#every game should have to option to replay specific missions.

[killakalx]

every time i think i should open arkham knight and then remember that i’m literally stuck on the gcpd attack and can’t go to any other part of the story without starting all over again i start sobbing profusely

[eegasleega-will-change-this-l8r]

Neat now's some more assorted random stuff just for fun :3

This is an older doodle I did of her, it's not great so I'm not gonna add it to the main post but it captured her usual vibe pretty well

Here's a buncha random headcanons:

Her eyes glow when she uses her powers, it can be pretty scary

I did say this in the main post but she's very attached to her hat. Even in the game it says it has her name inscribed on it (I'm picturing it delicately embroidered in cursive somewhere inside)

When playing the game I think the highest damage I ever saw her do with her pan was, like, 3. Which I think is just for dumb sexist stuff and to make the player rely more on her PSI so this isn't really a serious thing, but I think she just doesn't bother trying to whack things effectively because she knows it's a waste of time when she has ridiculously powerful magic she could be using. Like a one-off comic where Ninten tells her to use her pan on a Mook or something while he takes care of Lloyd and she just flippantly bonks it for 1 damage

She writes exclusively in cursive, mostly seen in her letters to Ninten after Giygas's defeat

Of course they all stay friends afterwards :3

Pretty much every photo of her pre-Ninten looks exactly the same. Just scowling at the camera like |:( School picture day, all of her birthdays, everything

She doesn't like Teddy at all at first even though she chose him over Lloyd, which I don't think should be too surprising (her being all proper and judgemental and him being an obnoxiously loud and crude jerk :P). She starts to like him more after she opens up to Ninten and Teddy starts to go through his own character arc, and by the time they reach the cabin he makes her laugh and she likes listening to him sing

She definitely apologizes to Lloyd after they reunite, and they become close too. They've definitely got some stuff to connect with, like neither really having friends before Ninten, starting out with pretty bad outlooks on life, getting super flustered when Ninten smiles at them

Ninten always makes sandwiches and stuff when they're not able to buy food on their adventure, I think I mentioned that in my Ninten post. Ana eats them with her usual dismissiveness, though inwardly she's actually super impressed by them (Ninten knows how to make pretty great sandwiches out of simple ingredients, and Ana's diet in Snowman was pretty basic and unadventurous) She ends up loving them and associating them with all her good memories of her friends

My Giygas design has horns instead of the usual ears which you might've noticed if you've seen my drawings of him before, I actually did that with her in mind specifically. Just sort of a lazy way to make him sort of devil-y because, like, she's christian. Deepest character design of all time

A while back I was wondering if I was straying too far from what little is shown of her in the game (not that it'd stop me), then I replayed it and checked some of her other options and she's like Totally serious Like I'm absolutely sure this wasn't the intention with her character and you do have to choose the options that you shouldn't be choosing but I don't think my interpretation really contradicts her dialogue in the game or anything (these are paraphrased but) "You're Ninten, aren't you?" >No "This isn't the time for joking around."

"Ninten, I really like you… Do you like me?" >No "You're right. We need to focus on the mission." Painful XP

So I played the fan translation instead of Earthbound Beginnings (that's also why I used the original holiday town names in the post, do NOT expect me to be consistent with that XP), and I really love how she confesses in that version. When you say Yes, she just says "I'm so glad." it's so, like, reserved and sweet, like you can just picture her blushing and looking at the ground to hide her smile aaaaa)

Originally I thought it'd be kinda fun for her to be, like, creepy, like she's a quiet, clairvoyant, completely expressionless girl with icy blue eyes that just stares into your soul It wasn't that fun though and I got fixated on the grumpy idea pretty much immediately after the first time I tried drawing her, so here we are now :D

Sooo I wasn't planning on doing this post just yet and I don't have a good digital drawing of her yet, but

Ana!!

So my take on her is very different from how I think most people imagine her, I wanted to go in a different direction that made her more than just the girl one/ninten's girlfriend/nicher Paula and she's become one of my favorite characters to play around with ^^

Design details and a giant wall of text detailing her character and story below :3

So like the entirety of my interpretation of Ana stems from one thing

That face

T_T

Very prominent eyebrows (Invasion From the Unknown actually mentions the same thing!!! the illustrations don't show it though and there's not really any other similarities between that version and mine), mouth usually spread in a frown, she's not a happy person Pink dress with a white collar and frill at the bottom, pink hat with a black band (or maybe cream with a red/pink band? i might play around with that idk), red shoes and white stockings She almost always wears her hat when she's out, having to leave it behind in Reindeer was very frustrating but she knew she'd get it back eventually at least (And yeah, she's fat. Her sprite doesn't look fat, I haven't seen other designs that make her fat, I didn't really take inspiration from her model because I hate it and it's not really fat either, I just wanted there to be a fat girl who's not, like, a mean-spirited joke, and since MOTHER's sprites are suuuper vague I decided to take advantage of it and design the characters however I wanted. thank god i'm on tumblr and not posting these to reddit or something, they'd crucify me)

Now her character!

Basically, Ana is grumpy and sour Constantly

You can contrast that with Ninten's 24/7 positivity

In general, I see the world of MOTHER 1 being very bleak and gloomy, with Ninten being the sole exception who helps bring light to the places and people whose souls are being crushed by the weight of everything Ana's sort of the final boss of repressed emotions and pessimism for Ninten to tackle (besides the actual final boss, who completely blows anyone else's emotional repression out of the water - I have a Giygas post in my drafts but I honestly have too much to say about him, I need to trim it down ><) It alllllll plays into the themes I wanna play with in my M1 interpretation :3

So Ana was a young girl living with her mother and father in Snowman's local chapel. Even before the Invasion she was pretty well-known for not being particularly upbeat. She was super reserved, pretty much never smiled, and preferred reading and praying to other people's company. She got some of it from her father, who was a priest and raised her to value proper behaviour and following God or whatever, but she's also just kinda like that. Her mother was much warmer, loving her daughter and never judging her for being less outgoing than the other kids, and Ana was always happiest curled up with her next to the fire, listening to a story.

Oh, and of course she's psychic, powerfully so. Bad news if you tick her off. Her family regards it as a miracle from God. She's a little clairvoyant, but not enough to know exactly what the future holds. Just short little confusing snippets and hints of what to do and expect.

One day, everything suddenly changed. The town was hit by an earthquake, everything was covered in darkness, the animals on the outskirts of town went berserk, and people went missing. The sounds and the shaking jolted Ana awake, and she ran down the hall hoping to be comforted by her mother. Opened the door, standing there with a candle, staring at the empty bed and a shattered window.

Ana buried her feelings and set out to try and find her mother (her father just stayed home and prayed, never leaving the chapel), but the monsters and creatures that had appeared were too strong for her alone, and she could only get as far as Reindeer before she had to turn back. But she heard a little voice in her head that told her to leave her hat behind, and she knew that whoever returned it to her would be the person she had to follow to rescue her mother. She waited impatiently back at her home, praying with her father, obsessively reading the news (similar disappearances all over the country, especially in Easter, interesting), and hoping that the hero, "Ninten," would show up soon.

Eventually, after FAR longer than she was happy with, he showed up and. Is this really the hero? This is just some bucktoothed kid and his geeky friend. She shoved down her frustrations along with everything else (at the very least she appreciated finally having her hat back) and told him that she needed to join him. He's happy to meet her of course because he's Ninten ("New friend!" "We are not friends.") And so the trio gets to set off on their journey!

In the completely wrong direction. Why are we stopping in Halloween.

For some reason, Ninten doesn't seem overly concerned about the fate of the world. He and his stupid friend just keep goofing off and hunting for these useless melodies. This isn't a scavenger hunt. The world is gonna be destroyed. She's furious, but she bottles it up. This is the person who's apparently fated to save Earth, so she has to stay with him, no matter how annoying he is or how much time he wastes.

So Ana spends the whole journey getting progressively more ticked off as they keep getting distracted by the hunt for the melodies. Ninten's shenanigans and his relentlessly positive attitude continue to get on her nerves, and she refuses to engage with them. This is a SERIOUS mission, and she's not gonna stoop to their foolish level, even if she has to stick with them.

So I'll be able to get more into the fight among the group when Teddy joins when I do his post, but short story is that Ana is against Lloyd staying. If they're actually gonna see this mission through to its end, someone strong like Teddy's gonna be far more useful, and they've wasted far too much time to let Lloyd slow them down. Her anger's really starting to boil over at this point. They've been together for ages, and they've barely gotten any closer to saving the world.

This all finally comes to a head on the Mountain (I love the Mountain, everything happens on the Mountain). Ninten's starting to lose his cool as the stress of their journey starts getting heavier and heavier, having to leave Lloyd was incredibly painful, and he's angry with her for not having their backs. She snaps that they aren't friends, they're just allies on the same mission, and they can't afford to waste time goofing off and making pals, and the fight gets more and more heated until everything Ana's been holding in finally bursts free.

She's terrified, and she's been terrified ever since her mother disappeared, and she doesn't know if they can really win or if she'll ever see her mother again, and having to just stay bottled up while they just wandered around seemingly not doing anything has been awful, and infuriating, and she can't stop herself from crying anymore.

Ninten quiets down and lets her have what she needs for a few minutes before he tries to comfort her. He didn't realize she was keeping all this inside, and he feels horrible that she was dealing with this the entire time. Once her tears die down, he rests his hand on her and assures her that they're gonna save her mother, and everyone else, too. He doesn't know how, and he's terrified sometimes too, but he also knows that for whatever reason, they need the melodies if they want to win. He apologizes for just ignoring all her feelings for the entire journey, and tells her that even though she's been so firm about not liking them, he doesn't want her to be alone. She can tell him anything, she doesn't need to keep everything to herself. That's what being friends is about, right?

So this is huge for both of them, and it's when Ana finally starts to warm up. She finally sees that it's good to be open and have friends, and that they'll be stronger for it if they're close. And, as they climb further up the Mountain and continue being friends, she starts to realize some muuuuch more uncomfortable feelings, too. Of course she pushes them down at first, but when they reach the cabin, they're alone together, and who knows if she'll have another chance to open up like this, she comes out and asks Ninten to dance.

I flip-flop a lot on whether Ninten actually feels mutually about her (you can choose yes or no when she asks if you like her back, I don't think Ninten's really ready to figure that stuff out for himself), but goddd I love this scene so much, for such a simple, clunky game, its tender moments hit so hard ;-;

So by the end of the story, Ana's reunited with her mother, she finally has friends that she loves and cares about, she's discovered new things about herself, and she's developed a new sense of hope and brightness for the future. A happy ending :)

So that's my version of Ana, I think she's very different from every other version I've seen of her so it's not like I'll ever see content for her that'll really speak to me unfortunately, but I love her and I love thinking about her dynamic with the other characters ^^

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[potatowitch]

Quality of Life Wishlist for DA4

This will be a very long one but I have some Thoughts about little tiny things that I think are missing from Origins, DA2 and Inquisition that I hope Bioware thinks about when making DA4.

Make banter guaranteed to activate every 15 minutes or so, regardless of where you are, unless you are in combat or a conversation with an NPC.

Make armor look different depending on race/origin. My Dalish elf shouldn’t be forced to wear shoes just because the other three races would. Same goes for stronghold/home outfits/pyjamas - why you have to download a mod to let your elf wear the elf NPC clothes in Skyhold I’ll never know. They’re literally already in the game.

Let the MC respond to companion banter more, even if it’s the way Hawke does in DA2 where a dialog wheel doesn’t show, they just make a small comment.

Make it easier to increase inventory size, similar to buying backpacks in the first 2 games. Having to spend Inquisition perks to increase inventory size bugs me.

Better hair options! Even if all the “long” hair options have to be updos to minimize clipping, there is no reason to have fifteen different variations of “bald/shaved” and only one “long hair that’s been put into a braided bun” option. Give me LONG ponytails. Side braids down the front. Pig tails. Elaborate braided buns. Long hair that’s been pulled back from the face. Space buns. Anything.

Tintable weapons. Bothered me to no end when I would make a dragonbone weapon in Inquisition and it had to be that weird orange gold colour.

Let me swim but please do not make me fight anyone underwater. Every single time it happens in a game, any game, I want to vomit.

Make companions actually utilize the jump function. I don’t know how difficult this would be to program but I got real sick of companions getting stuck behind fences because they didn’t realize they could jump.

Let me make my own notes on the map. An example: adding a pin that says “saw a dragon here. come back later when higher level”. The original Neverwinter Nights game did this and I loved it.

Way to do some war table functions without having to return to a stronghold, similar to how the Descent DLC did. For example, I should be able to do every war table mission from Skyhold, but if a war table mission takes place around the Hinterlands I should be able to order it to be done from a table in Redcliffe.

A different quiver. Please. Even if it works the way it does in Skyrim where it matches the bow. I am So Bored of the same quiver that matches none of my armor.

Companions have their own personalised mounts that they summon when you get on yours, so they can ride with you and they can still banter. World of Warcraft does this with companions on the Broken Isles in the Legion expansion and I appreciate it. Imagine Blackwall having a black horse with Grey Warden insignia on the saddle. Vivienne’s horse being a beautiful white stallion with an elaborately braided mane.

Expanded tactics, similar to the first two games. I miss being able to tell Alistair “hey if someone attacks Barkspawn please immediately taunt them”.

Please consult someone who actually wears makeup on what shadow, liner and blush are meant to look like.

Let me save a preset in the character creator so if I want to replay my main I don’t have to take a million screenshots of my sliders then try my best to recreate them from an image. I should not have to install mods to do this.

Don’t make me travel to Kirkwall to change my hair. In both DA2 and Inquisition your character has a bedroom, why can they not just have a little mirror on top of their dresser to change hair and makeup? Fair enough if you want to change facial features, tattoos and scars, but hair and makeup? Come on.

Better eyebrows and lashes.

Please include ALL tattoo options from Origins, DA2 and Inquisition, ESPECIALLY if we’re bringing back the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor for any reason.

Let me give my elves cartilage piercings. Let me give everyone facial piercings.

More diverse body types, even if it’s similar to the way Bioware does it in SWTOR (you have petite, “average”, curvy and buff options - it’s not a lot, but it’s better than what we have). I really like the system that Guild Wars 2 has where you can pick a base body type from 10-15 options and also edit your height, but I know that might make things difficult to program for cutscenes.

Can I have some healing spells back? Even if it’s just one or two? Don’t love how if I’m out of potions in Inquisition all Solas can do is be like “here. have a barrier. hope you don’t die because my resurrect is on cooldown lol”

Find a balance between Inquisition’s “you only have 8 spells slots” and Origins and DA2′s “your action bar covers the whole bottom of your screen”. Maybe 12 spell slots?

If we must have a “squad goes to a party” level, please make the outfits pretty and race/origin appropriate and Do Not give everyone the same outfit. Better yet, upon entering the level, bring up a temporary character creator that’s like “here are a couple of outfit options, also do you want to change your hair and makeup for this mission specifically?”

Body scars and body tattoos, especially for Dalish elves. Let my vallaslin go down to my titties.

A more customisable HUD/UI. Let me make my quest tracker smaller! My action bars smaller! My companion portraits SMALLER! They take up so much space!

I really hope they bring back the companion armor system from Inquisition. I love how the basic armors look different depending on which companion you put them on and I hope they keep that in DA4.

Let me choose whether hats are visible for specific companions. I don’t want everyone wearing their helmets but Cole’s hat, Vivienne’s headpiece, the flower crown, the Qunari face paint and the mage hoods are Important and I like them and want to see them.

Capes? Can I have some capes? I’d like a cape.

[cmescapade]

my long overview/review of ‘Star Wars: Journey to Batuu’ after forcing myself to play it almost nonstop

so i said i was going to amend what i said in response to this ask after playing to min/max shit so here is a tldr version of my opinion after playing:

I consider this pack to be a 2/10; It's enough to kill time as a temporary distraction, but not for long. There’s absolutely no replay value after going through all those missions as each outcome is ultimately the same by faction. There also doesn’t seem to be any negative outcomes for each prompt in the little “choose your adventure” pop ups--And if there is, it is extremely low since I have never gotten a negative outcome. 

