#as that is good for a story but doesn't make for good gameplay

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer In The Dark -- Duskwall Slang

Since we did a VITD lookbook yesterday, I figured we might as well keep the train going today and talk a little bit about some of the worldbuilding I've done for the Valicer In The Dark version of Duskwall (the main setting of Blades In The Dark). Specifically, I've decided to share the short list of slang that I've come up with for people to use! Because that's always fun, right? :) The first entry on this list is taken from the book itself (page 42, specifically) and adapted a little bit, but all the rest are purely my own invention:

-->“Flashing a/their/your Coin” and variants – making an ostentatious display of wealth, to the disgust of everyone around them (the term "Coin" itself is in fact slang for a large sum of money, taken from the days when the Imperial treasury would actually mint large solid gold coins intended to cover major transactions; most people these days rely on small silver pieces called "slugs"). Example: “You spent all that money on THAT outfit? Really flashing your Coin, huh?”

-->“Moving to Six Towers” – indicates that the person said to be moving was previously rich and important, but has fallen on extremely hard times and is on the verge of ruin (referencing the fact that Six Towers USED to be one of the richest neighborhoods in the city, but has turned into a bit of a slum with most of the nobility previously living there moving into Brightstone). Example: “The Everglots’ leviathan ship hasn’t had a good haul in six months. Think they’ll be moving to Six Towers soon.”

-->“Scavenging in the Lost District” – indicates that the person said to be scavenging is taking an INCREDIBLE risk in the hopes of getting a high reward (due to the Lost District being an abandoned neighborhood outside the lightning barrier keeping the city safe and guarded by the Spirit Wardens...but also having many lost riches within its bounds). Example: “You want to rob Lord Mayor Powerwallet? Talk about scavenging in the Lost District!”

-->“Living Coin to Coin” – living paycheck to paycheck, as the average weekly wage in Duskwall is equivalent to a Coin’s worth of money. Example: “Poor old Tom – what with his sick mother and five children needing feeding, he’s living Coin to Coin.”

-->“Only good for mushrooms” – indicates that the thing being talked about is absolute shit. Example: “Don’t order the ‘special ale’ at the Withered Talon, it’s only good for mushrooms.”

-->“You want to call the crows?” – equivalent of “You want to get us killed?” in response to a risky course of action (referencing the Deathseeker crows that find corpses for the Spirit Wardens). Example: “You want to FIGHT Lord Mayor Powerwallet’s bodyguards? You want to call the crows?!”

-->“Barrowcleft approved” – indicates the item in question is homemade but of very high quality (Barrowcleft being a poor, rural neighborhood with one of the best, and fairest, markets in the city). Example – “You carved this yourself? Why, this is Barrowcleft approved work and no mistake!”

-->“Dust Day fare” – an extremely meager meal made from poor-quality ingredients, referencing the popular nickname for the fifth day of the week from Charhollow, which itself references the fact that poor people’s food stores are the thinnest on this day. Example – “Canal water soup with potato peelings. This is Dust Day fare, all right.”

-->“Crit Six/rolled a crit six” – means that something is exceedingly good, or that something that you have done has succeeded beyond your wildest dreams; references the most popular dice game in Duskwall, where rolling double sixes is an automatic win. Example – “I went to open the safe, and I rolled a crit six – the door practically came off in my hands!”

-->“Welcher” – a term for someone who hires a criminal or crew for a job, and then not only refuses to pay them, but actively tries to murder them (directly or otherwise) to avoid doing so. Only one of the highest leaders of the most well-known crews may declare someone a Welcher, and then only after receiving sufficient proof, as the term is a death sentence – the scoundrels of Duskwall do not take kindly to their clients trying to stiff them, in both senses of the word. Example: “All right, I’ve seen enough – I’m ready to declare that Lord E.A. Bethesda is a Welcher. Hope he’s prepared for every scoundrel in the city coming for his ass...”

