Sims, and each successful night yields Reward Store Satisfaction Points for everyone in the Household. Specters can also drop treasure that can also be collected, consumed, or sold to an Oddity Collector. So although your Sims might go through a bit of peril, they’ll thankfully be compensated.

One of my favorite pieces of haunted treasure is the new Sacred Candle. Not only do they look cool, but they also help protect Sims from paranormal influences. Place them around your house to make sure Sims are properly shielded!

A properly protected Sim.

Things like Sacred Candles and performing ceremonies at the Séance Table are integral to keeping your Sims happy in a Haunted House. Without using these paranormal tools, the entities of the house might get a little bossy.

And while it might be in your Sims’ best interest to keep the spirits of the house in check, watching things go horribly wrong in a Haunted House can be just as fun too. So whatever works for you!

Like Tiny Homes, this Lot Type can be toggled on or off at any time. So whether you’re a casual thrillseeker who wants to spend a couple of nights in a Haunted House, or a seasoned Paranormal Expert who wants to take on a new challenge, this Lot Type should offer something for you!

Crosspack Stuff!

Pets get to share the fun too! They especially love the accursed objects that show up!

I think they’re gonna get along great.

As mentioned before, a ton of old Buffs from multiple packs are now being converted to the Scared Mood. I think 70 something Moodlets were converted? Honestly, I lost count. Anything that seemed more appropriate for the Scared Mood was transferred over.

Oh, and you might remember an old Lot Trait from City Living called Haunted. For clarity’s sake, it needed a name change, so now it’s the Spooky Lot Trait. It also benefits from being combined with the new Haunted House Lot Type and will have an increased chance of spawning Ghosts at night. So use both for maximum haunted-ness!

Audibly Frightened

Last but not least, I’d love to turn it over to our Audio Artist for this pack, Briana Billups! She did a killer job bringing Haunted Houses to life! Trust me!

Conor: Can you tell us what an Audio Artist does on The Sims 4?

Briana: Big, broad picture: an audio artist decides what everything in The Sims 4 sounds like. We record, create, and edit sounds to the art and animation of the game. Little, very detailed picture: creating the actual sounds is usually one of the smaller aspects of our job. We are meeting with other departments, like design, animation, and VFX, to understand the overall vision of new game features and how we can fit in sonically. We are meeting with each other to make sure all our new content still keeps the very fun and quirky vibe of the Sims. We come up with new tools and implementation where necessary.

Conor: What sort of things go into the creative process for creating audio?

Briana: Every audio artist/sound designer has their own creative process, but I like to make a “sonic mood board” of sorts. I typically like to have a good idea of what I want something to sound like in my head before I record or edit it, so it’s nice to have sound effects or music to refer to that represents my original inspiration or ideas. When I was in college, I would make Spotify playlists for whatever I was working on. I would listen to them once a day, adding and editing as necessary, so when I actually got to work, I was in the right headspace. Now I’m usually less formal about this sort of stuff, but for this pack, I would refer back to things like Vincent Price’s demonic laugh from Thriller or Casper the Friendly Ghost Cartoons and the looping soundtrack from the queue of a horror ride at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Ghost Blasters)

Conor: What were you most excited to work on for this pack?

Briana: Definitely all the haunted house sounds! Good sound design is the crux of so many horror movies and video games, so even if we were keeping things more “Casper” and less “Poltergeist,” I still wanted to give a good scare here and there. I actually scared myself one day while playtesting another feature in the game!

Conor: If you had to choose, what is your favorite audio clip you’ve ever added to The Sims 4?

Briana: I would say my favorite SFX were the sports arena loops in EP08: Discover University. When you visit the arena for the soccer/esports match or graduation, you can actually listen to the whole game or ceremony. It was great to craft a whole story from start to finish using just sound. I also snuck in a lot of developer names when writing the scripts for our voice actors.

Thanks, Briana!

More To Come!

That about covers this first foray into the Paranormal Stuff Pack! This pack has been a ton of fun to work on, and watching my Sims flee in terror has been more enjoyable than I’d like to admit.

Next blog, we’ll focus on the Séance Table and developing your Medium skill, as well as the new active freelance career Paranormal Investigator.

Big thanks to the Stuff Pack team for helping this pack come to life, and thank you, Doctor Ashley, for building our featured Haunted House!

Until next time, SimGuruConor

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 paranormal #stuff pack

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roseyful · 4 years ago

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Mars Red: Edge of the Nightmare - Review

Now, my Tumblr has been a bit quiet lately (been queuing a lot of things so then it wasn’t too quiet during my absence), but it has been for a good reason; last month I was approached [on my private twitter account] and asked if I would be able to playtest a game and write a review, and of course, being someone that enjoys games, especially those that follow an otome style, I had to say YES.

So its proud to say that after a while of playing the game, I finally get to write this review.

Now before I get into the game itself, I would like to take the moment to give appreciation to the team for being so helpful during my time of playtesting the game and before that, as not only would they let us know when there was an issue and the date had to be pushed back, they were so polite and helpful whenever I would run into a problem. That’s something you’d want to see in a gaming company and I’m so glad that my first experience with this company is one with positive results. I personally found no issues with the team themselves, and I do hope they keep this up after the release. Thank you favary for being so lovely and patient with me, and other beta testers.

Mars Red: Edge of The Nightmare was the game that they asked for me to play, however when I originally looked at their website, I couldn’t help but notice that the concept was originally one of a ‘Sound Theatre’, and while I couldn’t figure out what that was, I eventually was lead down a rabbit hole and ended up looking at the other things that Bun-O Fujisawa has worked in. Very interesting stuff, just like the game. However, it’s best to look at his other stuff in your own time.

Please note: I will be keeping this spoiler-free for the sake of letting people go in with no idea of what’s going on besides what I mention and on the website.

Story

The game is set in the early twentieth century in Japan, or better known as the Taisho, in which the website also says ‘[is] influenced by Romanticism’, in which vampires rule the night, as they could only feed off blood and those that stepped into the sun would surely die. Keen senses, incredible physical abilities, and yet they were still vulnerable. You see that very early on with the main character that we play as; Yutsufusa Yuki, a vampire whom became one against his will.

I will be honest, I did not like Yutsufusa when I first started playing, as I felt like he was a bit too willing to die, but that is something that you can overlook when you get further into the story. Yutsufusa is obviously one of the youngest in the group, due to the fact he wears the more ‘modern’ [at the time] clothing out of everyone, well, there is someone else who wears similar clothing but he’s human.

You control Yutsufusa throughout the game, influencing his voices and living his life through his eyes, him acting as the reader insert as you learn about the other characters and begin to grow a bond with them. While the story is a bit slow at first, it does start picking up around the middle-end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2 after you play the prologue, as you begin to assist “Code Zero” in their work to rid the world of vampires that wish to feast on humans..

Be mindful that there is an anime, however, Yutsufusa does not appear in it, as it focuses on the other main characters, so if you have watched the anime already be sure to remember that they’re either two separate timelines or different points in time. I do not want to confuse anyone with this.

The main cast is quite an interesting bunch, as it covers a wide range of personalities, and sometimes even time periods as you play through the game and unlock things; you might say you might learn a bit of history from it if you end up looking up some of the references I’ve found in the game. This is a great reflection on the idea of ‘immortality, and even has moments where said immortality leans into a few jokes (such as knowledge of birds).

If you’ve played games such as ‘Ikemen Revolution’, you may be familiar with the ticket system. Every day you’re allowed a certain amount of tickets to progress through the story, however, if you run out of tickets and you must read more, then you’re able to progress the story via using ‘amber’, the game’s currency that you can use for different functions. However, this is not needed, as every day your tickets will be replenished. I personally found myself not even needing to use my amber, as I would always wait for the next day. There are mini-stories that you can get if you finish a chapter within a certain amount of time, but I personally don’t find them to progress the story a lot after I read the first one I got. Then again I had other things to occupy my time while I wanted as well. If you wish to reread chapters, you get a bonus third option of currency; coins. Coins can be used to reread chapters in the place of amber or tickets, which means that you can grind out coins via the exploration option in order to see more options (looked at a bit later).

I personally found the story to be engaging, between the use of minigames (or investigations, covered a bit later), it broke up the reading with fun activities that progressed the story.

Is the game an Otome?

No! I was shocked as well when I saw the all-male cast since I was wondering if I was playing a boys love game, but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this is actually a detective game. While it may carry the usual look of an otome, with the story and choices of how you speak influencing the endings of chapters, the game more feels like one of finding new friends and solving kick-ass investigations than finding romance. It’s refreshing.

This is especially true between the minigames in which helps influence the story that is all very unique in their own way and do not seem repetitive once you get into the flow of how they work.

Minigames

The minigames come forward in two forms; investigation, interrogation, and infer. Investigation sounds exactly how you’d expect, as you have to poke around and look at things, which you can review in a little notebook that sits in the top right of your screen in the case you need to review what you’ve looked at. When I was first launched into this section for the first time, I had a little trouble remembering exactly what I needed to look at (as I was given a set of things to tap), however, I do have to thank the team for thinking ahead and adding the option to be able to watch ads in order to see what you need to do. This was one of the two times I’d have to watch ads, as they don’t shove them in your face every few seconds like most mobile games do which is rather nice. Sometimes you gain information or items that you have to use later, so it’s a good idea to keep track of what you look at.

Interrogation acts as a question-based information gathering, in which you talk to NPCs in order to gather information to use in the investigation. Like Investigation, these points are put into your notebook for later.

Infer takes the first two investigation segments and combines the information, as you now get interrogated by one of the main characters, and you must respond back with the proper information in order to make sure that this segment is successful. You are able to read back on the notes from the other segments at this point by pressing the button with the book icon in the upper right corner, as this aids you in selecting the right answers. When I first came to this section, I did feel under pressure due to it, but it was interesting to see the negative answers from the character if I got it wrong.

Exploration is another part of the game, that while outside the story, there are parts that require a certain amount of story points in order to clear ‘point blocks’. This is where you get the coins from and frankly is good to use once you have finished using all your tickets for the day and want to use the rest of the time to grind coins. During the exploration, you set up 2 characters, a place, and a set [in real life] time of how long you want them to be out and about. Depending on the number of points earned, you may earn something called a ‘mummer’, which reveals more about the characters you chose to send out, and even get dialogue of the characters interactions (which can be pretty funny in itself) that shows the dynamic of the two characters- are they friends? Are things tense? You get to learn more by sending them out together.

