#because I suck at MOBAs

[wp100]

god i miss my obsession with heroes of the storm. i had whole entire headcanons for all the blizz characters and their interactions existing in the nexus. they lived in my head rent-free

i fucking shipped raynor and diablo (Seriously, no joke lol)

[wifflum]

Video games that suck and why they suck

Dark Souls spawned a wonderful genre with an excellent, new (besides Demon's Souls), combat system that has been improved to have everything you could think of asking for, by games like Stellar Blade. Dark Souls, even though it was first, however, sucks. Here's why it sucks.

Dark Souls was made by a self-proclaimed masochist who said, about the game, "these are ways I would like to die," and then set the entire game design team to the objective of killing the player at every opportunity. It's like hostile architecture as a video game. The game is trying to kill you at almost every step, but it had this amazing new combat system, so that was tolerated. Now the blind sheep that are the masses worship it.

Elden Ring and Sekiro, on the other hand, did not have this incredibly sadistic touch to them, and are far more fun to actually play. And these trainwrecks who love Dark Souls would say it's a skill issue, to not enjoy crawling your way to the next death spot like it's progression in Final Fantasy XIV raids only through a fu**ing level, let alone the boss fights, and would blame the victim of literal and admitted game design sadism.

Red Dead Redemption, Spiderman, God of War, and also Grand Theft Auto (at least the campaign) and Uncharted-- all of these games also suck. This is because they are not made with gameplay in mind, because the target audience hardly gives a sh** about gameplay and just wants an interactive movie. They are, as a popular and often contrarian video game critic put it, "ghost train rides". They are theme park attractions that are purely there to entertain from a distance, and not really to be interacted with like you would expect from a video game. Gameplay is secondary, and it's often almost tertiary it's so far from being considered important. That is why these games suck.

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Another somewhat extensive area for video games to suck in, is the Fallout and Elder Scrolls type of games. These games, instead of making story so fu**ing primary that gameplay, the whole point of video games existing at all, is ignored, do the exact same thing with their open-worlds and RPG mechanics. Just imagine a turn-based game like Final Fantasy 7, only the gameplay that can actually kind of stand on its own is actually gameplay that sucks co** and could never stand on its own.

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I play video games for combat. To have fun and display skill. Everything else is set dressing for that one primary thing, and games that suck either intentionally obstruct fun combat, like Dark Souls does, or might as well not even include it it's so bad.

-----------------------------

Some other games that suck are fighting games, because in order to get your ration of 3 seconds of neutral game per match, which might be pretty good but in my experience isn't anything to write to my girlfriend in jail about, you have to spend 8 million hours mastering filler moves that waste both players time and just drop the health bars to what they might as well be at the start, which is 3 hits until death.

Tactical RPGs are not that bad, I don't think, but dear God are they stressful sometimes. It's also slow and can get tiresome unless you personally are slow and tired and prefer that pace over action games.

First Person Shooters need defense options other than fu**ing sprint or better offense (throwing a flashbang is an offense action, as is laying a mine) for every situation, which Remnant: From the Ashes really put in sharp relief.

MOBAs, like League of Legends, need to be done differently rather than copying a game that had a barely passing grade on its combat system (DOTA 1 on Warcraft 3) because it took it from an strategy game where you're supposed to be spending 3/4 of your time managing your base and resources and only fighting a small portion of the time. Battleborn actually showed what MOBAs are capable of to some degree, although it didn't have dodges or anything, but got overshadowed by Overwatch which everyone either immediately regretted or regrets now since Overwatch is agony to play.

One game that largely sucked but did not entirely suck, contrary to what everyone and their goldfish will tell you, was Anthem. At one point it had a triple jump, triple dodge, comboing melee character that could frontflip into sniping something in the head or spraying it with submachine gun fire. Yes, that was motherfu**ing Anthem that had that, in the Interceptor Javelin, though the people in the other Javelins did not look to be having much fun.

The last games that suck, which I think everyone largely knows they suck, are Ubisoft games. Now Far Cry isn't that bad, because it still has a reasonable focus on gameplay, but Assassin's Creed games have combat that is almost as ass as Rockstar games' gameplay.

Just, all you have to do, lol, is take some reasonable approximation of soulslike combat, with an actual functional deflect if you include one, unlike Rise of the Ronin, and do whatever your little gimmick is on top of that. People will fall over themselves saying how amazing it is. Just make ACCEPTABLE gameplay with whatever your horsesh** is that your audience of nitwits loves, and it will be something as if from an advanced society in the future.