Further updates to come if and when I think of more stuff! Which I probably will, as this is fun. :)

[bixels]

What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

[thedrotter]

as a little treat i am sharing with you little Aya doodles I've done over the last few days to unwind ww just little expressions based on lines in-game because those are always fun to draw. nothing too special just biscuit

it's Aya because upon doing bizarrely throughout playthroughs of the game for still unspecified project purposes I've gained a soft spot for her she's my daughter now my mental tier list on my favorite characters is so confusing right now

[arolesbianism]

GUYS.

New dupe real! Also new pod????? Olivia is that you girlie speak to me

[pekoeboo]

some thoughts.

been thinking about actually giving the Primordial SMP a real story title after all this time, since it's not really an SMP anymore. it used to be based on actual Minecraft gameplay, but Cookie and I have just come up with so much original content over time that it's kind of its own thing now, to some extent??

only thing I'm really unsure of is whether or not I should continue to tag it with the Minecraft tag, since like. part of it still very heavily references things that have actually happened while playing MC, including direct relation to a legit adventure map that doesn't belong to us (as well as some gameplay mechanics that are relevant for certain parts of the story). but also the story is filled with a LOT of original content that we just came up with ourselves, like the characters and their backstories, so I don't know.

I do know I'll likely be splitting everything into three distinct Acts, with both Act I and Act II of the story taking place within Drehmal and Atria, respectively (two worlds based on actual Minecraft worlds that we've played in)... so maybe just those two could be tagged as Minecraft? not sure. Act III takes place within Aya's home world though, which is a fully original concept that's separate from any Minecraft mechanics or ideas, so I don't need to worry about that.

either way, all of this is still just kinda rotating around in my head for now. haven't decided on a story title yet, but if I do, I'll be sure to let y'all know how I'm planning on organizing it from that point on :'0

[fragmentedblade]

Boothill's presentation being entirely on the twitter post makes me think he will be irrelevant in the story in the long(ish) run, and that the game itself won't dwell on him almost at all

[t3chborb]

OW2 PVE has been axed completely, huh...

*sigh

I can't say I didn't see it coming to some extent, buuuut I still, perhaps foolishly, was holding onto hope that we'd get something. Nothing too grand, but still something. Cuz otherwise, 7 years of world building would be down the fucking drain.

Ha, ha, haaaa...

Honestly, live service games are the single worst possible medium to tell stories that exists. Fictional stories need an ending to be effective, but live service games want to run into perpetuality for that sweet sweet cash flow. If OW got a proper ending, how would Blizz keep shoving in new heroes? They would all have to be disconnected from the Talon/OW/Null Sector alignments because, well, where were those people when shit was going down? Yes, they could keep on making characters that are generally not connected to the main plot like Lifeweaver and Illari, people that just kind of exist in the world, but with a finished story they'd feel tacked on. Purposeless. And at that point what would keep lore and world building enthusiasts interested? All those casuals buying the precious virtual cosmetics? Gameplay, sure, but you cannot tell me all of them are playing the video game purely for the gameplay.

So while I can understand the reasoning behind the cancellation (as fucking shitty as capitalism is), and as inevitable as it was, it's still terrible after all of the teasing.

[wizardsix]

it sucks when bad games exist bc usually they'll actually have good foundations for interesting characters/lore but it just. doesn't go anywhere. and it's incredibly frustrating every time. idk what it's gonna take for writers to take their work seriously but I am just so incredibly tired of mediocre writing.

[laugtherhyena]

Playing Bomb rush cyberfunk has been a crazy experience so far because i feel like I've been enjoying the game just as much as I'm not doing so

[skrunksthatwunk]

finished dante's campaign of dmc2!! it was bad!!! <3 and i can't tell if it's anticlimactic or a surprising show of mercy that it only took around 4 hours

[jessielefey]

One should play the Drakengard/nier games in reverse publishing order in order to get the most out of them. Like how Bloodborne can be said as to "teach you how to play Souls games", Automata followed by Drakengard 3 followed by Replicant teaches you how to read Drakengard as a metacommentary in a way that conceptually proves "just starting from the first game in the series" is doomed to leave you confused and angry and heartbroken; in this essay I will...