Artstyle

As an artist, I was incredibly pleased with the art of the game, as the characters do not look the game, there are different body types and ages (from teen to elder), you never had to look at the same face twice for two characters. I will be honest, I do wish the characters were a bit more ‘animated’ with their expressions (such as body movement when they’re feeling certain emotions), however other than that, the sprites are magnificent.

The backgrounds are also really interesting to look at and even tell so much story before you even start investigating within the investigation sections. The design team also needs props, because while a few characters are wearing similar outfits, they’re all wearing them in different ways which shows their character and even the way they probably fight. Though I will say I am a bit biased towards Takeuchi, then again, I really enjoy fun and loud characters in general, and his hair is interesting in a sea of mostly black, purple, silver or blonde hair. Maybe will make a fanart of him in the future if I learn to draw his eyepiece. (on that note, please release the full sprites for us artists to reference, we’d love you eternally for it haha).

Oh no, it’s a-

Yes, its a bit of a gacha game, however, you do not need to actually play the gachas in order to progress through the game; it mostly just unlocks bits of story for those that want to have extra stories, or just want that extra dose of dopamine (haha, me). As someone who plays gacha games ever since they turned 13, I was glad that this game isn’t actually gacha centric, and thus is very free-to-play friendly due to this.

Who would I recommend this for and would I recommend it myself?

Personally, I think this is a game that suits the niche of those that enjoy a good mystery and even play those ‘find an item’ games, mixed in with those that enjoy reading otomes and history. Maybe even someone that enjoys theatre since there’s a character that does theatre. Would I personally recommend it? Yes, I would. The game is very interesting and engaging, the staff behind the game are so lovely.

Once more, here’s the game’s website link ❤️: https://marsred-game.net/en/

#Mars Red #Mars Red: Edge of The Nightmare #otome #game review #otome review #mobile game #mobile otome

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leam1983 · 4 years ago

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On Early Reviews

Hey guys, guess what? Humans made Cyberpunk 2077. Failible humans who did their best and admittedly succumbed to the false security offered by crunch time made Cyberpunk 2077. Reviews, consequently, are all over the goddamn place.

For some, it should’ve been delayed another month, seeing as catching T-posing characters or aggressive collision detection issues with a level’s local geometry is grounds for sheer dismissal. To others, the game is virtually perfect and those tiny niggles are bound to be ironed out by a succession of patches. Anyone who knows how seriously CDPR’s been supporting The Witcher III knows that CP2077 is in for several years of incremental refinements.

Most adequately stress that this remains a CRPG and a CDPR game through and through, so you won’t be able to live out your Posthuman Call of Duty fantasies unless you heavily invest in the Body stat. If you’re attuned for gunplay specifically, the action feels competently-directed. It won’t blow dedicated shooters out of the proverbial block, but it’s apparently serviceable. That means no Bloodlines or Alpha Protocol-related jank, at least, in that headshots apparently seem to work like you’d expect. Again, that’s if you’re specced for it. If you work primarily as a Stealth build and a hacker, chances are you’ll need more than a few rounds to the noggin for, um, aggressive cessation of hostilities by way of termination of all life signals to take place.

They also praise how lived-in Night City feels. Named NPCs are closer to Geralt’s companions in misfortune than Bethesda or Obsidian’s talking heads, in that they’ll walk around nearby spaces and direct their attention elsewhere while carrying a conversation. You can do very much the same and take in your surroundings while giving your vis-à-vis no obvious visual cues of your attention. Do that, though, and you’ll miss a ton of small, lifelike details peppered in each conversation’s custom animations.

On the other hand, I’d seriously expect a mod to come out to remove the convo system’s timer. It’s more of a personal niggle than a qualitative one, but I’ve always liked spending time to weigh my options in an RPG, even if it breaks the immersion factor provided by an organic, flowing conversation. On the other hand, saying nothing is always an option, apparently. At least one reviewer mentioned that staying mum in a crucial quest-related event saved their bacon, so being the more laconic type can be a valid approach.

The game’s marketing also feels a bit mismatched to the actual tone of the game, judging by a few pieces, as you aren’t going to find yourself launched into dozens of hours of nihilistic excess from the get-go. As ever, CD Projekt Red’s peppered Night City with quests that greatly vary in tone and setting, from the relatively dour and self-contained main quest to more gonzo offerings. You’ll quickly find out that being a mercenary doesn’t always net you glamorous jobs. If a client’s got the Eddies for it, you might be called to smooth things out in their personal lives after a bit of a Red Light District SNAFU, or you could earn a paycheck for sitting down and discussing matters with someone else. There’s plenty of quiet and reflective moments and, as you’d expect, Cyberpunk sort of wants to wag its chin along themes of Transhumanism, free choice, social control or corporate ideologies. Some moments burn bright, others are a slow sizzle - the whole of it compressed to a manageable fraction of the nearly-infinite playtimes of other offerings. CDPR apparently held playtests that showed them that The Witcher III’s questlines make for an experience that’s needlessly long. Here, the same density is to be expected, compressed down to a fraction of the total playtime.

Safe to say, this’ll be a fairly easy one to hundred-percent. Don’t mistake that as a sign that it’ll be short, however. One reviewer mainlined the main quest and effectively ended the game in thirty hours, but Night City remains open to you after the credits roll. Moreover, different endings can play out depending on what you prioritize at different points and depending on how close you remain to your starting Lifepath - or how far you drift from it.

On the hardware side of things, however; remember that reviewers typically have no problems with accessing whatever hardware it is they need. The hoi polloi might be unable to nab an RTX 3080 without selling ill-gotten body parts to do so, but reviewers get easy access to current top-tier and mid-range hardware. Even then, Cyberpunk remains a taxing experience, so that even machines that can manage the Low preset for ray-tracing default to 30 FPS while it’s on. From what I can read, the game doesn’t look too different if you choose not to enable ray-tracing. Moreover, it earns you a lot of free frames back. If you’re like me and can count yourself lucky to have purchased a 2080 Super, you’ll maybe want to skip out on Unca’ Jensen’s RTX ON rigamarole. From what I’ve seen, it’ll still look gorgeous - trust me.

Of course, none of that bodes especially well for the Vanilla PS4 version of the game. Most of the abovementioned issues were addressed in mid-review partial patches, with the motherlode being reserved for this Wednesday. As said earlier, other patches are likely to be on offer. If you expected smooth sailing from Day One - and especially if this is a sine qua non for you - you’re probably better off setting yourself an arbitrary six-month delay.

And now, we play the waiting game - for the last time. Odds are the next piece I’ll write on here will be a collection of actual, personal impressions, followed by a review somewhere down the line.

#cyberpunk 2077 #not a review #condensing the press circuit #haven't played it yet #don't quote me

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spacezeta · 5 years ago

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Devlog - About cameras

So! Let’s talk about cameras for a second. Or just let me ramble about it for a little while.

Honestly none of this is probably new and my guess is people who have tried to replicate the way cameras worked in PS1-PS2 era games probably went through similar shenanigans as I did, but this was a fun way to write down the process of getting the camera system working, but like, in a short, there-are-other-things-I-should-be-doing kind of way. And it’s still too long!

Ever since we decided that Observo would be styled after classic PS2 games like the Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Fatal Frame series, one thing was pretty clear from the get go: the use of fixed cameras. That was a no-brainer, because when you think ‘classic horror games’ the fixed camera angles almost immediately come to mind. Building the system of camera switching was actually fairly easy: when the player enters a trigger area, switch to that area’s camera (there are a few more complexities to that, but that’s the gist of it).

The first challenge had actually to do with the player’s movement rather than the cameras themselves. After eliminating the use of tank-like controls that, sure, it’s retro, but it’s also a pain to actually play with, I went with a normal movement approach: the player presses up and the character moves forward... according to the perspective of the camera. I feel like it should be pretty obvious now where the problem was.

Because when you switch camera angles drastically, the direction that used to be forward can suddenly become the right, or left, or backwards, and suddenly the character will do a 180 as if he’d just spotted an acquaintance in public he really doesn’t want to talk to and then decided to run away really fast. And he may or may not end up switching back to the previous camera angle and backwards is now forwards and does another 180 and then back to the second camera angle and so on and so forth and it’s just generally not a fun thing to happen.

So the solution here would either be a: making sure there are no drastic changes of perspective between two close cameras which may be tricky if the map isn’t just a straight corridor, or b: when the camera switch happens, the direction the character is moving doesn’t immediately change. In the end I ended doing both because there’s no perfect solution I guess maybe? *shrugs*

I got the idea from the Fatal Frame series because I distinctly remember the game doing something similar which basically amounts to this:

- The direction in which the character moves depends on the camera’s perspective, so the active camera will dictate what’s forward, backward, left and right

but also

- When the camera changes, as long as the player continues pressing in the same direction (there’s no change in either input axis of movement), the character will continue moving in the direction they were previously going until the player changes the directional input (e.g., the player was pressing forward and then pressed right - changed direction), and from then on the new camera will be used to determine directions.

And that’s basically it! So for a long time the only cameras used in the game were fixed cameras, sometimes fixed cameras that would rotate to follow the character but otherwise stay in place. Things still felt a little clunky, though, especially in bigger and more open areas. So that’s where a follow type camera came in and boy oh boy, that was a tricky one to get right.

I’m not talking about a follow camera like we have today where the player has free range to rotate the camera whenever they please, but a camera that just follows the player without actually giving them the power to rotate it and look at things. Because the player is naught but a powerless little pawn in my hands!!! Bwahaha?

Anyway. So this time I looked at Silent Hill (mostly 2) for reference, because it has those large street areas that you can walk around, with the camera following behind the character but also feeling like the camera is sort of on a rail system.

So for this I decided to use UE4′s spline component, but not to attach the camera to it like an on-rail system, but to get the closest point to it for the camera (that’s attached to the player character with a spring arm) to point towards it. There was a lot of fiddling with it (a lot) so I’ll spare anyone who’s still reading this at this point (though if anyone wants to hear about it feel free to ask, haha). But basically the two key things that took a lot of figuring out but that ultimately made the camera feel much better to use were these:

- Keeping the camera at the player’s back to let the player see what’s in front of them, albeit with a slight delay as a design choice (so that the camera wouldn’t jump around when the player abruptly changes direction) and a stylistic choice (if the player turns a corner they won’t immediately see what’s in front of them ohohoho could it be a monster?? Who knows! You gotta wait a couple of seconds to see).

but also

- Letting the player run backwards without flipping the camera around (so that the camera would stay looking at what’s behind the player character when they turn around) for if and when, say, they were being chased... by something. This took a lot of figuring out (again, a lot) until the simplest solution hit me in the head which basically amounted to if the vertical input is -1 and horizontal is 0, don’t rotate the camera. There you go. And I spent so long trying to figure out angles and shit. All that time wasted. Sigh.