The aspirations are fair, and are the only things I found in this pack that’s anyway redeemable since I believe the rewards can be used well in conjunction with general solo/super-sim gameplay.

kinda sat on this for a while bc i wasn’t sure if i should post something so lengthy but then i remembered this is my blog n i can post my left toe if i wanted to

even tho i would never post a pic of my left toe anyway

.......at least for free. With the right price, however....

anyway more details under the cut if you’re interested bc i like to ramble :))

I decided to split this into 5 sections to organize my thoughts a little better. I’ll be separating my thoughts on each faction, the ships as a rabbit hole, the faction missions, the star wars aspirations, and then the breakdown of my 2/10 rating. 

1. Factions

When you travel to Batuu, the game gives you a starting “mission” or quest to get you acclimated to the areas, and each area has a specific Faction associated with it.

And yes, you cannot live anywhere, nor are there any lots, as was already stated.

Every area has a similar makeup which has:

Control Panels

Supply Crates

1 non-rabbit hole area

1 interactable ship

The Black Spire Outpost is the biggest area and has:

Two places to grab food, three if you count the Cantina

Aside from the Cantina, the other areas are rabbit holes

The two eateries are:

Docking Bay 7

this one has the most food options

you’ll never go hungry in batuu because the cheapest items on the menu are Outpost Popcorn Mix and Water at 0 credits lmao

the other two foods not shown in the screenshot above are Yobshrimp Noodle Salad and Braised Shaak Roast

Ronto Roasters

This food place has two of the same options Docking Bay 7 has as well as two additional food items

Oga’s Cantina

The only area that you see the inside of

yea the bar serves batuu-only drinks too

also where you find the guy who would give you Scoundrel missions, Hondo Ohnaka.

You can essentially max your Scoundrel reputation without it hindering whichever side you wanna take, and you can keep it when you essentially max out your rep on either the Resistance or the First Order.

There aren’t any real pros to being a Scoundrel aside from some socialization interactions. It doesn’t do anything for initial Batuu gameplay aside from unlocking Scoundrel outfits in CAS and some upgrades for your droids, but this goes for all of your options (Resistance, First Order, & Scoundrel).

The Dwelling

This is a rabbit hole where your sim goes to sleep, pee, or shower… If not the closest bench. 

It’s located opposite to the Cantina. 

If you’re ever lost, there’s a spire you can sit/nap on right in front of it–or you can just wait till your sim wants to pee. 

they’ll automatically run there 

that’s… how i found it, tbh

Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities

Another rabbithole

This place sells items you can use to complete missions, like Dataspikes and a couple of Lightsaber parts

Majority of the inventory are decorative stuff to bring back with you

Savi’s Workshop

Right behind the antique shop is the lightsaber place where you can find more hilts, kyber crystals, and display cases for your lightsabers.

You can also click on the shop to start a lightsaber challenge.

Outside this area, you have the First Order District which has more supply crates and control panels than the other two neighborhoods, and a lot more activity–Makes sense since this is basically the hub for the First Order in general. 

There’s only the Droid Depot in this area, and the only real shop that has use for credits. Food wise, there’s a food stall, and if your sim is stinky or tired, they’d basically disappear for a few minutes to recharge and come back. 

Droid Depot

Each faction has specific Droid personality traits

Aside from “voices,” these personalities don’t do much

I guess the First Order one is a lot more zap-happy though

The Resistance Camp is even smaller. Like the other areas, it’s littered with supply crates, but only has one control panel and no shops. However, there’s a rabbit hole toward the back in the Caves.

This doesn’t lead you to anywhere interesting, and it’s just another ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of thing. 

2. Ships

In the Black Spire Outpost, you’ll find the iconic Millennium Falcon. You can do kessel runs and explore in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca if you have a high Scoundrel reputation. 

However, although I said you get to ride with Chewbacca, you don’t ever see him come out 

He just kinda……………..stays there

and the prompts tell u he’s there

n ur gonna have to go with it and use the power of your imagination to believe he really do be there

In the First Order District, there’s the TIE Echelon, which functions the same way as the Millennium Falcon… But, you can’t do anything outside of exploring or using it for missions. This is how the X-Wing Starfighter in the Resistance Camp functions as well. 

It’s all pretty copy and paste, but w/e, that’s how EA does it  

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Missions

There may be several different missions per faction, but to no one’s surprise, they’re all literally the same one but worded differently.

Regular missions only have one plus (+) and one negative (-) icon

Regular Scoundrel missions only have one plus icon and no negatives since they don’t impact other factions

Each faction has a regular mission that pertains to:

Obtaining information

Exploring with the faction’s designated ship

Stealing from Supply Crates

Hacking a Control Panel

Yes………………….They’re very repetitive

You don’t have to do all of them though

You can spam the same one over and over as long as it fits the time slot

For example, the Resistance’s ship exploration mission is limited to only the day time and seems to disappear when it gets late in game

also there’s an error with the TIE Echelon where it’s missing a whole ass prompt

……As you can see, the options make no sense because the prompt is the same one that came before it 🥴

anyway…

Story Missions are the only missions that seem to differentiate from each faction.

All missions that pertain to the “story” are indicated with prerequisites of higher ranks within the faction

All of them give a double boost toward your faction

If it’s a Resistance story quest, it’ll always increase hostility from First Order members

Vice versa for the First Order faction

The Scoundrels are neutral, and do not impact any faction 

It’s only the Resistance and First Order factions that have very similar plot lines

but I’m guessing it’s only like that since they’re supposed to follow the vague cause/effect the two of them have?

4. Aspirations

The initial Aspiration you get when you pick the Star Wars umbrella in CAS (or in game) is “Hope VS Order.” After completing this one aspiration, you unlock the 3 that pertain to each faction.

Paragon of Hope

Resistance aspiration

Reward trait gives a boost to Charisma skill building

This is probably nice for those careers that need Charisma to be high, like the Political and Business branches

Enforcer of Order

First Order aspiration

Lowers chances of “Death from Anger”

Since I like killing my sims, I think this aspiration is pointless lmao

Galactic Privateer

Scoundrel aspiration

“Sleight of Hand” reward trait

Unlocks pickpocketing outside of Criminal branch usage

Best one here tbh

Works outside of Batuu, you’ll steal simoleons instead of credits

Also you can cheat whenever u play Sabaac and no one will notice

5. Reevaluation of Initial Opinions

I’ll be going through my initial list from my Response to the Ask I got before. I originally stated that it seemed promising and it was a 3.5~4/10.

Aesthetics/Visual: my opinion is unchanged, it still made me sad i can’t have a little shanty house out there or rent a garbo lot, 0.5/5

The longer I played, the more I didn’t find any new animations

The lightsaber sparring slowly began to look like a mash between GF and RoM duels after a while

I still hate that the areas were beautiful (+0.5) but the interactive places forced cutaway

why do you wanna ruin my screenshots like this, man

CAS/BB still is hard to integrate–Unless your sim is a geek with figurines, the ship models might be nice to add to their collections

Otherwise……

….

I don’t have a follow up for that, sry

Gameplay: uhhh at least i found something i could use outside of Batuu, 1.5/5

I think that playing 3984729847 repetitive missions for a long period time really orientated me to the whole map

…but the fact that i had trouble the first time around still makes it not-user friendly

the issue I had with the resistance members not having an icon? It’s a thing, I guess

The resistance quests take you on a weird trip to “prove” yourself so i guess the icons are supposed to show that they’re “not” resistance members or something idk

they’re supposed to be the sneaky underdogs who wanna do good or w/e

I guess that’s immersive…….. +0.5

sry im first order trash

they also have “Ignite the Spark” and “Ask about Missions” both leading to the same mission screen……………….

convenience?? i guess??

missions are still confusing, made worse when the game itself glitches up a storm

there was one mission where i had to go to the cantina to find someone

and they wouldn’t spawn within the time frame………….

i had to go in and out for like 3 days until they actually spawned

i only knew this bc i arrested half the people in the cantina while i was bored

so anyone without a red bar was probably them lmfaoo

also, as i stated above……. there’s some mission errors in the prompts 

Currency is still worthless.

Everything can be done by purely stealing from supply crates

Credits are only worth to blow it off on sabaac! 

The only real need for credits is to have 1,000 so u can buy a droid

Then slam the rest of those credits on the table to bet bajillions on a game of sabaac!

Aspirations………. Useful +1

Despite them being sorta niche, they’re pretty decent

Can abuse the rewards for optimal gameplay for a super sim

Honestly i just love the pickpocketing reward off the Scoundrel aspiration, just because it works outside of Batuu (and that he didn’t have to be in the Criminal career for it either)

In total, my personal rating for this pack is 2/10.

It was nice, but I don’t really see this pack being replayable, considering that i did everything there was to do on Batuu in a single trip. Sure I could’ve taken my time, but since everything would end up the same anyway, it felt like it was set up to be a one-time gig. 

At least with JA you’re moderately forced to return so you can collect treasures that are RNG–In JtB, you can snatch up all that you need on Batuu from grinding everything like a nutcase. There’s also chances of failure in JA, but on Batuu that percentage is almost little to none. The most you’ll ever get is a dazed moodlet that barely lasts, a negative relationship, and being escorted to a loading screen.  

I feel like this pack could be a little better if there were more risks involved, but there are barely any that I encountered. It’s just another weird, rehashed cash grab by EA.

[silver-wield]

Final Fantasy 7R review

I finished the game this morning and I already have regrets that there’s nothing left for me to do besides replay and anxiously wait for news of the next installment. I want more. I want to not have finished it yet. I need to know what happens next, not just in the updated story, but with the game mechanics, too. I’m happy the team is taking their time to make the game as good as it deserves to be, but on the other hand I wanna throw a toddler tantrum demanding the rest of my game! 

Beware, spoilers.

The bad stuff

To be fair, not a lot from where I’m sitting. I’ve seen people bitch about textures and how the scrap yards don’t look dynamic enough and some stuff is flat, but seriously, why are yall looking at the walls? They’re the least interesting thing about the game and you’re just nitpicking. The graphics overall were amazing and I stopped multiple times just to rotate the camera and take in this massive city we actually get to really explore for the first time ever!

I have to admit a slight disappointment in the amount of space, verbally, that was happening. There were times where I expected characters to make comments and they said nothing. Things were overlooked or just not addressed and it wasn’t even anything plot related, just a point where there could have been dialogue and it didn’t happen. It wasn’t often, but those few times the air was left dead I noticed it. The most notable time was in chapter 17, right after Sephiroth appeared on the gangway. Now, I get them being too shocked to say anything when he’s right in front of them, but after, when they separate and fall into two groups? Nothing? No comment? Tifa, I definitely expected to say something in a shocked tone, but even after they found Cloud again, she didn’t mention it. It was like the moment didn’t happen. I know the other times nobody else but Cloud saw him, but this time they saw him, and he’s linked to Tifa’s past too, so she definitely should’ve had some kind of comment in that empty space.

That was the only major point, but other small ones were when people were talking and one character remains silent. The only one I expect to never speak if he doesn’t have to is Cloud. Because it’s Cloud. Everyone else should have something to say. Like when they climbed the stairs. If you took the stairs - I was all done in from so many fights and just wanted a break - then you got hilarious commentary from Barret, Cloud and Tifa. It showed how close they’ve become. Cloud made a joke! His second one of the game! If you missed the first, it’s likely because you obsessed over him going on about money all the time and saying that’s all he cares about when he’s with Tifa. So, yeah, after being shown how the group can talk to each other and banter I’m hoping Square adds more chatter to the next game. I know some people prefer less chatter, but this is a group of people who are supposed to be shown as friends, so conversation is important.

The other thing that got on my nerves was the mechanics of the weapons upgrade. Unless I missed a shortcut, having to go out of each one and then into the next one instead of just switching over to the next weapon’s skill tree. It took a long time to level things up and I wish there was an option in the auto to just unlock every skill one at a time, so they’d do it on auto without me having to go in there. And the ATB. That got on my nerves. I’m lazy af, so I’d like for action to just pause whenever someone’s atb fills so I can give them a command and then go back to the battle instead of having one eye on all the atbs. It’s probably more classic than Square wants to go with it, but having that as a battle option would be nice and a further throwback to the old style of gameplay.

The good

Everything from chapter 3 onwards. The intro chapters were good, too, but I really just wanted to dig into the game and that didn’t happen until chapter 3. The VAs killed it! Graphics were amazing! The weapon abilities were fun and added something different to the regular gameplay style of just grabbing the next strongest weapon. Side quests were enjoyable and I wish there was more of them, especially a save the citizens for after the plate fell. That really would've hammered home the tragedy.

The story

I’ve seen people - mostly OG fans - bashing the new elements. Sure, the whispers are a weird angle to come at it from, but the explanation for them, that they’re trying to maintain the OG storyline, made for an interesting twist on a 25 year old story. Sephiroth’s early appearance was just something that had to happen, along with a Jenova fight, because, come on, this section of the OG was like 3hrs worth of content and this is 40hrs, so ofc they had to include new things and it matches with the new storyline and I think people need to release their death grip on the OG storyline and enjoy this game for what it is. 

I found the ripple effect(?) interesting too. From what we learned, the OG happened in the future. If things hadn’t changed that’s the future everyone was heading towards. Ok, cool, pretty simple. 

This timeline had small changes. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie survived!? Or did Wedge finally get shoved off a building at the end, I really couldn’t tell if he bought it that time, but if he did I’m mad cause he was adorable. The plate falling didn’t have as big a casualty number as originally, either. And Hojo almost spilled the beans to Cloud early, but was cut off, and that’s the other thing Cloud ignored in dialogue afterwards, but it’s Cloud, so we’ll give him a security pass for that. The others ignoring his Ptsd induced freak outs isn't cool though and I expect Square to fix that level of callousness towards him from the others.

Those are the only two changes from the OG. Sephiroth showing up early instead of in Nibelheim doesn’t really matter. He’s his usual cryptic asshole self and his goal is unchanged. The team just knows he’s the big bad earlier now and have a solid goal instead of just randomly wandering after they leave Midgar. So, yeah, does Biggs, Wedge and Jessie living make a big difference overall? Will that ripple from them being alive make further changes?

We also saw that Zack survived because of our team, but the Zack in their timeline is still dead. I think we saw it this way because the planet is trying to find a way to prevent being hit with Meteor and ending up with geostigma, so the OG timeline, everything was still bad. Our timeline gives possibilities for a slightly better future and then the timeline behind it - the one with Zack - offers even better odds, not that we’ll see that. That’s the timeline I think Aerith will live through, so that way Square can say Aerith lives, just not in the game we play now.

Shipping

I’m not into wars, so if you love Aerith, cool good for you, I was focused on building affinity with Tifa and Square didn’t disappoint! There were so many romantic moments between them! And damn do they have chemistry! I squeed at such a high pitch the dog next door started howling! All the small touches, longing looks, affection, support, trust and OMGOSH IT WAS JUST THE BEST!!! They were so damn cute!!

I have no idea how the game changes if you focus on Aerith and to be honest I don’t want to. I think that’s what I love about the options for that. You can choose and no one can say your choice isn’t valid. 

One thing though, I would like an end to it because it’s 25 years of people arguing and it’s made the entire fandom toxic af and it’s actually the reason I avoid most of the final fantasy discourse because people can’t be civil to each other. Square should finally say once and for all that Cloud/ is canon and the other isn’t, instead of throwing a bone to them and being all “maybe if things were like this”, like no, pull on your big boy pants, Square, man tf up like Barret on a mission, and tell people who is the canon pairing in this damn game so people can just stfu and enjoy playing it without getting flamed.

This is why I want a FF8R because at least there’s no doubt who the couple is in that one.

Smol stuff

I’ve seen complaints about new characters being 1 dimensional, but they’re new characters in a game series that’s a trilogy, so they’re likely gonna appear again. Roche seemed added not just to give Cloud a boss to fight in the bike event, but also to show there’s other SOLDIERs beyond Cloud and Zack and the ones from Crisis Core, which not everyone has played.

