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maskeraith · 3 years ago

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big eldar scrolls on line post about what i thought about it

may have some spoilers for the morrowind storyline and sidequests idk also I am inevitably gonna compare it to ffxiv a lot as it’s the only other mmorpg I’ve played good luck

Writing this after finishing writing the rest wow this got too long there is a tldr though haha

so the first thing I will say is that eso’s overworld exploration and sidequesting blows ffxiv away completely, there is so much to do and fun to be had in eso simply by exploring around! the enemies feel cool to fight, there are delves and solo dungeons to just stumble across with quests in there, skill points just lying around if you look hard enough, gathering spots that you can just gather from without having to be a specific profession or something, WORLD bosses that you need a group to battle just OUT there it’s really cool! Ffxiv does have some really beautiful environments but in terms of actual stuff to do, there’s literally just fates and they’re pretty shit to be honest, and i guess the sightseeing log??

and sidequests! all my time in the game was spent in the morrowind area (vvardenfall I think? my eso lore is zero watch out) and every sidequest I did had a really engaging storyline. They do mostly amount to fetch quests and slay monster quests in terms of gameplay with some puzzle moments sometimes, but the storylines were captivating enough to justify most of what you had to do. compared to ffxiv which is BLOATED with boring fetch quests with uninteresting storylines eso has it figured out. the characters you meet and their dialogue is great and sometimes you can even make choices which affect the final outcome of the quest which is always fun (your character having the personality of a brick aside). I actually think I enjoyed certain sidequests more than the main story of morrowind they’re that involved

Also there are world events but I didn’t really get into them, there was like a huge tornado which spawned some enemies that give you massive exp, but my horsey was too slow and I only got there at the tail end because they’re great for farming so every player in the world goes there and kills them instantly they seem cool though

in terms of lore, I’m not someone who is super interested in the lore of the elder scrolls universe but I found myself learning a whole lot of very crazy stuff from the friends I was playing with who DO know all about it, and I will say that if the lore of the elder scrolls universe interests you in any way you’ll love this game! so I learned that there are Eras in this universe, and eso takes place in the second era I believe. The other main series games all take place in the third or fourth I think, so eso is able to like set the groundwork for those games and explain the history behind stuff going on in all the main games, which I think is a really good idea, perfect for fans of the lore and stuff. Like I remember the funny talking dog from skyrim and he’s like the primary antagonist of the morrowind main story like woah

The combat is where I think the game started to fall off for me, again with the ffxiv comparison but it just wasn’t reaching levels nearly as interesting as the combat in that game for me.

Firstly, there’s no tab targetting (unless there’s a setting in the menu somewhere i missed?) you actually aim all your attacks, single target, aoe, whatever. for me this made it harder to be able to gain a situational awareness, and I have to keep my camera aimed at the boss and I’m not able to move it around to see if there was anything else going on. I do see how aiming your attacks could actually make the game more appealing to some people, though, as it does give a sense that you are more actively participating in the battle and not just standing there pressing buttons, but for me this sort of thing doesn’t make any difference

The second thing was the amount of abilities you have at any one time - you have 10 abilities and 2 ultimates slotted at any one time. Five and one ult are active at a time, and you have to swap weapons (it’s as easy as the press of a button) to switch to your second bar with the other 5 and 1 ult. This does make the game a lot more accessible I think, but it also means the stuff you get to do is just gonna be a lot more straightforward and spammy compared to the interesting and involved rotations you get in ffxiv. as a tank, I set myself up to put three dots and a debuff on the enemy and then spam my one damaging attack, until I had to reapply the stuff again, and that was basically it. I had some tank cooldowns too like a shield, heal, a grab and so on. I did look up the Most Complicated Rotation to see how hard it could get, which seemed to be stamina nightblade, and even that has “Ability x11″ or something in its rotation

Simple rotations would be fine for me if the bosses themselves were more difficult or complicated to compensate, but honestly nothing was any more difficult or involved than ffxiv. On youtube I’ve watched like 5 dungeons and a trial on the hardest Veteran difficulty, and the dungeons don’t look like anything more than what you would get in other mmos. The trials looks like really great content honestly, but there’s no party finder for them as far as I know so you have to manually gather 11 other people which is never something I enjoy trying to do in multiplayer games lol

i also didn’t super appreciate that the game wanted to like hide a bunch of info from me by default? like a few hours in I complained that it was impossible to know when my dots and self buffs ran out because all I had was like little particle effects on the enemy/myself to go off, and my friends were like “oh yeah you need to turn on these tooltips in the options” like huh?? I need to know this stuff come on

There is some really cool stuff in the combat though! Every player has like a basic bash attack, which can interrupt certain attacks, and then a basic heavy attack, which can knock down staggered enemies (they get staggered if you interrupt them) so there is more to do than just your abilities.

One thing I will mention though, is that I think a huge part of the combat is resource management - you spend stamina/mana on your abilities and if you’re not careful it’s easy to run out. As a tank, blocking takes up stamina, and sometimes I would not manage it correctly and run out and be unable to use my anything for a bit. You get it back by doing heavy attacks (contrary to every game ever) and other like passives unique to whatever build you might have going on. A lot of the game’s difficulty in harder content might come from this, but I didn’t get that deep into any of that sort of thing

I think the way you pick your abilities is really cool - you level up a whole bunch of different skill trees at a time, and you can slot any ability from any tree at any time (other than weapon skills specifically, you must be weilding that weapon) into your 10 slots. Your class has three unique trees, then there’s like a tree for every weapon type, for mage and fighter’s guild, this weird guild called the undaunted, werewolf and vampire, probably more I forgot about. All of them have 5 skills that you unlock as you level that tree, and all of those skills can be morphed into one of two “strong” versions of that skill once you level that specific skill. So there is a huge amount of player choice in how you build your character! I remember getting loads of advice from my friends but also just thinking to myself “but this skill though...” (i am so sorry). There are loads of passives too but they’re kind of lame and you just sort of put your excess skill points in them to make yourself passively stronger. I am sure there are Optimal builds, but playing casually you can literally just do anything

I do think levelling them can sometimes be a pain though because like, if you want the fifth ability in Skill Tree 1 but you don’t really use any of the first four, well actually you do have to start using a bunch of those skills you don’t want because you gain more exp for that skill tree the more of its skills you use, sort of a minor thing I guess

Finally I will talk about how I really do not like the execution of the loot system... So you get armour sets in this game and if you wear 5 of them you get a very significant passive, like whenever you crit you summon a big ghoul to shoot acid, or all of your aoe abilities also taunt. I think this is a super cool idea in theory, and it allows for even further personal customisation of the kind of character you want to play. However..

So the max level is 50, but the real max level is like 180 or something because at 50, you continue to level up but each level just gives you a point to put into these big huge bonus passive skill trees which continue to increase your stats up to the 180th point or something like that. In eso, though, you can go anywhere and do anything and all the enemies are scaled to you. But, it’s actually that you are scaled to the enemies - while below level 50, you get an invisible buff that makes you as strong as a level 50 character. This means that every level you gain, you actually get slightly weaker, if you’re not updating your armour.

Armour drops at whatever level you are, up to the cap of 180 where you are the strongest you can be. So ultimately what this means is every piece of armour you get up until you reach the level cap will quickly become obsolete. Every time I collected 5 pieces of a set and got a cool passive, all I could think was “this will be fun for about 4 levels” because I knew I’d need to swap it all out for stronger stuff. Essentially I felt locked out of seriously farming for the gear sets I wanted until I reached Max Max level, which made everything I collected seem pretty pointless to me.

Also, always being as strong as a level 50 character did kind of make it feel like I wasn’t really levelling up at all? It’s why I broke my rule of “I will get to level 50 before stopping” because I actually was level 50 all along, I got all the abilities from my skill trees that I wanted and ran a bunch of dungeons with them and I was in the 30s, but there were no other skills I could really see myself swapping out so I was essentially “max level”, as far as I was concerned.

so yeah tl;dr these are my two main opinions:

This game is an awesome time running around and exploring the environment, doing quests and running dungeons! If you’re a fan of the elder scrolls world and lore it is absolutely a must play!

Customising your character’s skills and armour sets is a lot of fun, but I do think it comes at the expense of not having a really finely tuned, coherant combat style, it feels a lot like I’m Just Hitting All The Buttons.

The end lol

#long post #i didn't comment on crafting because I didn't do it #tl;dr here as well I think the overworld exploration is awesome but I don't think the combat gameplay is engaging enough to play long term

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listoriented · 5 years ago

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Cibele

: a discussion.

Cibele is a game by Star Maid Games/ Nina Freeman [Nina’s website], and released in 2015. Feeling that my friends had more interesting things to say about Cibele than I did, I decided to get their thoughts on the record. Thus was born the first ever List Oriented podcast.

Sian Campbell edits Scum Mag and once baked a very good cake. Xanthea O’Connor [twitter] is a writer, performance-artist, audio tech person and a million other things.

Xanthea also made the podcast theme song and helped with recording and EQ. Interlude music was excerpted from the Cibele soundtrack by Decky Coss [bandcamp].

Hit the "read more" button at the bottom there to see the transcript.

Some topics we discussed include: - representations of early/online relationships - is Ichi a creep? - the framing of the ending - to what extent claims to autobiography matter

Some other books and games mentioned: - The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America by Michelle Tea - Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang - Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson - I Love Dick by Chris Kraus - Emily is Away by Kyle Seeley

Finally, many interesting things have already been said about Cibele. Suriel Vasquez and Kate Grey both made arguments that Cibele is one of the few games to get sex right. Brendan Keogh notes how Cibele makes players aware that "both the players and creators of videogames never stop being fleshy, meaty bodies in actual space." Lena LeRay compared the depictions of online intimacy in Cibele and Emily is Away. G. Christopher Williams read the game's ending through the similarly cynical lens that we did.

next is Cities in Motion

Podcast transcript

Sian: There needs to be a theme song. [Singing] Welcome to List Oriented. *Finger Clicks*.

Xanthea: I think that’s great.

Sian: Nailed it. Hashtag, nailed it.

Xanthea: We’ll doodle a ukulele over it.

Connor: Can you put some beats in?

Xanthea: Yeah I’ll put some beats.

Connor: Maybe I should just make it so that just pops up automatically when the blog starts.

Sian: Noooo…haha. Like Myspace circa 2006…

[Podcast theme plays]

Connor: So I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we meet today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.

Hey!

Xanthea: Hi

Connor: Hi

Sian: Hello.

C: Welcome to the first and possibly only edition of the List Oriented podcast, which is…a decision I have made to do a podcast instead of a blogpost for this game, Cibele. Cibele was made by Star Maid Games, which is the vehicle of Nina Freeman. It came out in 2015. To discuss it with me today I have some friends and experts.

X: [Laughs] That’s us!

S: Don’t fact check that.

C: Uh…Sian Campbell, editor of Scum Magazine, researcher extraordinaire…

S: Animal Crossing expert…and Connor’s housemate! Yay.

X: Correct.

C: Aaaand in the other corner… Xanthea O’Connor. Writer, performer…

X: Sims video expert…

C: …Connoisseur.

X: Mhm, mhm.

S: You’ve kind of made it sound like we’re gonna fight.

C: Yeah I mean…that’s probably not going to happen but…

S: Well we don’t know.

X: We’ve got the whiskey out…drinking coffee and whiskey at the same time.

C: Whiskey is a fighting drink. I have a friend who won’t drink whiskey because he says it makes him too angry.

X: That’s why I don’t drink tequila.

C: Oh! Cos it makes you too angry?

X: Mhm, yeah.

S: I don’t drink tequila because I end up with girls in bathrooms.