(yes it’s the first gif again. But now with context!)

And even with all this I’m still not 100% sure about the follow camera, I need to playtest it a lot still.

Anyway, I was planning to talk about combat in this devlog too but this ended up way too long oh gosh. Next time though!

#game development #indie game #gamedev #game dev #devlog #observo #updates

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steve0discusses · 6 years ago

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Yugioh S3 Ep 35: Seto and Yugi’s Excellent Adventure

Ah, I’m back from a long trip--I will actually leave on another trip (shorter this time) next week so don’t think this update will mean the timely updates are back haha, they ain’t. But, on this excursions (not really a vacation at all--vacation is next week) I had a hell ton of Netfix and Hulu on in the background and you know what? Lets watch some more. I’m tired as hell. I just want to do something that requires little thought and has nothing to do with anything, but feels like progress for some reason, and that’s what watching a TV series is. So satisfying to click “next.”

Now last we left off, because it’s been kind of a while, we were on somewhat a cliffhanger. I say “somewhat” only because it’s during a card game and it only involves either or Yugi or Kaiba winning and I......don’t think it’s going to be Kaiba. But, if it were, it would honestly not change the outcome of Marik getting roasted. Marik who only wins by putting people in comas and like...electrocuting them or setting them on fire. I feel like Seto is immune to all of those things, especially since the shoulder pads on that coat have to be an insulator from both electricity and fire.

That and like...what’s Marik going to do, use the rod on Kaiba? Like Kaiba kind of owns that thing so would it even work? It can’t work on Kaiba, right? Kaiba’s kind of a shoe-in for beating Marik but I just...I don’t think the show will go that direction since they really want us to side with Yugi in this fight. Or, if it does, it would only do it during the last second. I guess we will see.

During this time, Seto admits for the first and probably last time that he maybe did not do enough playtesting of this card game.

Since these two God Cards decided to arm wrestle, it for some reason triggered a...weird response. Because once, Like Godzilla and Ghidora, a long time ago, these two had a heated arm wrestle battle and destroyed a hell ton of stuff. This time they do an arm wrestle and...it just kinda makes people trip out for a little while. They’ve grown more gentle over time.

(read more under the cut)

So Marik says that Seto is triggering the Millennium rod...which he has done completely by accident once before, but he doesn’t really say why. Like yes, Seto is a reincarnation of the earlier dude that owned this rod and killed the Pharaoh but...what is currently causing this rod to trigger?

Both times this rod was triggered was during a duel, but both times were at a point where Seto was only in danger of playing cards in a match where there are really no stakes for him. Maybe he perceives stakes but like...what’s the worst that Yugi’s going to do? Seto is fine.

But, maybe it just has to do with the vicinity of Seto to this weird rod? That maybe if he plays cards at any point within 100 ft of this thing, he will absolutely hallucinate? I mean, earlier in the season, he was playing cards in a VR realm which had no rod around.

Which...the VR world somehow had less hallucinating than when playing cards in the real world when it comes to Seto Kaiba. Wild.

But just go with it, Seto can occasionally sync with this thing. I don’t know why he does it, he doesn’t know why he does it, he just does it, and whenever he does, he hallucinates weird experiences of his past self, a dude that Seto refuses to accept is himself and hoo boy--I don’t blame him, that guys is the only mess in history who is more of a mess than the current day Seto. (and I only say that because I haven’t yet learned of whatever the hell was going on with Bakura)

This whole hallucination problem Seto has is kind of funny, since the Millennium Puzzle syncs with Yugi all the time and they have had absolutely no hallucinations of Pharaoh’s past life. Not once. Although that would have been super helpful. In fact, this is the first time in my memory that Yugi’s going to get to see the past, and it’s because he’s accidentally piggy-backing off of one of Seto’s acid trips. Like a secondhand high but with exposition.

I’ll give them credit, this was a really sweet level in Mario Odyssey.

They use all 10 of their remaining brain cells left over after 3-4 straight days of card trauma and very, very, very, very slowly start putting it all together.

And so we finally get a glimpse of Pharaoh’s realm, which is...kinda small? But I mean it was the past, there weren’t many people alive yet and it takes a long time to draw buildings so we’ll just...kind of assume there’s a lot of orchards off screen maybe? Maybe people just kind of commuted into the capital but didn’t really live there, like Sacramento.

I also get the vibe that this whole city now exists on some other plane, like maybe the whole city got shadow realmed and it murdered everyone who was originally here? Because there’s no people in this town. Maybe they all got offscreen murdered before Seto and Yugi showed up, but, I have a weird feeling that this won’t...reallllllly ever get addressed. I don’t know how 4kids would handle about 10,000 deaths. Although my Yugioh Death Count tracker would absolutely love that.

But hey, we can fly now. We can fly and make random observations to solve this riddle of “where are we? With the pyramids and sand and stuff?”

And that’s when I get to fully see what past Seto looked like and y’all.

This is a LOOK.

Like, there’s a lot of really bad looks in Yugioh, but this is...a LOOK.

Maybe worst look so far, even worse than Yugi’s emo jumpsuit date outfit that had 6 clashing chunky bangles. I love it.

Oh boy I take like a month break and come back to just a REAL look.

Also, it’s a look so truly bad that that he forced his entire four-person army to also don the dark magician shaped gnome hat. The dedication to purple gnome hats. I can’t believe that the Seto fashion we have now is the upgraded version, I can’t believe this was Seto Beta.

Also...kind of weird that his hat shape is a reference to dark magician. I thought that was Yugi’s thing. But youknow...that’s he hat he chose. This is the hat.

Meanwhile, past Seto and past Pharaoh are fighting some mehhhh DnD campaign. It has a Dark One in it although they kinda forgot about him in the same scene they bring him up. Much like any show that has a villain named Dark One in it. It kind of feels like a placeholder villain name that writers forget to remove.

I would pay more attention to all of that if it weren’t for the just...insane outfits these two are wearing.

And so, just before we found out what the hell ever happened to Pharaoh’s body and like...any of that nonsense, Seto has decided for once in his life that it is time he stopped hallucinating and return to the real world.

Bear in mind, that they have no idea that every TV this was broadcasted on exploded, and so, for all they know, their trip-out is being broadcasted on every TV in Domino. Yugi screaming to Kaiba that he killed him, was something Yugi was pretty sure all of Domino got to see.

And for some reason the God Cards are no longer active. No reason. Don’t think about it. Mokuba noticed, but no one pays much attention to Mokuba unless he’s abducted.

Reminder that we just saw that the last time those God cards were activated against eachother, an entire city was swept into the Shadow Realm and everyone totally died...but this time they just kinda cancelled eachother out? Eh...it’s a kid’s show.

Bro brings up that maybe the God cards looked around at this deserted island and were like “We don’t really want these four guys and Joey Wheeler’s Soul, peace.” and freaking left.

Oh Marik, the only one on this show who would be threatened if Seto found out that Seto is a wizard. I don’t think it would really phase anyone else here if Seto was just suddenly magic. Yugi wouldn’t even blink. Joey probably assumes everyone but Joey is a wizard at this point.

And so Kaiba decides to just ignore everyone and finish his job so he can finally go home, I guess.

Bro brings up that he loves how when Yugi talks, this tablet comes back into fame, but when Seto talks, it kind of just goes away.

And here’s the kicker. Here’s the thing that actually surprised me.

This duel still isn’t over yet???

OK I guess???

So uh...I’m going to leave you on yet...another cliffhanger haha, unless I finish another of these before next weekend, which...I might, I might not.

Anyway, if you just got here, you can start here on Ep 1 S1 and watch my whole journey of watching the entirety of Original Yugioh knowing basically nothing about OG Yugioh. And Season Zero as well, I guess.

#Yugioh #yugioh recap #episode recap #photo recap #Yugi muto #seto kaiba #seto kaiba's bad fashion #or really good fashion depending #marik ishtar #S3 ep 35

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atomicgm · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on the Pathfinder Playtest

So I had the opportunity to play a game at GenCon this year, specifically the Raiders of Shrieking Peak. There were six at the table; myself, two friends, and three strangers. The strangers were all nooblets. It sounded like this was their first role playing session, ever. The rest of us were experienced gamers and dove in to the system pretty quick. I played a Sorcerer, my wife a Rogue, and my friend an Alchemist. We were all 5th level.

So immediately, the changes to the action system were the biggest thing I noticed. Instead of Swift, Standard, and Move actions, plus attacks of opportunity, p2 (that’s what I’m calling it from now on) just has 3 actions and a reaction. What this means is, anyone can effectively move as a swift action. Or attack, even. If you use multiple actions to attack, successive attacks take a penalty that should seem familiar; -5 for the second, and -10 for the third. That’s right, you can now make 3 swing full-attack-actions from 1st level. That’s kind of neat.

The alchemist hardly did anything, so I can’t much comment there. The Rogue, however, managed to take advantage of the new action system to establish flanking constantly. Martials have way more flexibility than before, flitting across the battlefield and flexing their actions. I am reminded of the Fatigue mechanic of the boardgame Descent, where you would spend an action to effectively store individual squares of movement for later use. This means you’re more likely to make base-to-base contact for melee or have that extra square of move to see around the corner.

Moving on, the Rogue also enjoyed the total lack of attacks of opportunity. That’s right, the ubiquitous attack of opportunity is now a Fighter-only ability. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this at first. I loved the “mark” mechanics of 4th edition DnD and was hoping for something similar in p2. I had never considered they would use negative design space to achieve this. By limiting attacks of opportunity to the Fighter, they have successfully made the fighter sticky without writing a single new mechanic. The side effect is fights are far more mobile without the fear of reprisal. Combatants engage in running battles, taking advantage of positioning far more easily than before. My only concern is that making your full attack routine take 3 actions, players are still discouraged from moving on some level. I had always wanted a standard action to give me my full attack routine.

That third attack is at a -10 penalty, and I was worried when I heard about critical failures. See, they changed the critical mechanic. Roll 10 above and you score a critical hit (side note: good bye variable critical threat ranges). Roll 10 below and you critically fail. Thankfully, attacking does not carry a penalty for critical failures. We did see some critical successes written into the playtest though, and I felt compelled to try to overkill rolls in the information gathering section of the adventure.

Speaking of, I had heard that adventuring was broken into different “segments” or “pillars”. We saw some of this with an early exploration phase, where we investigated a missing caravan by asking around town using skill checks. Different skill checks returned different info, and critical successes returned especially useful facts about the coming battles. The new Society skill seemed especially useful; I believe it was roughly equivalent to Knowledge (Local), but it came up frequently when learning about civilizations.