Although, I personally think the window for that is closing and it wouldn't be jaw-dropping anymore, with soulslikes branching out so much. All we really need now is a soulslike MMO and that'll be the kitchen sink, and I think it's rapidly approaching. All I would ask of someone doing that is that you model the PvP after Guild Wars 1 Random Arenas, and you'd have to study that pretty extensively because there's a lot of nuance that made it so good, but it was namely an extreme difficulty to combat, like you'd get from a PvE game set to Insanity difficulty, somehow enveloping the PvP experience.

----------------------

Anyway, that's how video games of today almost all suck. And it's because they're not really video games; they're either like a simulation of something, traveling or getting stronger, or just straight-up a movie, with video gameyness slapped onto the side like a sticker, with about as much effort put into the application. The games that are good, as video games and not interactive media, which is what a lot of these things should be distinguished as, ask the user to display skill and they make that display enjoyable and varied. There's a million ways to screw up the execution of that design or to excel at it, but only a few games even set that objective of good combat as an actual goal.

But, if it makes makes money it's fine how it is, fu** foresight and artistic integrity, and we must all keep churning out pig slop to the pigs.

[that-house]

I love League of Legends, and I suck at shooters, so Deadlock is an interesting game. After having played three matches, here's my takeaway:

The Good:

banger aesthetic

wonderful character designs

what little lore there is is great

game feels good to play when it isn't lagging

love me a MOBA

baseline TTK seems pretty good

The Bad:

i can't aim

the lag

the mix between a shooter and the feast-or-famine numerical snowballing of a MOBA makes for a game where even if I somehow do hit my shots I don't actually deal any damage because i'm so far behind

in true League of Legends fashion, the guy who's the tankiest is also somehow doing the most DPS

in conclusion: much like league it's a game i'll only play as a social thing. wraith fun. i hope you have a nice day :)

[pearwaldorf]

This is a video from Anna Donion, studio head at Riot, which make Valorant, a 5v5 MOBA. If you don't know what that means, the only thing you need to know is this is a type of game that relies heavily on coordination between players through voice chat.

So if you encounter a jackass, you need to either suck it up or mute them, which obviously makes it more difficult to play.

It's not surprising that this particular type of game has harassment, but I was not expecting a MOBA to address the issue this directly, especially a MOBA from Riot. Because of, uh, stuff like this. So I guess this did light a fire under somebody's ass.

I lived through Gamergate and #metoo. I saw how much people really give a shit about sexual harassment and misogyny. Pretty much nothing has changed, except maybe people get a little more performative with the finger-wagging.

Listening to this, however, I get the feeling at least one studio is ready to take this seriously. And I'm happy to hear it, because it is long overdue.

But I'm also so fucking angry it's taken this long, when this should have been the baseline all along. Like Donlon said, it takes somebody having their worst day before companies usually take action. Think about how many worst days could have been prevented, for so many women, POC, gender minorities, and any combination thereof.

If I was optimistic, I'd hope this is a first step towards something changing in the industry. But I'm not, so I assume a bunch of studios are going to come up with bullshit reasons why it won't work for their particular situation. It's not that I want to be a Gloomy Gus, I've just seen these things happen all the fucking time.

I hope I'm proven wrong. I really do.

[this-is-not-a-slow-burn]

BLeh. DAV is just as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

installed and played until it crashed just as Rook is about to leave the ritual area and that was about enough. (the game defaulted to Ultra graphics settings bc my rig is more than enough, but it choked at the cutscene because there;s so much happening I guess. I could go in and lower the RT but do I want to even bother?)

Rook feels awful and very frustrating to control, like they have lead boots on. Not just slow but a clunky plodding walk through slow oatmeal and rocks feel. The mage combat is absolute nonsense that is overly complicated and needs too many button presses. The writing is bad, the VA is bad, the art direction sucks. You're following a dot while running across bridges and jumping fences along a railed in path. I absolutely haaaate that type of hack and slash gameplay.

The whole atmosphere feels *nothing* like a DA game should. It feels very space scifi. Like Star Wars with dragons or something. Plus the graphics are too clean and crisp, the over all art style is MOBA cartoony just like the trailers showed. Yes one of the hallmarks of the DA franchise is that each game is radically different but this one feels so out of step as to be a completely different franchise. I guess this must be how it felt when DAI came out. I wouldn't know since it's the first one of the series that I ever played, and didn't play it until 2018. It's also the only DA game I really actually love (I have well over 400 hours into it). I think that my biggest problem with DAV is that it does not feel like a high fantasy genre game like the others do. I'm sure there are many arguments about why it akshully is, but I'm not feeling it and for me that's what matters.