[All laugh]

C: So Cibele… or “Sybil” depending on who you are, uhm, is a game, which, kind of, is a bit different from other games, it is…uh. It has you play as Nina, the main character, uhm, who you see introduced at the start of the game in a like, full motion video when she sits down at the computer. And then the next thing we have access to Nina’s desktop so we are - kind of - Nina but we’re kind of also not-Nina. Uhm, and we can rifle through her pictures and her archived blog posts, uhm, and then eventually we get to open up this game called Valtameri which is sort of a Final Fantasy parody type thing, and we play Valtameri with this guy called Ichi, or Blake, uhm…

X: Spoiler he’s a creep.

C: Well. Arguably he’s a creep. Uhm. And we just talk to him. Aaaand… our other friends are messaging us while we’re playing but we’re not that interested, uhm. And we kind of have this cycle a few times where we play the game, and then we maybe send photos to Ichi or…maybe…I dunno what else happens but anyway there’s like three phases of the game and it takes place over a few months and then… that’s kind of… it. That’s the end of the game. I dunno. Anything to add?

X: Should we give a spoiler that at the end he lives in another state and he comes to see her, at the end…

C: Or us…

X: Or us… and then… they Have Sexxx. And then, the last bit of the game is him saying that it was a mistake, over the internet, and you see the last image of her at the computer looking very isolated and then it’s just the end of the game. Is that alright to say? The spoiler?

C: Yeah we’re not going to be able to talk about the game without saying that, so.

X: Yeah we need to say there’s unresolved tension at the end. Uhm…yes. That there’s no way to resolve.

C: Uhmmm yeah so it’s unusual, I mean, like I suppose some people at the time made a point about it’s not being a game you “play” so much as experience because you can’t really have any influence on it, it’s more just about exploring…the life that is presented to you.

X: And whatever influence that you do have, doesn’t really affect the main narrative. So you can do small little actions, like you can choose text that you say to people, but it doesn’t actually change anything that happens.

C: Yeah. You can’t make meaningful choices.

S: I did like that you can engage with, or not engage with, the background media as much as you wanted to. Because it’s got the interface of her desktop where you can look in her desktop folders, look at her selfies, pull up chatlogs all that kind of stuff. And you don’t have to in order to experience the game. And I liked that element of it because it was, I guess, immersive and, yeah. Again, it didn’t really influence the gameplay in any way. And you could safely assume that people would look at everything, because that’s kind of how most people play games. But, yeah, I thought that achieved the goal, which was to make it feel like you were her, on her computer.

X: Whereas for me I felt like, maybe as someone who doesn’t game quite as much – calling myself out here - but, the idea of going through those things maybe wasn’t as exciting for me so maybe I did speed through the game a bit more occupying Myself rather than the character of Nina. Maybe because I found looking through photos that were similar to photos I would have taken in 2008 deeply frustrating uhm, yeah. But it’s just different experiences I guess.

S: I found interesting in terms of, like, obviously this is a creative work that she’s made, so I came at it from the point of view of wondering about the inclusion of certain things. Like, why that photo as opposed to – I’m sure she has hundreds of photos of that time – like what does this photo or poem say about that time in her life that another photo taken in the same photo session didn’t? Or something like that, I mean, obviously everything that was included in the desktop interface was a deliberated choice and so I found that aspect interesting.

C: Hmm yeah, like someone else had made the point which wasn’t something that I’d picked up on but, that some of the photos were intentionally bad photos that were included, which I guess when we’re talking about the choice of presentation uhm. And her poetry and chatlogs and it’s this idea of airing your dirty laundry…

X: Well it’s still curated.

C: Yeah, very much so.

X: But, it’s very clear that there’s the intention there that it is a little bit more vulnerable than what you might just put online it’s like, yeah it’s more the sort of stuff you might just keep in a file somewhere on desktop, I guess there’s that vulnerability that you don’t normally get on a blog or Instagram or something like that.

S: And I guess that by being vulnerable she signposts to us as player or consumer in some ways that we should trust this as a confessional work.

X: Mhm. It does feel very much like rifling through someone’s diary, or…yeah that feeling of you’re totally not meant to look at someone’s phone, but there’s occasionally that impulse to do so, and it definitely feels like you’re doing something that’s…it’s kind of not okay, but within the game context…

S: Yeah. And so I find that interesting coz it’s kind of her giving us the phone and wiping everything on the phone other than the things that are on it, but the things that are on it are kind of not necessarily things that make her look the best, so I, yeah. It’s interesting from a curatorial point of view.

X: Mhm. Yeah it’s definitely curated from someone looking back at that self and being really honest. Which I find really interesting. And I haven’t really… again, not a huge gamer but I haven’t seen that in a game before, that really confessional, like, autobiographical…

C: Yeah. I mean it definitely comes from a place of there being not much autobiography in games and certainly not with this, uhm, mix of mediums that it’s sort of used where you’ve got this, like, video of the character which is played by the person who made the game who’s named the character after themselves and so it’s like…they’re acting as themselves, and then using bits from their life, and there’s a game element to it, and a movie element to it…and all these things are sort of slipping over. Whereas I think other autobiographical games have been more text based or uhm… traditional, in air quotes…

[Music plays: excerpt from “turn on” by Decky Coss]

X: So do you want to talk about…do we want to talk about what we did like and didn’t like…now?

C: Yeah. I find it — I guess I find it a really interesting game. And it’s almost like, for me, because it’s so unusual in so many ways it almost like …avoids the question, for me, as to whether or not it’s something “I like”. I guess what I liked about it is it’s something I haven’t really experienced elsewhere, uhm, it’s a very novel game to me. Like I do think it has identifiable shortcomings which I guess we’ll come to later, but, uhm…

X: So you like the experimentation of it?

C: Yeah. I do like the experimentation of it. I like the way it, uhm, mixes these things together and the way it plays with autobiography, which is another thing I’m sure we’ll talk more about it. I like it’s sound and visual kind of…the desktop artwork, it’s design. I have a basic appreciation of that I suppose.

X: She’s got a really strong aesthetic. I think that can be fully agreed upon. Sian, what about you?

S: I’ve never played online collaborative gaming like the kind of gaming this game is about and referencing, and that the game-inside-the-game is meant to, I guess, be a play on or be an example of. I… I found the game kind of rudimentary and not that enjoyable to play. As in the game “Valtameri”, uhm.

X: Also, I don’t think you even had to actually play it because Ichi was playing it…

S: Mhm, I couldn’t tell, I thought you did.

C: Yeah, I feel like if you did nothing it wouldn’t go forward at all…

S: Yeah I agree. But. I feel like it did what intended to do which was immerse you in the idea of being a person playing a game while listening to the audio of a story which is of people talking while playing a game, so it was effective in its aim in that sense, but it just wasn’t an enjoyable experience to actually play it. I found it boring and clunky.

X: I think I was beginning to dread having to go in there and do it, too.

S: Me too.

X: It’s almost like a meditative means to an end within the game. But the actual game itself is like…ugh. Just like, clicking. Like Diablo but…with worse monsters.

C: Yeah.

X: Does that make me sound really stupid?

C: No. I mean that’s what it is.

X: I think if…I think if there had been a little bit more, like, difference, so if it was a different kind of game, or if it was simple it was so simple it mirrored a game like Diablo or games like that…if it didn’t mirror a game like that it might be more interesting but I found myself clicking and just “oh I don’t want to play… I want to play an actual good game” and uhmm yeah

S: Yeah. I found it tedious and I found… I don’t know if it was just my Mac I was playing it on but I found it soooo clunky and awkward and like, to actually navigate inside the game was just a nightmare and so I was the same, I was dreading it every time I had to do that part.

C: Yeah I wonder like, uhm… if they had built Valtameri to be more interesting it would have detracted from the point of it which was I guess, uhm, the paying attention to the conversation or…

X: Well you’re forced to coz it’s so monotonous.

C: Yeah.

S: I was thinking the same thing. And I’m wondering if there was…I mean, there would be, there would be a way of having it simplistic in terms of goals and fighting and all that while also… not being as boring and annoying. But, yeah. I was also thinking the same thing in that because it was so straightforward it did give you that space to absorb the story better.

C: Yeah.

X: Mhm.

S: In terms of, like, bigger picture, I just didn’t really like the framing at the end. Which was, kind of the game ends and it leaves you with this message that… this is an experience of what first love is which I felt was, uhm, again a bit clunky and didn’t feel honest to me. Which I thought was interesting because the game itself is quite a vulnerable, confessional, honest game.

X: Yeah, it was very good at interrogating Nina, and very good at doing a lot of showing not telling but still interrogating the character of Ichi, but then… interrogating the relationship itself felt, like…yeah, when it said it was about first love… not… I dunno. Was it?

S: Yeeeah, you’re talking about a relationship that never was with someone you were never really with. Uhm, it was very unclear, I guess. And it was interesting – and I think most people have had relationships like this, online – where you’re communicating with someone primarily online and forming this relationship and this bond but also but kind of on one level… I guess, unsure as to where that relationship fits outside the box that is your computer.

X: Yeah, and I found that, actually, the whole premise of the game for me – as, like, someone who has left their early twenties, thankfully – of knowing that environment and knowing those people and that sort of relationship that gets built online, and as soon as we’re introduced to Ichi the character I wanted to just shut it down.

S: Mhm.

X: It was like “eurgh I know what’s going to happen, I… don’t want to be there for that”. And so there was that… again, I don’t know if it’s something I necessarily liked or disliked, I just found it a very confronting part of the game, that, I wasn’t sure… whether it was for me necessarily, or what the point of it would be for me to play.

C: Yeah, right. I feel like, that was really interesting for me actually, playing it this time, because I have played it once before back after it came out…I played it not long after… and I think my experience this time, it seemed a lot more like… obvious how, Ichi, the things he said seemed quite… bad. And I didn’t remember it being quite so bad. Like I felt like his actions were always questionable. But just the whole…like all of his dialogue…is

X: It’s very well done.

C: Oh it’s very well done. It seems very real.

X: But that’s the thing. If you’ve never been groomed online before. I dunno. Can I say he was grooming? I feel like it was kind of…

S: It wasn’t *not* grooming, it was…[sighs] it’s hard to tell, I mean, I guess. And that’s part of what’s interesting is that it’s her memories of how it happened and what their conversations were like, then portrayed by somebody else. So of course, we can only go on what we actually see but it’s referencing something that happened and probably what we’re listening to is quite different from what actually was being said, so that line is quite murky and unclear. I found it hard to tell exactly to what extent he knew what he was doing or even if he was doing anything other than just enjoying playing a game with someone who was showing him that kind of positive attention, like, a girl who was showing him that kind of attention. It was kind of unclear to me where he wanted it to go or even if he wanted it to go anywhere. She was kind of the one pushing them meeting up and things like that. I felt like he was toying with her, very much so. I don’t know whether I would say he was….hmm, I would say he was grooming her but I don’t know whether it was…

X: …a premeditated sort of predatory…

S: Yeah. Yeah.