I guess I should finish off with my personal experience of playing the Sorcerer in the party. I was told you can cast multiple spells per turn now using the three-action mechanic and got very excited. I saw that the actions are now tied to spell components, with an action required for somatic, verbal, or material components in a spell. Now, most spells in p1 require two or more of those, you might say.

Yes. Yes they do.

In one of the most frustrating design decisions I’ve seen so far, all spells I had save one (a defensive cantrip) used two actions on casting. While my companions ran all over the place, double attacking beasts left and right like blenders with their swift-turned-standard-action, all my spells now cost my swift action as well. Half the time I couldn’t make range on my targets with short range spells, and the other half I was busy concentrating on one spell while casting another, so I couldn’t even take a five-foot step (Step is an action now). Big spells taking two actions would have been acceptable, but nearly every spell that I saw used two actions.

Other side not, I tried to ready a spell, but the ready action requires two actions to ready a single action, and I didn’t have any one action spells to use with the ready action, so I couldn’t ready anything. Action. Side note: How do we distinguish between “action” the thing that consumes my actions and “action” the currency I use to pay for those actions? Like, does Ready mean I can prepare an action that requires two action “points” because it’s one “action”? Can I spend two points to prepare an action that costs three points? Should we just change the names, so you pay for Moves using Actions? Are we just going to leave this a confusing mess?

Blarg. I was having such fun up ‘til this point, too. Next time, I’ll dig into the book and we’ll see what else I can learn.

#Pathfinder Playtest #dungeons and dragons #trpg #paizo #game design #Pathfinder #pathfinder 2nd edition

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term7itmedia · 5 years ago

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Reflection 24/03/2020: Middle Stages

So, here we are in the middle stages of the FMP, or as I call it, the TFMP. Here, I’m going to reflect on what I have done so far, and what I’m going to do in the next 6 weeks. While that may not be a lot of time, I’ll do my best to do as much as possible.

Week 1 - 03/02/2020 - Start

It all began with what everything starts out as... an idea. I started out doing some concept art, which is not one of my best features, but I gave it a shot anyway as I was going to have to make some at some point, because I wanted to.

Here is the concept art for my main character. The name in the top left “Darohn Terlex” is just a random name I came up with by combining multiple names together (Darren, John, Terry and Alex). I did this because I couldn’t think of a suitable name for my character who both has a male and female variant, as seen in the picture above.

But how about the actual design of it? Firstly, I chose to focus on an outfit style. I had ten in mind, five for both male and female individually. Each of them follow a different outfit (and hair style) that is worn by that, or both gender(s), excluding the headsets.

While the headset styles were wildly random ones I have thought of with no inspiration or facts, I chose to stick with the first one (Virtual Reality) as it is more realistic than the other ones. Like... have you ever seen anyone wear a headset that looks like a pair of bog-standard glasses? ...me neither.

As for colour schemes, I chose to stick with the grey, red and black one I mentioned in my Colour Schemes post. I have added those colours to the concept art, which is not a thing people normally do as concept art is mostly outlines and rough sketches. More on that in an upcoming post.

Week 2 - 10/02/2020 - Creating the character + base game logic

Creating the character in Adobe Photoshop proved to be tricky at times. Mostly because I didn’t know what outfit to pick. I chose to go with the Fashion style for the male character, and a mix of Summer and Fashion for the female. I have chosen to do this because I liked both designs, but didn’t feel comfortable with using just one. That, and I felt it was more appropriate.

As you can see, in the concept art, the character is wearing boots, while in the sprites, they’re barefoot. This is because I was originally going to give them jet-boots in the game, but decided to go with a more advanced approach instead, as I’m using this time to expand upon my skills. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep them barefoot. I’ll probably give them basic shoes or something, but it all depends on if I feel like it or not.

After the characters were finished, I took to the game. This allowed me to experiment with animations and sound effects. During this time, I was using placeholder sound effects that were dumped from a video game called Undertale (more info on that in posts mentioning it), which I quickly removed shortly afterwards.

Unfortunately, I came down with an dizzy illness near the end of the week, causing me to feel dreadful throughout the majority of February half-term, unable to work on anything. I recovered just before the next week started, though.

Week 3 - 23/02/2020 - Enemy intelligence

What is a game without intelligence... ARTIFICIAL intelligence. Okay, granted, it is not programmed intelligence that lets a virtual being learn as things goes, it’s just hard-coded intelligence (meaning it cannot be edited without editing the source files).

During this time, I got to work on the first level of the game. While doing that, I also got to work on the parallax background (learn more about that in my 2.5D Platforming post).

You can also see that I have implemented a pie chart. But not just any pie chart... a life pie chart!

Basically, this pie chart is the artistic way of telling the player how many hits they can take before dying. More info on that in an upcoming post. Alongside the pie chart, there is a semi-transparent shape at the bottom of the screen with text on it. That is the game’s way of guiding you through what to do. It has been programmed to show for 6 seconds, after which it goes completely transparent, hidden from view.

You’re probably wondering how I keep track of every detail I have implemented... that is because I have been taking videos and screenshots of development! I won’t share any footage yet, but here is a picture of every video I have taken (as of 16/03/2020).

As you can see, I have captured over 13 hours of footage! I actually have over 17 hours now, as some of it has been recorded recently but isn’t shown in this image. I am not uploading these raw, but I will provide a link to an unlisted playlist on YouTube with these videos in, except for #5, which dragged on for too long. I’m putting all of these raw videos into an hour long time-lapse so you can see how this game was made from the ground up if these screenshots aren’t enough for you.

Week 4 was mostly bug fixes, I’ll post a video here when I have created it, and as such this section will be edited.

Week 5 to 6 - 09/03/2020 to 16/03/2020 - Sound design and playtesting

youtube

This video goes over what program I used to create the sounds. Adding them to the game wasn’t hard, as I knew exactly how to add sounds and trigger them to play on demand at random intervals.

The source code needed to play the sound isn’t hard to understand when looked at, but since I’m not posting source code online (apart from small extracts in images I’m posting here), I’m pointing out what does what, since you probably don’t understand source code anyway.

The Break... Out

As you’re probably already aware, the UK became part of a pandemic called the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, which affected over 5,000 people in less than a month. To contain the spread of the virus, all schools, colleges and universities had to shut... including mine. I picked up everything digital and stored it online via Google Drive (except for the timelapse video, which I exported then uploaded it in private to YouTube for me to download it later on so I can still edit it), YouTube and GitHub (which is a development platform that I can upload and download my source code from), seeing as we may not be back in college until the summer holidays... which would be too late to do anything.

Now that I’m stuck in my house for goodness knows how long, I can still work on my project with ease seeing as I have a powerful computer to deal with the situation, as well as having all the software I use at college, which has been made free for students by the software developers so that we can temporarily work with them during this difficult time without having to pay a penny.

Soon, I will have my time-lapse video ready, as well as a full playthrough (and download link) of the game when it is finished. Keep an eye out as I will have more development posts coming soon.

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wbgammaterra · 6 years ago

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Gamma World 8 Playtest (Part 3)

((Re-upload for tumblr censorship))

DM: So last thing that happened was Loni had sex with the badger babe. I’m not sure what Serana was doing during that though.

Serana: She was just sort of.. waiting really, thinking to herself.

DM: Okay so after all of that the badger gives Loni a kiss and says “Thank you for saving my daughter by the way,” then allows you to wait there in her shack until nightfall when it will be easier to get around.

Loni relaxes next to Serana and smiles contentedly.

Serana: “You’re welcome… I simply did what was right.”

DM: Alright so you are waiting in the shack until after dark unless your plans have changed. While you wait the badger informs you her name is Britannia and Sticks came home and told her what happened after the guards ushered her into the homestead, so she rushed out to find you and hopefully keep you from getting killed. It’s night now so you can go ahead with whatever you want.

Loni: Okay, well hopefully with her help we can make it to the cave?

Serana peers out the door watching to make sure things are clear.

DM: Britannia tells you that the entrance into the metal cave is in the ground floor of the tower down in the center and lowest level of the pit. But she warns you they have a “guard dog” in there to keep the children from wandering down into the cave. It’s probably not going to like non-badgers coming in either.

Serana: “How do you suggest we deal with it?”

Loni: “I think I can handle a dog.”

Britannia: “Be sneaky and don’t wake it?” she suggests.

Serana: “Yeah but we don’t need the entire place waking up to some mongrel barking.”

Britannia: “Oh it doesn’t bark.” Britannia smirks.

Loni: “I have a way with animals.” Loni cocks a sly smirk.

Serana: “Doesn’t bark.. when you say dog… what do you mean, EXACTLY?”

Britannia: “It’s a yexil~ Very sweet. Great with the kids.”

Loni: Nature roll. Roll(1d20)+2: 19,+2 Total:21

Serana: 22

DM: Okay you both know what a yexil is.

Loni: “Still an animal. I can handle it. And if not, I have a backup plan~”

Serana: “Alright…”

DM: I’m typing a description of what you know.

DM: They are flying predators. Sharp teeth. Laser eye beams. Known to eat people. They prize cloth, fabric, and other garments, which they also find delicious.

Loni: Great. A killer dragon moth. Okay, off we go, sneaking toward the tower?

DM: Okay. Give me stealth checks then.

Loni: Roll(1d20)+3: 13,+3 Total:16

Serana: 25

DM: Loni knocks an empty can of Bush’s Baked Beans with her foot on the way down, sending it clanking over the edge of the next ledge.

Loni finds a nice shadowy place to hide and listen for anyone coming to investigate.

Serana pushes herself against the side of the spiraling path downwards, blending in with the wall.

DM: Give me new stealth checks for that. Or if you actually put Remain Unseen on your sheet instead of adding it to stealth you can roll that instead if you want.

Serana: Okay. 20

Loni: Roll(1d20)+3: 20,+3 Total:23

DM: Okay well I rolled an 11… So a badger comes out of his shack and looks around then grumbles something about dumb kids and goes back inside.

Loni: Okay. Resuming the trek to the tower.

Serana continues down with Loni.

DM: As you make it to the bottom level of the pit where the tower is. You notice that the foot path leads right up to the door. But you also notice that just to the right of the path before you get to the tower door there is a large crater in the ground. In the dark you may not have noticed it if not for the fact that there is a green glow coming from inside it.

Loni: Animal Control.

DM: On what?

Loni: Well I’m assuming the whatsit dragon moth is hiding in the shadowy hole?

DM: You try animal control but nothing happens. You are attempting to control a hole in the ground.