Same goes for Leslie. I liked that dude and I’m interested to see him pop up again. His design wasn’t the typical bad guy henchman, easily disposed, thank you very much for playing. He has a story and I’m betting that’s not the last we see of him.

Again, same goes for Cloud’s infantry buddies. I’ve not played CC, but I get they’re from that, so will we see them again at some point? What about other CC characters?

Best Bits

Cloud in a dress. “Nailed it, thank you, moving on.”

Cloud dancing. Boy got moves and I wanna see him dance again!

Cloud/Tifa. Complimenting her like a smooth mutherfucker.

Cloud/Tifa Battle couple. They were my absolute favourite fighting combo and definitely kicked all the ass!

Cloud/Tifa. All the shipping bits, but especially jumping off the train and then trusting her to go kick Corneo’s ass. That���s how you show you know your girl

Wedge. Kitty momma

Biggs death. Damn you, Square, you got me all choked up.

Red. Specifically the bit where he highfived Barret with his tail lool

Barret. “Damn it, Red.”

Reno. Just Reno in general killed me. Love his conscience though and that he’s not a 1 trick pony.

Tifa/Aerith. Had more chemistry than Aerith/Cloud. Yeah, I said it. 

Barret and Marlene. Such a good daddy! His expression with her was like a whole different person!

Aerith bitchslapping a would-be rapist with a chair.

Cloud/Tifa/Aerith teamup to threaten Don Corneo’s balls - though I only include Aerith since she was there and she was about as threatening as a cupcake.

Conclusion

I want moar! I really hope the next one comes out soon! It’s not the same as OG, but has the best bits of OG along with something new to bring in a new generation of fans. The alt timeline angle feels fresh and open to possibilities and I’m excited to play this game for what it is, instead of comparing it and demanding for the OG like a crusty whisper lool

[xb-squaredx]

Fire Emblem Three Houses Review: Shin Megami Sensei

The Fire Emblem series has been on an interesting journey in the past few years. Going into the development of Awakening, the series looked to be on its last legs, only for Awakening to catch on and result in the best sales in the series’ history to that point. While stumbling a bit with Fates and the release of Echoes flying under the radar, all eyes are on the franchise as they make their grand return to home consoles with Three Houses. If the sales data, reviews and word-of-mouth haven’t caught up to you yet, then let me be the first to tell you that Three Houses is an absolute smash hit for the franchise. Engrossing, packed with content, and not afraid to make some bold decisions, it’s an ambitious title that fans, new and old alike, shouldn’t pass up.

ACADEMIA OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

The premise for Three Houses is quite different from your typical franchise entry. Players take the role of Byleth, a young mercenary who is requested to become an instructor at Garreg Mach Academy. The Academy houses students from the three main governing bodies of the continent of Fodlan, and one of the first major decisions players will make is choosing which of the three houses to teach at, which results in many branching pathways after the beginning chapters unfold.

Right from the start, there’s intrigue. The game opens with a stylish, surprisingly bloody battle between two mythological figures, the Goddess Seiros and the King of Liberation, Nemesis, with Byleth’s connection to the two becoming more apparent as time goes on. The Church of Seiros has a tight grip on Garreg Mach, with the archbishop, Rhea, in particular setting her eyes on you. Amidst the schoolyard fun, there’s an undercurrent of rising tensions between the various countries and kingdoms under Fodlan, with certain figures working in the background on some truly gruesome things. While much of Three Houses is fairly lighthearted, when things get serious, it gets dark fast, but thankfully it’s done tastefully and rooted in complex character motivations and excellent world building. Depending on the route you choose, events unfold in different ways and different pieces of the puzzle become clear, though admittedly you’d be losing a lot of context gained from other routes. While each ending is, at least from what I’ve seen and heard, satisfactory, those that want the “whole story” have quite a bit of game to get through to see it all.

Of course, I personally don’t mind, as I find the narrative extremely interesting. Three Houses is packed with great bits of foreshadowing for many later-game events, the alternate routes give you tons of replay value, and in this game more than almost any other Fire Emblem game, the characters sell the experience. While not all are winners (at least in my book), just about every playable unit has more than meets the eye. Some characters come across as one-note: Raphael loves to eat and get sick gains, Annett is the cute, clumsy girl, Marianne is the shy wall-flower, and so on, but getting to know the students, and seeing how they interact with each other, often leads to some interesting surprises. Certain characters ended up winning me over after a few support conversations gave me a bit more insight into why they act the way they do, and some characters in particular have great chemistry with each other. Seteth comes across as a stern, overprotective brother at first glance, but he’s always there to help others and gives some pretty sound advice to anyone willing to hear it. Bernadetta might seem like the mopey shut-in that just needs to get out of her room more often, but it becomes clear her situation is a lot more complicated (and disturbing) than it seems. As in past games, you can have units raise their Support values to get to these heart-to-heart conversations, and while not every single character can Support with another, there’s enough overlap to help make these characters appear three-dimensional, and prove they’re more than the anime tropes and archetypes they seemingly embody.

A MASTERCLASS OF WAR

Fire Emblem has always been a series about decision-making, though Three Houses extends that past the battlefield, resulting in a very different structure for those used to the old games. Each chapter in the game is laid out on an in-game calendar, in a manner that can remind one of the Persona games. At the end of the month, the chapter’s main mission (or “lesson”) will take place, and it’s up to Byleth to make sure their students are prepared. During the week, Byleth teaches students in the art of warfare, helping them cultivate their skills and in some cases, have them reassess their goals. In past games, playable units had a fairly linear path. This one’s an Archer, and can become a Bow Knight or a Sniper, while this Cleric can choose to become a Mage if you wish, for instance. In Three Houses, however, players have almost total control over how their students grow and what they specialize in. While each student has their own strengths and weaknesses (Lysithea excels at magic rather than, say, melee combat, for one), it’s ultimately the player’s choice who fills what role. Students can focus on up to two skills in their own studies, occasionally asking their professor if they should switch goals and focus on other skills instead, resulting in some interesting customization. Characters can also have Budding Talent in certain fields, resulting in them excelling at classes they’d never do on their own. Hilda tries to player herself off as a fragile weakling, but she has the potential to be one of the best Knights in the game, with bulky armor that repels most attacks.

Class Changes work quite a bit differently here too: rather than strictly requiring an item to swap to a new class, students also need to pass Certification Exams to gain the right to use a certain class. Depending on the class, they might need to get weapon skills to a certain point, as well as reach a base level requirement. While I appreciate the customization in this system, being able to keep all my favorite characters in one group without becoming over centralized, I do take issue with the late-game Classes in this game. The Master Classes in this game feel a bit too homogenized, almost all requiring high-levels of skill in horse riding or flying, two skills that happen to be rather annoying to level up. Most characters wouldn’t normally bother with horses, but suddenly need them to complete their upgrade path, which just seems odd. Not to mention certain niches, like the Thief Class, being left out and effectively losing out on a final Class Change. A minor problem in the grand scheme, but it’s a bummer.

Outside of studying, Byleth uses Sundays as their free days. Here players can explore around the academy to chat with students and engage in a number of activities. Gardening, fishing, cooking, fighting tournaments and more. Most of these activities grant you some kind of usable item, or at the very least increase Support levels with students, so they’re well worth doing. You can also attend lectures if you want to squeeze in a bit more skill leveling, take a rest day and effectively skip ahead to the next week, or engage in battles. At times Paralogues, character-specific missions, and side missions can be tackled as well. While the game gives you plenty of options, keep in mind that you only have so much time in the day. Everything in-game has a limited amount of “points” attached to it, so you have to plan wisely. Lecture points for students, exploring points on free days, and battle points for…battles. On Normal Mode, however, there are some battles that can be repeated without any point penalty, effectively allowing for grinding for those that need it, though Hard and above lack it. Three Houses is a game all about options, and of course that’s before we even get to the battlefield!

SQUAD UP

When it comes time to battle, the experience has largely stayed the same as the older titles, though not without some refinements and a few new things thrown in for good measure. The game is still a grid-based, turn-based tactical game at its heart. Players move their units into position and move to take the enemy down, hopefully without any casualties along the way. While many traditional rules still exist here, such as arrows ripping right through flying units or magic wrecking bulky knights, the games iconic “weapon triangle” has largely been downplayed. Players can still earn skills in-game that more or less mimics the advantages you’d get in the old games though. Players who picked up Fire Emblem Echoes will surely notice a lot of that game’s mechanics also appearing here, albeit changed slightly. Weapon durability returns, for one, but now Combat Arts, special moves that cost players health in Echoes, now wear down weapons faster, and I personally like the change. There are a couple of neat additions and minor changes to certain unit types that I like too, like being able to dismount from your horse or flying creature once per turn, allowing players to greatly reduce the specific risks those units typically carry. Pair Up, introduced in Awakening, has been turned into the much-less-powerful Adjunct system, where you assign a character in reserve to another unit, where they will occasionally attack alongside your lead character, defend them from an attack, or heal them. They gain a small amount of EXP from this too, without being in danger of dying, which is neat. Though honestly, I barely noticed Adjuncts helping much throughout the game. Fates already rebalanced Pair Up, so I’m not sure why Three Houses felt the need to weaken it further.

The only out-and-out new mechanics in Three Houses are Battalions. Effectively a small army that is equipped to a given character, Battalions gives a slight boost to stats and also allows for the use of Gambits, special moves that players can only tend to use once or twice a battle. These range from large-scale magic attacks that hit multiple targets, healing or support spells that affect multiple allies, or powerful attacks localized to one enemy. Most of the time, a successful Gambit results in the target becoming “rattled,” unable to move or gain perks from their own Battalion for one turn. While it IS visually interesting to have these battles fought with actual armies as opposed to the dozen or so units seen in most games, Battalions don’t really add too much to the game and if they took them out in the next installment, I wouldn’t miss them much.

One feature that looks like it might become a series staple is the ability to turn back time to undo mistakes. In Echoes it was “Mila’s Turnwheel” and in this game it has been christened “Divine Pulse.” While having limited uses per battle, using Divine Pulse allows players to travel to the turn or action of their choice and have another go at it, undoing a unit’s death or attempting another potential strategy. For all those random “gotcha!” moments these games occasionally dole out, like an unlucky enemy critical hit, or sudden reinforcements, Divine Pulse ends up taking away a lot of the frustration that would otherwise arise. It certainly makes runs on the Classic difficulty toggle, wherein each death in battle is treated as permanent deaths, a lot more manageable. Full disclosure here, I went Normal Casual for this game, and admittedly the game lacks a lot of bite here. Perfect for a newcomer for sure, and there are still some standout missions that required me to reload and try again, no matter how many uses of Divine Pulse I had, but fans that crave challenge might be a tad disappointed. Harder difficulties are coming in a free update, however, so there’s that. On the whole, I think the game did a good job in streamlining some aspects and making it easier to glean information from what’s on screen without reducing depth.

IN CONCLUSION, FEAR THE DEER

The announcement trailer for Three Houses had me nervous, admittedly. After Fates had quite a few missteps, this title needed to be a slam dunk to rebuild faith in the series, at least in my eyes. Hearing all of the positive impressions from reviewers before launch got me interested and upon finishing the Gold Deer route, I was left with a sense of relief. Three Houses surpassed a lot of my expectations, and ultimately delivered on what I wanted out of a home console Fire Emblem experience. The school setting seemed like an odd choice but put into practice, it worked out perfectly for the game and I hope later titles keep finding ways to keep things fresh. Most issues I have with the game are fairly minor, nitpicks at best, and do little to sour me on the title. Yes, there’s the odd nest of menus to navigate for certain things, certain characters aren’t as compelling as they could be, and the game ain’t exactly a looker a lot of the time, but hooked me from the first time I booted it up and it took a lot to pull me away from playing, and that says enough. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a fantastic starting point for new fans, and a deep, rewarding experience for series veterans. I know strategy RPGs aren’t exactly for everyone, but anyone who has even a passing interest shouldn’t hesitate to add this to your Switch library.

Fear the Deer.

-B

[laryna6]

Games I stopped playing:

Chrono Trigger - I’m at the final boss rush but I ran out of items. There’s a teleport out of the dungeon, but I’d have to walk back in and then there’s the back and forth and back and forth and back and forth (yes, seriously) to get the good equipment through unavoidable preset encounters which is tedious as heck but I’d need cash for the ailment-nulling gear. So many battles when it’s got an active time battle system is just...

Darkest Dungeon - I’ve defeated several of the bosses in one of the dungeons, like a couple in the others. The game is really meant to be played in like one or two runs a day every day, if you do like I do and book several hours one day for game playtime bc I’m not going to start a game if it might matter if I hyperfocus and lose track of time it gets fairly repetitive and feels like a grind. Definitely a great game design for the working adult who doesn’t have hours at a stretch to spend on games but still wants something to sink their teeth into, though. 

A Magical High-School Girl - I got to the first boss and then there was a gap of several turns before they used their attack? Or was I supposed to blind them again? I will pick it back up next time I want a roguelike.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - Choose your own adventure game between combat. Also I seemed to be losing more HP than I really should in combat - was I having an off day? Because the battle system should be the kind of thing I’m good at. Kept unlocking new characters, but which options you should pick does change with the character.

Citizens of Earth - It’s not a good sign when I’m asking myself if I really care about recruiting a character. Got a ways in and there seemed to be no real strategy to it. I guess this kind of quirky isn’t my vibe. 

Final Fantasy IV - Died to a chest boss and haven’t picked it up since. Active Time Battle System makes it less fun. The FFs I’ve beaten are 1 and 10 despite starting others. (I did beat 10-2, which managed to be fun despite ATBS.)

Atelier Totori - This was made after Mana Khemia, why is the battle system blah?

Tales of Eternia - I don’t wanna backtrack through that dungeon to buy healing items, it was a pain to get through with at least one timing puzzle.

SMT: Strange Journey - The game plot repeatedly guilt trips you bc it assumes you blew off rescuing people to go do sidequests for demons. I did not do sidequests because they were annoying. I got fed up with being guilt tripped for something I didn’t do. 

Xenosaga - Effing stealth section.

Blue Dragon - Got like a third of the way through, but mandatory timing bits every single attack made the battles drag on. I agree with that article that said the optimal rpg battle is quick and hard. 

Lost Dimension - I beat it, but I found I’d need to either kill an innocent character or do a third playthrough to get the true ending and I asked myself ‘do I care that much.’

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - Nice battle system, but mechanics to try to make the player have to start over from the beginning do not respect people’s time - not that I got to the point the meter ran out before I just randomly stopped playing. I do want to pick it up again someday for the battle system. 

Eternal Poison - I started this when I hadn’t played many strategy games and apparently I picked the hardest scenario bc it sounded coolest? I may stick it in again at some point to see if there’s a way to turn off attack animations, they make battles take forever. If not I may never finish it.

Lunar Dragon Song - The unlocking the treasure chest mechanic by killing all the monsters in the area in one specific mode when they respawn on a timer when you’re penalized for running to go find the one you missed is just... who thought this was a good idea? 

Etrian Mystery Dungeon - The FOEs ascending in the dungeon, I’m like ‘will they do that when I go back to other dungeons to do the quests I was putting off? The whole FOE mechanic is such a money sink until you can kill them, and how do you get money? Grinding. But going up/down levels to do that makes the FOEs ascend. I got so annoyed thinking about the mechanic when got to the point it started up that I just put it down.

Tears to Tiara - Strategy RPG. Not very good at them at that point, had to retry a battle multiple times, had enough. I’d have to start it over again because I’d be playing on a different PS3 and long cutscenes. I mean, I certainly hope there’s a skip option...

Hellenica - ‘I’m going to have to replay this five times? At least twice per mission to meet the hidden-first-time-through criteria to get all the XP to unlock skills. And I don’t even get more HP for the characters to show for it?’ Retried a tough mission multiple times and then finally stuck the game in the hidden folder for stuff I own but don’t want to play (bundles and such).