X: Yeah, I think it’s quite interesting, thinking about that and where you are upon reflection making this dialogue, I guess as the maker of the game, as Nina did, it reminds me of…after we’d played the game, uhm, and I opened up my laptop and I got all my 2007 emails spat at me and, heaps of emails from old friends, and lots of guy friends talking about girl stuff, like putting in, like copy-pasting msn messenger chat things they’d had with girls like “I don’t know what this means, can you help?” And I was reading through, and it was very similar like baiting sort-of situations where someone’s like “well I’m not very good” and you’re like “no, you’re great!”. And like… very similar dialogue, where I’m sure these friends of mine were not predatory they were just, like, trying to get some affection, just being like – they must have been sixteen, seventeen at the time, like – really trying to figure out how to broach a like a sexual or romantically intimate relationship with somebody, and there’s just a lot of like, neediness in those conversations, that I forgot was a thing, until I got all those emails being like… oh we were so… like, if we now, in our late twenties to thirties messaged something like that, we’d be like… “you’re a freak”, like. You wouldn’t be able to say what we were saying back then. So yeah, I think it’s kind of interesting…what you’re saying, is that we assume that it’s predatory because as older people now, because that’s what it signifies but… when you’re younger…sometimes it can just be, like…

S: Yeah, on one level I felt like he was…just confused and out of his depth. Like this girl, that he’s obviously attracted to, and very much enjoying having the attention of, is then suddenly starting to push the line of, “well are we gonna meet up”, and he’s kind of thinking “Oh. She wants to meet up with me. I hadn’t actually thought…”. Like, it seemed like he’s just enjoying the online experience, and she’s the one who wanted to solidify things and meet up. From my memory I mean, I played it a couple of months ago. And then he’s kind of, it seemed maybe, internally wrestling with the idea of “do I want that? If I want that, it’ll obviously be beneficial for me in those certain ways”, but it’s obviously… most people, or at least most girls who have been through that wringer at least would be able to tell going into it that he didn’t actually…that there was not going to be a relationship, that he uhm… when he came to New York that wasn’t going to be a love story coming to fruition.

X: Yeah, totally.

S: But obviously she was engaging in these like fishing tactics too that we all did when you’re young and you try and feel out what’s actually happening: “Does this person like me? Do they not like me? Oh I’m ugly, I’m sure, oh…” you know, all that kind of bashful…

X: And, that as well, because you can see how vulnerable she is on her desktop, like you can see all those photos, and you can see the development of her sexualisation as well within the game because…it’s in three parts right? Where it goes, like, the first time, and then it’s a few months later, a few months later. And you can see every time the desktop refreshes she is like more sexualised, you can see her search history of things she’s looking through, you can see where it’s heading in her own mind. And there is those fishing tactics from both sides. It’d be really interesting to see, like, Ichi’s desktop as well. Like, I would love the other side of, what he’s looking at.

S: Yeah.

X: Because, for me, I can look at Nina’s desktop as long as I want – like, I get it. But I would love to know what he’s doing. And like, his intentions. Obviously, Nina doing that would be disingenuous. But it would be really interesting to have a game, of like, a 17-year-old boy’s desktop, and understanding where that headspace is.

S: I thought there were some interesting context clues, in the game, that were interesting on a few different levels, hinting at the idea that this was something he did with girls, that he kind of…played with them, that he was only interested in playing games with girls, obviously enjoying this attention. That was something that was I think said by at least one person she talked to, and possibly multiple people that she talked to was, oh. I kind of got the sense that she was new girl that he was “playing with”, in multiple senses.

X: And those things like, burned out, sort of.

S: Yeah. I kind of thought that context was interesting. Because, if you’ve been through this relationship, you have the ability to see what’s happening, which is why you and I both have a stronger feeling that this guy is in some ways… not necessarily predatory, but, in some ways manipulative and, just bad news. Just not… uncomfortable.

X: We’re playing through a pattern of behaviour that isn’t going to be healthy for either them…

S: Yeah, uhm, and so we can recognise that, it feels like we’re meant to recognise that, it feels like those clues are…they’re not even clues, it’s part of the dialogue, we can hear it, we can interpret it. And those context clues of other people referencing the fact that this has happened with other girls… well it seemed like what those other people were referencing.

C: Mhm.

S: Those were deliberate things put in the game by Nina, which is interesting when you think about the way that she then frames the game at the end as “this is just a story about first love.”

X: Mhm. It’s…yeah, it’s confusing, definitely, because it’s kind of undermining like what you think she’s setting out to achieve, and almost like… is that just meant to be…a joke? How intentional is that? Did she not know how to wrap it up? Wrap up the story to resolve it all…

S: Yeah that’s what I was unclear of. It did almost feel like she felt it needed one final, like, “and this is what the game is” flagging. Whereas I thought it would be more powerful and interesting if she just left it the way it was but without that kind of final message.

X: Mhm.

S: And so in some ways I felt frustrated by that messaging because I’d interpreted it so differently, and I was then being told that my experiences were incorrect, I guess? That maybe I’d interpreted it wrong. It also made me sad for her that she was interpreting it in that first love sense. And it made me feel guilty for feeling sad for her [laughs] like it was…it was an interesting choice for her to kind of….in such a cerebral, experimental game, where you have the power to experience it the way you want, for then for her to tell you how it should be read was… an interesting choice.

X: Mhm, yeah, totally. Coz it almost makes you second guess, like oh was she not upset? Did he not just do something that was, like, not loving?

C: Yeah, I though that was… uhm, like, a weird bit of the author coming to then tell you what the game is about. But at the same time it reminded me of – I recently read a memoir by Michelle Tea, Passionate Mistakes – and in it she talks about… there’s a scene where she says one of her early boyfriends, she says, that telling him “I love you” was like, a code for “we can have sex now”. And I thought that like, in the context of this game being kind of, like… I think Nina does the same thing in Act 2, she says “I love you”, like, “I think I love you”, and then it’s… it’s part of the development of the relationship and it’s like heading towards having sex for the first time. Uhm, and that kind of being framed as…maybe that’s more of an American thing? Like, a code, I dunno.

X: Nooo, it’s not.

[Laughter]

X: It’s not an American code. Unless I am American.

C: Or is it a teenage code?

X: It’s definitely, I dunno for me it’s definitely a teenage code.

C: Sure.

X: I think it was, another book that I was reading recently, and talked about constantly while I was reading it…was it Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson? Yeah. That’s the one.

C: I guess we can edit in the correct title later.

[Laughter]

X: And she…it’s like a beat memoir of a women during the beat era, and she dated Jack Kerouac, and it’s saying that…during that era, and I mean still it holds true, but like, women, or young girls are taught to safe guard their virginity, and boys are taught to safeguard themselves, and that idea of love being… like, giving, giving way to something that you can lose yourself to. And I think that it 100% feels like that, like when women say - when girls say - “I love you”, it’s like, very much about that idea of safeguarding their bodies.

C: Right.

X: And, yeah, I don’t know where else to go from there. But it’s very…it’s not just American, I think it’s like, across the board. In like, early relationships.

C: Okay.

S: Mhm.

X: What do you think, Sian?

S: I dunno, it was… I don’t necessarily have any opinion about the sexual element to it. I guess I feel like I got the sense that she wanted to have sex, like that was something she wanted to do, she was ready for and thinking about, and thinking was kind of her way of accessing that, in some ways. Uhm. Mhm. I was sort of…was very unclear of his… thinking, I guess, and what he was thinking about, where he was coming from, who he was as a character. Just, I didn’t get a sense specifically of who he was. Like I feel like I’ve probably met gamer guys like him… it… She gave us some ideas but I also… I think what you were saying in wanting to see his desktop was interesting because we got such a clear idea of who she was but we didn’t get any of that from the actual audio, from the actual in-game experience of them chatting. They didn’t talk about their life, pretty much at all. So, everything we learnt of her we got from her desktop. So, we didn’t get that same chance to learn who this guy was. What he did outside this game. Where he lived, who he lived with, what he studied. We didn’t get any of that. And I think, hmm, I agree with you – I don’t think she could have added that, I think it would have been disingenuous and it would have been against the point of what the game actually was as experimental memoir basically.

X: Hmm. But I also think with so many gamer guys as, uh, as a woman who has dated a lot of gamer guys, I think that…especially during that time when you’re just going into university, you are like plumbing for depth, like emotional depth in people that you’re dating, and often it’s just not developed yet, like, I dunno. From experience I think that, this guy I honestly just think – like I know I said his behaviour felt like it was grooming, but – he just, maybe, as well, had no idea what he was doing.

S: I kind of – yeah, I got that sense as well. I mean, I think he knew what he was doing in terms of fostering her attention, but in the larger picture I don’t think he was a particularly deep or interesting person.

[Laughter]

X: I remember… I dated this guy – anecdote! We can cut this out – uhm, but I dated this guy when I was like 17, and it was my first year of uni, I met him in my maths class – shoutout, you know who you are! Uhm… and he… I remember like in the first week of us dating he said that he missed his bus stop because he was thinking, and I was like “oh my god, he’s so deep, he like missed his bus because he was Thinking” and I, like, “I wonder what he was thinking about, probably me, how amazing I am”.

[Laughter]

X: And then maybe a month later or like two months later, he was like “oh yeah I missed my bus stop again”, and I was like “oh what were you thinking about?”. And he was like “oh you know, just what everyone said during the day”. [Laughs]. Like he was just, no further reflection. Just what everyone said in sequential order, and it was just that moment of like, oh… you weren’t, it wasn’t… there was no depth to the thought, you were just daydreaming about the sequence of events during the day, uhm. And that moment of, like, disillusionment was quite… upsetting.

S: Mhm.

X: But yeah I feel like that’s what we could have done during this game, is that we’ve turned him into this guy that’s like…. well, for me, definitely I’ve like, in my head while I was playing it, I was like “what a piece of trash”, like. But he probably just logs off and twiddles his thumbs, and, I don’t know… plays Fortnite.

S: Yeah it’s kind of like that, I don’t know. I was gonna say meme. I feel like there’s tik-toks about it where girls are like “urr I wonder what he’s thinking or why he’s not messaging me back” and he’s literally just playing games or asleep or just…outside! And there’s no greater mystery to it, it’s just that he’s not currently texting you, coz he’s a boy, and they’re boring!

[Laughter]

X: Mhm, yeah.

S: But yeah I totally agree that uhm…of having had so many times that experience of having had so many times that experience of just assuming people must be thinking these larger internalised thoughts like there’s this whole world of them we’re not accessing and that felt…I felt like that as well while playing this game. Or I felt her feeling that, while playing this game.

X: Totally, coz there’s so much of her planning in there. So much of her planning flights and looking at prices of flights and things like that. And it’s like, she’s putting so much energy into, and like I’m sure he had not even googled a flight until…

S: I don’t even think he was thinking about them meeting up really until she kind of…started, felt like she was…not pushing it but…

X: She was giving ultimatums kind of…

S: Yeah.

C: Which I mean, fair enough.

X: Yeah.

[Music interlude: excerpt from “what would happen if we met” by Decky Coss]

C: So…uhm, we sort of touched on it before but like, “who is this game for?” is a question that Xanthea you suggested we should talk about.

X: Yep.

C: Possibly because you didn’t think – not to put words in your mouth –

X: Put ‘em in.

C: - but you weren’t sure, like, you weren’t sure if this game had a target, or that if there was a particular set of people that should be playing this, or like. I dunno, what were your thoughts?

X: Yeah I dunno, I just felt like, especially by the end of it when it was…or even as I started it, and hearing the dialogue, I knew what was going to happen. And I felt that…like sitting and playing – I wouldn’t have finished playing if I wasn’t playing with you, Connor, because…I was like “I know what’s going to happen…”

C: Yeah.

X: “and it’s going to be annoying”…like “it’s going to irritate me”. So…yeah. I think that it’s… you don’t go into playing this game for like, excellent gameplay, or like…I, I dunno. I think it’s an experiment, and it’s a worthy and valid experiment of a game, uhm. But as a standalone, I’m not sure… if I’m like “cool I feel entirely satisfied, as a, as a consumer of this game”. Like I want there…coz it is that experiment, now I want something else to come out that’s inspired by it…

S: Mhm.

X: Does that make sense?

S: I sort of felt like… uh, I guess as wanky as it might sound, I sort of felt that it’s just a piece of art, and it didn’t need or even have a specific target audience, it was just created for art’s sake. And I guess if I had to say who it was for, I guess, people who enjoy immersive, experimental gameplay but… yeah I’m kind of the same mind in that I’m excited by it as a starting off point, in terms of gaming.