Loni: Okay, well fuck me then. Moving on. Let’s check the hole in the ground then.

DM: You are approaching the crater? Both of you or just Loni?

Loni: Hm… You know what? It’s time to play my hole card.

Serana hangs back, watching.

Loni wants to find a nice, quiet, sheltered spot in the deep shadows.

DM: Okay. Done. What now?

Loni starts inflating her “friend”.

DM: Hehe~ You find a small ripcord on the Inflatable Friend and pull it. As you do it inflates in a matter of moments.

Loni: Well that’s handy.

Serana watches the hole closely.

((Enter Player 3.))

Fluttershy: The inflatable friend comes online and looks around, speaking softly. “My name is Fluttershy and I am your inflatable friend. Please register users.”

-Picture removed-

((Yes, this is what they settled on for the Inflatable Friend. I should also point out is was given to a third player to be her character. And no… No I’m not even sorry.))

Loni smiles. “Two users. Lonicera and Serana.” She gestures to Serana.

Fluttershy nods. “Ownership has been registered. How may I serve you, Mistress?”

Loni: “Go take a look into that hole over there and tell me what you see.”

Fluttershy makes her way to the glowing hole and peers in.

DM: Inside you see it is just a big hole in the ground. Looks like it may have been caused by a meteorite hitting or something like that. There is nothing in it now. The glow is coming from the ground itself. And I also need you to tell me what your Reflex is, Fluttershy.

Fluttershy: Oh um… 16.

DM: The ground around the edge starts to crumble as you get near enough to look inside but you manage to jump back before you fall in.

Fluttershy: So it’s not like a tunnel? Just a glowing dent?

DM: Yes.

Fluttershy: I go back to my mistress and report that it is a glowing crater.

Loni: Well that’s splendid but not what we’re here for. We are at the base of the tower, right?

DM: Yeah. The crater is to the right of the path just before you go in.

Serana: I send the airhead to head into the tower to see what happens.

Fluttershy: I’m happy to obey~

DM: As Fluttershy inters the tower she finds that it’s 40 foot round room with a 25 foot high ceiling. There are stairs on the far end of the room wrapping round the wall in a spiral. They lead up to the next floor of the tower and down into what you assume is the metal cave. Hanging from the ceiling you see the yexil, hanging upside down, asleep with it’s wings wrapped around itself.

Fluttershy: I motion for my mistresses to follow and be very silent.

Loni: Roll(1d20)+3: 8,+3 Total:11 stealth

DM: Okay and are the rest of you going in as well?

Serana: 26 stealth.

Loni: So that’s a yes.

DM: Loni seems to be having an off night. She steps on a loose flagstone and it makes a stone clink. The Yexil twitches and opens it’s eye, looking around the room.

Fluttershy: Quietly eeps.

Serana stays close the ground, using her claws to move quickly low to the ground, to maintain stealth.

DM: As it spots you all it lets out a roar like a big cat and spreads it’s wings, giving them a warning flap.

Fluttershy: Okay, Mister Yexil. Just calm down. We’re not here to hurt you. Be a good boy and go back to sleep.

DM: Serana is still making her way across the floor? It blasts a laser beam in front of her to stop her from moving forward.

Serana growls. “Fucker,” she says under her breath.

Loni would like to attempt hypnosis. Roll(1d20)+6: 12,+6 Total:18

DM: Okay that’s a high enough roll.

Loni: I want to convince it that it saw no intruders and it should just go back to sleep until dawn.

DM: Well… not at all how I expected that to go… but you did beat it’s Will save so okay. I guess that worked. It wraps it’s wings around itself and goes back to sleep.

Loni: “Good work, rent-a-slut. Let’s get moving.”

Fluttershy: I beam happily and follow my mistress.

Serana gets up and follows, bipedal again. “Certainly is an interesting piece of technology you have here.” She sticks her hand into the back hole of the slut. “Expanding, interesting.” She gives it a slap on the ass.

Fluttershy: Yelps and goes stiff, letting out a languid moan of pleasure.

Loni: Sure makes a handy distraction, that’s for sure.

DM: So I guess you are heading down the stairs?

Serana: Yes.

Loni: Yep.

DM: Okay give me one sec. Serana has a question about her gear and I have to look it up real quick. Should just take a moment.

Loni: No rush.

((Gear question answered.))

Serana: The crystalline spear on Serana’s back pulses with red light, flashing the corridor softly.

DM: As you go down the stairs into the first chamber of the metal cave you find yourself in some kind of facility with steel walls and floors. It’s lit by dim emergency lights. There are 3 badders in the room, sitting at a table on the left side of the room. One is slumped over the table asleep. The other two are looking at some old magazines, snickering and occasionally holding one up to show the other a picture in it. In the center of the room there is a large machine. It’s a large, round cylinder slowly spinning in two struts that hold it up. It glows slightly and gives off a humming sound. One of the struts has a control box on it. Hanging from the ceiling near the machine are several rusted bar cages that hold vacant-eyed humans.

Loni: Is Fluttershy immediately identifiable as a sex doll?

DM: Uhh… Not if you have never seen one before I guess.

Serana: So, uh.. rolling insight to see if I can identify anything else telling about the caged humans?

Loni: Is there any reason to suspect that these guys wouldn’t know what she was?

Serana: 18

DM: Well she is a pretty rare item. So chances are good they haven’t come across one before. Serana, you can see from looking at them they seem like they are in some kind of a trance or other such altered state of mind. They look totally unaware of what is going on around them.

Loni: Okay. I whisper to Fluttershy.

Serana: Science to see what the spinny doodad is.

Fluttershy: Oh um… Okay, I pull myself up to an alluring posture and walk out with my hips swaying and my cock and tits bouncing. I put a distressed look on my face. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Could you please help me? I’m a sex doll and I seem to have lost track of my owner. Oh he’ll be ever so cross with me if I’m not there to take his throbbing member.” And then um… Roll(1d20)+1: 13,+1 Total:14 interaction check to try and be as sexually alluring as possible.

Serana: 17

DM: Okay. Fluttershy, as you do this the two who are still awake drop their magazines and jump up in alarm, but once they see who is talking to them and have a moment to process what you just said, they start grinning and walking towards you calmly. “How did you get in here sweet thing?~” One asks. “Never had a thing for cock before but on something like that it doesn’t look so bad,” the other comments.

DM: Serana you are not sure what this machine is. You have never seen anything like it before. Your best guess is that it is something that merged over into that location from an alternate reality during the Big Mistake. It is totally alien to you.

Serana has to make a conscious effort not to start talking aloud about the thing, her desire to study it, very strong…

Fluttershy: I’m not sure. I got separated from my master and went looking for him. I wound up here.

Badder1: “You don’t need a master who lets a sweet thing like you get lost. Why don’t you come keep us company. Guard duty gets boring in the middle of the night.”

Badder2: “But I’m sure we can find ways to pass the time together~”

DM: The two badgers are right in front of Fluttershy now.

Fluttershy: I bite my lip and push my hips forward. “You boys will keep me company until I can go find Master in the morning?”

Badder1: “Yeah, we’ll make sure you have lots of fun~”

DM: One is giving her boobs a testing squeeze while the other is running his hand along the length of her cock.

Fluttershy shudders and gives a plaintive whine. “You’re so nice~ Thank you.”

DM: They take her by the hand and start trying to lead her away towards a small office on the side of the room. There is a door leading into it and a large wire mesh safety glass window in it. (You know… those windows made to resist being broken.)

Fluttershy: Goes along without resistance

Serana has grabbed the spear on her back, just the handle end. She’s whispering to Loni. “There’s no way we can just sneak past them, even if they’re busy. And I need to get my hands on that thing in the middle.”

Loni whispers “One is sleeping, the other two are in another room. Cakewalk.”

Serana rubs her temples. “I need time.”

DM: As they lead Fluttershy into the office they close the door so they won’t wake up their “friend” and have to share. You can see through the window they are wasting no time getting their clothes off and getting Fluttershy up on top of a desk.

Loni: “They aren’t coming out in a hurry.”

Serana: “Fine,” she says, moving towards the device.

Fluttershy: Gleefully complies with the Badders, having been told to do whatever was necessary to distract them for as long as possible.

DM: Okay Serana, this thing is huge. Think something like an alien turbine the size of a car.

Serana starts circling around, getting a better look.

DM: As you get near to the machine I need a Will save.

Serana: 31

DM: You feel it trying to effect your mind but you manage to resist it.

Serana: “Careful around this thing.. its got some sort of mental effect.”

Loni uses her um… Identify Mental Power. Roll(1d20)+3: 16,+3 Total:19

DM: Okay you draw near enough to feel just a tinge of what the machine is trying to do and realize right away that it is trying to erase your mind.

Loni: “It’s a mind eraser. Be careful.”

Serana: “Fascinating…” she says, looking for a control panel.

DM: I did say there was a control box on one of the two struts that holds it up.

Serana: How high up is it would you say? Like the struts go up how far?

DM: The struts are about 7 feet tall. I wouldn’t suggest trying to get under the spinning part, even laying on your back, unless you want to risk your clothing getting snagged by it. The control box is just below eye level.

Serana sighs. “I can’t get to the control box.”

DM: Yes you can. It’s on the side. Sorry.

Serana: Oh, okay. I thought you said it was on the struts. She moves over to the control box and looks over it to see if there’s a simple way to shut it off or anything like that.

DM: On the outside. The spinning part is held between them. Think… a rotisserie spit.

Serana: Ahh, okay.

DM: Do you want to make a check?

Serana: Sure. 21 sci

DM: You are able to figure out how to turn the machine off.

Serana: I turn it off!

Loni: Wait! Is the machine making noise?

DM: A slight humming sound.

Loni: Oh okay. Then they shouldn’t notice it shutting down through the door. Carry on.

Serana: Well, she shut it off.

DM: As the cylinder stops spilling it also stops glowing and you notice that feeling you were getting of it trying to effect your mind goes away.

Loni goes over to the sleeping guard and checks for weapons.

DM: Mace and crossbow.

Loni takes the mace and smacks him over the back of the head to make sure he doesn’t wake up and spot us.

DM: Heh~ Okay.

Loni: What are the room’s exits?

DM: Well there is the stairway you came in from. The door to the office, and on the far side of the room there is another door. And through the window you can see the other two guards are busy fucking Fluttershy and haven’t noticed you. One taking her from behind and the other with his cock shoved in her mouth. The humans in the cages still haven’t moved.

Loni: I take it their minds have been erased. “They must have been effected by that machine. They won’t make any noise. Let’s go.”