Part of it is also that they're courting the new audience of gamers who are downbad for MOBA, and it shows. This means it's not going to appeal to an audience that loved DAI.

[keystone8379]

Frame Imperfect

Regarding Kirby Fighters 2, when the game was relatively new, many YouTubers were trying to cash in on the new "kirby smash bros" hype. During this period I remember Mew2King coming into the KF2 server with interest in running a tournament for the game.

Wow! I couldn't believe this! Mew2King from funny YouTube compilations and competitive Super Smash Bros Melee (I had watched very little melee at that point, except for EmpLemon's There Will Never Be Another Melee Player Like HungryBox) was interested in our super cool Kirby game? Awesome!

At this point the game had garnered a rep as a pretty unserious competitive game, with many fake infinites being discovered and one real one as well. There was also Alpharad's video on the game that made it look...unflattering. It was unflattering for reasons other than just being a 'smash clone' but we didn't know why exactly yet. This was before 20XX, the first real KF2 tournament, for reference.

But Mew2King wanted to take a chance on us! He believed in our game and wanted to take a chance on a new, unique, exciting platform fighter! We were starstruck, plain and simple.

Which is why when M2K suggested MOBA style character bans everyone just kinda went with it????

Keep in mind this was before the first tourney, we didn't know shit about fuck, as fish would say.

They didn't go through with this.

So fast forward a couple months, and KF2's first appearance at Frame Perfect Series is upon us. As you'd expect, the community is really excited! This was one of the biggest brackets the community had ever seen, with a bunch of new faces! Mostly people we'd never see again but it was exciting at the time.

As for the commentator's bench, we were looking at M2K, who knew nothing about the game but was on comms for every game so whatever...and in the KF2 corner...Super Citrus. Who hadn't commentated an even since 20XX. Oh god. M2K was sprouting nonstop nonsense and Citrus just didn't have the game knowledge or confidence to debunk any of it. The VODs were a little painful to watch. Poor guy.

So FPS doesn't make the game look...great. It wasn't help that M2K was ridiculing the players he determined were 'lame' and I mean I don't like Ninja11 or Poyo but come the fuck on man. Commentary basics here. I could do a better job.

But what if I could actually? When FPS 4 was announced, we learned that KF2 would be making a return for it. I was more involved in the community at this point with one tournament under my belt (...which was New Generation) and did 2 major things for this FPS. Firstly, early on, KF2 wasn't looking great in the entrant count side of things. So, I got in touch with some of the folks in tourney committee and we talked about running a tourney where top 8 would get free entry to FPS4.

And this is where we talk about the unsung hero of this story, Thank You motherfucking Domo. When sponsoring Road to FPS, Domo offered to handle the free entry of anyone who we couldn't get people to pay for a gift sub for. In later Road to FPS events, he flat out offered to give any KF2 players free entry because he liked the game...and it makes for better content obviously but still. What a god damn legend. Rest in Power. (he lost his account in a phishing scam)

I realize that came off as kinda sarcastic but I was genuinely upset when his account got hacked. Shit sucks, I don't want to hear about phishing scams from Bool ever again.

OH, speaking of Domo, second major thing I did was apply for commentary! I had more tourneys and more experience under my belt at that point and I felt pretty confident all things considered! So I sent domo a few videos of my comms work, including a video where I have to make Bell look like a well designed interactive character for 30 minutes.

I didn't end up getting picked, but I thought to myself "well as long as it's not Citrus again we should be fine." lol. lmao. This time we did actually have a bit of time to give Cirtus a crash course in the current KF2 environment but it still wasn't great. In fact, it was maybe the worst video game commentary I'd ever seen.

For a long time, P47 had been seemingly untouchable. He was a KF2 expert, his Magolor inspired me to pick up the character fully, he was a lorehead, and a great guy to be around. The clip of him using Ultra Sword to push Nuggetz off a platform into an apple explosion is absolutely as iconic as it deserves to be. This was P47's last big tournament.

Now, remember how I said Mew2King was an asshole to anyone who he deemed lame. M2K was a Marth player in Melee by the way, I don't know if that's considered a lame character but I hope he is. P47 received the full force of this with constant hate from M2K's live chat, not to mention that Citrus also wasn't a Magolor fan. I'm not quite sure how bad it was exactly, but it was bad enough to lead to him quitting the game. Looking back on it, the whole situation is infuriating to me.