X: Unless we sell it to the government and they lock teenage boys in rooms and make them play it.

C: Do you think there’s like an educational element where teenage boys should play it and understand, that like…?

X: I dunno that girls are real people? Maybe.

[Laughter]

X: That’s another – okay, another boyfriend that i had, once, two months into dating the next boyfriend - everyone goes to take a drink - he said, uhh, “I didn’t realise that girls had feelings until I started dating you”, which was, like, the most –

S: Did you break up with him immediately?

X: No, we dated for a year and a half.

S: But he didn’t know women were…he didn’t know girls were people.

X: I know!

S: That’s scary!

X: And he dated a lot of women before me. Uhm…and yeah! But maybe I’m coming at it from a radicalised point of view, given my dating history.

[Laughter]

X: But yeah, I think that this game for like, Sian and I – and Connor as well I guess – is like, preaching to the converted that these relationships, these early relationships being fraught and problematic and, like… very difficult to navigate. Yeah, so, as you said, it does feel more as a piece of artwork acknowledging all those issues. But at the same time, I think it does have a message that feels…interesting. I just don’t think a young boy would pick it up and be like “I can’t wait to play this game!”

S: Mhm. I think I would love to have a conversation with a bunch of girls at different points in their life, like a fifteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old girl and a nineteen-year-old girl. Like find out what someone thinks when they’re in the middle of these kind of relationships, playing this game, like…do they recognise it? Do they have thoughts about as being manipulative, or uhm, that kind of fishing idea that they’re both doing, engaging in that kind of fishing behaviour… I’d be really interested to know what I would have said about the game, when I was eighteen.

X: Yeah. I think if I was playing it at eighteen I would have a lot more internalised misogyny, of just being like “oh she was just super needy and”…

S: Mhm. And I think… it’s so hard to say, like, would…would I have felt more impacted by it? Would I have felt more called out by it? Would I have felt more seen, or…would I have wanted to… I think I probably would have read it the same way that Nina is now telling us to read it, which is as a love story, because…that’s kind of…I would have been closer to Nina’s, I guess, idea of who she was when she was…when we are Nina in this game. I think that’s what I would have…would have been my experience as an eighteen-year-old.

X: Hmm…

S: So it’s kind of interesting, I think I would have… shipped them. As it were.

X: Totally.

C: Yeah right?

X: And would have focussed a lot more on him being like, he’s so like…he’s so cute, or like… kind of getting really into that idea that’s like oh yeah… and like, actively shipping, as you say.

S: Mhm, picking up on things he said that indicated he was interested, as opposed to now, when your bullshit meter is just going Off The Charts.

X: Totally! Every, every bit…like literally the first game you play it’s like “ew, go away.”

[Laughter]

X: “Where is the option to never play with this guy ever again? Oh wait, it doesn’t exist. It’s the whole game. How horrible for you Nina”.

C: Yeah I remember you saying that you felt almost like a bit trapped by it, by the fact that you can’t get out of it, like you have to experience this…not, not that it’s necessarily trauma, but like-

X: Yeah it’s traumatic! And you…I mean, every line that he was saying was like ugh, it felt so close to…things…I’ve heard online because I was quite a vulnerable teenager, who was constantly fishing for things online – call myself out, hundred percent. And yeah, it’s very challenging to go back and look at somebody doing that and not being able to, within gameplay, do anything about that.

S: Mhm.

X: Like sit her down and be like. “Nina. We need to have a talk about this. You’re fine. Chill out. Go for a walk. This guy’s…not good.” Like, yeah, I dunno I think, uhm…coz you yeah I dunno I think I very much… immediately saw that and it frustrated me.

C: Yeah. That’s fair.

X: But, I mean, if it’s a work of art that’s okay! It’s allowed to frustrate.

S: I think that feeling of being trapped is interesting coz I had that same sense of being locked in, uhm, but at the same time I think that feeling is an effective one in making you feel immersed in this person’s life. Like it really…because I guess, you are locked in and because of the desktop element and because of the kind of immersing gameplay it really felt like you were experiencing this person’s life in a way that…I’m not sure whether it would have been as effective if you could kind of pause and click out and stop.

[music interlude: “cibele” by Decky Coss]

C: Uhm, I guess one final thing we can talk about is, this idea of it being autobiographical or not? Or where it kind of sits on that spectrum – I suppose because this isn’t something that’s been done so much in games uhm… we were kind of looking at the idea of it being “autofictional” because it’s taking the idea of, the intentional blending of something that happened in the life of the creator so it’s sort of like memoir, but it’s also an intentional, uhm, saying that it is not totally autobiographical because it’s not using certain elements, or it’s recreating certain elements. Uhm, so I dunno – Sian, because you are the autofiction expert in the room, what was your kind of idea about how it was positioning itself?

S: Uhm, I would say…on one level I would be inclined to say it didn’t read as autofiction to me because it just felt like it was a retelling of something that happened, it didn’t feel like we were meant to suspend our disbelief or that we were meant to uhm, assume that anything that happened didn’t happen exactly as it happened – I got the sense that it was almost in some ways quite literal. I dunno. I think I would have to think a lot harder about this. I think autofiction’s interesting because a lot of the time it relies on what you already know about the creator…

C: Yeah right.

S: …which is an interesting kind of thing to have to consider as a reader, and also as a writer of autofiction is…when you’re flagging something as inherently false, how is your reader or player or consumer meant to pick up that it is inherently false, if they don’t happen to know you? If they don’t know what actually happened, how do they know that this is you playing with the truth? Will they assume this is true? I’m not sure she put anything in there that we were meant to assume didn’t happen. I’m not sure she was playing with the truth – I think she was trying to get at the truth. But without knowing more about her I suppose it’s really hard to make that call.

X: Was it ever acknowledged to be based on true events at the beginning?

S: I think it was.

C: Yeah I think so and maybe not in the game specifically except for that author’s note at the end where it’s kind of like, suddenly not Nina the character speaking to you, it’s Nina who made the game – I think that’s the only time in the game where it acknowledges that the game was based on true events. But uhm, like, outside the game there have been interviews and articles that have been “this is a game about my first experience of like, hooking up with someone from the internet.”

X: Yeah coz it kind of feels like – who’s that author who wrote Sour Heart?

S: Oh, Jenny Zhang?

X: Yeah, Jenny Zhang, when she came to Australia and did an interview at Wheeler Centre she was talking about how frustrated she is that all of her fiction – even though it’s definitely fiction – is always assumed to be autobiographical…

S: Mhm.

X: Just coz she’s writing about, like, a demographic of her own experience it’s just assumed… and I think it’s like, kind of similar here. It’s like, does it matter if it’s autobiographical? Does it matter how much is true and how much it’s not? This is kind of more a universal truth of internet, uhm, intimacy. And like, I think that is enough to be a valid – frustrating, uhm, but valid, still…

S: If I was gonna think of where I would position it from a literature perspective – because that’s what I know, and that’s what I do — is, it is quite reminiscent of I Love Dick in some ways. It’s very confessional, it’s telling the story of someone’s relationship with someone else who doesn’t get a chance to…weigh in, I guess, and it is a retelling. It’s using real artefacts, I guess, with reimagined, and in some cases hyper-realistic…mmm

X: Re-enactments.

S: Yeah. So I think, that’s where I would position it. In terms of when thinking about literature which is what I do.

C: Yeah. Yeah, I guess, Xanthea you’re more of a memoir fan? Uhm..

X: Yeah. I love a good memoir.

C: You prefer it to…you prefer things that are passing things off as fully truthful? Or some version of…the truth?

X: Yeah “fully truthful”…whatever that is. Uhm. I like things that aim to be truthful. And I like things that interrogate themselves enough to feel like…anything that’s passed off as “this is entirely what happened, the truth”, I don’t believe… but uhm. Yeah. I think at this point it doesn’t matter who made it – for me, this has a larger truth to it, in some ways.

C: The universal experience…

X: I think it is getting at a universal experience of like, internet intimacy.

C: So you don’t… so it doesn’t matter if like, that experience, is making a claim to like, “this was my experience”? Like this is… or…

X: Honestly, I don’t think it matters. Like, uhm. I think it’s kind of beyond the point. And I think it’s why I’m more interested in stuff that’s made because of this work. It’s just kind of opening up to more conversations.

C: Yeah, sure.

S: I think I really…probably the reason I like autofiction as a literary genre, is because it interrogates that idea that you were saying of…does it matter or not matter if it’s true or not? I like work that plays with that idea, and I think this work is probably important because it does feel true, it feels like her version of events. And I think, I would definitely love to see more games that interrogate that idea of truth versus untruth. And I think…I haven’t played a lot of games like this, but I’m not super across all the games. I don’t know a lot of things. I play Animal Crossing, and the Sims, and Stardew Valley. And I don’t have, y’know, a large library, but when I do find experimental games like this I do seek them out, and I would be very interested to see what builds off this. I think in terms of that idea of does it matter if this is really her experience, I’m thinking of games like Emily is Away -

C: Yeah for sure.

S: Where, it’s very similar in some ways of, like, that experience of being on the desktop, being in the chatlog, having these conversations… And it is a different experience in terms of how, what you get out of playing that game versus playing Cibele.

X: Yeah and I think as well, uhm, making games around experiences that are, I guess popularly more marginalised, having that ability to play with truth and how much we know about things is kind of important. I’m just thinking back to a few months ago when I was really obsessed with Ned Kelly and there was lots of “based on truth” sort of, fictionalised accounts of Ned Kelly, but also, there are fictionalised accounts of like, the women in his life as well, so there’s novels around that. And how, I found, all of those novels coming together, all of those fictionalised entities coming together, it didn’t even matter at the end whether it was true or not, I just got a really interesting viewpoint of someone who has created so much drama and intensity and how that had affected other people. And I find that really, like, just as valid in terms of storytelling as someone claiming this to be the whole truth of like, a biography of Ned Kelly, which, I’ve never really gained much from. But, like, a fictionalised account of sister, I found really really interesting coz it was like, looking at, how…now I’m just talking about Ned Kelly. I’m gonna stop. I’m sorry. Uhm.

[Laughter]

S: What I liked about this game was that it felt aggressively female. And I mean, it is, it’s aggressively female, it’s aggressively confessional, and I think the gaming world needs more of that and I think it does, in some ways, carve out a little patch of internet or game, as it was, and opens a door. It starts a dialogue about what games can be – or continues a dialogue I suppose, I wouldn’t necessarily say it starts a dialogue but… I think the more people who understand that games can be for them, and games can be kind of art and games can be whatever they want and games can tell a story and games can be for women who have been made to feel that games weren’t for them by men, the better. Not that that’s what was happening here, but I can see that this game would make someone who had been made to feel that way feel that “oh games can be female” and that’s great and fun and cool.

X: I think that’s a good place to start, I mean finish, not start, finish.

C: Alright, so…

S: Let’s do it all over again!

C: Yeah, I think so too.

X: Any more final words?

S: Mmm, this has made me wanna follow Nina Freeman more and see what her other games are like. I haven’t played her other games, I feel like… it might be worth…

C: Oh yeah!

X: The date one is sick. [Laughs] I love the date one.

C: The date one, yeah, we played that? We Met in May, the recent one.

S: Oh wait, I have actually…

X: It’s absurd, I love it. You make a boy do weird things with his arms.

C: Yeah! There’s like a game where you grab his nipples…

X: Yeeeah, my dream.

S: Ohhh, I think I’ve played one of her other games which is basically just a very, very simple one.

C: How Do You Do It?

S: Yeah yeah I’ve played How Do You Do It, that was fun.