Serana: “I Shudder to think what would have happened had i not resisted it…“ She follows Loni.

Loni ignores the caged humans, gives a thumbs up to the balloon bimbo, and heads through the other door.

DM: Okay hold on one sec. I’m trying to find the XP chart to figure out how much XP you level at. Because I need to give you XP for what you’ve been doing and I’m not sure if you level up yet or not.

Loni: LOL. Okay.

DM: Have I given any XP yet? In any of the sessions?

Loni: No.

DM: Okay then.

((After a quick level up…))

Serana: "Hey, just because their seemingly brain dead now doesn’t mean we should just leave them,” she says angerly to Loni. “Promise me we see if we can help them before we leave.”

Loni rolls her eyes. “Fine. If you wanna take your pet mammals to therapy after we get the job done, be my guest.”

Serana angerly slaps Loni. “Maybe all you’re concerned about is your goddamned glorified weeds but I’m trying to make this hellhole of a wasteland a decent place for everyone, which means doing the right thing!”

Loni: “And for me the right thing is putting this dirt farm back in the control of the plants who actually know how to run the place without turning it into a radioactive sandbox.”

Serana: “You only achieved sentience after mutation. The only reason you didn’t screw things up before is because you couldn’t. You didn’t even have a brain to try,” she says, heated and full of venom.

Loni: “Maybe plants are smarter than you think, hm? Did you know there were more plants than any other type of living thing before the calamity? Or that sunflowers absorb and nullify radiation?”

Serana: “I’ve read plenty of the ancients notes on herbalism. The key isn’t to have a ruling race, its to live together. The ancients might not have been able to do it, but it doesn’t mean we can’t. And look at me! I’m a mantis. My species wasn’t any smarter before all this either. Maybe a higher majority will be plants, but we can’t just.. live in a state of cold peace if things go right.” She turns to hide her face, and the heated, sorrowful look on it.

Loni relents. “Okay, we’ll help them. But I hope it doesn’t end up getting us caught.”

Serana hugs Loni. “Thank you..” she says quietly.

Loni blinks in surprise, not used to being hugged. Fucked, sure. But not usually hugged. “We should get going. We have a mission to accomplish.”

DM: Heading through the other door?

Loni: Yes.

Serana: “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

DM: As you head through the other door you find that the other side is a real cave made of stone, not a metal building. The whole sight must have been too conflicting from one reality to the next so they merged together in some kind of hodge podge. Before you is a deep cavernous drop with a rocky outcropping that spirals downward leading below like a natural spiral staircase. You also notice there is glowing blue moss growing here and there all over the place.

Loni: Science check on the moss.

Serana inspects the moss. 24

DM: And your roll Loni?

Loni: Roll(1d20)+6: 14,+6 Total:20 plus any “I happen to be a plant” bonuses.

DM: You both know this stuff. It’s Beta Moss. A mostly harmless, radioactive moss. It also happens to be the favored food of Gamma Moths when hunting is scarce.

Loni: Is the drop dark?

DM: Yeah. The only light is coming from the moss.

Loni takes some of the moss and drops it down the hole, watching it fall to gauge the depth.

Serana: Roll… nature… to see what a gamma moth is.

DM: It appears to be a 50 foot drop. Also you take one point of low level radiation.

Loni: Do I record that somewhere?

DM: That’s not a point of damage. Just your accumulated rads or whatever they are called. And I don’t think there is a place on your sheet for that but you can make a note of it in Notes or something.

Loni: Okay.

Serana: 14 plus “I am also a bug” bonus? Giggles

DM: LOL! They are giant carnivorous moths that give off radiation.

Serana: ((Oh boy.)) “I can fly down there without danger of falling.”

Loni: “Do we have any lights? It’s very dark.”

Serana pulls her heavy flashlight out.

Loni: “Okay. Fly down and light the way for me.”

Serana flies down slowly, holding the light and shining it.

Loni: “Oh wait. I have to check something. Be right back.” Loni heads back into the other room and peeks to see if the Badders have passed out from sexing up her love doll yet.

DM: It hasn’t been that long. They are still going at it. I mean, it’s probably only been like 10 or 15 minutes in world.

Loni: Ah okay. Then Loni returns and starts hopping down the rock protrusions.

DM: Serana now that you have turned that flashlight on you hear a flutter of wings, and a moment later you spot a large moth flying right at your light.

DM: It’s easily as big as you are.

Serana makes sure that Loni has stopped before turning the flashlight off and hovering over a bit.

Loni crouches on the outcrop she stopped on.

DM: With the light turned off the moth passes by and lands somewhere on the wall.

Loni: I want to use a skill.

DM: Okay.

Loni: Roll(1d20)+4: 13,+4 Total:17 Photographic Memory. Loni wants to jump down the rocks from memory of their positions.

DM: Okay you can do that.

Loni: Okay. So Loni makes it to the bottom.

DM: Not quite yet. About half way down you come to a spot where the rocks you need to walk across are all covered in that moss. You will have to walk on it to keep going unless you can think of something else.

Loni: I can. I use Animal Control on the moth.

DM: Do you need to be able to see it to use that?

Loni: No.

DM: Tell me how you use the moth to get down.

Loni: Well it says for animal control I roll MP 4d6 L and I don’t know what that means.

DM: Mental Power. That’s what MP is.

Loni: Which translates to…

DM: Int vs Will.

Loni: So my int bonus, plus my level I guess? Plus the 4d6?

DM: Yes.

Loni: Roll(4d6)+7: 3,1,6,6,+7 Total:23

DM: You have it.

Loni: So Loni passes out and the moth flies over to the outcrop and starts eating the moss off.

DM: Alright then. So you make the moth eat the moss then continue down?

Loni: Right. After flying the moth back to where it was. Oh wait… Can the moth see in the dark?

DM: Yes.

Loni: Before I let it go, I want to use it to scout out the bottom of the pit and any tunnels leading off of it.

Serana: I just realized I could have used infervision to navigate easily.

DM: That’s just for seeing body heat Serana. You would have been able to see where the moths were at, but that’s it.

Serana: Yes and no. I mean.. technically the walls would also have radiated slightly.

DM: Okay yes. You are right.

Serana: Granted… mostly darker blue.

DM: Loni at the bottom you see a metal door in the side of the cave wall.

Loni: Can’t get the moth through that I guess. Okay, I put the moth back. And we’ll pick up again another night.

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everygame · 4 years ago

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Wasteland Remastered (PC)

Developed/Published by: inXile Entertainment Released: 25/02/2020 Completed: 09/05/2021 Completion: Finished it! Trophies / Achievements: n/a

So many weeks ago I saw this meme and I thought “oh, that’s good, that is” and I got a big hunger to play me some Fallout: New Vegas, even though I played it till I was sick to death of it in 2017. I guess it’s been a few years. Instead of doing that, I did the sensible thing and played through Wasteland Remastered, because why not finally try out the daddy of them all as the alternative would be playing Fallout 4, or Fallout 76, and I’ve heard they’re shite.

Wasteland Remastered is pretty interesting, because it’s my first time really engaging with the recent trend of remastering things but really not doing that much to them at all, which is more popular in the old RPG space with the likes of your Baldur’s Gates and that (I’d already played through Planescape Torment, so I didn’t need to revisit the enhanced edition, for example.) And when it comes to Wasteland, you’re playing something that is pretty insanely old and crusty. Ultima IV crusty.

All they’ve done here is basically throw up a sort of vaguely “board game” inspired 3D map and feed the interface through that--I’m 100% sure that the original game is just running in the background (it’s a shame you can’t flick between graphical styles like with R-Type Dimensions, or something). It doesn’t totally work, but the original game looked like shit (completely un-evocative of its setting) so it’s a big improvement.

The issue is that the game itself is, as I said, Ultima IV crusty, so it’s extremely obscure, full of weird issues, unwinnable situations and half-designed concepts that were clearly never playtested by anyone. But, much like Ultima IV, it’s interesting, it gets your imagination going to fill in the blanks, and if you are willing to cross reference a few walkthroughs… it’s actually fun? And unlike the Ultima series, which suffers the critique “sure these games were fun at the time, but they haven’t influenced much” you can see the influence of Wasteland’s open-ended design all over the shop even if you don’t count Wasteland 2 and 3.

I didn’t even mind the crusty battle system because the battles were over so quickly. The main issue, of course, other than the crust, is that like a lot of these games the ending is sort of underwhelming. It doesn’t really build to anything and the final dungeon is using some keys. There’s no exciting confrontation… But in the remaster they do a Fallout-style “here’s the effect you had on the wasteland” thing that cheered me up, so it has that.

Will I ever play it again? I won’t, but I’m almost convinced to start playing Wasteland 2 already, which is something.

Final Thought: I liked this, and I think that online walkthroughs are a bit limiting in how they tell you how to play this, so I thought I’d give you some sweet alternative tips if you’re ever going to play this:

Don’t worry about all the weird skills. You can always pick up an NPC that has the required skill if required. But do get brawling, assault rifles, perception, swim/climb etc. Though skip the other weapon abilities.

The reason to do this is because you want to try and put more points into skills like picklock, because using skills is an almighty ballache even though they eventually work. You’re not a wean anymore, and sitting pushing the macro button until you eventually unlock a door is a huge pain, so even a tiny edge can help.

But yeah, learn how to use macros. You’ll be using them unless you plan on typing things like U-1-1-7 a LOT.

And do re-roll to get 17-18 intelligence (and keep rolling till all others are above 10, honestly) because you want energy weapons for everyone at 23 so you’re stuck pushing 3 levels of upgrades into intelligence at least, never mind if you want to unlock doctor (you do.)

Don’t fill your party to 7, because you can’t disband an NPC and pick another one without losing one forever. This will be annoying if you’ve got a full party when you get to PLACE and you want to rescue CHARACTER. Plus you obviously want to get AWESOME CHARACTER at the end because he’s wearing cool sunglasses!

Also in spoiler territory, the hidden safe in the hideout is bugged so you actually will have to camp next to it till you see it (have an NPC with clip pistol ability in your party.) It’s maybe not worth it.

Grenades are fine early game but just sell/ignore AT weapons unless you’re going to use them to blow up doors, because the reloading factor is crap compared to burning clips (because they only ever hit one enemy. Unless you want to try and kill the scorpiontron in Las Vegas, which you 100% don’t have to bother with.)

While you can easily get yourself into an unwinnable position by, like, discarding a key or something, it’s really hard to completely fuck up in a battle as the baddies are sporting and step back if you’re all knocked out, so feel free to try and tank occasionally. Just be aware there’s no healing, only camping, so be prepared to do a lot of waiting in difficult dungeons.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi.