[operationrainfall]

Title Dragon Marked for Death Developer INTI CREATES CO., LTD. Publisher INTI CREATES CO., LTD. Release Date January 31st, 2019 Genre Action RPG Platform Switch Age Rating T for Teen Official Website

Editor’s Note: For simplicity, the italicized sections represent Marisa’s impressions, while the regular ones represent Steve’s.

I recently spent some time with the latest offering from Inti Creates, Dragon Marked for Death. I went into this one expecting your standard Action RPG with some different classes and some ho hum missions. What we got was way beyond what I expected. You will hear from both myself and my partner in crime for this review, Marisa. We’ll answer the most important question of all, was this game fun?

In this game you take control of a member of the Dragonblood Clan. This was a group of humans that were caught up in the war between the Celestials and the Astral Dragons. They were saved by the blood of a dying dragon named Atruum. Why he decided to give them his blood is not known, but anyone born into the clan from this day forward would bear the Dragon Scar on their body and worship Atruum. In present day, your clan has sworn revenge on the Medius Empire for destroying your home, but first you will have to prove your place in this world as the clan isn’t seen in the best light.

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  When purchasing the game, you have a couple of different options. You can take the fighter pack which contains the Empress and Warrior, or play more strategically with the Shinobi and Witch. These packs cost $14.99 each and you can purchase both if you want to have access to all four different classes. I played with the Warrior mostly, but I did check out the Empress as well. They are very similar, but the Empress seems to be a bit faster than the Warrior. She also seems to do a little less damage, but that could’ve been because the weapon I had equipped wasn’t as good as his currently equipped axe.

In terms of raw gameplay, the game does a decent job in tailoring a smooth and quick experience. Combat moves typically don’t have huge amounts of delay and it’s simple enough to access the menu and use equipped items. Characters themselves are also easy enough to understand that with practice, using their abilities is basically second-nature. Even the Witch, which relies on incantations based on repeated button inputs, is not complicated to play as. Speaking of characters, there are four different characters, two designated as Frontline attackers and two as Advanced attackers. Each has a specific playstyle, ranging from brute force to utility. This means that a party of four has tailored roles to support the group.

After the tutorial mission you will find yourself in town. Here you can visit shops, take items out of your truck and take on quests. The shops in town will provide you with weapons, accessories and consumables that will be vital to your survival. You do need to watch out when purchasing equipment, as a certain level is required to use most of it. Once you setup all your gear, it’s time to take on a quest. The objectives of these are widely varied. They can be anything from clean out the monster dens to catching up with a floating balloon. While some of these are less fun than others, variety is the spice of life and this certainly works in the game’s favor.

Combat and exploration is perhaps the game’s best attribute. Quest areas typically have treasure chests to find, along with other secrets. As usual for Inti Creates games, enemies have specific reasons behind their attacks. Like the frog enemy may suddenly do a tongue attack at times, but will only do so if you are close enough for it to trigger. For bosses, they can either have a specific pattern for attacks or have a specific animation to tell what they are about to do. As such, fighting enemies and bosses is not typically a chore. Quests themselves also help to keep gameplay variety.

Quests are where the majority of EXP and gold are received from. They can range from merely going from point A to point B, to gathering a certain amount of items, and protecting civilians. For the most part, the requirements to complete a quest are lenient. The actual main concern is the time limit. For some quests, particularly if you are playing single-player, the time limit can be exceptionally tight. If you don’t rush for the goal, you might merely have a minute or so to spare. Combined with at times bulky enemies, this aspect of the game can be rather annoying.

Unfortunately, the game’s progression can require a bit of extra work. The EXP granted from defeating enemies is typically merely a fraction of the EXP gained in a quest. Even then, much of the time completing a quest typically won’t give a level up even if your level is that suggested for the quest. What makes the issue worse is that you can only keep accessories and weapons found if you have successfully completed the quest. If you are having a difficult time completing quests, either due to running out of lives or time, minimal progress will be made. Even if you can complete quests in one go, it feels like you have to do every quest available to even keep up with the level curve. It would be best if enemies gave better EXP as to not have players feel they have to grind slowly to level up or do every quest imaginable just to complete the game.

Graphically, this is one of the best looking sprite based titles I’ve seen in quite a while. This came as no surprise to me when I found that the character designer was Toru Nakayama, known for his work on the Megaman Zero franchise. Throw in graphics designer Hirokatsu Maeda, who worked on the Gunvolt series and Blaster Master Zero, and it’s no wonder Dragon Marked for Death looks amazing.

The character designs are richly detailed and you can customize your avatar with a few colors. Enemy models are equally impressive, especially some of the bosses. That first big ogre you fight is massive and he bites the head off some guy right off the bat. I think the most impressive thing are the actual levels themselves. Some span many areas, from forest to caves, and onward to castle interiors. They are all masterfully crafted and look amazing. It really makes you want to explore each level thoroughly, not to loot items, but to take in all the amazing level design.

The soundtrack here is top notch. Most of the tracks are a mix of something you’d find in a medieval fantasy movie and a classic samurai film. The two styles mix together very well, and I found myself humming along often as I laid waste to all of the foes before me. The sound effects are pretty much what you would expect for a title like this, and you can customize the voice of your created avatar. While a few more voice choices would’ve been welcome, there is enough here to get the job done.

Combat here is your typical side scrolling hack ‘n slash. You will run around slicing up all enemies in your path. You do have some dragon skills that will allow you to do things like guard attacks, gives you some buffs or restore a bit of HP. You can also hold down the attack button to charge up for larger attacks. These usually cover more ground and do lots of damage. The odds are very much stacked against you most of the time. This is where the items you brought with you really save your bacon. The enemies will also drop some items that may fix your status aliments, give buffs or maybe even restore a bit of HP. This is all about luck and ironically, your luck stat plays into how often you get drops.

Now, this game is meant to be played with other players. Indeed, the game is best played with other people as it makes the time limit and bulky enemies much less of an issue. Having played with another online, it’s safe to say that the game runs smoothly as ever with very few issues. There was rarely a hint of lag while playing, not to mention the game’s balance became much more appropriate. That said, there were times where the other player would just disappear from the screen but was still registered on the minimap. This hasn’t affected the gameplay at all, but it was a notable visual issue hinting at an improper connection. The main issue in the end however is not so much the multiplayer itself, but rather that the game is specifically balanced around multiplayer. This is why single player is not as balanced. What could’ve been done is that if played in single player, the game merely auto-adjusts values to level the playing field.

The problem I found with the fighter classes is they simply take too much damage. The weapons have little range, so you have to be up close and personal with monsters to take them out. You do way more damage than the ranged fighters, but item management and effective dodging are very much key to staying alive. Though in general, this game is not really all that much fun in single player because of the difficulty. I highly recommended you play this one with friends via local multiplayer or the internet. Having even just one more party member that is ranged class makes a huge difference. You basically cancel out each others weaknesses and can fight as one well-oiled machine. Marisa and I played this quite a bit online and there was zero lag, and we had no issues finding each other to party up. Honestly, this is one of the smoothest online experiences I’ve had.

While I think Dragon Marked for Death isn’t balanced very well for a single player game, I think the online play more than makes up for that. There is a ton of quest variety, the levels have tons of depth and the game is just simply a blast to play with a friend. I’m not even a big fan of multiplayer games like this, and if I had more time I’d still be playing right now. I think the amount of quests here and replay value more than justify the inexpensive entry price, and hack and slash fans should grab a friend and be all over this one.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.0″]

Game provided by the publisher for review purposes.

REVIEW: Dragon Marked for Death Title Dragon Marked for Death

[guildwarsstartrekskyrim]

Things I want in Guild Wars 2

Many of these things are cosmetic, some are based on lore, others are just desires that I’d love to see happen because they’ll make me (and my characters) happy (because Flintlock deserves to be happy).

Player housing

Player housing is different than the home district.  It’s a house, in some place like Claypool, Garenhoff, maybe Triskel Quay or some other place throughout Tyria.  If you’re a Norn, maybe it’s just some out of the way spot in Snowden Drifts or Wayfarer’s Foothills. Maybe it’s something out in the Town of Nolan or further afield in Ebonhawke.  These naturally wouldn’t be houses that you build (though, that might be a cool option), but an existing house that a player could buy.  Of course, there’d have to be a lot of them.  It’s probably a given that anything like this would have to be account bound and once you buy a house on one character then it’s there for every character.  But you could decorate your house any way you’d like. Have a garden, perhaps a crafting area that are specific to the crafting traits that the character you bought the house with has (as an example, Flintlock has cooking, leathworking, huntsman and artificing as her crafting abilities, those would be the crafting tables or areas available for every character on that account).

Personalizing the Home District

While player housing would be awesome, I know for a fact we already have something like that with the home district.  Salma in the Reach, Hero’s Canton in the Citadel, and so on.  And ArenaNet has given the players a lot of toys to put into their home districts.  A M.O.X. that you can talk to, plays music and gives whitty remarks about all the cats.  The cats, as previously mentioned.  Harvesting nodes, from wood to leather to ore to the bounty board that will go out and find items for you once per day.  They even have the new gardening stuff for the home districts, and you can purchase certain harvesting nodes that are based on last season’s Living World zones such as the berries from Bitterfrost or the oysters Siren’s Landing.  But there’s a lot more that could be put into the home districts.  Some might be redundant, however, because a crafting area already exists close by to each home district.  But it’d be nice if crafting areas spawned based on your character’s crafting skills.  They already have NPCs show up based on the personal story.  For example, in Shani’s version of Salma, there’s no M.O.X., but there’s Hylek in the area near the tavern.  For Flintlock, there’s no Hylek, but there’s a M.O.X. and in the alleyway near the tavern is a lone grawl. So it might be something which could be done with the crafting. It’d also be nice to have the items placed in the home district be placed in areas that aren’t the default.  Like if I want the harvesting nodes for the ores and plants next to the tavern instead of the chests that spawn for the airship, the auric chest and the chalk covered equipment.  Maybe I want those in the alleyway.  Things like that.

The ability to replay the personal story

We all have the ability to replay the LS chapters and even the Heart of Thorn and Path of Fire mission story steps.  A lot of it helps in obtaining certain achievements so you can complete certain collectibles.  But we can’t with the original personal story.  And while many might not care about that, I have some fond memories of the personal story.  I’d love to go back with now 20 year old Flintlock so she can show Tybalt how much she’s grown since 16 year old Flintlock hung out with him.  Or, here’s an idea; let us play the personal story with different racial characters just for fun.  Have Flintlock join in and play through the human story or the norn story.  Sure, you can do that now by teaming with someone to play through their story steps, but I’d really like the chance to experience it myself.

Recognition of the races

This one may actually be a lot to ask for, but it’s a complaint I had about the lead up season to Path of Fire.  Especially in the chapters that introduced Lake Doric and Siren’s Landing.  While the entire Shining Blade story step that ushered your character to become a member of the Blades was great, and if you played a charr that was brought up at some point, it did feel a touch like an afterthought.  Throughout the entire story with Queen Jennah, nobody said anything about the fact that you might be playing a charr.  It really would have felt immersive if Queen Jennah, who’s goal has been a peace treaty with the charr, would have made some comment on the fact that a charr in the Reach is a step in the right direction.  Or even meeting Minister and Lady Wi, should your character be a member of the Order of Whispers.  It would have been nice to have seen some sort of discussion between the Lady and your character.  I realize there’s all kinds of cutesy references made throughout Path of Fire regarding different races, such as the Elonian child speaking to the asura and the asura desperately wanting a discipline golem, or the fact that I hung out near Augry Rock for a week near the one encampment because I kept thinking of stories for Flintlock Burnfur and Flint of the Anvil Warband.

Bookshelves

Let’s face it, our inventories are getting crammed with books thanks to the number of pages and collections that we’ve been seeing in the past few seasons.  I’d love to see either one of two things; the first would be bookshelves that you could place in your home district.  Maybe in an outdoor library or perhaps in one of the existing buildings.  But all of the books you collect with characters on your account would appear there on the shelves when you’ve completed the achievement. The other option is that the books disappear from your inventory once you complete the achievement and are placed in a tab on your hero sheet.  Call it library, where you can view the books whenever you like. But having said that, something else that would be neat to see is a book you could buy from a vendor that’s blank.  That you could write in and it would be your personal journal.  Fill it with whatever you like, it could be your PvP ranking or how you’ve done in WvW or it could be story notes for your character or in Flintlock’s case recipes.  The book would have a limited word count and when it’s filled it gets place on your personal bookshelf in your home district.  This book would be different than the in game collectibles, as it could be something other players could come and read (not take, just read).

I know that there’s a lot of work that would entail placing all of that into the present game, but I think it’d be some cool ideas to play around with.  I’m probably not the only one who has had these ideas before, and there’s others that might have some other ideas of their own. I think it’d be cool to share.

[groovygladiatorsuit]

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Fortnite Battle Royale is the completely free 100-player PvP mode in Fortnite. One giant map. A battle bus. Fortnite building skills and destructible environments combined with intense PvP combat. The last one standing wins.

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Build your Fortnite. Imagine a place where you make the rules, filled with your favorite things and your favorite people. Claim your own personal island and start creating! Design your own games. Invent games with friends, and build your dream Fortnite experiences. Your island, your friends, your rules.

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BATTLE ROYALE

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Season X - Battle Pass

New Season, new Battle Pass. 100 levels, over 100 new rewards. Find out more information on everything that’s new in Season X in the announce blog. In Season X, you'll have the ability to gift the Battle Pass to a friend! Available on all platforms (timing may vary per regions) until August 15th. Your first purchase also includes a unique Gift Box for you to use when gifting items from the shop.

B.R.U.T.E.

Few suits make you feel as powerful as a mech suit does. In this two-person vehicle, players can control its movement while their partner controls its firepower. Those feeling extra adventurous can operate it solo by switching between moving and shooting!

Rift Zones

The Zero Point Explosion has made the island volatile! Locations once thought to be lost are beginning to appear, but they aren’t the same as they once were… Drop in and explore to discover what mysterious gameplay changes they have in store.

Weapons + Items

B.R.U.T.E.

This vehicle can be operated by up to two players. If two players are operating it, one (the driver) controls movement, while the other (the gunner) rains down missiles and shotgun shots.

The driver is able to:

Dash into combat.

Super Jump to victory.

Stomp enemies and structures into the ground.

Anything you would normally harvest will grant materials when destroyed.

The passenger has two weapons at their disposal: a shotgun and a missile launcher.

Shotgun

Clip Size: 10

Damage: 50

Headshot Multiplier: 1.5x

Missile Launcher

Fires up to 10 missiles at once.

Holding down Trigger will begin loading missiles.

After releasing Trigger, or after 10 missiles have been loaded, all missiles will automatically fire.

New Mechanic: Overshield

Consumes 200 of any Material type to create a personal overshield for 5 seconds to protect you in the mech.

Vaulted

Baller

Quad Crasher

Flint Knock Pistol

Shadow Bomb

Semi-Auto Sniper

Tactical Assault Rifle

Mounted Turret

Air Strike

Itemized Glider Redeploy (still available in large team modes)

Over time, we have added many mobility options, both itemized and map-based. We feel that Season X is better experienced with a reduction in mobility. As with all changes, we’ll keep a close eye on how this affects the player experience.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the Heavy Shotgun not piercing through water in modes where it is available.

All Campfires now heal vehicles.

The Storm Scout Sniper Rifle no longer has perfect hip-fire accuracy after aiming down sights.

Boogie Bombs and Grenades no longer pass through vehicles.

GAMEPLAY

Missions

Missions are a series of thematic objectives that grant rewards. As you complete these objectives, you'll earn Battle Stars, XP, and exclusive cosmetic items.

Battle Pass Owners will get access to a new Weekly Mission with rewards each week.

More information about Missions can be found in the Battle Pass and Challenges tabs.

Limited Time Missions

Limited Time Missions are available to all players.

Daily Challenges have been replaced by Limited Time Missions.

Each Limited Time Mission contains Objectives that unlock over the course of a week.