That was Citrus' last time commentating FPS, when FPS5 rolled around we had gotten Winters on comms, who was easily the most consistent commentator we had and also the person...you know...keeping the game alive. She was able to debunk a lot of M2K's bullshit and also was able to tell him that P47 quit because of M2K being an asshole last FPS. I don't think I ever told her how much I appreciated that.

Good time to mention that Mew2King also used he/him for EVERYONE. It led to me making this stupid fucking image.

But it gets worse. Of course it always gets worse. In top 8, Ninja11, one of my least favourite top players, was up against SoothingRuby, one of my favourite top players. Ninja11 kinda hates everyone in the community and Ruby hates people who are Like That so as you can expect these 2 get along great. This was reflected in the set between them.

It was a lot of this. Ruby would throw Kunai and Ninja would just crouch them. This matchup isn't even that bad for Magolor, I thinkj Mag wins it, Ninja's just an asshole. He ended up winning the set, of course he did. Great time was had by all, especially the twitch chat and M2K, who both already hated the game. Yikes.

So this brings us to FPS6, the final Frame Perfect event. Messages from M2K implied that Metafy, the main reason the tournament was being run, was on it's way out, but not before M2K was doing sketchy things in his own time.

Turns out Metafy still exists. Not sure what he was talking about with the whole final sale thing. Maybe it's an MLM thing. (Multi Level Marketing) Was I not supposed to think the platform was closing?

So the tourney rolls around on, of all days, the 4th of July. As a Canadian I don't give a shit, but as you can imagine, most people were not available. Zet ended up winning the whole thing. However there is one potentially sketchy set in there.

Somehow, before bracket, Qwertz had performed a coup d'etat and became TO of the bracket despite being on the other side of the globe. The actual TO didn't wake up in time, and all Qwertz used his power to do was changing the timeslot without communicating.

Then, when Zet "applied a taco to his router" (thank you Justin for giving my posts the rawest fucking quotes) Qwertz just said to play it out, though everyone knew this was mostly just because Qwertz didn't like Justin. Why do we let this man near any administrative privileges.

The stream also ended with Winters having to tell chat to have a happy 4th of july. She is a trans lesbian.

And that was the last FPS event. By the time the 3rd KF2 tournament had rolled around, we already knew M2K was doing more harm than good, but no one had the guts to tell him off. I think we were worried that he'd just run the game like a dumbass if we didn't stick around. To be fair, it happened with Kloudchasers.

So what's the moral of the story? Never meet your heroes? No, that's what we learned from Chuggaaconroy. Is Mew2King even my hero? Never meet a competitive Smash player is what we learned here. Though hopefully you all already knew that.

[gaysetokaibas]

fuck it yugioh characters & their favorite game genres

yugi: strategy games Of Course. he probs loves relaxing games like poly bridge or portal. i also DEFINITELY think he loves mobile games like he's a casual bc he touches grass but i totally think this dude LOVES candy crush. bro has spent 50 dollars on merge mansion bc it kills time while commuting on the train to kaiba corp. obligatory he is super into card games like blackjack, 21, and poker because he gets to host weekly fake gambling nights with the gang.

joey: arcade & couch co-op games so think overcooked, gang beasts, street fighter, smash bros. he is Very bad at games but the type of bad where he sucks and then spends 100 hours grinding cuz he gets embarrassed at losing too much and then everyone hates playing against him bcuz hes too good now. i dont think he plays games rly when he's alone but i think that tristan does & therefore he practices/plays a lot. i think a lot of their hangouts is playing stuff together and occasionally inviting over duke and yugi :)

tristan: ok so this guy plays cod and fortnite but not in an annoying gamer way where he rages and stuff but like idk hes a typical gamer but not A Gamer you know. he definitely likes shooters and mobas so like he loves league of legends but despite owning a pc he probably only plays mobile league. everyone is like so confused by this but he just Does Not Care. freak!!! he is definitely a console gamer but i also imagine he loves smash bros and is super competitive which is why joey tries so hard to get good at things bcuz if he doesnt tristan will mop the floor w him LOL

anzu/tea: i am legally being told she has to love rhythm games because OBVIOUSLY. not just the ddrs of the world, but mobile rhythm games like prsk and bandori, maybe a little love live and muse dash. i also think. She Loves fortnite. idk. i feel this in my soul. she also loves those beat em up style arcadey games like doom, killing floor, that one botw calamity game i fucking forgot the name of. she is stressed from Life and being surrounded by idiot men 24/7 so she loves these games. she also probs enjoys stuff like survivor.io and vampire survivors because big number stress release. i am hesitant to add roguelikes tho bc thats just not her vibe you know?

i think about this too hard. if i shared my kaiba video game list i would get shot the world just isnt ready so the end, bye.