#video games #gaming #inxile entertainment #wasteland #wasteland: remastered #review #txt #text #2020

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miramisaki · 8 years ago

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Being Camilla at SakuraCon was so much fun and so much suffering. I’ll post pictures and stuff later, but for now allow me to share some stories below the cut:

•So if you couldn’t infer from my last post, I pulled an almost all nighter to finish my armor for my Camilla cosplay. Thankfully I’m practically invincible so I was able to still function normally on just two hours of sleep.

•Got there pretty late on the first day; we arrived at the hotel at about 11 and didn’t actually get to the con until about 2 because of wardrobe malfunctions and the like. Got sent to the hotel across the street because the hotel I had my reservation in was full, despite me having made my reservation ALMOST A YEAR AGO. How that happened, I have absolutely no idea. But hey, they upgraded us to a double queen suite, so I was okay with it.

•Got to con and almost immediately my leg armor came detached from my garters. Had to walk around for a while holding it up before finally deciding I’d had enough and went to the cosplay repair station. A little hot glue and duct tape later I was good to go. PS the people at the cosplay repair station are heroes. Every single one of them. You go, guys.

•After that I spent some time in the 2nd floor cafe prepping for the one-off I was GMing for my tabletop RPG system that I created based on Fire Emblem’s game mechanics. Pretty uneventful, got asked for a few pictures here and there. I wasn’t really expecting a very big turnout, considering it was a homemade system. I did see the old-school Marth that I had met the year before while I was there, though, so we got to say hi and chat for a bit.

•On my way to find the tabletop gaming room, I ran into the Nowi I had taken a selfie with the year before. We got to chat and take pictures and it was a lot of fun.

•Went and checked in with the RPG coordinator to find out that I actually had quite a few people asking about my session. I’d honestly only been expecting to have maybe 3 or 4 people, if anyone showed up at all. Come session time and I’ve got 7 active players around the table and a queue of about 3 or 4 people waiting to enter the game after character deaths, and a few spectators. I was honestly super shocked and so excited.

•Session went well, though I was a little sad that we had to end it in classic rocks fall, everyone dies fashion (I rolled a 99 on the final “are we gonna end this on a good note or a bad note” roll, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s one percent away from a catastrophic failure, which is like a critical failure but worse). At least now I know that Oscar needs a serious nerf, though if they had bothered to attack him with a magic user, things might have gone better. To be fair, their magic user had literally just blown himself up, so... yeah. It was good though; everyone was so excited about the system and it really made me feel good about all the effort I’d put into compiling it. Obviously it still needs tweaks and playtesting, but it was a nice affirmation regardless.

•Got back to the hotel to find out that all of my friends who were going to stay with me had crashed and died in my friend’s mom’s hotel room. Apparently my friend had forgotten the fact that I had already given her the spare key to the room. It was fine, though; I grabbed my stuff, headed over to the other hotel, and got a whole big room to myself for the night.

•Woke up in the morning with sore feet, which is to be expected when you walk around in 4 inch heels for about 15 hours. Had to do some repairs on my costume, and I missed the Fire Emblem photoshoot. I was very sad.

•Didn’t get to the convention center until after 2 again, and helped my friend get to the Voltron shoot (she was the Galran Mall Cop). Wandered around in the Exhibitor’s Hall for a while, but didn’t see anything I wanted to buy. One of my friends from church was there selling car window decals, but for the life of me I couldn’t find her.

•The rest of my friends wanted to go get food at Pike’s Place after the Voltron shoot, but I wasn’t about to walk 7 blocks in those heels, thank you very much.

•On the way out of the convention center, I ran into the Chrom that I had taken a thug lyfe selfie with last year, along with a Robin, Owain, and Inigo. The Inigo saw me and started hyperventilating. She was so cute, so I papped her face and told her as much, and I think she died a little. Oops.

•I decided that, as Camilla, it was my duty to pap every Fire Emblem cosplayer I saw from that point on and tell them how cute they were. I got a lot of different reactions, and it was a lot of fun. I also wanted to find a Corrin, pap them, and tell them “I love you, schmoopie!” because such a thing was totally necessary, but in the end I didn’t see any Corrins after I made that decision.

•Hung out with the Awakening crew for a while, they were super chill and I had a good time with them, then broke off to get some food. I kept running into adorable Fire Emblems, though, so I kept getting delayed because I had to pap their faces and tell them how cute they were.

•Found an adorable Azura by the entrance. It was her first time cosplaying, so I gave her some wig care tips. Hopefully they help save her some agony.

•Ran into a Xander and another Camilla, and we were standing around talking when a Takumi walked by and ever so casually called us Nohrian scum. Xander jokingly got into an argument with him, and I diffused the situation by hugging the Takumi into my chest. He got flustered and it was just so in-character for all of us, and we all had a good laugh about it.

•Was going up the escalator to get in line for food when I saw a Takumi and a Leo going down the escalator. I immediately hopped onto the down escalator to pap their faces and take pictures with them.Turns out they were the Chrom and Robin who had told me where the cosplay repair station was the day before.

•Finally got food, then met an adorable Lyn, who told me about the Hoshidan royals having a small photoshoot outside. Needless to say, I immediately went out to crash the party and pap them. I’d seen the Ryoma the day before on my way to the cosplay repair station, and he had a little lobster plushie with him. They were all adorable.

•Finally got to go sit down in the 2nd floor cafe and eat my sandwich, but not before I papped another Leo and an Azama. Also got to pap a Niles during that time as well. I saw a Dazai go into the cafe, but I wasn’t able to go say hi, which made me sad.

•Spilled my sprite everywhere as I was getting ready to leave because it slipped through my gloved grip. Some nice people I was sitting by helped me clean up, which was so sweet of them. I’m so grateful to them for their help.

•Ran into a conquest Azura while I was waiting for the line to start for Matt Mercer’s panel. Turns out she and her friend were the Hana and Subaki that I had ran into the year before, and they remembered me. They were so sweet, and it was so nice to see them again. Also ran into old-school Marth again, and was able to fulfill my papping duty.

•Stood in line for half an hour in my heels to get into Matt Mercer’s tabletop RPG panel. Then stood in line for another 45 minutes in my heels to try and ask him a question, but time ran out. It was fine, though, it wasn’t some burning question that I was dying to ask him anyway. It was so nice to see that he’s such a nerd. As I was leaving the panel, though, he passed by, looked at me, and kind of under his breath said “that is so rad”. The almost-all nighter that I had pulled to finish the armor and all of the suffering in those 4 inch heels that I had done in the last two days instantly became 50000% worth it. I really hope I get to work with him someday.

•Found a cute Lucina and papped her. She was caught off guard, but then asked me to do it again so she could have it recorded. It was so cute.

•Ran into a group of the Fates furries and Azura. I gave them paps and hugs and they gave me an Easter egg and some swell memes. Totally a fair trade, in my opinion. We also got to kind of awkwardly dance for a guy’s cosplay video, I guess?

•Got hot pot with my friends. It was great. I burned my tongue. That was not so great. They put basically a whole crab into my hot pot, but it was so small that there was basically no meaning in even trying to eat it.

•Before we went to hot pot, I changed out of my armor into my filthy casual Camilla outfit. I still can’t feel half of the toes on my left foot, but it’s okay. I suffer for my art.

All in all, it was a good year. I got lots of pictures taken of me, which was really nice, and lots of compliments on my costume. Running into all those same people from last year was lots of fun too. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to get some final adjustments done on my armor and stuff so it won’t be quite as suffering.

#Mira randomly rambles #SakuraCon 2017 #Camilla cosplay adventures

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allineednow · 7 years ago

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<p>Ark: Survival Evolved studio CEO on reviews, Early Access and punching trees</p>

Yesterday I had the chance to speak with Doug Kennedy, CEO of Studio Wildcard, the firm responsible for . Needless to say, that game's heady brew of tree punching and dinosaur riding was a remarkable success -- and ranks to depart its stint in Early Access.

But it hasn't been without controversy. The release of Scorched Earth, Ark's first major expansion before the match had launched proper, was a sticking point among its playerbase, as were additional factors like as it finally hit 1.0. But generally speaking enjoyed and the game is being played--it has sold a 11 million units across all platforms, which could be attributed to player ambivalence.

On Early Access

With all that in mind, would Early Access be used by Studio Wildcard ? With the notable exception of , Early Access projects have struggled to meet up with the profile and success of titles like Ark--as well as others like DayZ and Rust, which remain unfinished. The initiative has an stigma in 2017, and yet to whether the studio would take that route Kennedy's response again is a resounding yes.

"We will absolutely 100% use Early Access for our next project," Kennedy said. "I like it because it allows us to onboard our hardest of hardcore fans and remain in tune with them, and to give them a voice inside a game that's being developed.

The Ark expansion that is second, aberration, releases.

"I've seen plenty of games go into Early Access and fail miserably, for a variety of reasons," Kennedy continued. "We developed an exceptional idea, we developed a excellent game. We listened to our fans: there is not anyone in the industry better than Jesse Rapczak in relation to staying in front of the fans, speaking to them, developer, developer diaries clips, listening. We handle it from a perspective of: we listen to everything, and we have numerous community managers. A single thread is not that we aren't paying attention to. It doesn't mean we respond to everybody, but we listen to them all, and when we roll out a brand new expansion pack or upgrade or whatever's a significant shift from the sport, our community guys are tireless, they remain up times in a row: is there a bug? Is there a problem? What needs to be fixed?"

Kennedy says studios hoping to make a buck off an game should not go near Early Access. "It is like having the world as a testing center, but the problem is--and this is just my personal take--that a lot of people look at it as a way to earn money early, and promote a game while they continue to grow. If you're not listening to the community, if you're not updating them with what's happening and what the vision is, where you're taking it, regardless of what the vision is, even if you're not doing that there is no purpose for going into Early Access. Developers really should think long and hard about whether that's the ideal spot for their sport to be. If they are just going there to raise money early in development, it's the wrong reason to be there."

On reviews

I said to Kennedy that Ark currently boasts a "mixed" status on Steam, both for latest and older reviews. Though it's a much better look than DayZ or The Forest in terms of matches with vocal playerbases, that's not a look to newcomers of this game. Do players are more inclined to be critical, and of Early Access games feel more ownership of a name?

"They do feel more ownership," Kennedy said. "It is a balancing act. You come on to play with a match and if you're new to access, and you have payed $29 for a name, and you're expecting a polished game, you're not going to give it a review.