X: That’s funny actually, because, when we were playing it, I was like, “let’s make a game, this is like…I’ll play this game! I’ll play this game forever. Like. Give me a nipple-grabbing game.” Uhm…yay!

C: Yay!

S: Woo.

X: Thanks Nina…sorry we were so critical of your game.

[Laughter]

C: Yeah, uhhh, thankyou Sian, for doing this, and also thankyou Xanthea, for doing this.

S: I’ll see you when you get up to ‘E’ for Emily is Away.

X: I’m a sound person!

[Podcast theme plays]

#game90 #cibele #podcast #nina freeman #star maid games #games of 2015 #autobiographical games #internet romance #pod oriented

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dysphoric-affect · 5 years ago

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Harnessing The Butterfly Effect And Omnipotence

I’ve recently been musing over the best and worst aspects of the main entries in the Elder Scrolls series, and as I was recently musing over the most popular quests from them I had a bit of an epiphany, specifically in regards to the “Whodunnit?” quest from Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood quest-line. For those who aren’t familiar for whatever reason, the Dark Brotherhood is an assassin faction within that series, and this particular quest has you locked into a house with five other guests, gathered there under the pretense of a game they were invited to partake in: within the house is a chest of gold, with the first person to find it getting the spoils; the door will remain locked until there is a winner. The dark reality is the five other guests are all targets you are contracted to kill by the host, the game a pretext to have them lured into one spot and trapped so they’ll be easier to dispose of in one fell swoop.

Two things contribute to what make this quest so universally beloved. One is the emergent character development. When you come in, each of these characters has their own background and personality and preferences they operate from which are easy enough to learn given the smaller, more intimate setting and the lack of time limit to complete your objective. These give them definite opinions on all the other guests. As you start to kill them off one at a time, you will see your choice of who to kill influence those opinions for better or worse. Kill someone another character hates early on ? They feel some regret at having made assumptions about them and feel they didn’t deserve that. Don’t kill that same hated guest for a while? That hatred becomes suspicion they are the killer. Wait and then kill that same hated guest? The suspicious guest feels even worse than they would have if you killed them early, because they realize their bias clouded their judgment. Inversely, kill someone another guest loves and they will become suspicious of someone they didn’t dislike before. In contrast, keep killing everyone but the guest they are affectionate toward, and see that transform into fear as they logically become the obvious suspect in their eyes. All of this, critically, comes from the player’s choice. You have the time to learn who these characters are and deliberately choose the order you take them out in to play on these biases and crushes and fears and suspicions, granting a unique manner to be evil compared to elsewhere not just in that faction’s quests, but the entire game at large and in gaming in general.

The other critical aspect is that the quest is so open-ended in design. Rather than most quests that have a set chronology of steps that happen story-wise toward completion, you are only given an abstract final goal and are free to determine what the particular steps are toward achieving that, providing a toy box of different story elements, level design elements and gameplay capabilities which can be arranged however the player likes. There are 120 different possible orders the guests can be killed in, which alone is an incredible amount of choice, but once you account for the different events you can make happen by influencing them, places within the house you can kill them at and the actual way you execute them, it becomes impossible to calculate mathematically just how many different specific ways the quest as a whole plays out. That makes this quest rife for enthusiastic discussion among players, as it is practically impossible that any two players will have done the same thing, giving each their own story to tell.

The epiphany I had in relation to this quest is realizing that this quest isn’t primarily great because of the fun opportunities it provides for evil role playing within Oblivion, or Elder Scrolls more broadly, or in RPG’s and gaming in general more broadly still. The evil context within which those dynamics existed and how that was presented did make for tremendous fun that enhanced what made it great, but I think it is a mistake to see the core of that fun as something that can’t be divorced from the evil moral nature of the quest. Rather, those two dynamics of emergent character development driven by player choice on the one hand and player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion on the other hand are the true core to what makes this quest so popular.

This distinction is an important one to make, because without making it we may acknowledge that quest as a great moment in Oblivion, but we go no further. When we do make that distinction, though, then we can start to consider them independently of an evil context or an Elder Scrolls context and begin to see the potential of exploring and applying them in different ways in other games yet to be made.

The dynamic of emergent character development based on player-choice is a particularly important thing to consider toward the future of RPG’s in particular, although other games can also stand to benefit from incorporating such a system as well; Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War stand as especially salient examples of non-RPG’s that have begun exploring this kind of territory. For all the change players can affect in RPG’s up to this point, the influence they exert tends to be centered on macro-scale events and characters. Achieving the next level of sense of impact on the world by the player within these experiences, however, will be contingent on achieving the sense of ability to influence minor characters and events in the way the “Whodunnit?” quest does.

The trick to this isn’t a technical challenge I believe so much as a narrative one and a logistical one: that is, coming up with the sheer amount of content needed to apply this concept on a more global scale in the game world, keeping track of all of that on the part of developers to ensure the execution of all the specific parts are smoothly handled, and handling the presentation of this within the game such that players clearly understand how their actions have affected and are currently affecting characters, as well as having a sense of how their actions will affect things going forward depending on the choices they make. It may be practically speaking impossible for a player to keep track of all the specific instances where their choices have had or will have a butterfly effect, but ideally when approached this should be handled in such a way that most of the time it is easy enough to understand where the player’s actions played a role and in the rest of the cases that it can be figured out with a little effort on the player’s part, whether from memory and/or from in-game means, such as questions these affected NPC’s could be asked. The challenge this presents is monumental, but the closer to complete actualization of such a system a developer out there gets, the closer they’ll have come to making a living world within their game, a horizon larger games have long sought to reach.

The dynamic of player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion even more obviously has application to genres outside of RPG’s as well, though certainly application within it too. Often up till now the majority of freedom associated with quests in games has tended to be the timing on when the steps are performed. Giving more options on the nature of approach would greatly expand this sense of freedom. Part of this could and should come from existing in conjunction with a system of emergent character development and the opportunities that creates, but beyond that consideration should be given to give more options on types of approach, level design-based pathfinding, available tools to use in gameplay and so on - within reason for what is occurring in the story - to expand that freedom further still. Consideration should always be given as well to providing instances of all the above that are unique to given quests/objectives to enhance variety in general for its own sake as well as give that specific quest/objective its own unique flavor, but at the same time never overly pushing any particular method as the “right” way of approaching it. Even the subtle implication that there is a best or better way of doing things within an objective takes away from that true sense of full player self-actualization in their approach, so care should be taken to avoid that, at least if trying to provide true self-determination for the player.

As games - especially RPG’s - are getting ever more complex, there can be a tendency to get lost in concern for how big the world is, the number of quests and characters present and of course the graphics of the experience. It is fine to expand on those aspects, but getting lost on those at the expense of not considering these other avenues of adding depth and complexity to the experience seems to me to be not seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. It is a particularly unfortunate loss considering that these systems I’ve discussed, while undoubtedly able to make good use of advancing technology in games, are not dependent on that to be able to exist. They simply require creativity and hard work from developers who realize the vast potential that can come from their pursuit. I hope as we go forward more developers will tap into this relatively untapped well to provide us depth and immersion in our games we’ve never seen before, whether in Elder Scrolls or beyond.

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Thanks for taking the time to read my content! If you enjoyed it, please consider liking, commenting, following and especially reblogging so more people can be made aware of it, and of course consider checking out my past content. I really appreciate any support you want to give.

#video games #gaming #microsoft #xbox #sony #playstation #nintendo #nintendo switch #pc games #pc gaming #rpg #the elder scrolls #oblivion #middle earth shadow of mordor #middle earth shadow of war #action adventure games

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ladala99 · 5 years ago

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Spyro Reignited Countdown - A Hero’s Tail

And finally we get... I guess it’s not really a return to form but it is a return to greatness.

A Hero’s Tail uses the Spyro characters and basic mechanics and makes it a modern (for the time) platformer. This does eliminate one of the franchise’s core features (finite gems), but ultimately, it did a good job and did the franchise justice.

And it also officially introduces Ember, who Spyro fanficcers liked to ship with Spyro, especially as a rival ship versus Cynder of later titles. Yes, that was a part of the fanbase I frequented. I am not sorry.

Gameplay

Spyro’s controls are brought to the modern (again, for the time) age, with a much more responsive camera and really that’s the only major difference. Spyro feels like Spyro. He flames, he charges, and he glides.

...Well, aside from the fact that they swapped the Flame and Charge buttons, and now you have to hold X to glide rather than just press it. I first played this game as a demo and legitimately thought the change was a mistake, but nope. Not entirely sure why it was made, but it was. Perhaps it aligns with other PS2 platformers better?

Mini rant, courtesy of how 3-year-old me remembered the controls: Circle is flame because it’s red and the mouth makes an O. Square is Charge because the sides are pointy. X is jump because the X is blue like air and you are in the air while jumping. Triangle is zoom in because the bottom represents a really wide view and the top represents a really narrow view. Why would you change this?

But anyway, it works for the game. Aside from not matching previous games, it’s easy to adapt to and the controls are very responsive. They’re not quite as tight as in the originals, but they’re very close.

Additional Playable Characters

We’ve got a few this time. There’s Hunter, Sparx, Sgt. Byrd and the new character Blink. Totally new. What are you talking about with the “but he appeared in a GBA game”?

While Hunter was technically playable before, this is the first time you can platform with him. His moveset’s pretty similar to Spyro’s, aside from one of his main attacks being very ranged. Aside from his arrows, he’s basically Spyro, but not as maneuverable. Yeah, he can scale walls and Spyro doesn’t in this game, but that ability originally belonged to Spyro, so it doesn’t feel unique.

What is unique is that one section that you’re forced to play as him as part of the story. That was neat. And frustrating because he does not platform as well as Spyro does, since his movements are floaty and you can’t correct them with gliding like you can Spyro’s, and this area has a lot of small platforms.

Sparx has a completely different gameplay style this time: rail-shooter. It’s honestly not that bad, especially in comparison to Season of Ice’s Speedways. I just prefer the other Sparx gameplay.

Sgt. Byrd, speaking of Speedways, takes over for Spyro during them. And his levels are definitely not designed in the same way the old Speedways were designed. It used to be that there was a clear linear path to take from one object to the next, but that is not the case here. I like these Speedways better than Season of Ice’s, but I don’t like them much.

As far as actual controls go, Sgt. Byrd does just fine. Sometimes his turning is a little difficult, but it works for how wide open the areas are.

Blink controls very similarly to Hunter, with the main difference being how the level is designed. Blink’s levels are all underground, having a specific set of enemies and such, and they’re all considered minigames with the goal of destroying Dark Gems. He suffers from the same floatiness as Hunter, and there’s certainly a lot of platforms. Somehow, though, his levels never got me stuck like Hunter’s did in that one section.

Sometimes I feel that Eurocom wanted to make a Blink game, not a Spyro game. While Blink’s levels are minigames, they’re really fleshed out and well-designed. They have plenty of variety, if not in appearance.

Collectables

Gems are not just currency to be used at Moneybags’ shop. They’re found everywhere, and can be collected from enemies multiple times. At the beginning you’ll be hurting for them, but by the end of the game you’ll have much more than you know what to do with. At least, that’s my experience.

Dragon Eggs return, with a twist. They’re pretty much optional, and much less valuable than the other main collectable. This time, dragon eggs come in different patterns and if you collect a set, you unlock a thing. A lot of those things are just the ability to play minigames from the main menu.

The things that I care about are the concept art gallery (as that’s always cool) and the Ember and Flame skins. Mostly Ember since I like playing as female characters. It’s just a skin, though, and it changes back to Spyro in cutscenes plus uses his sound effects. Still: first time skins are in the game, unless you count the color cheats!