One Objective unlocks each day, even if you don’t log in, and the Mission expires after 7 days. So make sure to finish all your Objectives in that Week’s Limited Time Mission before the 7th day ends!

A new Limited Time Mission is available each week.

NOTE: Any Challenge that previously required Daily Challenges to complete can now be completed with Limited Time Mission Objectives.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue involving players getting stuck under a ramp as it’s placed.

EVENTS

Arena Game Mode updates!

Season kicks off with Solos and Trios Arena.

Hype will be reset at the start of Season X, with a new scoring structure in place.

10 Divisions - point values have been increased, but progression should be roughly the same. The bolded divisions are new.

Open I (0 - 499)

Open II (500 - 999)

Open III (1000 - 1499)

Open IV (1500 - 1999)

Contender I (2000 - 2999)

Contender II (3000 - 4499)

Contender III (4500 - 6499)

Champion I (6500 - 9999)

Champion II (10000 - 13999)

Champion III (14000+)

Scoring model updates - standardized points and bus fares across all playlists.

Solo

Eliminations: 20pt

Top 25: 60pt

Top 15: 30pt

Top 5: 30pt

Victory Royale: 60pt

Trios

Eliminations: 7pt (per team member)

Top 8: 60pt

Top 4: 30pt

Top 2: 30pt

Victory Royale: 60pt

Bus fare increases at Divisions 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Matchmaking in Arena is still based on players with similar Hype. Players in higher divisions may experience longer-than-normal wait times to ensure higher-quality matches.

PERFORMANCE

Improved level streaming performance for all platforms by optimizing the way assets are preloaded. This reduces cases in which players land on buildings with a low level of detail, particularly on Switch and Xbox One.

ART + ANIMATION

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The Ride the Pony Emote is now a traversal Emote.

Players who earned the Ride the Pony Emote from the Season 2 Battle Pass have been given a new, additional traversal Emote: Pony Up!

AUDIO

Added new bullet impact sounds.

Increased the volume of distant gunfire and Gliders.

Increased Chest volume and audio range by 10%.

Bug Fixes

Ambient sound no longer cuts out when players walk between biomes.

UI

Pressing the Main Menu button on controllers now defaults focus to the Main Menu (right side of the screen).

Bug Fixes

The loading content message will no longer be stuck at 0% when players are matchmaking.

Fixed a Lobby camera issue when returning from a replay.

Fixed an issue that prevented the selection of different players in the Lobby after switching from different game modes.

Selecting Leave Match no longer prevents a player in your party sitting out in the Lobby from entering matchmaking.

REPLAY

A new camera mode, Battle Map, has been added to server replays. This camera mode shows:

A path of where the followed player has been during the match.

The locations of the eliminations the followed player has done during the match.

MOBILE

Auto-fire system improvements:

We’ve re-tuned Auto-fire for every weapon with this update and would love specific and detailed weapon feedback so that we can continue to improve it.

If you want to try it out and don't use Auto-fire already, go into your HUD settings and enable Auto-fire.

Added a new setting: Tap to Search/Interact for Controllers.

Added a message for devices on Android that have the Sensor Pressure settings (S8, S8+, S9, S9+, and Note 9) to inform players about the settings being active.

Players would unintentionally return to the Home screen due to this setting being active.

We’ve increased the size of buttons and icons in the following areas:

The Frontend Lobby tab buttons.

The Crown for Party leader display icon.

The Map Marker.

'First team to reach the elimination goal wins!' message won’t remain throughout the whole match in Team Rumble.

Bug Fixes

Exiting a vehicle won’t reload the player’s weapon.

The button for skipping cutscenes is now visible on Android.

Vertical black lines aren’t displayed on the Challenges page.

The Settings Menu will properly display when language is set to Spanish.

The text on the menu buttons in the Settings Menu is aligned.

Quick Heal button won’t appear when falling or after opening the map.

Scaling the Quick Heal button in the HUD Layout Tool won’t cause the icon to change to the item's icon in the inventory.

Quick Heal button won’t disappear from the HUD Layout tool when another button is modified.

Players are able to open doors or Chests while using the ADS button.

Build mode button will correctly change to the Weapon mode button when pressing it on Android.

Added header on multiple widgets in the HUD Layout Tool.

Graphical improvement of CloudBreaker outfit.

Graphical improvement of the blue variant of the Sea Wolf outfit.

Freefall icon will be displayed when falling to the map.

ADS button won’t be displayed when driving a vehicle that you entered while holding a gun.

When updating the Banner Trooper outfit, players won’t disappear in the Locker, and the proper Banner will be displayed.

Edit button will be displayed when using passenger seat.

Screen won’t turn black when looking inside of a body of water.

Jump button won’t remain greyed out after players press it.

Audio improvements.

Fixed the occasional static sounds on Android.

Tapping with interactable items in Edit mode will no longer cause the camera to lock.

Player won’t be able to edit through structures.

Ex: Looking at your wall and being able to edit another structure (floor, ramp, roof).

Fixed an unopenable Chest near Polar Peak.

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15 votes

Free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter by Riot Games

Freeware

Windows

17 votes

Garena Free Fire is the ultimate survival shooter game available on mobile. Each 10-minute game places you on a remote island where you are pit against 49 other players, all seeking survival.

Freeware

Android

Popular apps in Free Games

[crystalnet]

What I Like About FFXV Comrades DLC and December Patch

This game will just not go calmly into that good night-- but somehow, I'm perfectly okay with that. I've overwritten about this game on this blog at this point and yet the updates and content continues to roll out, and all year there's been a good reason to come back to it every couple of months. 

Recently the multiplayer DLC Comrades dropped, and I've been playing it off and on for the past couple weeks and beat the main story on it last night and wanted to mention all the things that I really enjoy about it. And even after logging 10+ hours into the thing and technically "beating" it, I certainly plan to continue playing to unlock all the classes and get in on some of that delicious online multiplayer action. Here's what I liked in no specific order:

-The magic system seems preferable to the one in the main-game. Really loved being able to spam spells and have four different spells available, all attached to different weapons. 

-class system seems really sick-- I think it was wise to start people as healer because the position is always valuable to have on a party, but as you unlock more, the possibilities for battle stratagems become much deeper. I still have a lot to get after beating the story so it functions in that way as well. 

-The lore and story details were pretty substantial! I think we got more story in this than the Prompto or Gladio episodes, as it fills in a literal gap in the narrative. It's like if Ocarina of Time had a multiplayer mode that took place in the 10 year gap between child Link and adult Link.

-Weapon upgrading is really solid in this, and though I think there could be a bit more weaponry to choose from, I haven't unlocked everything and there's a fair bit of customizing to be had, more than the main-game. 

-Combat is generally deeper than the main-game? Funny how a lot of the battles seem more involved in terms of the tactics which they call for. Add in the weapon upgrading, magic options, and Sigil/class abilities and this seems significantly deeper than combat in the main game. It's like it used the main-game as a foundation and built a more appealing, deeper multiplayer game on top of that. The only thing the main quest has on it is that it all looks a little nicer. Though I guess character-swapping may balance things out in a couple of weeks. I might add more because this was an all-around very good experience that I still haven't gotten enough of. The only way it could be better to me is if it had a lobby area where you can just like chill with other players. I have a fetish for lobby zones and I get why  Lestallum doesn't function in this way but I wish it did. Even if it was only in the hotel there. Just being able to shout Kenny the Crow emojis and maybe even enter into teams/missions would add a lot. But that's like literally my only complaint. 

It's just generally cool to fight alongside other players with this combat.  It was already a fun system in the offline mode if a bit superficial, but here it's been tweaked and working together with team-mates can be super satisfying. And with a solid character-maker, it's fun to see what other people cook up, as well as to unlock new accessories and such. 

So yeah, I'm generally way into this, and judging by all the support, they'll probably end up continuing support of this specific part of FFXV's DLC even further. If they didn't though, it'd still be a great little feature. I can probably still count on one hand the times I haven't been able to get a party for a mission, and it's usually when it's a crazy time of night, so there's definitely been a healthy amount of traffic on the servers. 

All in all, I'm still increasingly in this game's corner. I think for a second by the end of the summer when I was getting sick of just the timed quests, I was starting to second-guess my initial love of this game, but by now, there's been so much added and announced that it feels like Square has made good on the potential that might have initially seemed just slightly squandered upon initial play-throughs. 

I need to get a handle on how much story content has been added to the main game but beyond extended cut-scenes being patched in, since November we've seen...

-That moogle festivle, which was an okay distraction I guess. Felt superficial though, and I wish we could have run around the city with other players. 

-Episode Gladio, and extended Chapter 13- Solid little DLC chapter with the brawl-ier Gladio. These DLC seem a bit odd to me as replay value seems low, but now that character-swapping in the main-game will be a thing in a couple weeks, they function as great tutorials and chunks of lore at their best. 

-Off-road Regalia vehicle- I thought this was a nice little bonus Square put out when they really didn't have to. Now no one can complain about being stuck on the roads, and it's pretty fun to drive. Now if only you could turn into the airship from the off-road mode...

-Timed Quests- these were kind of cool earlier in the year when they were first dropping. I missed a few though and so missed out on sweet EXP and now I can't beat that crazy dragon in Leide that's been the quest for months cuz I'm like 20 below level cap now. Damn. 

-Episode Prompto- Cooler than Gladio, imo, in that it's metal gear-styled combat is an even bigger departure from the main-game than Gladio was, and yet still manages to feel like part of the XV universe. Also Aranea. 

-Assassin's Quest- weirdly fun for how weird and frivolous it was but clearly dev team's time could have been spent more wisely. 

-Comrades- A whole freaking game inside of a game. Deeper than just a tacked on multiplayer for sure, almost to the point that it reminded me of FFXI Online glory days during my finer moments of locking in with a team and pulling off dope strategies. Read write-up above, it's rad. 

And now character swapping in a couple of weeks and DLC support in '18 announced? Yeah okay, go ahead Square, I'm not even skeptical anymore. Yeah I could trot out one of these tired anti-DLC arguments but I've been generally impressed. This game, like BotW, both seem super rich in the way they can function as foundations. And while BotW never actually needed anything added, XV felt like it was kind of missing something at launch, and so I'm glad to see both games getting continued support. The game feels like an especially unique experience at its best, and so I think it's only right for the developers to spend even more time exploring the possibilities it allows for. I'm sure I'll be writing about a new patch soon, but I leave you with this: If character-swapping is a thing in a couple of weeks, meaning you can play as all 4 members, what's stopping them from making the main-game have online functionality? So you could play through the main game with 3 buddies, all focusing on one of the bros? Then comrades AND main-game online? Move over FFXIV, there's a new online FF experience in town. One can dream, but having seen what Square's done already, I don't think we should rule anything out.

edit: what if you could play the main storyline as your comrade character with other comrades?? Now that’d be some deep and dank role-playing.

[tahneeglll299]

Ask Me Anything: 10 Answers to Your Questions About www.gtadownload.org/

Game description GTA 4

Rockstar's vivid story of Niko Bellic, the immigrant with convictions strong sufficient to help explode him from the crumbling bases of Liberty City's earth of organized offense, is at once out on PC. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games shipped this past April, with this one you'll get a few modifications and additions those who waited are sure to understand. Despite what's been put in, if you've already joined in the unit versions it's hard to commend picking this up, even though it now includes space for approximately 32 persons now it is multiplayer games and a robust, easy to use replay editor for reputation and making clips from your in-game actions.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise rocketed to pile popularity after Grand Theft Auto III's freedom with the ground laws were decided for a different kind of game. Since then we've seen slight modifications and squeezes to the center formula with Vice City and San Andreas, and GTA 4 represents another move forward. This is a game to strips down many the much more zany problem from games past. You won't be making any remote control helicopter vision or lowrider matching problems here. Rather, the emphasis is located in realism, a more mature awareness, and cause GTA into the present day.

Leave by buying with your cousin Roman, a small time operator flat to get exaggeration, you'll move your way upward in criminal rings until you find what you want. Unlike GTA makeup in the previous, though, Niko isn't trying to establish himself because some sort of badass for the ages, transported to tip the city no matter what. He's searching for a little, next the objective he undertakes are really the only way for him to find this. He may perform a number of ruthless bill (which you, by the way, instruct him to help), although there are places in the story where you can reduce the hand down the lead to or create a selection while to the way things proceed. Despite the kind of senselessly violent tendencies many may see with GTA characters, Niko is the exception in many respects, since he has a language through which he works.

The sport infrastructure may be been more suitable, though there's still room to improve. If Niko fails a mission, a message request to retry it pops up the moment you respawn, and once you die you don't waste the full system. Moving across the gargantuan metropolis is made easier by hailing cabs to lead you to waypoints upon the map. Stealing a car with send yourself is always an option, as is the more immersive element of actually riding in the cab's backseat the whole time, looking out the windows in the passing lights. For anyone who's short on time otherwise would prefer to give up the chance perils of handling across a GTA world, the cabs are certainly welcome.

Still, you'll be doing quite a bit of mission restarts, and that usually means repeating big chunks of the problem. Many missions break down into a great original travel segment, some kind of escalation experience, a struggle, also a great escape. Moving through the on-foot shooting sequences, a real frustration with the clunky control structures of games past, has been be much better with the inclusion of a case technique also, as with many PC versions, mouse and piano defense for meaning and shooting. Coming from last cover that feasible to blind fire, rapidly pop dated to help unload a few photos, or walk cover to help cover, a system that doesn't always do perfectly but is a certain step up for the series. That possible to use a gamepad as well, that controls vehicles better than a mouse and keyboard. You can actually change freely between the control devices. Managing the two input methods depending whether you're direct or aim is beautiful awkward, but this good that Rockstar figure the idea during without forcing you to fiddle with a control input menu toggle. And if you have to choose one, it's much better to shoot from a moving car with the mouse and keyboard.

Some of the mission structures can be really impressive also drive very well within the framework of the narrative's government, but unfortunately the franchise's hearing with slip nature hasn't disappeared. You could be fix a mission perfectly until you accidentally engage a cop car, inadvertently develop an article critical on the mission, or misinterpret a new set of path that will want precise timing upon a mission's phase change, and this kicks you claim again out there to try again. Some can infer that as part of the problem, but the idea a setup that's become a little familiar at this point and continued existence will likely frustrate series veterans.

The strength of report and quality along with the amazingly detailed world are certainly about to create great thoughts with whoever dives into that side of Liberty City, but GTA has always been about moments. Remember that time people turned away from the stunt start and arrived on the pedestrian after slamming through the light job with the authorities chopper crashing on the ground from the family, putting off a run of explosions rocketing through the stalled traffic? With the COMPUTER version you'll be able to actually prevent that type of thing manipulating the replay feature. Hitting F2 will but a portion of gameplay roughly 30 seconds long near your own hard sink and make it designed for worked with the integrated replay editor. This collection of tools will enable anyone decrease in filters, join together clips, add text, attach music, adjust camera angles and more so you can recreate your favorite scenes but you see fit. Mean a cord of photos of people firing on traffic jams through a good episode chopper? Remember going to F2 every time you're popular that circumstances with joining them all together should happen no problem, cause people the possibility to prevent and savor those quirky, seemingly impossible-to-repeat seconds that turn up in GTA's unpredictable world.

If you buy something in this situation, IGN might pick up a share with the auction. For added, learn more.

To choose the Grand Theft Auto PC Download editor mode Niko utilizes the cellphone, which play like a sort of heart for many activities. This appears in to play in the course of missions for bill meanings also gossip with the game's vibrant, well-realized NPC population as well as act as a tool built to allow players to live Niko's life as if it become a real one. NPCs can arrange to consult, for example, with no purpose other than increase your impression of the character. You can go on dates, control a game of rush or collection, and manage relationships much like you might outside of Rockstar's world. Many of these diversions prove to be fairly tedious after a while, but they're entirely possible so you can just go them alone if you prefer.