"I'd really like to see a line in the sand drawn: I would love for it to be: here are all the Early Access reviews and here are all the post-launch reviews. I'd like to see some type of equation that states, alright come review our match. We're going to let you review it twice: once and once before it ships as the product. Because really, I'll use an automobile illustration. Come and review our car. Folks love the body style but they get in and there is no engine. So how would you like to rate the vehicle? That is the mindset of it although that's kind of an intense. No one understood how big when the game was being built by us, the car was going to be.

"But it's the first game I've ever worked on that I have not worried too much about metacritic and scoring," he continued. "Because I understood that we had been catching some flack about things like bugs -- but we did not put it through playtesting, we put it out there and then we fixed things. That is what Early Access is."

On Survival of the Fittest

Given the success of the Battlegrounds -- also an Access match of Playerunknown--I asked Kennedy whether the studio had some plans Survival of the Fittest, for the Ark equivalent. The answer? It is a "strong possibility".

"Survival of the Fittest was a excellent concept, and I will tell you that we'll continue to do something with it," Kennedy said. "I look at it in this manner: it isn't a trivial job to just dive in and say 'hey we're going to perform a competitive battle mode'. We built it, we put it in the market, and I keep talking about consumer quality and making certain you're following through. It is great to play with it, but we've got to be buttoned up if we're going to run tournaments, with money prizes etcetera and modes.

"We had to make a decision when we put out that: do we continue to attempt to run the championships and dedicate a tonne of development source to support this or do we create the [primary] game, release an expansion and ship a whole product? When we put SotF back into the marketplace we do that we ought to set it in the market that it's spectacular and it attracts users and we have a development team to support it. We'll need a tournament team a marketing effort, and everything else needed to be a A battle mode game. We learned a lot by placing it. Mainly what we heard was that we need to do it with 100% commitment and do it right."

On the Upcoming

In terms of the future of Ark, the studio's goal was to release three big expansions for the primary game (the second, , releases next month), but more could follow depending on player engagement and demand. Along with Pix Ark and Ark Park, the studio has other plans too. "We're very concerned about quality, experience, and making sure we're not just tossing stuff out there."

On punching trees

Finally, I asked Kennedy the question I have always wanted to ask a spokesperson for Studio Wildcard (or indeed, any other survival match): have you punched a tree before? Alarmingly, the response was "yes".

"In real life? Actually I have," Kennedy said. "It is not one of my prouder moments, but as anyone who reads this interview will now know, I have actually punched a tree before. It is a long story. I'm not taking any credit for the tree punching from the match, but it did hit when I first did it. [laughs]"

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jes-wan · 8 years ago

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An eye behind shattered glass - Black Mirror S1- S3 thoughts

I just completed a binge of Black Mirror’s three Seasons. It’s hard to say if this was mentally a great thing to do, as the show has a rather down trend with it’s stories, for the most part. My thoughts will be in Netflix order, for whatever reason they have the season’s backwards, although it doesn't mater too much with each story being standalone. I suppose that is what makes binging a series like this easy, because everything is different and you only notice a few actors returning to play different roles. I thought I would write down my thoughts on these episodes and how they relate to real life, I won’t be talking too much about the episode themselves, because I don’t think that’s exactly what the writers of Black Mirror are after.

Obviously spoiler alert, so read at your own peril, you have been warned.

Nosedive

The first episode I watched in this series was also the first to make me feel guilty in real life. Of course I'm talking about relating this to using Uber. Where we rate our drivers and they rate you. A friend questioned recently how wrong the system is to be so open and have no guidelines for rating. It’s a good point and exactly what this episode is based on. Out of all the stories this one is the most realistic to actually happen. It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine cafe’s starting to adopt the same system as Uber, and it spiralling out from there. I did enjoy the actress’ journey to discovering what’s the point in this system where you can’t be honest, or a breakup costs you, your job, the ending of the two of them yelling in some sort of lockup was perfect. Where, the language was ugly, that didn’t mater, it needs to be apart of our life. Sometimes you just need to tell someone, look that’s really stupid, without loosing your social standing. Speaking of which, going back to Uber, after watching this I found out how a passenger can see their rating. Mine was 4.96, which means someone gave me a four star, the feeling that you weren’t perfect right there is the problem. In the end conversations shouldn’t be rated for being meaningful, regardless of their outcome it’s all about interacting with another human, taking the good and bad.

Playtest

Buyers regret, that’s what VR feels like after watching this episode, or at least what VR might do to some people. Okay, maybe it isn’t that bad. Yet, it does make you wonder how fears could play a huge part in someone getting hurt in VR. Yes, the point of this story is playing off fears in a horror setting. Although in reality fears a deeper than that. You could be playing an adventure game and you have a fear of spiders. One comes up close to you and gives you a real life heart attack. How will we in the future combat actual fears, safe environment or not, that’s what the episodes asks. Instead, the real underlining issue is leaving things too late, putting something off because it’ s too hard. Well for the main character, doing so proved to be fatal, if he had just answered his mum a long time ago, she might not have called during the test and he would still be alive.

Shut up and Dance

You hear about people being blackmailed all the time, I couldn’t say if anyone has ever gone this far, but it might have happened to some lesser degree. The real question to ask yourself, is the risk worth it? If he had gone to the police right away, yes the video would have been released, but he would have had some backup, heck even the media might have been interested in hearing his story. It’s taking a bad situation and turning it better. Raise awareness, because as far as I know the web cam hijacks do indeed happen. In the end the troll, who I suspect was the kid in the hotel lobby, just released it all anyway. Not surprising, because someone who would come up with the ideas they did, probably isn’t someone with social empathy anyway.

San Junipero

I have to say this story was beautiful, I wasn't expecting the twist with it being a cloud reality. At first I thought it seemed like an excuse for a writer to put every 80s pop song into one episode. Big lessons here, even when someone tells you a story don’t assume they are selfish or whatever the case might be, ask questions. How long were you married is a good one. I’m not sure I wouldn’t struggle with the idea that after being uploaded living there forever would make me long for those who didn’t make such a choice. The ending was a surprise happy though and it was nice to see Greg was just someone willing to help out and get nothing in return, seldom do we see this today.

Men Against Fire

I was thinking this might be straight out action and not too thought provoking, at this point I should’ve known better. After binging the entire Alien series before this, I was glad to be wrong. I’d never heard the stats before about soldiers shooting over heads and the hit rate was so low. It’s sad to think that turning people into what we consider a monster would make them easier to kill. Even if they are expressing the exact same motions as someone saying people don’t shoot me. Not much of a choice for the ending, either watch those people die in an endless loop or be erased, no idea to be honest, both are bad. He got discharged anyway and now lives in a fantasy world, still bad I guess.

Hated in the Nation.

First of all, please no one make mechanical bees! Just don’t do it. Secondly what’s happened to all the bomb shelters in the UK. They could have put the third victim in one, a house surrounded by FLOWERS seemed like a terrible idea! Of course, social media plays a big part again, how often do we see people hiding behind their computer screen, shouting hate or even death in this case, knowing there is no consequences. That’s the lesson here, you can troll under your fake profiles, hate the world, think it’s funny to condemn, but really if someone manages to program killer robot bees, you might be in trouble. So consider this next to you decide to call someone on twitter. :P

Be Right Back

Tragic story from the get-go, the regret of putting work ahead of going with someone. Then dealing with a pregnancy, under a self imposed isolation. If you were offered the chance to talk to a passed person based on how they talked on social media would you? I couldn’t even try, to me it would be like forever putting yourself though the loss, every second you would feel sad after the conversation is over. Even more so with the android version of her late husband. In some respects it is nice for your daughter to meet basically a ghost of her father, but as she gets older what kind of impact will this have on her? Tricky, but a choice I can say I would never make.

White Bear,

Not what I was expecting, brutal but brilliant acting. Being ignored is worse than being yelled at, in my opinion. That people will film someone getting hurt rather than help, is something that does exist now. It seems to be instinct to pull out the phone and take video/photos before calling emergency. I heard that police actually hear about public crimes on Facebook first as opposed to people calling their emergency line. I don’t want to get to into too much about how she filmed her partner killing the child, there are no words and it’s hard to fathom that probably has happened somewhere for the writers to come up with it. A park for justice though, I know I couldn’t be a part of that, but with the rise of reality TV, I'm surprised something like this doesn’t already exist.

The Waldo Moment

I’m hesitant to write too much about the theme of this episode, due to the pure politics as opposed to social themes. I will say, is this really how the disenfranchised feel? If so, oh...

White Christmas

Realised what was going on after the lady and the egg scene, although I thought he was a police officer looking for a confession, I was close enough. However, I'm keen to talk about blocking people. The feeling of blocking people rather than facing them, easy isn't it? But can be cruel. If she had just come clean, he wouldn’t have gone through years or torment. Wondering why she kept the child, after the argument was seemingly about that. She may not have died on that train, if she was honest and her dad would still be alive same goes for her child. Of course he’s responsible for his own actions, and he did commit murder. Yet, the real lesson is, be honest, not mater how much it will hurt. You can’t possibly predict what you might set in motion by lying.

The National Anthem

You could just slap the media, which really did a great job in making a situation worse, anything for a story! Would everyone actually stand/sit there and actually watch such a horrible humiliation? No where in the demands did it say people had to watch it, yet the whole nation stopped. People laughed and smiled forgetting all about the reason why he is doing this. As a species do we really have such little compassion until it’s too late? Do we want to watch the train wreck? Of course, humanity's super power and after a year it’s pretty much forgotten and turned into a political vote changer. Although only three points up? I guess regardless of heroes, it’s not a popularity contest, which probably isn’t a bad thing.

Fifteen Million Merits

I’m not a big fan of talent shows, especially music ones, I feel it’s turned talent into image. Regardless, after watching YouTube videos recently on comments made by judges, it’s no wonder we are turning into a society of people who do not question our idols. What people will do for fame, she said yes to a life of sex slavery and he sold out to preach something no one is even listening too! It’s almost not worth it and looking for a way to escape the complex would have been a better use of time.

The Entire History of You

Would you become obsessed with the past if you could just rewind it? As someone who always tries to find the truth, I know I would be overusing this system. I’m not sure it was really that bad of a system, because without it he would have never found the truth and would have lived in a state of ignorance. Been played as a fool is much worse in my books. Irrespective of having this technology people didn’t seem to worried a conversation could just be rewound back and still followed their ways of deceit, shame really. Of course this sounds like a conflict with Nosedive, but the difference is honesty not avoidance.

Well that’s it, my thoughts on Black Mirror and it’s very good attempts at making you think about the society we live in.

Thanks for reading,

Peace out

Jes-Wan

#black mirror #scifi #netflix

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