Finally we get Light Gems. They’re used to power up gadgets and open doors. They’re required for progress in certain places, but not always. They’re always rewarded on the second round of minigames, which means everybody talks about how worthless Dragon Eggs are in comparison. We don’t want these unborn children, give us the shiny thing!

Oh, and Dark Gems. They aren’t collected, but destroyed. You need to smash all of them to continue. They’re just scattered around the levels. You’ll come across them.

Powerups

Supercharge returns! Sort of! It’s one of the powerups that the Professor unlocks for you when you collect enough Light Gems. It really doesn’t feel the same, and it’s used for a few doors, some of which you can’t just charge to from the pad.

There’s also invincibility which works like it did in Lost Fleet, allowing you to travel through acid. Just with a stricter time limit and now it makes Spyro metal rather than red.

Finally I’ll mention the orb-thingys that let you use a ranged version of your breath abilities. I literally have never used them, but they’re there. I can’t say one way or the other how useful they are, but they definitely are not necessary.

Other Modes

The other minigames, as all minigames repeat, are turrets and ball gadgets.

Turrets aren’t hard, but they are stressful. You need to protect the thing while other things try to steal/eat/whatever it. Or you need to protect yourself and hit a huge number of enemies. I don’t like this minigame. Especially the baby turtle one.

Ball Gadgets are much more fun to watch than they are to play. The controls work, but it takes a bit to stop. There’s also a couple of on-rails ones that are really trial-and-error. Even knowing what to do, you’re going to fast to react so you need to memorize every action.

Breath Abilities

This game continues the trend of having them! And acts like it’s the first time at the same time. Enter the Dragonfly is apparently not canon.

Fire acts like it always has. They didn’t do the particle effect thing like Enter the Dragonfly did so it moves forward with you as it should.

Electricity starts out as a weaker Fire and then ends up being much more useful. It takes longer to defeat enemies, but there are certain enemies that are immune to Fire but not Electricity. After a point, it’s not worth it to switch back, since Fire just isn’t universally useful like Electricity is.

Water is just used for puzzles. Nothing else. This is also the only time Water is an element in the series.

Ice freezes certain things (like steam vents so you can use them to pole spin), and enemies of course. There are certain enemies in the final area that are only weak to Ice. (Maybe Water too, but I haven’t tried) Otherwise it freezes enemies so you can charge them like in other games.

Bosses

Finally, we get some new ones!

Gnasty Gnorc returns as the first boss. He’s actually far stronger than he was in Spyro 1, ironically enough. The fight itself is a pretty fun platformer boss fight, but his personality... it’s so childish. It’s like they didn’t know who he really was before.

Ineptune is a new character. The fight itself is, again, great for this style of game. Her character is kind of forgettable, though.

And then we get Red, who we fight twice. The first time is actually harder if only for the fact that you’re in an icy arena and thus the controls are more slippery. He’s not a very complex villain, but his fights are pretty fun, but very similar to the other two.

Special mention to the mammoth, who wins via being in a cutscene. You never see him again, having no chance to best him. He is truly Spyro’s greatest foe.

Levels

Continuing from Attack of the Rhynocs, the levels are much more seamless. They’re still very distinct, but in a lot of cases (moreso early-on than later) they feel like the same level as you begin in.

And again like Attack of the Rhynocs, the levels don’t have concrete ends. You can check your map and see how many Dark Gems are left, but it doesn’t really feel like you’ve finished even after you smash them all.

There’s no main conflict to defeat or anything, it’s just exploring and smashing Dark Gems, and occasionally finding a Dragon Elder to give you new skills. You get a checklist, but it’s not the same.

The theming is fine, if generic. Older Spyro games tended to have an irony to them, but not this one. Everything is played straight. Which, of course, makes it so this game doesn’t stand out very much.

Story

I don’t even know if I fully understand it. So Red’s an evil dragon who mined some Dark Gems to spread evil throughout the lands. And the Elders are very hesitant to tell you more.

Eventually it comes out that Red used to be an Elder, but he betrayed them. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t just tell Spyro that. Do the Elders just have a reputation that they don’t want to sully or something?

We get no motivation on Red’s part, and normally I’d be fine with that, but with all the secrets I expect a bit more. Also: who’s Ineptune in all this?

There’s parts where I feel I missed a game. Ember knows Spyro, and Spyro appears to know Ember. I feel like I should know who Ineptune is just because of how little introduction she gets.

I read that there was going to be a TV show that got cancelled but the games didn’t, but it was literally one forum post and it may have just been someone making things up. It would certainly explain things, though.

Unique in the Series?

Yes and no. It definitely has a unique feel as far as the series goes, but it’s very generic at the same time.

A lot of what it introduces is used again in later games, even though that part of the series is very different.

But yeah, Water Breath, Pole Spinning, and Wall Kicking are unique to this game in the series. They aren’t unique in general (See: Mario. Yes, even Water Breath. See: Sunshine), but for the series, definitely.

It’s at that weird awkward part in which it’s not anything groundbreaking, but it’s still really good.

Conclusion

Best post-Insomniac Classic Spyro, if only by default. It’s generic for its time, bringing Spyro fully into said time. It works, it’s fun, and I wish there were more to this part of the series that weren’t... well, Orange.

#spyro #a hero's tail #video game review #spyro reignited

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gravefire · 6 years ago

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Gameplay Thoughts and Inspirations

「 G R A V E F I R E 」will be a deck-building roguelike, as has been pointed out in its subtitle, and will be its key selling point. There are a lot of players who love roguelikes and a lot who like card games as well, and quite frankly there aren’t enough games out there to cater to the demand. I can barely count the most popular roguelikes on my two hands. As a deck-building game, they key difference from roguelikes would be that everything would be a card, and you build a deck as you progress through the game.

I will also actively blog about the game’s progression this time.

Inspirations

I have written previously that my previous game Sheeping Around was inspired by Card Thief. GRAVEFIRE, though has a lot of inspirations. The primary ones are:

Meteorfall: Journey by Slothwerks

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series

Slay the Spire by MetaCrit

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)

The first three are a good mix of roguelikes and turn based battle / card games, but you’d ask what does NFS: Hot Pursuit have to do with this genre? That game has a pretty good career mode UI they call “Autolog”, which inspired me to build something like that for my own game. More on that in the later sections of this post.

Platforms and Pricing Model

While Freemium is the reigning king as always and 90% of the new games released are free-to-play, and some devs report earning a good revenue from just ads, it’s just not for me, at least not for this game. I don’t feel very good about the whole economy that works by taking advantage of gamers’ psychology to extract maximum money out of them. “Milking the whales” as it is called.

GRAVEFIRE, therefore will be a premium game, and it will have no in-app purchases to buy extra in-game currency. (It will have in-game currency though, just purely for progression.) It may have IAPs / DLC to unlock extra content for future content updates, but that will not be present on release. I suffered somewhat of a backlash for having IAPs in a paid game for Sheeping Around. Pocket Tactics mentioned in its quite bad review of the game: “Extra supplies can be brought for real-world cash, a feature that is sure to irk many gamers, especially in a paid app.”

I will design the game to work well in portrait mode on mobile and landscape mode on tablets and desktop devices. The primary platform for the game will be PC, and mobile will be secondary. The audience on Steam isn’t very fond of mobile games repurposed / adapted to PC without much efforts. “Cheap mobile ports” as they say. I will make sure that doesn’t happen. It will work like a responsive website on a single codebase.

Pick Your Character

As in most role-playing games, in GRAVEFIRE too, you will be able to pick one of the three characters to begin your journey with. The three characters are: The Necromancer, The Crusader and The Alchemist. Each character will have its own cards and skills that differentiate it from the others. They will also have their own backstory of how they survived the grave fire, and what happens next.

A Burnt World to Explore

You will have a map to explore as you begin your journey. Select a location in the map to begin your game, which will be a mix of tower defense / turn based battle (more on that below).

The map will have mountains, valleys, pits and other regions. Some thoughts around region names include: Lake of Blood, Mt. Blaze, Scorching Pit, Tree of Death.

Like in Autolog in NFS: Hot Pursuit, you select a region as it becomes available, and pick an event to do in that region.

An event could be a main story quest, a side quest with rewards, or anything else (more on that later). You can do certain events as many times as you like. Some events may be a combination of one or more events.

Deck Lanes: Tower Defense meets Card Crawler

For GRAVEFIRE, I’m exploring a gameplay mechanic that I call Deck Lanes. Please excuse my lack of art skills:

Each dungeon in GRAVEFIRE will be a set of decks. Initially, it will be just one deck laid out in a 1x3 grid. Eventually the gameplay will get complex and may increase to 4x3 or even a 5x3 grid. Harder games will have a lot more cards in each deck. Possibly upto 50 cards per deck, totalling to a 250 card dungeon if laid out in a 5x3 grid.

Each dungeon deck has a set number of cards. In the most basic kind of event Survive, your objective is to survive until all decks run out. If you die in a dungeon, you lose and your game is reset to the last save / last event completed. The whole game isn’t entirely roguelike, only each event is: some people would call it roguelike-like or roguelite.

Each dungeon deck can have monsters, skills for you to use, items and gold. Each turn, monsters advance one turn forward towards you, unless there is another monster ahead of it. If there is an item or a skill next to a monster and it wants to move forward, it will destroy the item and move forward anyway. So pick up any items before a monster comes your way. However, keep in mind, picking up items costs energy, so think wisely.

When you tap on the Necromancer, it shows cards you have in your hand. Each turn you draw 3 cards, and you can only hold a maximum of 8 cards in your hand. In the first turn you draw 5 cards. At the end of the turn, the cards you use are discarded in your discard pile. Using a card or picking up an item costs energy, indicated on the card. Each turn, you get 3 energy points to spend. The energy you have to spend will increase as you progress.

There will be lots of different types of attack / defense cards, skill cards that can impact the rest of the event. Items like potions can only be used once and they will disappear forever. Certain skills also can be used only once and then they exhaust, meaning they can not be used again for the rest of the event, but you will get them back in the next event.

Each monster in the lowest row has an intent to either attack or defend. (Or do more things like poison you or burn you, or it could bluff as well.) You must play your cards based on the intent of the monsters.

All of this is very similar in nature to Slay the Spire, but with the exception that everything is a card. Also the tower defense type ascension of monsters in deck lanes allows for some interesting gameplay design options.

Later during the game, you can also tame monsters and add to your team. It works a lot like befriending Pokemon in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series. You cannot control them (they will move on their own), but you can use moves and skills to help boost their strength. If they die, you lose them permanently, so if a monster is really precious to you, you’d want to reset to your last save.

Event Types in GRAVEFIRE

Events will play a key role in GRAVEFIRE. Each region you unlock on the map will have various events that you can do. Like in Autolog in NFS: Hot Pursuit, each event could be a race, hot pursuit, preview, interceptor, etc.

Or like in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, each mission could be a rescue mission, or a mission to find an item, or to battle a legendary.

Events in GRAVEFIRE could be one of the following in the list, or a combination of two or more events:

Survive: The most basic type of event. Just explore a dungeon and survive until the dungeon decks run out. Your typical dungeon crawler. Each dungeon would have its own set of monsters and specific items or skills to acquire. You can explore a dungeon as many times as you want.

Soul Liberation: GRAVEFIRE has caused a lot of souls to be trapped, and they want to be free. Explore a dungeon, and find a soul stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it) and use your special skills to liberate it.

Soul Searching: Some bodies have risen from their graves but have no purpose without their soul. They are harmless, but also aimless. Escort them to their soul stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it). The key difference here is that the undead creature sits besides your primary character’s cards and the dungeon monsters can attack it. You must use your skills to protect yourself and the undead until it finds its soul. In return, they will reward you with some powerful skills and moves.