Outside of that there's plenty to get in Liberty City, a stunningly realized virtual report of New York City caked with all the dust, don, and cuts you'd presume to realize while moving behind an authentic street. There you can engage in the assignment, sure, but also immerse yourself in activities strictly frivolous, from going to Internet looks and pressing through fictional junk email to meeting ago in a dimly lit residence with absorbing the accumulation of curriculum and ads to, in normal Rockstar style, wryly torpedo common culture.

The lines staple radio is very much intact in GTA IV. When set against the net and group phones it seems like a bit more of a good anachronism, but it still offers the playoffs fantastic soundtrack then a cavalcade of fake talk lists with cynical advertising. Perhaps in GTA Against, the character will ultimately acquire the iPod.

PC gamers will get more flexibility when it comes to music selection, as Rockstar has involved Independence FM with this type. Since you're bound to have tired of finding out on Dragon Brain and Pisswasser eventually, you can weight popular composition files into a game list to act as that post is beaten to, snap you a better ability to learn anything you like must people plan to go on one of the adrenaline fueled cross-city cop chases GTA is famous for.

Then there's the online play, a significant addition for the string with a portion of the game that's been increased with a better player control in the PC variety with superior search functionality. Read through Niko's cell phone you'll find a broad range of selections for play, through races to deathmatches to a number of team-based games with more specific rule sets. The real sketch from the online portion here is to engage in 32 person chaos across the area of the capital in open mode, but the structured inside here for persons looking for something other organized. It would hold survived pleasant to view a little extra cooperative modes rather than those already offered in the system versions, but the multiplayer remains a strong element of this outcome for the freedom it offers those who venture online.

Online or away there's no doubt you'll be impressed with some of GTA IV's visuals. It's not so much the character models, but the sheer selection in the city's sections, from the glitz of Liberty City's "Times Adjust" to the dirt slathered in the industrial areas, Rockstar has turned out one of the most authentic, believable settings ever noticed in competition. But with the PC version, you're going to need a very good organization to notice in all the splendor for a decent framerate, as still about the system (Core 2 Quad 2.40 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 768 MB GeForce 8800 GTX with Vista 32) we lived having performance problems even after toning down a few of the situations, and some of the cause (the shadows in particular) didn't appear so angry as posed during important resolutions.

The severe is employed even better. Stellar voice acting throughout a absolutely unbelievable sum of sharply written dialogue presents and illuminates GTA IV's thrilling story. As you're getting together the starting sequence of a mission another time you'll generally be healed to an completely different, cohesive dialogue thread between the passengers on the auto and then grasp the pieces toward that Rockstar has worked to stop this earth with strain and personality. But this also carved in every situation, from the small piece of pedestrians to the normal horns, train track screams, and universal mechanical fuzz that suffuses large town to Rockstar's managed to capture so perfectly here, also contributes heavily to Liberty City's authenticity.

Verdict

If you've so far neglected to record Grand Theft Auto IV's stunning modern capital of Liberty City, by all means get this game. The GTA formula has been polished and retooled in this kind being more convenient, more realistic, and ultimately more mature, however it yet gets placed with brambles taken over by games past. As far as settle a virtual time goes, direct the public circle, night time, travel conventions and explosive attacks of digital dynamo Niko Bellic becomes just one that'll stay in your planning for times ahead. The LAPTOP version comes with a few added features, such as online filters for obtaining matches, the ability to save clips and alter them all together, added video and organize options, and also a better player capacity in some of the multiplayer modes. Though you'll need a high-powered approach to truly understanding the PROCESSOR version's enhanced visuals, Liberty City is a surprise to behold.

[cecillewhite]

Podcast 31: Inside Open Source Learning Systems – With eThink CEO Brian Carlson

WELCOME TO EPISODE 31 OF THE TALENTED LEARNING SHOW

To find out more about this podcast series or to see the full collection of episodes visit The Talented Learning Show main page.

  EPISODE 31 – TOPIC SUMMARY AND GUEST:

The learning technology world moves so fast, it can be hard for practitioners to stay ahead of the curve. That’s why I invite innovation leaders to share updates in these 30-minute audio sprints.

For example, today we welcome a leader in the open source learning community, Brian Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO of eThink Education.

Join us as we discuss the latest developments in open source learning systems. You’ll also hear why these advances are important – especially for extended enterprise education.

  KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Open source learning platforms like Moodle have driven closed source LMS vendors to reduce their price points dramatically over the years.

Open source learning systems are widely used. In fact, with a whopping 176 million users, Moodle is the world’s most popular learning platform – not just among educational institutions, but associations and corporations, as well.

Professional services are a key differentiator for open source learning solution providers, particularly compared to proprietary LMS vendors.

  Q&A HIGHLIGHTS:

Let’s start with a quick look at your background as a learning systems innovator…

I began my career as a teacher for two years on a small island just off the coast of Australia. It was a sustainable development position with an organization similar to the Peace Corps, and I loved it.

Then, after I returned to the States, I worked as a technical consultant for six years at a company which, through multiple acquisitions, became part of Ellucian, the largest student information system company in the world.

What prompted you to start eThink?

I’ve always been entrepreneurial in nature. And while I was at Ellucian, working with different colleges and universities, I saw open source as an interesting opportunity.

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Moodle was just emerging as an open-source learning platform, and my business partner Cheryl Patsavos and I realized we could do very well by capitalizing on that. So about 12 years ago we founded eThink as a Moodle services provider.

So you started with LMS services for the education market?

Originally, Moodle focused on higher education and K-12 markets, so we began by supporting those clients. But because Moodle is based on open source, it quickly evolved to support nonprofit, government and corporate needs – including extended enterprise applications.

So we continued to expand our services to support a business-oriented derivative of Moodle called Totara. And our Totara services have been a tremendous success.

How do you describe eThink’s mission?

Ultimately, we empower organizations to maximize their learning initiatives through fully managed solutions.

In other words, whatever an organization wants to achieve – whether the use case is internal or external, and whatever the industry may be – we configure a solution that best meets the client’s objectives. This may come from any combination of products we offer, as well as partner solutions that work with ours.

So you’re kind of like a software company, but much more, because you’re software agnostic, right? Plus you provide all the support clients need?

Yes. That’s what makes us different. We’re not the only vendor that provides open source learning solutions. But we are 100% focused on services that meet our client needs. We have to be.

That’s how we keep our client base. It’s important to be pretty unique on the services side and deliver a lot of value.

Maybe we should take a quick step back. People may know of Moodle, but they may not understand open source, in general. Could you briefly explain the concept and what it means for learning systems?

Sure, John. On a day-to-day basis, we talk to many people who are confused by this because they aren’t immersed in technology.

Open source just means that the code base is freely available on the internet, and everyone can look at it line-by-line. Also, anyone can add to the code. This community involvement is how open source software improves over time.

Got it…

Open source software is actually surprisingly common. Think of the smartphones we use. iPhones are based on Apple’s closed source mobile operating system, but Android-based phones are open source products.

Interestingly, when Apple launched the iPhone, it dominated the smartphone industry. But now only 10% of us are iPhone users, while 85% of us use Android phones. That illustrates how open source can shape a market.

Wow…

Another great example of an open platform is WordPress. Almost everyone I know runs a website on WordPress. There are closed source blogging options, but they’re not nearly as popular.

We’re one of those WordPress users at Talented Learning, but I’ve never thought much about the open source angle. So for these open source initiatives, who creates the core code?

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You know, there are books written on each open source movement. But with Moodle specifically, it started in Australia when Martin Dougiamas was working on his graduate thesis project in late 2001.

His university relied on Blackboard LMS, which was the predominant academic learning management system at the time. They had nearly 100% market share. It was absurd. Since Blackboard was the only game in town, the price points were very high.

Ouch.

So Martin decided to publish a free code base on the internet, similar to open source projects in other industries. This way, universities everywhere could apply their deep academic and technical talent to contribute various code elements.

With this public, community-driven approach, any educational institution can run a less expensive alternative to Blackboard LMS.

Sure…

Actually, Blackboard prices have come down considerably over the years because of new competition from alternatives like Moodle.

And almost every open source story I’ve seen starts with this kind of question:

“What would it look like if we had more eyeballs and more community involved in product development and made it a free project?”

Excellent.

Then for every open source effort, there are logical next-step challenges like how to maintain the core code, and how to fund staff who can make sure that the best ideas are added and there’s some quality control.

Different business models have emerged to address these administrative issues. Yet they all start in a similar way.

But Moodle’s growth, in particular, has been fascinating. It quickly became the most widely used learning management system in the world – both in academia and in the corporate space. And it’s still the leading platform.

Wow.

Most people don’t realize how popular Moodle is. But worldwide, no one else is even close. In global market share, it beats every other product by a mile – especially in certain categories.

Moodle adoption is so massive because people can easily download it for free and configure their own implementation. Or, if they need assistance, they can rely on services like ours.

On the corporate side, there’s a perception that Moodle isn’t really designed for the business market. Do you agree?

Definitely not. It’s true that Moodle was originally built for academia. And when Martin first started, he gained a lot of traction in colleges and universities. That’s where this perception comes from.

But today, if I look at our Moodle-related sales over the last two years, probably 75% of net new logos are from outside of academia. Many people find our business emphasis very surprising.

So, with such deep global market penetration, is there any direct open source competition?

Others have tried. You need to scale and you need enough contributing members for an open source effort to find its legs.

Moodle has been up and running for about 18 years, so it certainly reached the critical mass needed for success.

Makes sense.

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Over the years, a few other organizations have come and gone because they never received the amount of traction needed for a successful open source project.

They may have looked at the core Moodle code and decided to add some elements to create what’s called a fork of that code. That’s what Totara did. And no one else has done it as effectively.

Totara approached this with an eye toward extended enterprise professional development. And Totara has definitely found success.

Right.

Totara’s channel model is similar to Moodle’s. And in some cases, Totara’s offering competes with Moodle, which has led to improvement of both products. When one takes a step forward, the other tries to match or beat it, which is great for customers.

Isn’t Moodle creating its own corporate version?

You’re right. In response to Totara’s success, Moodle is creating its own corporate-focused version called Moodle Workplace.

We’ve been a big contributor to that for the last two years, while it was mostly in stealth mode. But recently, they made it public. And honestly, they’ve got some great new functionality – great UI and UX changes.

This move is important, because Moodle is already used by corporate, nonprofit and government entities for professional education. But they needed to address this more strategically by wrapping their story around it and including specific functionality to back it up.

Interesting…

Frankly, I think they’ve done a nice job. We can already see that Moodle Workplace is very competitive.

We have clients that look at all three options – Moodle, Moodle Workplace and Totara. Some say Totara is a better fit for their specific needs. Some choose Moodle and others go with Moodle Workplace.

We stay agnostic. We put the solutions in front of our clients, but we let them choose. We listen to their need set and mock-up what the functionality would look like in those scenarios. But Moodle Workplace is making things more interesting.

Today, nearly 1000 different learning systems are available. 99% of them are commercial off-the-shelf, SaaS or cloud-based systems. Why would I choose an open source LMS over those?

There are so many reasons why it makes sense to at least consider an open source solution as a finalist when selecting an LMS.

First, the business model is flipped on its head, compared to closed source solutions. We don’t own the product – the community does. In other words, a license doesn’t lock you into a specific vendor for software or service. This gives you much more control.

Great point.

Another consideration is our flexibility in manipulating code and configuring it to meet specific needs. This flexibility really shines through with integrations.

These days, most organizations need to integrate all sorts of different things with their LMS. Upfront, you may not be aware of everything you’ll need. Instead, items surface down the road. And when they do, we’re here to help you adapt.

That certainly makes sense for extended enterprise scenarios, where integrations are especially important.

Right.

So let’s talk more about cost. Open source code is free, but once you add-in professional services, does the cost advantage hold up?

Core Moodle is a free solution. But we joke that it’s more like free like a puppy than a free beer.

Obviously, if you run this “free” solution on your own servers with your own people, there’s a cost. But if we do it for you, we believe we can do it at a lower price point. 

Okay…

But from a broader perspective, data from the last couple of decades shows that open source solutions like Moodle and Totara have actually forced LMS price points down as much as 90%.

It’s certainly in that ballpark for per-user-costs, compared to the early 2000s.

Impressive.

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This has forced commoditization of closed source LMS solutions. But I tend not to lead on cost alone. That’s because proprietary LMS vendors aren’t our only competitors.

We compete with other open source solution providers, as well. And that competition incentivizes us to be incredibly proactive when it comes to service.

We’re highly consultative with our clients. And our responsiveness borders on obsession.

For instance, we respond to service tickets in less than an hour. Compare that with the average response time from other vendors, which can be closer to several days. That’s significant.

Although (like most vendors) you don’t want to lead with cost, I bet it makes a big difference at scale.

Yes, a massive difference.

Sure. Because it’s not uncommon for a small company to have a lot of customers.

Yep. Some of our client sites serve over 100,000 users. Several are approaching a million users. For them, it becomes extraordinarily inexpensive. But closed source learning platforms don’t seem to scale nearly as well when it comes to price.

So, what should associations or businesses know about customization? If they modify open source code, won’t that lead to complications in the future?

That’s precisely the basis for our business model, John. I can’t tell you how often prospects say, “We want to choose you because we can customize everything.” And we say, “Nope, you don’t want to customize.”

And then you show them a better way…

Yep. Nearly 100% of our solutions do not involve customization. Instead, we focus on configuration. Because when you customize core code, you’re adding a need to re-customize after future releases. That potentially adds costs and even some management risk. We don’t do that.

Good to know.

Moodle has over 1300 free modules available. So most of the time when someone says, “Can you do this?” it’s already been done. We can find it on the open source community. Or if it isn’t available, but the value is justified, we can develop a module.

For example, we just developed a Cvent plug-in in conjunction with our client, The Ohio State University. Rather than targeting students or faculty, it’s designed for professional certification training partnerships in the nonprofit sector.

This is a great example of a situation where you should create a module rather than owning it yourself. Hundreds of organizations are likely to find it useful. Our client saw the value in developing and sharing this module because they won’t have to maintain it. This approach essentially eliminates future cost-of-ownership for them.

Nice…

That’s the open source model. It’s the power of community. More often than not, we can apply or enhance something that’s already available, rather than trying to develop it from scratch. This avoids future risk or cost.

Excellent. So, let’s say I’m shopping for an extended enterprise LMS. What are the top three reasons why I should consider open source…?

  …FOR COMPLETE ANSWERS TO THIS QUESTION AND MORE, LISTEN TO THE FULL 30-MINUTE PODCAST!

  WANT TO LEARN MORE? JOIN OUR DECEMBER WEBINAR

The Hidden Value of Open Source

RSVP NOW

Until recently, most open-source learning solutions served the academic market. Not anymore. Now, corporations big and small are leveraging the unique strengths of open source to deliver world-class learning solutions at an affordable price.

Do the advantages of open source make sense for your organization?

Join John Leh, Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, as he hosts a roundtable discussion with Randy Jones, VP of Business Development at eThink Education; Laura Kiley, Channel Partner Manager at GO1 and Ollie Browning, UK Sales Director at GO1.

You’ll get practical advice and insights, including:

Business and educational benefits of open source

Anatomy of an open source learning solution

Examples of successful solutions

Differences between open source and a commercial LMS

Role of content in employee and extended enterprise solutions

Top 5 uses of an open source LMS

Tips for getting started

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Need Proven LMS Selection Guidance?

Looking for a learning platform that truly fits your organization’s needs?  We’re here to help!  Submit the form below to schedule a free preliminary consultation at your convenience.

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The post Podcast 31: Inside Open Source Learning Systems – With eThink CEO Brian Carlson appeared first on Talented Learning.

Podcast 31: Inside Open Source Learning Systems – With eThink CEO Brian Carlson original post at Talented Learning

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Fortnite: Complete 10.0 Patch Notes

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/fortnite-complete-10-0-patch-notes/

Fortnite: Complete 10.0 Patch Notes

Last Edited: August 1, 2019 at 9:07 AM

What’s New?[edit]

Season X – Battle Pass

New Season, new Battle Pass. 100 levels, over 100 new rewards. Find out more information on everything that’s new in Season X in the announce blog. In Season X, you’ll have the ability to gift the Battle Pass to a friend! Available on all platforms (timing may vary per regions) until August 15th. Your first purchase also includes a unique Gift Box for you to use when gifting items from the shop.