[prettyboykatsuki]

FANG i have smth i would like to inquire about an oc i am planning to make for red dead.....have not played it yet but plan to

i tried to hold off making an oc until i actually played the fucking game but whenever u (and lamb) talk about a new fandom it makes me chomp at the bit to immerse myself and now its too late

made my oc british thinking oh that might be fun!! but realised wait don't the british have heavy beef with everyone at that time....would that cause conflict at camp?? would she have tomatoes thrown at her during dinner (head in hands)

no not at all!! my very in depth self insert for red dead has a indian/british accent on a technical basis and the game itself has a really diverse cast of characters. you have a person at camp you meet later named trelawny who is super british but nobody rlly cares

the only character who would jokingly give you any grief about it is maybe sean cause he's irish lol. but he'd do it in a silly way like he makes fun of arthur for being an englishman as he says (arthur is american af so its very funny) there's also micah and bill but they're complete pieces of shit but it's not like a point of contention at all. camp has a mexican member, two black members, one mixed member (who is black + native!!) and for the most part camp treats them just fine. the game does not shy away from racism though so npcs out in the world might have something to say. but not camp

OBVS BEING BRITISH IS NOT A RACE THING BUT i use it to make a point that the camp generally speaking leans on more accepting then not.

again with the exception of micah and bill who are complete pieces of shit no one else really cares. especially not arthur who is both kind and very accepting... my feminist king fr

so i dont think ur oc being british would matter too much !!

[potential-fate]

Ellie sat back down next to the other two girls, being careful to put her phone on her side that was not in danger of falling into the pool. For a moment sat and stared as her sister and Kira continued talking. 

She picked up her phone, scrolling quickly though her social media pages, “Hold on, let me just find the cat pic I wanted to show—” 

She frowned at her phone instead of showing it to Kira.

[holdharmonysacred]

Started writing a post about unit blorbofication and story depth in FE in light of the latest round of past FEs VS 3H VS Engage discourse, someone remind me to go back to writing it later when I get my brainpower back.

[arolesbianism]

I have been playing beastieball and first of all very good game second of all smth smth Olivia Broussard

[ballisticducks]

I would say as a counterpoint to this though that pixel art specifically now means a lot of the time "Roguelite dungeon crawler with platforming or survival elements". Which, honestly, is a lot more boring and safe a design choice to me personally than a AAA "blockbuster" that will at least try to craft some truly interesting and deeply satisfying combat systems

And another part of it is that it kind of feels like there is a desire to support pixel art indie games specifically, as an aesthetic choice, rather than innovative games with alternative art styles. Like Sifu is an incredibly beautiful game, with one of the most interesting approaches to combat I've ever seen. OlliOlli World, same thing, extremely beautiful, and innovates and improves on the skating game genre, which we don't really even get anymore. But neither of those games really took off in pro-indie game spaces, while, say, Cult Of The Lamb, a pretty flawed game that recreates the standard farming/survival/platform format, really did

Like, I'm not gonna deny that indie video games' present preoccupation with pixel art and PS1-style 3D has a big dose of nostalgia to it (including, in many cases, a constructed nostalgia for an era the creators never actually experienced – your average twentysomething indie game auteur in 2023 grew up with the Xboxes and GameCubes, not the Super Nintendo!), but I think a large part of the "retro" movement has to be understood as a reaction against the fact that modernism in video games has become so strongly identified with bland photorealism that calling a game "retro" is simply a way of saying that it has a discernible aesthetic thesis. If we want more indie games that look like they belong in the 2020s, there first needs to be an identifiably, unambiguously modern approach to visual design in games that doesn't boil down to shadow-mapping the protagonist's horse's nutsack and calling that an aesthetic.