Soul Capture: In certain dungeons, monsters have become all powerful because of presence of a lot of wandering souls. Places like the Tree of Death are key areas for such events. In this kind of event, you must battle monsters and can also capture their souls and add to your team. They will be on your side starting your next turn. If they survive the deck, they will stay by your side in future battles too.

Find an Item: Much like soul liberation, there is a special item that you need to find. Explore a dungeon and find the item stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it). Once you get to the item, acquire it.

Situation: A situation is choice driven event, where you are in a story based event and are given between 2-4 options to proceed. A situation may have between 2 - 5 steps that may happen based on your choices. The outcomes will result in you obtaining a few cards and skills to add to your deck, or to raise your HP or strength or even lose a few cards in your deck. The outcomes may be good or bad, depending on the type of situation you are in and your choices.

Healing: A healing event will never occur standalone on its own, and will most likely occur before an Elder Battle, GRAVE Battle or GRAVE Survival, or something really troubling. It is a special kind of Situation which only results in good outcomes. It will let you regain HP, boost your strength or gain special skills that will help you in the upcoming battle.

Elder Battle: Elders are special monsters that take between 2-4 entire deck lanes. Ordinary deck lanes will keep on moving forward as usual. you must defeat the elder to win this event.

GRAVE Battle: A GRAVE Battle is a special kind of Elder Battle, where there are no ordinary deck lanes. There is just one massive Elder occupying the entire screen. You must defeat the monster to win this event. There will be only one GRAVE Battle in GRAVEFIRE and that comes towards the end. This special Elder is a monster that caused the grave fire. Battle and defeat it to beat the game and unveil the final secrets of GRAVEFIRE.

GRAVE Survival: The Elder that caused the grave fire will appear many times, but you will never be able to beat him until towards the end you acquire the skills to defeat him. In GRAVE Survival, you must only survive the battle against this Elder for a certain number of moves. This event will occur many times throughout the game, and each time you survive, you will unlock something rare and powerful and learn more about the backstory of GRAVEFIRE.

Suggestions?

In the coming few weeks, I will come up with a prototype, and also talk about the team behind the game, and progress updates including exploration of the art style, choice of music, and some UI designs.

If you have read so far, and like the concept, do let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Stay tuned for「 G R A V E F I R E 」.

#inspiration #roguelike #dungeon crawler #indiegamedev #gamedev #post apocalyptic #gravefire

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depresanesfreetime · 6 years ago

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Which Obsidian game did it better? imo

Plot premise: Tyranny

Character creation: both work for their own plots

Linear path with limited open-world factor: Tyranny? I mean, the time limit in the first act justifies why you stick to the main plot, and then you get to breathe and explore a bit; meanwhile, PoE is very strict with its gameplay borders, I felt like on a leash when playing it

Combat: both are based on different, not quite comparable mechanics; PoE forces you to rest more often if you use magic, while Tyranny, although with limited special attacks, allows you to keep going

Armour variety and usefulness: PoE, so far

Weapon variety and usefulness: Tyranny, following the Less is More rule

Skills and talents: I prefer Tyranny, where the skills improve like in The Elder Scrolls games, but the talent trees are a mess: too much for the protagonist, not enough for companions; thus, when it comes to choosing talents, PoE has a broader choice for all characters

Companions: holy crap, PoE, despite Hiravias, Grieving Mother and Durance; Aloth and Sagani are the best; I’m still furious about Kills-in-Shadow

Stronghold mechanic: neither; I never feel like I earned that

Reputation: Tyranny

Dialogue choices: Tyranny

Music: wow, both are meh, but Tyranny sounds better, and I don’t know what kind of music I should use for substitution; I replaced the PoE soundtrack with a Spotify playlist pretty early

Replayability: I have yet to see ‘cause I’m wondering what happens if I side with the other faction; but I can tell you that PoE loses that one; I restarted Dragon Age more often than PoE

Loading time: both slow

#pillars of eternity #tyranny the game #tyranny #tyranny game #tyranny (obsidian game)

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loadacademy575 · 3 years ago

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Soundtrack Download

00:00 - A Land Of War And Poetry 04:01 - Currents Of The Odai 09:13 - Magnus Smiles on Suran 14:25 - Vvardenfell Vista 15:27 - Ascadian Idyll 20:24 - Shadow. Most tracks were given a title on the soundtrack CD ('Original Title') included in the Collector's Edition of Morrowind, and later another title ('Remastered Title') when Jeremy Soule released a remastered version of the Morrowind soundtrack on DirectSong. The Original Title also corresponds to the 15-track CD seen on some sites. 1 day ago Each one is iconic. That's why ESO Morrowind looked at ES III for music inspiration. The soundtrack of ES III-V had strong identity and atmosphere and alot of the vague track in eso (imo) lacks the atmosphere of the single player games #26. The best Elder Scrolls music for me is the Forgotten Vale theme from.

Beyond a Steel Sky (Video Game 2020) SoundTracks on IMDb: Memorable quotes and exchanges from movies, TV series and more. Beyond a steel sky soundtrack. Beyond a Steel Sky Soundtrack This is additional content for Beyond a Steel Sky, but does not include the base game. Beneath A Steel Sky Soundtrack The Beneath A Steel Sky soundtrack can be downloaded here. Before using this support area be sure to check you are running on or above the recommended system requirements located at the bottom of this page. Listen to Beyond A Steel Sky (Original Soundtrack) on Spotify. Alistair Kerley Album 2020 46 songs.

Overview

There was a time when the Elder Scrolls franchise wasn't one of the biggest names in the RPG genre. That all changed in 2002 with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the first Elder Scrolls game to be released on both computers and consoles (Xbox). The game continued the franchise's fascination with open-ended gameplay that placed few restrictions on the gamer's actions — you might choose to follow Morrowind's main plot or lose yourself in exploring the game's vast world and its myriad sidequests. One of the consequences of this approach was that, probably involuntarily, Morrowind came to embody the difference between more non-linear Western RPGs and the traditionally story-driven JRPGs. With more than four million copies of the game sold, very strong reviews and a slew of end-of-the-year awards, Morrowind remains one of the cornerstones of Western RPGs.

To score Morrowind's soundtrack, developer Bethesda Softworks called upon the services of one of Western game music's biggest names, Jeremy Soule. Although still a relatively young composer at the time, Soule had already proven himself an expert at writing music for fantasy games with his work on the Harry Potter and Icewind Dale games, as well for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Dungeon Siege. Morrowind would prove to be another steppingstone for Soule on his way to becoming one of the foremost composers for this genre of games. In a press release, Soule emphasised that the 'stunning epic quality of the Elder Scrolls series is particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music I enjoy composing the most.' At the same time however, Soule was aware that due to Morrowind's free-wheeling nature, gamers might spend hours roaming a particular area in the game, similar to an MMORPG. Soule then chose to create a soft and minimalist soundtrack that wouldn't be too dominant during these long stretches of exploration, so the music wouldn't wear out its welcome.

This approach yielded mixed results, at least according to various game reviewers, who commented on the soundtrack's limited scope and on its overreliance on its main theme. Complaints were also levelled at the ambient, non-adaptive nature of the music, which failed to reflect the gamer's actions and current situation. Despite such criticism, Morrowind's soundtrack was nominated for 'Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition' at the Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's Interactive Achievement Awards in 2003, where it lost out to Michael Giacchino's Medal of Honor: Frontline.

On album, Morrowind's music was first made available on a 40-minute bonus CD that came with the game's Collector's Edition. Soundtrack collectors eager to find out how well Morrowind's music played outside of the game were later given an easier way to satisfy their curiosity. In 2006, Soule released Morrowind's soundtrack via his online music store DirectSong. This new release presented the music in remastered form and added six minutes to the difficult-to-find physical album, effectively superseding it. This review refers to the original physical release.

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So, are Soule's efforts for Morrowind as difficult to enjoy on album as during the in-game experience? Short answer: no. Fortunately, this is one of those rare cases where the soundtrack actually plays better outside of the game. First case in point: Morrowind's main theme. It's first presented on opening track 'Nerevar Rising' in obvious fashion. The track is effectively a series of presentations of the main theme, increasing in volume and scope as the melody is being passed from harp and flute to the celli, before a climactic finish on violins and full brass caps off the piece's development. It's to Soule's credit that the theme — essentially a simple three-note motif extended by two different secondary phrases — adapts well to all these different instrumental settings. The melody communicates lyricism just as much as an optimistic spirit of adventure once the orchestra cranks up the volume. This mellifluous quality comes to benefit the easily recognisable theme and helps it to adapt to other tracks' atmospheres, instead of blatantly putting its stamp on these compositions. 'Peaceful Waters' quotes the main theme briefly on flute and teases out its reflective character, while 'The Road Most Travelled' incorporates a rendition of the theme on solo cello into its lush textures. The melody plays equally well in the more energetic setting of Morrowind's battle cues, where the theme appears on flowing violins on 'Bright Spears, Dark Blood' and subtly referenced in the background of the second half of 'Dance of Swords.'

All these quotations of the main theme are fashioned intelligently and are inserted seamlessly into the flow of the compositions. It's a shame then that the theme only occurs regularly during the album's first half and then disappears — for good actually on the original physical album. If there's any issue with the main theme and Soule's use of it then, it's that the theme is actually underused and doesn't tie the soundtrack's second half together as well as the first half. Next to the main theme, there's a number of secondary themes which are specific to particular cues as a lightly-sprung but determined melody that's heard in various disguises throughout 'The Road Most Travelled'.

And what about the soundtrack's soft and minimalist nature? Good news here as well: Morrowind's music is anything but background droning. Instead, it's a rich score with pieces that develop formidably within their limited running times — ultimately the title's biggest strength. The album's compositions showcase fluid and expertly layered orchestrations that give every instrument section of the synth orchestra an opportunity to shine. Stylistically, it never goes beyond that classical fantasy sound that's been a mainstay of many games, with its rhapsodic and heroic strains. But on Morrowind, Soule applies this formula with an assured hand and the results are thoroughly convincing.

The album alternates battle tracks with more expansive compositions that seem to describe a scenery rather than actions. Its on these cues that the soundtrack develops a spellbinding pull and occasionally even a sense of grandeur that's most befitting for a world as large at that of Morrowind. Tracks like 'Blessing of Vivec', 'Silt Sunrise' and 'Shed Your Travails' are a well of soulful string melodies that don't fail to tug at the heartstrings, yet never sacrifice their noble air. Soule's talent for creating colourful, ever-changing orchestral layers is in full force on these pieces. The opening string melody of 'Silt Sunrise' is backed by increasingly complex orchestrations before calming down for a serene melodic statement, which in turn leads to a splendid conclusion over busy string ostinati and brass interjections. 'Shed Your Travails' and 'Caprice' calm down in their middle sections to include an ethereal female choir that instils the music with a real sense of wonder. On 'Shed Your Travails', this episode leads into an appropriately otherwordly, peaceful finish over glistening violin tremoli and a dying flute melody. 'Caprice', on the other hand, frames its spiritual interlude with light-hearted string ostinati and effortlessly segues from one musical extreme into the other. 'Blessing of Vivec' is just as beautiful and emotionally gripping as these cues, but remains more austere through its jagged solo cello lead whose cautiously ascending notes are a lot less flowing than most string writing on the album. While none of these tracks run longer than three-and-a-half minutes, they pack more development and symphonic drama into their running times than other compositions twice their length.