B.R.U.T.E.

Few suits make you feel as powerful as a mech suit does. In this two-person vehicle, players can control its movement while their partner controls its firepower. Those feeling extra adventurous can operate it solo by switching between moving and shooting!

Rift Zones

The Zero Point Explosion has made the island volatile! Locations once thought to be lost are beginning to appear, but they aren’t the same as they once were… Drop in and explore to discover what mysterious gameplay changes they have in store.

B.R.U.T.E.

This vehicle can be operated by up to two players. If two players are operating it, one (the driver) controls movement, while the other (the gunner) rains down missiles and shotgun shots.

The driver is able to:

Dash into combat.

Super Jump to victory.

Stomp enemies and structures into the ground.

Anything you would normally harvest will grant materials when destroyed.

The passenger has two weapons at their disposal: a shotgun and a missile launcher.

Shotgun

Clip Size: 10

Damage: 50

Headshot Multiplier: 1.5x

Missile Launcher

Fires up to 10 missiles at once.

Holding down Trigger will begin loading missiles.

After releasing Trigger, or after 10 missiles have been loaded, all missiles will automatically fire.

New Mechanic: Overshield

Consumes 200 of any Material type to create a personal overshield for 5 seconds to protect you in the mech.

Vaulted

Baller

Quad Crasher

Flint Knock Pistol

Shadow Bomb

Semi-Auto Sniper

Tactical Assault Rifle

Mounted Turret

Air Strike

Itemized Glider Redeploy (still available in large team modes)

Over time, we have added many mobility options, both itemized and map-based. We feel that Season X is better experienced with a reduction in mobility. As with all changes, we’ll keep a close eye on how this affects the player experience.

Bug Fixes

Fixed the Heavy Shotgun not piercing through water in modes where it is available.

All Campfires now heal vehicles.

The Storm Scout Sniper Rifle no longer has perfect hip-fire accuracy after aiming down sights.

Boogie Bombs and Grenades no longer pass through vehicles.

Gameplay[edit]

Missions

New Battle Pass feature!

Missions are a series of thematic objectives that grant rewards. As you complete these objectives, you’ll earn Battle Stars, XP, and exclusive cosmetic items.

More information about Missions can be found in the Battle Pass and Challenges tabs.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue involving players getting stuck under a ramp as it’s placed.

Arena Game Mode updates!

Season kicks off with Solos and Trios Arena.

Hype will be reset at the start of Season X, with a new scoring structure in place.

10 Divisions – point values have been increased, but progression should be roughly the same. The bolded divisions are new.

Open I (0 – 499)

Open II (500 – 999)

Open III (1000 – 1499)

Open IV (1500 – 1999)

Contender I (2000 – 2999)

Contender II (3000 – 4499)

Contender III (4500 – 6499)

Champion I (6500 – 9999)

Champion II (10000 – 13999)

Champion III (14000+)

Scoring model updates – standardized points and bus fares across all playlists.

Solo

Eliminations: 20pt

Top 25: 60pt

Top 15: 30pt

Top 5: 30pt

Victory Royale: 60pt

Trios

Eliminations: 7pt (per team member)

Top 8: 60pt

Top 4: 30pt

Top 2: 30pt

Victory Royale: 60pt

Bus fare increases at Divisions 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Matchmaking in Arena is still based on players with similar Hype. Players in higher divisions may experience longer-than-normal wait times to ensure higher-quality matches.

Performance[edit]

Improved level streaming performance for all platforms by optimizing the way assets are preloaded. This reduces cases in which players land on buildings with a low level of detail, particularly on Switch and Xbox One.

Art + Animation[edit]

The Ride the Pony Emote is now a traversal Emote.

Players who earned the Ride the Pony Emote from the Season 2 Battle Pass have been given a new, additional traversal Emote: Pony Up!

Added new bullet impact sounds.

Increased the volume of distant gunfire and Gliders.

Increased Chest volume and audio range by 10%.

Bug Fixes

Ambient sound no longer cuts out when players walk between biomes.

Pressing the Main Menu button on controllers now defaults focus to the Main Menu (right side of the screen).

Bug Fixes

The loading content message will no longer be stuck at 0% when players are matchmaking.

Fixed a Lobby camera issue when returning from a replay.

Fixed an issue that prevented the selection of different players in the Lobby after switching from different game modes.

Selecting Leave Match no longer prevents a player in your party sitting out in the Lobby from entering matchmaking.

A new camera mode, Battle Map, has been added to server replays. This camera mode shows:

A path of where the followed player has been during the match.

The locations of the eliminations the followed player has done during the match.

Auto-fire system improvements:

We’ve re-tuned Auto-fire for every weapon with this update and would love specific and detailed weapon feedback so that we can continue to improve it.

If you want to try it out and don’t use Auto-fire already, go into your HUD settings and enable Auto-fire.

Added a new setting: Tap to Search/Interact for Controllers.

Added a message for devices on Android that have the Sensor Pressure settings (S8, S8+, S9, S9+, and Note 9) to inform players about the settings being active.

Players would unintentionally return to the Home screen due to this setting being active.

We’ve increased the size of buttons and icons in the following areas:

The Frontend Lobby tab buttons.

The Crown for Party leader display icon.

The Map Marker.

“First team to reach the elimination goal wins!” message won’t remain throughout the whole match in Team Rumble.

Bug Fixes

Exiting a vehicle won’t reload the player’s weapon.

The button for skipping cutscenes is now visible on Android.

Vertical black lines aren’t displayed on the Challenges page.

The Settings Menu will properly display when language is set to Spanish.

The text on the menu buttons in the Settings Menu is aligned.

Quick Heal button won’t appear when falling or after opening the map.

Scaling the Quick Heal button in the HUD Layout Tool won’t cause the icon to change to the item’s icon in the inventory.

Quick Heal button won’t disappear from the HUD Layout tool when another button is modified.

Players are able to open doors or Chests while using the ADS button.

Build mode button will correctly change to the Weapon mode button when pressing it on Android.

Added header on multiple widgets in the HUD Layout Tool.

Graphical improvement of CloudBreaker outfit.

Graphical improvement of the blue variant of the Sea Wolf outfit.

Freefall icon will be displayed when falling to the map.

ADS button won’t be displayed when driving a vehicle that you entered while holding a gun.

When updating the Banner Trooper outfit, players won’t disappear in the Locker, and the proper Banner will be displayed.

Edit button will be displayed when using passenger seat.

Screen won’t turn black when looking inside of a body of water.

Jump button won’t remain greyed out after players press it.

Audio improvements.

Fixed the occasional static sounds on Android.

Tapping with interactable items in Edit mode will no longer cause the camera to lock.

Player won’t be able to edit through structures.

Ex: Looking at your wall and being able to edit another structure (floor, ramp, roof).

Fixed an unopenable Chest near Polar Peak.

What’s New?[edit]

Advanced Storm Controller

Now you can replicate the Battle Royale 10 wave storm, or you can create your own multi-phase storm.

Advanced Storm Beacon

This allows you to customize specific phases or to set the number of phases of the Advanced Storm Controller.

Weapon-Free Zone

While in a Weapon-Free Zone, a player cannot fire a weapon, swing a pickaxe, throw a grenade, or use items.

Junkyard Juke LTM

Bring junk to the incinerator to receive points for your team. The bigger piece of junk, the more points.

Sky Station Showdown LTM

Battle the other squads to claim the most points from the capture zones! Climb to the top of the Fast Food towers while protecting your VIP! Use impulse grenades and other power ups to blast other teams out of the capture zones!

Islands[edit]

Added the Grid Island – A flat island entirely covered with grid squares to help with building measurements. The white grid square marks the center of the island. This island is low to the ocean to give the most room for building possible.

Gameplay[edit]

Added options for Team Rotation to allow for rotating between teams at various rounds.

Added 3rd, 4th, 5th , 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 20th, 40th, 60th options

Every Round and Every Other Round are still available, too.

Added a “Team Visuals Determined At” game option for controlling what cosmetic details (Team Names, Team Colors, etc) are associated with teams in game modes where the teams rotate from round to round.

Round Start, Game Start (default: Round Start)

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where players could appear at the wrong location before a game started.

Fixed an issue where Spawn Immunity would not be cancelled when firing a weapon.

Fixed an issue with Spawn Immunity Time not actually showing the visual effects for the selected duration.

The Secondary Ability (Exit Vehicle) button will be visible when in the Baller.

Weapons + Items[edit]

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where players could lose the ability to aim or crouch after using the Prop-O-Matic.

Fixed an issue with Prop-O-Matic where collisions would no longer work after possessing certain types of props.

Fixed an issue with Prop-O-Matic with camera positioning when possessing spotlight props.

Fixed an issue where certain mirror and painting props would have the wrong orientation when possessed by Prop-O-Matic.

Fixed an issue that caused mounted turrets to drift downward over time.

Prefabs & Galleries[edit]

Added the Risky Reels Prefab.

Added the Risky Reels Gallery.

Added more props to the Cabin Prop Gallery.

Added the campground arch to the Cabin Gallery.

Added more RV variants and the Snow Cone Truck to Car Gallery A.

Added additional car colors to Car Gallery B and removed the cars from Car Gallery A.

Bug Fixes

Fixed grass from clipping through the Throne Pedestal in the Castle Prop Gallery.

Fixed the Kitchen Pans & Kitchen Knives props disappearing while in low detail mode.

Fixed the Volcano Vent in the Air Vent Gallery facing the wrong way.

Fixed some visual issues with the sidewalk floors from the Paradise Palms Prefabs & Galleries.

Devices[edit]

Added “When Exploded Transmit On” setting to Explosive Devices that triggers when the object is detonated.

Added Team Settings device channel trigger for when a team is eliminated.

Added a 20 Seconds option to the Player Capture Time setting for the Capture Area device.

Added new Reset Times Triggered When Receiving From setting to Trigger device, which upon receipt, resets the counter for the number of times the Trigger has been activated.

Timer

The Timer’s display now flashes when the timer completes.

Fixed an issue where Timers would not be synchronized between all players.

Fixed an issue where Timer would trigger 1 second too late.

Fixed an issue where timer would play a sound every time it spawned (rather than only on placement).

Fixed Timer Device being able to be destroyed. It’s now indestructible.

New Options

Team (Any, 1-16. Default: Any). Which team can start or stop the Timer.

Complete Once (Yes, No. default: No). Will lock the device after it’s completed once. Allows the Timer to be used as a ‘Fastest Time’ trigger. A locked timer requires to be Reset via a received message before it can be used again.

Complete on End (Yes, No. Default:Yes). Whether or not the timer counts as Completed when it hits 00:00. Set to No to be used as a race to trigger it before it ends.

Show Trigger (Yes / No. Default: Yes). Shows or Hides the trigger pad on the device. When No, you’ll need to remotely trigger the device rather than having players manually activate it by touching the pad.

Alarm Audio (None / Siren. Default: Siren). Enables or disables the siren setting.

Alarm Volume (Very Low, Low, Medium, Loud, Very Loud. Default: Very Loud).

Score Value (-20 – 20. Default: 0). Provides score to the person who triggered / completed the timer when it completes.

Lap Time Team (Activating Team, None, 1-16. Default: None). Defines which team to update the lap time for when this timer is completed. Lap time is a new option in the Island’s UI Settings that can be shown on the scoreboard and used as a win condition.

Lap Time Style (Count Up, Count Down. Default: Count Down). Counting up sends the total time elapsed to the scoreboard. Counting down sends the remaining time.

Added Receiver Support:

Start when Receiving From. Starts the timer.

Pause When Receiving From. Pauses the timer.

Reset When Receiving From. Resets the timer back to its initial state (auto-starting it if the auto-start setting is on).

Enable When Receiving From. Powers-up, allowing it to be used.

Disable When Receiving From. Powers-down, stopping it counting-down or receiving input.

Complete when Receiving From. Completes the Timer, stopping it, triggering the alarm and updating the lap time (if set).

Set Lap Time when Receiving From. Sends the lap time to the scoreboard (if set) without stopping the timer.

Added Transmitter Support:

When Complete Transmit On. Sends a signal on a specific channel when the timer completes.

Color Changing Block

New Options

Enable on Minigame Start option (Yes, No. Default: Yes). Whether it can be touched to change color at the start of the minigame, or needs to be enabled before doing so.

Adding Receiver support

Enable on Received From. Allows this to be changed in color when touched.

Disable on Received From: Disallows color changing on touch.

Reset on Received From: Resets to the default color.

Set on Received From: Sets the block to the team of the player that sent the signal, allowing for remote activation.

Weapon-Free Zone

Options:

Zone Visible In Game (Off/On)

Base Visible In Game (Off/On)

Zone Width (½, 1-20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100)

Zone Depth (½, 1-20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100)

Zone Height (½, 1-20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100)

Enabled On Game Start (Enabled/Disabled)

Receiver Support:

Enable When Receiving From – Allows the Zone to turn on when receiving a remote signal

Disable When Receiving From – Allows the Zone to be turned off when receiving a remote signal

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue which prevented Creature Spawners from being damageable when invulnerability and environmental damage were set to off.

Fixed an issue with Explosive Device exploding during warm up phase if a player was nearby when the match was started.

Fixed issue where Barrier Volumes could block Spectator Drones.

Fixed issue where Barrier visuals would sometimes still be visible even when disabled.

Fixed Creature Spawners not spawning creatures in Playgrounds mode in some cases.

Fixed Shooting Gallery targets not detonating proximity grenades.

Fixed an issue where in some cases, Devices configured with receivers wouldn’t react to transmitters every other round.

Fixed an issue where the Music Sequencer would not always stop playback when expected.

UI + Social[edit]

Bug Fixes

Fixed a typo in Damage Self Weapon Filter Team Setting option.

Fixed a typo in Allow Items to be Dropped setting in Game Settings tab.

Bug Fixes

“Session has expired.” will not be shown when rejoining another players server.

Interact prompt will be visible for the movement modulator when placed on the Block islands.

Piano keys will be highlighted when selected with the Phone tool.

Graphical improvement on Chest & Ammo Gallery.

Graphical improvement of the Consumable icons.

HUD will feature the inventory.

Player will be able to exit the My Island menu by tapping on the screen or via the Exit button.

Name and description on Portal and Rift won’t jitter when aiming at portal.

Baller’s winch button will be greyed out when the grappler isn’t deployed.

What’s New?[edit]

Hit the Road

Get ready for some high intensity road trip action as you assist Quinn and company in broadcasting her Song of the Summer. You never know what challenges and obstacles you may find along the way, and getting there is half the adventure. Load up the van and gather your group because it’s time to Hit the Road!

Introducing the Locker!

Your favorite Emotes, Music Packs, and Loading Screens are now available in Save the World. Head over to the Locker tab to check them out!

General[edit]

The first part of the Locker has arrived in Save the World. You can now use your Emotes, Music Packs, and Loading Screens.

The Locker is currently shared between Save the World and Battle Royale, so if you change it in either location, it will change in both.

Only Emotes, Music Packs, and Loading Screens are available for Save the World at the moment. We plan to support more types of cosmetics in future updates. Read more about this here.

Emotes:

All types of Emotes now work in Save the World: Dances, Emoticons, Sprays, and Toys. Any emotes you own are available in all modes.

You can slot up to 6 Emotes in the Locker for quick access on the Emote Wheel. Additional Emotes can be accessed by paging the wheel up or down.

You can use Dances and Emoticons in the Lobby.

Everyone who currently has access to play Save the World will keep Ride the Pony, which is now a traversal Emote. You can now use it in Battle Royale and Creative too!

Players who purchase Save the World Founders packs will also receive Ride the Pony.

Everyone keeps Dance Moves as well, as players in all modes start with that Emote.

Missions + Systems[edit]

Introducing: Hit the Road!

Grab three other players and help Quinn get to the Radio Station to spin her Song of the Summer in this road trip adventure.