[multitrackdrifting]

itemization in league feels so fake, your only choices are like 3 boots, 3 sources of anti heal and maybe 8 items tops and none of them feel like they have a material impact on the flow of the game so much as they change the feel of "how fast will i make this guys head explode"

i just don't think there's Real flexibility in that game in terms of feel, everything just feels like a contset to build hte biggest stick to hit somebody with and you can't get an item stun, item silence or item hex and buying actual utility on carries feels So fucking heavy that it makes you basically a wet paper towel character so there's that added deterrent to building to adapt

I watch worlds every year and the pool of champs is like 18 wide, and the build diversity is non-existent because items in league kinda just suck ass sometimes, god it's such a shitty esport despite having a decent structure to follow. I wish it was less like it is because its identity as a moba is honestly just so so so so boring and that's not even getting into that it's one of the only esports with such a comical talent disparity across regional lines that you have to be a fucking NTR connoisseur if you're an unironic NA or EU fan and you delude yourself into thinking you have a chance at winning anything m,ore than 6th place

If I had to say some esports that are decent to watch: rocket league, dota 2, siege, counter strike and apex legends (surprisingly it's very ordered, and interesting)

[veikkoalen]

1. the family helped to cover the bank loan. the case doesn't move. i think i should start never trusting the government ever in the country like this

2. i feel fucking terrible because half a year later it turns out i didn't grieve enough. ive never felt like that, i never cared about someone's death this much. that opens some pretty horrifying horizons

3. the journal is going fine. i found a pen that is legible on the heavy black grid background

4. was gifted a closed beta test access to valve's new moba shooter – deadlock. i suck at shooters but it's actually not bad. by the end of the second game i even did two kills. assuming that i played on the non-beginner friendly hero i count it as a win

5. somehow i am both ready to kill myself right now and live as long as it takes to see the death of the regime. this emotional state both intensifies the symptoms of depression and relieves the symptoms of anxiety. it's really weird, i usually have my anxiety maxed at all times

6. started drinking more water but i barely eat in exchange

7. ive worked on developing the idea of my inner world and somehow the subconsciousness spat out the image of a morgue again. i always thought i dont like the color yellow but a few days ago i looked around and saw that my room's walls and lighting are yellow, the room basically looks like the backrooms if you remove the furniture out of it. i tried to imagine my inner world before and it was the total opposite – endless poppy field under the prussian blue sky

8. i am starting to form some illogical beliefs. i understand they're here to protect my psyche but it's funny how i just tear a skyscraper sized hole in my worldviews and they still stay intact because the brain says that i shouldn't pay attention to these contradictions

[bearersofthecurse]

These are actually such evil categories.

RPGs: Okay, this is a fine spread, of games called RPGs, ignoring that none of the games are actually about RPing, but that's fine it's what the genre is called

ARPGs: This is truly evil.... FF7R and DS in the same genre.... That is truly an evil thing you've done. That's like asking people what their favorite movie+tv genre is and one of the options has The Office and 2001 A Space Odyssey in it. Boy oh boy. Woof.

RPG Shooters: Okay. Kind of. Fallout isn't a shooter. I get the connection between the other two despite my strong hatred of one of them lol

Action Adventure: You don't think Dark Souls shares a category with LoZ??? I'm turning into the joker. They are fucking brothers.

Roguelikes: I don't play these so I have no take

FPS: Okay. FPS and Team Shooter are not the same genre. I'm sorry to do this to you Halo but Halo and CoD are in the same genre, with Apex, but Valorant, TF2, Overwatch. those are not FPSs. I love Overwatch and TF2 but I HATE CoD it's not even a game and it IS a genre difference. This one is more hair splitty though, admittedly

MOBA: Okay that's fair. I'll refrain from saying league sucks though. Oh. Fuck. sorry.

Simulation: I'm gonna cry. No Banished, no Surviving Mars, no Euro Truck Simulator, no Elite Dangerous, no Kerbal Space Program. Fucking Stardew Valley. How could you do this to me.

Metroidvania: I only know these exist because of one of my polatoms.

Horror: Most "horror" genre stuff is really just scary and not horror. This spread is pretty okay but come on where's Puppetcombo and Closing Shift. ... and go on, put Subnautica on the list too, the world won't change until the brave speak up.

Other: I can't believe you didn't give Disco Elysium a category that only has Disco Elysium in it.