Quinn travels in a hover-truck, complete with a mobile storm defense shield.

Along the route are four randomized objectives, each with challenging gameplay and a variety of upgrades.

Get to the radio station, and protect Quinn from a final enemy wave. Hopefully you’ve collected enough traps, ammo, and resources to secure the victory!

If the vehicle loses all of its health the road trip ends, but players earn rewards based on the number of objectives completed.

You start the trip without your gear or supplies, making scavenging and harvesting a top priority.

You keep your trap schematics, and start with a few “hand-me-down” weapons, but weapon crafting is disabled.

Weapons with appropriate perks are scattered throughout the route, increasing your chances of survival without your weapon schematics.

Chests in Hit the Road spawn tier-appropriate weapons, traps, and resources.

Unlike previous events, Hit the Road uses Power Levels instead of Storm Shield Defense progress to match players to the correct difficulty, bringing more balance to the group.

If you are knocked out you will have to wait until your team reaches or completes an objective before you will respawn. Be careful out there!

New event quests have also been added to give players a chance to earn even more Hit the Road tickets.

Search everything you can for cassette tapes, helping Lars craft the perfect summer mix tape, and earning some Hit the Road event tickets.

Legendary Troll Stash Event Llama is available

Cost: 1000 Hit the Road Tickets

Llamas now contain Cyberpunk Heroes and Vacuum Tube Weapon Schematics

Mutant Storm Mission Alerts grant Hit the Road Tickets and are more numerous.

Miniboss Mission Alerts no longer grant Event Tickets and are less numerous.

Safe Harbor quest: Reduced Evacuate the Shelter quest requirement from 2 to 1.

Updated the mission rewards for “Eliminate and Collect” and “Resupply”.

Eliminate and Collect now rewards Hero XP and/or Survivor XP.

Resupply now rewards Schematic XP and a random crafting ingredient.

Known issue: Sometimes the crafting ingredient fails to be rewarded if players do not finish enough bonus objectives.

Some Heroes and Schematics from the Birthday Llama for Year 2 used to be locked. They have been updated to allow Recycling and Transformation. Any items that were adjusted will continue to not take up inventory space.

Shadow Ops Heroes, Military Weapons, and Vacuum Tube Weapons have been moved to the Expansion Tab in the Collection Book. These items may now be researched/recruited.

Exploding Deathburst has been replaced with a new modifier: Exploding Death Bomb. When Husky Husks, Sploders, and Riot Huskies are eliminated they leave behind a destructive bomb with a short fuse.

With the changing of the season, event ticket rewards have been removed from Wargames Daily Quests and Wargames Mission Rewards.

Mission Rewards for Wargames are reduced while Daily Wargames Quest rewards are increased:

Stonewood Daily Wargames Quests now reward additional Gold

Plankerton Daily Wargames Quests reward Gold and a choice of Evolution Materials

Canny Valley Daily Wargames Quests reward Gold and RE-PERK!

Twine Peaks Daily Wargames Quests reward Gold and a choice of Epic PERK-UP! or Legendary PERK-UP!

The “Husk Swarm” Wargames Challenge has been removed.

Endurance Rewards are reduced for its early waves, normalizing to their current values as you approach the final wave.

Bug Fixes

Mission Alert Weekly Quests in high-level Twine Peaks now display the correct power requirements for completion.

In the Hexed Wargames simulation, the statues no longer leave shadows behind when they disappear.

Centered the Twine Peaks Storm Shield and Vinderman’s Mansion in-game maps.

UI and Minimap icons for melee weapons have been updated. Each melee weapon type now has its own unique icon.

Bug Fixes

Quickly opening Expedition rewards no longer causes the game to freeze.

Main quest tile is now centered properly when there is no quest map.

Adjusted Boom Bow alignment on the Weapon Wall in the Armory.

Updated grammar for descriptions of Air Strike and its upgrades.

Localization fix for Arabic for the points counter used throughout the front end.

Player names now scroll correctly in the team member UI.

Updated tooltips for Shock Tower and T.E.D.D.Y. to show base damage for the abilities.

Fixed some party notifications interfering with menu navigation when using a controller.

Resolved an issue with health/shields not updating after levelling/evolving a Hero from the Hero Loadout screen.

Fixed controller navigation sometimes not working in the Main Menu while in the front end.

Pick-up icons on the minimap will no longer flip 180 if the player is near and above them.

Cloaked Star returns to the Event Store! Cloaked in mystery, this Mythic Ninja uses throwing stars to quickly take down the Husks.

Team Perk: Round Trip

Throwing Stars return to you, dealing their damage again on the way back.

Requires 2 Ninjas of Legendary or higher rarity.

Abilities

Throwing Stars

Crescent Kick

Smoke Bomb

Standard Perk: Fan of Stars

Throw all Throwing Stars together in an arc. Adds 1 additional star.

Commander Perk: Fan of Stars+

Throw all Throwing Stars together in an arc. Adds 3 additional stars.

Bug Fixes

Shock Tower and T.E.D.D.Y. no longer float in the air after their supporting structure is destroyed.

R.O.S.I.E. can no longer be placed overlapping a fragment or storm chest.

Hang Time and Leap Attacks no longer incorrectly negate knockback effects.

Fixed issue with Goin’ Constructor shield not always blocking area damage.

Destroying BASE with Supercharged Traps now correctly removes the BASE bonus to those traps.

Resolved an issue with Azalea Clark’s exploding Shock Tower not damaging Husks at high tiers.

Weapons + Items[edit]

Added Vacuum Tube weapons as possible in-world drops.

The Tar Pit trap schematics now take up inventory space and can be recycled.

Bug Fixes

Weapon trails for the Corsair now display properly.

Cleaned up weapon trail timings for basic sword combo attacks.

The Atomic Light Expander’s heavy attack now correctly grants melee elimination credit.

Upgraded Typewriter weapon should now display on the weapon rack in the armory.

Fixed the Astro Bat 9000 playing an endless ringing sound if the projectile exploded during creation (e.g. spawned inside a wall).

Gameplay[edit]

Bug Fixes

Fixed issue with banner gadget permanently coloring structures blue.

Prevent teleporter from being placed inside small objects.

Prevent player from becoming trapped inside Supply Drop.

The current weapon is now reselected properly after using an ability while jumping off the map.

Art + Animation[edit]

Bug Fixes

Lighting when going to the armory or command tab from the Locker or Store tab with shadows disabled now display correctly

Fixed lighting when switching between locker and armory with shadows disabled.

Resolved a bug where movement didn’t interrupt Emotes.

All players’ matchmaking regions have been reset to Auto. You can change your preference in the Options menu.

Moved the FPS indicator to the lower left-hand corner while in the Lobby.

Bug Fixes

Hover tooltips will no longer prevent mouse clicks in the Settings menu.

We discovered that the default Push to Talk (PTT) setting for new console players was “On,” which was unintentional. The default is now “Off,” and we are performing a soft reset of the Push to Talk setting for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch players. This is a one-time reset, and further changes to the setting will persist as normal.

Players who have manually changed their PTT settings in the past have had their PTT reset to “Off,” but they are able to change it back to “On.”

The Recent Players list has been re-enabled on all platforms. Players in your Battle Royale Squad or Save the World Team will be automatically added to this list as you play.

This list automatically clears when you close the game.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue in which a friend invite wasn’t properly being cleared.

Performance[edit]

A new mesh streaming solution has been enabled on Xbox One, Switch, and PC. This brings improved memory usage and streaming performance.

This will be rolled out to other platforms in upcoming releases.

Optimized UI performance to improve in-match framerate.

With Season X, the PC version of Fortnite requires a DirectX 11-capable graphics card to run the game, as mentioned in our blog post.

Implemented ray-traced distance field shadows on Switch.

This improves rendering performance and also provides increased shadow range.

Enabled multi-threaded particle simulation on Switch.

This improves the framerate, especially during skydiving.

Optimized GPU occlusion queries on Xbox One.

This provides a boost to dynamic resolution and performance.

Mobile

iPhone 8 scalability settings have been updated to be more inline with similar devices. Overall performance and stability have been improved.

Known Issues[edit]

A current known issue is that players must first close the game on one platform before they’ll be able to connect to another platform using the same account. This issue will be resolved in the v10.10 update.

Wanting to track the top community issues? Head over to our Fortnite | Community Issues Trello board here.

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Source : IGN

[burgermiester]

Stella Glow Review

(spoiler-free)

Stella Glow is a tactical turn based RPG with visual novel/dating sim elements for the Nintendo 3DS.  It was originally released in Japan on June 4th 2015 and arrived in the US on November 17 of the same year.  It was the final game made by developer Imageepoch.  I picked up the game shortly after it released in the US, I even got the special edition.  But despite that, I never really played for more than a couple of hours until a few weeks ago.  As of this writing I have beaten the game once and am pretty far into new game plus, so I think I have seen enough of the game to give an accurate review.

Before I go any further I need to mention that I will be comparing this game quite a bit to Fire Emblem.  Ordinarily I get a little bit grumpy when people get too comparison happy between Fire Emblem and isometric TRPGS like Stella Glow (or FF Tactics, Disgaea, Tactics Ogre) or say things like “if you like FE you will like FF Tactics!” because even though they are both technically in the same genre, the huge emphasis on height, directional combat, magic and skills using mana, turn order calculated by unit, and battles being between smaller numbers of stronger units, isometric TRPGs usually have a completely different game feel from Fire Emblem.  While this is still mostly true for the actual combat, the gameplay in Stella Glow is split between mission segments where you have the main story and tactical combat and free time segments where you have an affinity building conversation/relationship system.  So while Fire Emblem (specifically Awakening and Fates) and Stella Glow both have their genre listed as “turn based rpg” on Wikipedia, I wouldnt be surprised to learn that most players of both are playing more for the romance.  Add on to this the fact that virtually every playable character (and all but one of the prominent NPCs) in the English version is voiced by someone who also voices a Fire Emblem character (including Matthew Mercer as one of the principle characters) and its hard to not to think about Fire Emblem when you play it. Plus most if not all of my followers are Fire Emblem enthusiasts, so hopefully this will help you decide if Stella Glow is the game for you.

Story, Characters, and Affinity System:

Stella Glow follows a young man named Alto as he joins the knights of the kingdom of Regnant to find the witches of water, wind, fire, and earth so they can save the world from Hilda, the witch of destruction. In the world of Stella Glow witches are the only people who have the ability to sing, and within both the narrative and gameplay the witches songs have special effects (this also cant help but make me think of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but theres not much to say except that I like TMS songs on the whole more than the ones from Stella Glow, but theres some good ones in Stella Glow.)  I cant say that anything about the main narrative is particularly new or shocking or memorable, but it serves its purpose.  You’ll probably want to keep doing the main story to meet more characters more than to see what happens, but near the end I got pretty invested in the narrative.  The biggest thing the story has going for it is the characters.  There are 16 playable characters, and with the exception of the final (and only optional one) they are all involved in main story scenes. Alto and the witches and a few others do drive the plot more and thus get more dialogue than some others, but the whole cast still speaks up pretty regularly.  This is quite refreshing compared to FE where outside of supports, only a handful of characters get to participate in the story.  I wouldnt say that FE should switch to doing a cast size this small because I like the replayability that comes from using hugely different unit composition between playthroughs, but its still nice to see in a non-FE game and with 16 characters and maps that let you field 6 units you still get a bit of the feeling that you are choosing your army based on the characters you like. 

And you will probably like a lot of these characters. The character designs are bright and fun and they are written and acted fairly well and there is an affinity system that lets you get to know them all even better.  When you compare Stella Glow’s affinity system with Awakening and Fates��� support system there are upsides and downsides to each.  The biggest downside to Stella Glow’s system is that, in a very visual novel sort of way, affinity building is only between Alto and the other characters, whereas in FE the whole cast can talk to each other.  The trade-off is that there are a lot more of these conversations and they will last for most of the game unlike in FE where its not uncommon to meet a character and be married with children in under an hour.  So I apreciate the added depth longer lasting relationships gives, but I do wish I could have seen the more colorful characters talk to each other as opposed to just Alto who, like the Avatars of FE, is written with a pretty minimal, deliberately inoffensive personality.

From a romantic perspective the longer lasting relationships are mostly a good thing but with one big downside.  FE struggles to make the romance organic, since characters can get up to A support with anyone, relationships are usually platonic right up until marriage.  In Stella Glow the romance grows much more organically, but as the game goes on and Alto gets into increasingly romantic situations with the female characters it feels more and more like a harem anime.  I know thats an instant turn-off to a lot of people and its one of the reasons I kept dropping the game for so long, but I personally am glad I stuck with it because the characters and their struggles are interesting and memorable.  I sighed at a few parts for sure but it was worth it for the rest of the experience.  Building affinity also gives gameplay bonuses: either passive abilities, new skills, or new songs (for the witches.)  For me these are more exciting than the raw stat pair-up bonuses in Awakening and Fates because the effects are more varied and personalized. 

Combat:

I have less FE comparisons here, as I said before isometric tprgs like this feel very different from FE.  If you have played something like FF Tactics then you should be very familiar with how this game plays.  Turn order doesnt alternate from all allies to all enemies, but rather one at a time where faster units will go sooner and more often than slower ones.  You do more damage if you hit enemies from behind and they do the same to you.  Theres no permadeath, you only fail a chapter if you fail the main objective, which is usually just to not let Alto die.  On the whole I’d say this game is pretty easy; I had to replay one chapter 4 times before I beat it but aside from that I had maybe 3 chapters I had to reset.  There are optional objectives for each fight and going for them can make the game harder but it is mostly for your own satisfaction as the rewards are rarely noteworthy.  The main thing that sets it apart from other similar trpgs is the song meter and song system.  As you fight with any character a song meter fills up (up to 5 times) and you can expend the meters to do a special attack (usually costs 1-2 meters) or have them sing (usually costs 4-5)  which will have an effect on the whole battlefield, depending on the song its a buff or heal to all allies, a debuff to all enemies, or an attack on all enemies, or some combination.  Songs last for a few turns and during that time the witch cant do anything else.  The whole system is pretty fun.  Of all the isometric trpgs I have played, I liked the combat in Stella Glow the second most; only Jeanne d’Arc I find more fun to play. 

Presentation and Final Thoughts:

Overall the game has pretty good presentation.  Its got that typical jrpg look and sound to it, but its got enough of its own style that it doesnt feel generic.  In battle it switches to a chibi style, which isnt my favorite thing in the world but it still looks good.  The animations remind me a lot of the GBA FE games, they are super over the top but they are also the same everytime, which for me means they get turned off pretty quickly even though they are pretty nice.  Thats about the only quality of life setting the game has, by the way.  Skipping enemy actions isnt a thing so youll unfortuntely spend a lot of time waiting for the enemies to do something, or even more frustrating, waiting for them to do nothing, as you will oftentimes see enemies who dont move until you aggro them, yet you still must wait for them to wait before another unit can go.  The music is nice, a quick look at the composers wikipedia page shows that he did a couple of songs for a few beloved games like Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Kid Icarus Uprising.  The game also has a new game plus.  In the new game plus only your money carries over but the big draw is the free time sections are longer which lets you do the affinity conversations for every single character and the exp formula is modified to let you level up more easily.  I dont normally play new game pluses, so to me the fact that I was so eager to jump right back in to learn more about the rest of the characters is proof that this was a good game. 

If you decide to purchase this game for yourself, the physical launch edition comes with a CD containing 5 songs, the first song of each witch, as well as a cloth poster of Hilda and a particularly large keychain of Bubu, a little pig who I guess is something of a mascot but honestly its barely in the game which is why I havent mentioned it until now. If you get the digital version I think it comes with a 3DS theme.  Its currently ~$30 online or $40 on the eshop, and if any of this has made you interested there is a demo on the eShop.  I hope you do decide to check it out because I found Stella Glow to be a very fun and enjoyable game.  As I type this I am downloading the demo for Disgaea 5 on Switch to give that game a try next, so not only was Stella Glow a ton of fun but it got me interested in isometric trpgs again.