Other 2: Wait where's racing games.

[ideahat-universe]

Bad addiction.

I had a dream where I was playing League of Legends again. Somewhere in my heart of hearts I want to go back to playing League of Legends.

What's stopping me? Other people playing League of Legends. I just want someone to make a single player MOBA.

Make a dozen maps, some thoughtful AI, and a lot of player customization options and I'll buy and play that to get my fix.

I can't go back to fighting teammates who don't like that my builds are not meta, getting crushed by the opponent 3 minutes in, and then wasting anywhere between 15 minutes to 45 minutes struggling to win in a game where only 1/10 of it is in my control.

I'm not a lunatic. I don't want to carry an entire team every match just so I can win that match. I want to be able to depend on my teammates without harassing micromanaging them and the rest of the map. I made like an entire document detailing the best synergies in Bot Lane and what suits our team best in a given match and that's about the best I could do.

Join a match with friends, lose because friends aren't taking things seriously.

Join a match with strangers, lose because they don't cooperate with anyone to accomplish team goals.

Join ranked, everything about that multiplies.

Doing ARAM all day is like an admission that the main game is basically unplayable to a casual gaming experience.

I'm not asking for over a hundred characters in this single player MOBA. You and I both know most of the characters in League are redundant and useless. Just two dozen. Two dozen playable characters who are all unique from each other. 3v3. And revive all the dead maps that League dumped in the garbage.

That's all I'm asking. I need to stop dreaming about League. This curse can only be broken by playing a MOBA that doesn't suck.

Somebody help me.

[drawn-on-phone]

I've talked about it elsewhere, but I want a war drama from the Tyranids side. Specifically focusing on the Norn Queens communicating around an invasion via sharing information on new builds of units, sning at each other for various fleet specializations, and taking control of (or commanding the more sentient) bugs on the ground.

I also want it to have the cold, detached perspective of what amounts to a professional RTS / MOBA stream. The conversations are curt, pointed, and personalities come out of command/control styles. All the while, the Hive Mind entity controlling the fleet lingers on the edges like a manager ready to cut off or take direct control from our View Point Norn Queen.

Addendum: There was a new Nids PoV short-story, and it sucked. The Hive Mind being simplified to "me hangry, so me hate-eat the idiot Genestealer Cultists because they are only food," really REALLY sucks. AoS has the Ogor Mawtribes and Sons of Behemat, which basically just are hungry bois, but they are complex hungry bois. The Hive Mind in the short story isn't complex or interesting. It is Discount Dollar General Grim Derp.

Taking a break from complaining about necron treatment to complain about Tyranid treatment! Because the fact that nids don't have their own books/lore/characters is bonkers to me. "Oooooh, they're too vast and alien to comprehend blah blah blah giving them characters undermines the mystery and horror..." NO! COWARDS! You want to sit there and tell me no author in the history of science fiction has ever effectively written from the POV of the alien? The inhuman? Made it both chilling and sympathetic? Never???

Gee it sure would be nice if Games Workshop had ever worked with a Hugo Award-winning author who had previously written a series including the POVs of hyper-evolved intelligent alien spiders. And it would be even better if that author had already written a book about Genestealers and so likely understood tyranid lore. OH NO WHERE SHALL WE FIND SUCH AN INDIVIDUAL???

Oh hey look it's Adrian Tchaikovsky! Author of the fantastic 40k book Day of Ascension. Go! Give him a pile of money to solve the Tyranid lore problem. Robert Rath and Nate Crowley fixed necrons, this clearly can be done. Hive tyrants and lictors already have enough individual personality to become characters in their own rights. Deathleaper exists. This is so, so doable.

There, solved the problem. I expect my copy of the new Tyranid novel in the mail. You're welcome

[soulsilencer]

People on twitter can really be out of their minds sometimes because I genuinely remember someone made a post comparing genshin impact to league of legends and which one is better like................................ those games are fundamentally different??? Unless you’re comparing character and world designs or whatever, there is no way to compare two games that are completely different in mechanics and type

Like one of them is a gacha team combat game that has an ongoing storyline and requires money to unlock characters and the other is an online moba that has no playable storyline with additional paid cosmetics. You can literally just say “I enjoy this game more personally” without doing the dumbest reaches in history -_-

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. I personally would be more willing to excuse the constant art mistakes and issues in LO if it was actually just Rachel doing it all herself. The fact the reality is actually her only sketching it out at best while her team of 4-5 people do the actual art is just inexcusable. The biggest selling point about it too is it's supposed to have great art, so why can't it even keep basic features correct? This is just ridiculous. How do you get more people working on it and it's only worse for it?

2. I think its PJO that said Gods can easily change how they appear (PJO Aphrodite for example looks how the viewer finds attractive, while PJO Persephone's looks change off the seasons) but that's all established and confirmed very early in the series and has in-universe explanations. LO has none of this minus "emotional hair" (???) so there is really no excuse Rachel & her 5+ person team can't even keep Hades' nose right. It's honestly a bit ridiculous how art issues are more frequent than not.

3. IDK why Rachel keeps pushing for Hera and Persephone to be the same person bc not only does that imply Hades wants Hera but is using Persephone to replace her, but Hera sucks?? She's an elitist jerk, she's racist against nymphs unless they're "one of the good ones" (🤢) she claims to be so loyal yet cheats on Zeus with his BROTHER, she neglects her kids to were her 8 year old has to act like an adult, she lies to her own sister, etc. Why would you want Persephone be ANYTHING like her?

4. About that thing about the kings using a fertility goddess (Gaia, Rhea) to gain power... did Rachel entirely miss that the kings themselves ARE fertility gods? Cronus is straight up an earth god, Uranus and Zeus are both sky gods (=rain)

5. sorry, no amount of "thats just the angle!" or "that's just the lighting!" can excuse rachel's piss poor character designing. the character's whole faces, bodies, and skin colors shouldn't change literally every other panel unless its copied and pasted the same panel, which even then theyre still often redrawn to look different and thus off model once again. There's no part of the story confirming their have fluid looks, so it looks even more ridiculous it can't keep even basic things on model.

6. You fools.  Clearly the more creepy and controlling he gets about Persephone the longer his nose grows. Why do you think he looks even more like a swordfish now? I’ve cracked the code. 

7. I’m not saying bad faith critique of LO doesn’t exist but I’m really disturbed over how the stans act like BIPOC readers, LGBTQ+ readers,  SA survivors, Greeks, etc critiquing it’s very real flaws and issues that are sold to literal children is just lumped under that same bad faith argument or “being an anti”. Like?? We’re not arguing about stupid ships, we’re critiquing how it sexualizes a girl that’s barely legal, a story that frames the poor as the real oppressors to the rich and powerful, a story that uses sexual assault to push a creepy, power imbalanced ship along, a comic that spits in the face of the culture and stories it’s butchering and profiting off of, a story that (I will hope unintentionally) has very real implications of racism and antisemitism, a story that frames a slave owner and potential groomer as the best man ever, a story that took a famous bisexual god and made him the abuser to a poor little straight girl, a story claiming to be feminist yet is deeply rooted in pushing misogynistic messages, and the list goes on and on. That’s not “anti” behavior, it’s being able to critically consume this media and not being blinded by marketing and the bright colors it can’t keep consistent. 

8. I feel so bad when I think about the fact I wasted all my time and energy into Lore Olympus fanart, fanfiction, fandom (discussions, theories and even arguing), compared to when I used to be in other fandoms. Like... League Of Legends fandom, yeah, that boring and ugly moba game, has made me feel much more fulfilled and welcomed, especially because of how many amazing story and world building related things they provide from time to time.

Yes, Smythe doesn't have much money to provide the fandom with interesting animations, or exclusive music videos or just basically anything other than doodles and memes and concept art... But still for some reason I feel so cheated. The amount of love and time I dedicated to Lore Olympus feels heavily one-sided.

Now it's a matter of time until another fandom will pull me in and I leave Lore Olympus behind for good. I just don't understand what kept me here so long. I suppose it's my need for closure is why I still stay. I just need to know how it ends because I don't want this whole time I wasted on this bad piece of media to be in vain. 

9. I think In trying to make the comic more “serious” Rachel seems to think adding more complicated plots and “twists” makes it better, but it really doesn’t. There’s nothing wrong with telling a simple story and that’s it, especially when the hymn is pretty straightforward in what to do with it. Idk why she thinks adding plots about Kronos, Leto, Eros, Daphne, Echo, AOW, etc would somehow improve a story about HxP getting together, yet here we are. 

10. Not only is Hera a Fertility Goddess despite Rachel's lack of world building, Hera also has a huge overlap with Zeus in terms of powers, such as herself being able to control the weather, cause storms, and crumble empires if she saw fit. There is a reason Zeus and Hera were paired and it wasn't just their for spicy romance, it was also the fact he was the strongest god and she was the strongest goddess. Rachel very purposely nuked Hera of her real power and still thinks she's "empowering" her!

[queeoretician]

Oooh are we doing a TLT compsci AU?

Lemme take a bit of a different tack, based more on individual characters' vibes than specific fields of specialisation...

So Harrow is a secretive solo embedded systems hacker who works on some profoundly cursed shit that almost nobody knows about but everything in the world depends on. Writes everything in assembly, and has the intellectual machismo of a stereotypical Russian competitive programmer, but in a quiet way.

Gideon is a gamer jock who dreams of becoming an esports star. She constantly gives Harrow shit for having zero skill with a mouse and sucking at Starcraft.

Camilla and Palamedes are deep-fried backend/OS types; in my headcanon they're the ones with the heavy C and Unix expertise (but maybe that's just me projecting). Palamedes and Harrow can go at each other for hours upon hours arguing about security shit. The Sixth both play EVE like mega-nerds, but Cam is secretly also an absolute RTS fiend with APM like you've never seen.

I definitely agree with the flesh magic <-> web frontend correspondence; Ianthe has an unsavoury knowledge of old browser quirks but is also surprisingly deep on low-level network shit. Corona and Babs are both influencer types, with Corona doing the whole Elizabeth Holmes fraudulent-startup thing (Ianthe codes all of her dodgy demos) while Babs is a toxic pro MOBA player/streamer (pick a MOBA you dislike; I'm not here to flame specific fandoms xD).

Judith is a middle manager with mediocre technical skills who thinks she's entitled to boss everyone around because she has a semblance of a tech background; Marta is a strong generalist who is either well-respected or sorely underappreciated depending on who you ask.

It's a bit out of left field but I feel like Abigail would be some kind of multidisciplinary polymath with a specialisation in UX research or something like that - I imagine her doing some cool technical work that's informed by humanities stuff that some of the other necros look down on. Not sure what to make of Magnus. Maybe he's just everyone else's therapist? Goodness knows they need one (or more)...

I'm not sure what to make of the Fourth and Seventh, but the Eighth are definitely AI/singularity cultists.

With Jod and his disciples you probably get into drawing equivalences with specific real-world people, which I'm less enthusiastic about, but I love the idea of Pyrrha having millennia-old war stories about horrifying ancient tech that makes the kids ears bleed just to hear about...

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

its hard to try and find a modern day equivalent to necromancy as a trade/job because i feel like the essentials of it have to be 1) niche 2) concerning at first to most, more popular in richer or legacy families 3) depending on the necromancy, actual construction of a sort 4) for harrowhark in particular, something that allows her to operate alone in a basement and without a ged. thus i have concluded that the best options for harrowharks job in 2023 are 1) computer science 2) mortician (family business) and 3) tumblrs very beloved chocolatier man amaury guichon

other additions from the notes: crime scene cleanup, old time chemist, amateur lepidopterist

[illusionsofdreaming]

What advice can you give to people starting Genshin Impact for the first time? I want to try playing it because I kinda wanna join my friends in it, like bond with them through it, but I suck at online games like these 😅😂

Oh my god that's so exciting!

Darling, it does not matter if you're a pro gamer or Genshin's going to pop your gaming cherry - games were invented to bring excitement into our lives! Stress relief! Escapism!

Genshin Impact was designed to be a roleplaying game. It has an immersive storyline, 'nameable' MC and characters you can literally go on a date with. Yes, there's fighting and strategy involved but you don't need to be a tactician to win (you can literally button smash). The difficulty is scale-able and made to be easy to learn!

My only advice is to really enjoy the storyline at your own pace! I know what it's like to join a game late in it's release and every one of your peers are already at the final chapter so you end up rushing through the entire plotline just to catch up.

No.

you listen to me, and listen carefully now darling.

enjoy the beautiful game at your own pace.

enjoy every bush you walk past, all the little animals in your path, the pain of struggling to adjust the camera and still walk in a straight line, the first death, the first boss victory, the first repeat boss trial, the conversations with the NPCs, conversations WITH your favorite characters, the story-

get lost in the game world and explore to your heart's content like you've been ISEKAIED- because honey, this is the closest thing to being isekaied in my opinion.

don't feel pressured to catch up to your friend's AR levels - look, if they're already at 57AR+ like me they can afford to wait and let you enjoy the game with starry eyes. Genshin Impact is not a collaborative MOBA game (where teamwork is necessary) so it’s cool if you learn at your own pace.

and if, after a while, it feels like your levels or attacks or whatever, aren't doing enough damage. dude and dudettes, may I introduce you to the free platform full of cheat tutorials: Youtube.