Morrowind's action material doesn't quite reach the same lofty heights, but it's convincing enough in its own right. Again, it's standard fantasy stuff: bold brass, driving strings and dramatic percussion. But Soule uses these familiar ingredients skilfully and presents them in well-composed shape. And his ear for details ensures these tracks merit repeat listens to tease out their intricacies, such as the rapidly descending violin ostinato figures on 'Dance of Swords' and 'Ambush!' Instead of using them to simply increase the tracks' rhythmic power, Soule places the cascading motifs between beats to create ear-catching, syncopated counterrhythms. Soule's penchant for constantly changing textures benefits the action tracks as well, even though their instrumentations are less colourful than those of Morrowind's slower tracks. Frequently, Soule casts his battle cues in an ABA structure that sees these compositions calming down in their middle section after a dynamic start, before ramping up the volume again towards the end. This change in tempo and texture is quite transparent, but helps to pace these cues and avoid monotony. And Soule makes sure that tension never sags during these quieter passages through the inclusion of lighter rhythmic elements such string pizzicati, hand percussion and tinkling piano notes.

All these positive qualities help to overcome the biggest criticism one could level at the battle cues: that their sound isn't powerful enough to allow them make their full impact. To a degree, this ties in with Soule's declared approach of not trying to overwhelm the listener with his music in-game. And make no mistake, the majority of Morrowind's action tracks are energy-laden enough to satisfy, even though you sometimes wish the percussion elements would have greater presence. But it's only once Soule's strips back the many layers of his compositions and focuses on the primal qualities of repetitive rhythms that things start to sound less promising, for example on 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' and 'Stormclouds on the Battlefield'. The only thing that the minimalist rhythms of 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' could have going for them is a resonant, forceful sound, and Morrowind fails to provide this. Tyranny bastard's wound ending. In general, the album sounds somewhat dull and compressed, with the effect that the detailed orchestral textures, particularly on the colourful slower tracks, aren't always rendered with a desirable level of clarity. Orchestral climaxes that should soar occasionally have their wings clipped, and the sustained double bass chords on 'Over the Next Hill' have way too much presence and muddy the soundscape. Sure, this is a synthesised soundtrack from 2002, but there are enough better-sounding albums around from the same time to suggest that Morrowind's acoustic appearance is hardly reference quality.

Summary

With The Elder Scrolls III -Morrowind- Special Edition Soundtrack, Soule further cemented his elevated standing among Western game music composers. The album impressively displays why Soule would come to be regarded as a specialist for scoring fantasy games. Particularly the more measured tracks on Morrowind are beautifully orchestrated and splendidly developed, to the degree that they sometimes feel like mini-epics convincingly compressed into three minutes. To a slightly lesser degree goes for the soundtrack's battle tunes, which are nicely varied in their textures and filled with intricacies, particularly when it comes to their rhythms. All the way through, Morrowind exudes that wondrous, yet bold feeling of high adventure that's so indispensable for a fantasy score of this character, captured in the score's strong but slightly under-used main theme.

Unless you insist on listening to your scores in a lossless format, the physical release of Morrowind's score is superseded by the digital version. The disc lacks the remastering and bonus tracks of the digital version, and ends particularly underwhelmingly with 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer'. That all said, fantasy score enthusiasts should not hesitate to purchase a version of this soundtrack.

7/10

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casualarsonist · 7 years ago

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Horizon: Zero Dawn review

Here’s a weird little idiosyncrasy-slash-crippling weakness of mine - I find it nearly impossible to write about things I really enjoy. Perhaps it’s because I hate gushing, but I can’t really overstate just how fucking annoying it is that I can only provide opinions on art that is either some version of ‘okay’, or ludicrously shit. For example, I’ve previously mentioned that there are only three or four pieces of art that I’ve witnessed in the world that I would nominate as a 10 out of 10, and try as I might I simply can’t seem to find the words to adequately express my feelings about them. I think the issue here is that I feel like my commentary on an amazing piece of art needs to meet some invisible standard of quality wherein it gives an excellent description of the piece’s virtues without resorting to effusive emotional over-statement, and anyone who knows me knows that effusive emotional over-statement is my jam.

So I suppose this is one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to talk about Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Well, that, and the fact that it’s not quite as black and white as ‘it’s an excellent open-world action-RPG’. I mean, it IS an excellent open-world action-RPG, but this fact is only part of the appeal, and even though I might think it is the bee’s knees, I have to counterbalance this with the fact that there is a lot about Horizon: Zero Dawn that isn’t particularly original, especially in today’s over-saturated open-world action-RPG market. If Horizon was one of only a few games in its genre it could quite possibly be one of the best games ever made, but I have trouble giving it that label precisely because of the glut of other releases from which it borrows its features from - if you’ve played any of the Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted games then you’ll be well-acquainted with the stalky-stabby-hidey-ridey-hack-and-slashy-climby-climby gameplay on show here.

But don’t let my shilly-shallying about the mechanics of the game distract from the fact that I think it’s a landmark release; it holds a place rather similar to The Witcher 3 in my mind, in that it takes a decade of iteration and expansion in its genre and makes a masterpiece out of that, and again, much like The Witcher 3, this almost entirely comes down to the quality of the writing and performances, as complimented by fantastic mechanics and gorgeous visuals.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is the story of Aloy (not ‘alloy’) - an outcast from birth from the Nora tribe, a band of primitive and superstitious humans who, since having their lands raided and their peoples kidnapped by the blood-thirsty former king of the neighbouring Carja tribe, have become deeply xenophobic and isolated in their mountain-hemmed valley. Aloy is raised by Rost, a seasoned hunter and rigidly principled man determined to uphold his exile for reasons he refuses to explain. As Aloy approaches her 18th birthday she opts to take part in The Proving - a test of her physical and mental skills that offers her the chance to fully rejoin the tribe. But when the competitors in The Proving are attacked by a band of raiders who seem intent on killing Aloy in particular, she is nominated as a Seeker by the Nora elders, and is free to travel into the larger world with the mission of discovering both her origins, and the cause of the new scourge upon her community.

And this patchy and kind-of-inaccurate synopsis is really as much as I can say without moving into spoiler territory, which is a damn shame, because Horizon has one of the best stories of any game I’ve played in a long, long time. This is not just down to the quality of the story itself, but also to the quality of the storytelling. Horizon takes everything I raved about in my post about Black Isle’s use of exploration and the design of the game world as a storytelling medium, and applies it to great effect. As such, we, the players, are placed in the same role as the protagonist - beginning in a child-like stage, we are vulnerable, and introduced to the dangers and wonders of the world bit by bit, and as we explore further into the unknown, the environment around us grows and grows and grows, becoming ever-more awe-inspiring as we progress. It really is a near-perfect mixture of open-world gameplay and curated exploration, and there is rarely a point in which you feel like you shouldn’t be moving too far ahead because you’re going to bypass something interesting. As in New Vegas, the use of wide valleys as a way to both make the player feel like they’re free to roam whilst also meting out the features of the game is flawlessly executed, and results in an open-world game that is also, somehow, impeccably paced.

This only really falters in two places - firstly, when the largest section of the game is opened up and one is overwhelmed by the amount of opportunity suddenly available, and secondly, in the fact that the story missions don’t exactly lead you delicately through the map. One of the earliest missions after you leave the opening territory sends you to the farthest corner of the game world, and the fact that I would have to pass so much content in order to get there triggered my FOMO and led me to leave the story until the very, very, final end of the game once I’d completed everything else there was to do. This was a mistake, a) because the story is fantastic and you don’t lose anything by completing it earlier on, and b) because once you’ve conquered literally every other challenge the game throws at you, pursuing the story feels a little redundant. It’s also a shame that so much of the main quests take place at one specific, isolated end of the world, which is a strange miscalculation in my opinion when the developers have created such a rich, gorgeous, and varied environment for their players to explore.

But even if I think that these things could have been improved on, they ultimately don’t do much to overshadow the achievements of the game in all of its other areas. The characters look unbelievably lifelike, and despite the occasionally stilted facial animation and some static conversation camerawork, the characters are voiced and animated extremely well. The script is intelligent and emotive, and tells an incredibly compelling story that I just want to talk about with SOMEONE (please, for the love of God, Alice, finish the fucking game!), which is especially noteworthy because Horizon goes out of its way to offer a strange and beautiful world that poses so many questions to the player, and then makes the incredible effort to answer pretty much every one of them by the time it’s over.

I should elaborate here for those that aren’t acquainted with the game - Aloy lives in a world populated by machines. Specifically, machines that look like animals. Most are in some way aggressive, although apparently that wasn’t always the case, and the game’s death cult enemies have managed to corrupt and enslave some of them in order to use them as weapons. These animals range from flying bird-like creatures to giant bulls to fire-and-ice-shooting crocodiles to gargantuan dinosaurs. And in the course of encountering these creatures, you’ll also encounter the diverse biomes that they exist in: cold Nordic wastelands, humid and palm-dotted Egyptian river deltas, arid North American mesas, and even the ruins of an ancient civilisation. And it would be one thing for the developers to have just imagined a fantasy universe in which all these things exist a hop, skip, and a jump from one another, and to leave it at that - Final Fantasy has been successful for three decades doing this very same thing. But it’s all explained, everything is explained, and the explanation is compelling and evocative and interesting and fun. There aren’t many stones left unturned, and yet the game never feels like it’s bogging you down in exposition or having to slow to a crawl to catch you up; I was happy to watch and listen as the mysteries were revealed, and Horizon is one of very few games with such an ambitious narrative that is actually worth the effort you take to uncover it.

But hey, it can’t hurt that the uncovering is just so much fun, can it? Taking a leaf from CD Projekt Red’s soon-to-be award winning book ‘Open-World Game Design, And How Not To Fuck It All Up’, Horizon is filled to the brim with fun and interesting gameplay, challenging and wonder-invoking enemies, engaging characters, and many, many varied side-quests. In fact, the game is one of only a few to clearly divert from the typical ‘main quest/side quest’ delineation of most modern open-world games. Instead, Horizon operates on a number of levels; the first of which being the main missions in which you investigate Aloy’s past; the second being a number of multi-staged, large-in-scope second-tier missions in which you deal with ongoing problems in the world at large like civil wars and wide-reaching political intrigues; the third level involves the smaller, one-off side missions more typical of these games such as saving strangers from danger or helping resolve disputes; and then you have all the other additional content such as hunting and gathering quests, collectibles of various types, and various combat challenges. This variety staves off a lot of tedium that one feels in other, lesser games, and keeps you constantly surprised and engaged given that you never quite know exactly how deep the next story is going to go. Even the most basic challenges (hunt here, kill there, etc, etc) are fun because the combat and stealth gameplay is so enjoyable, and the fact that most machines can be crippled or destroyed in a number of different, spectacular, and rewarding ways only adds to the challenge and variation and excitement in taking them down. It’s something that makes the game exciting to come back to after you’ve finished it, and even though I’m still playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, I know that it’s probably going to be a one-and-done situation for me, in the same way that ALL the other Assassin’s Creed games have been. Whereas Horizon? I’m definitely going to return to it, and I’m going to approach it in a totally different way, because I can.

It’s worth a mention as well that the game doesn’t just maintain a high standard of quality and integrity in its mechanics, but also in its DLC, and it’s extremely heartening to see that the only additional content released for the the game is more akin to the expansion packs from the days of yore - a single, 15-odd-hour addition to the base game that has its own story and environment and additions to the gameplay that are both seamless and complimentary to the base, as well as being a substantial and worthwhile standalone investment. In fact, just looking it up now, ‘The Frozen Wilds’ is actually officially referred to as an ‘expansion pack’, and this gives me all kinds of warm-and-fuzzy feelings (and for some reason makes me want to go back and play the Mysteries of the Sith expansion for Dark Forces 2).

The Frozen Wilds is apparently the first and last addition we will see for the game, which is a shame because it’s so good, but then again I’d always prefer to have a numerically smaller amount of great content than be overfed on shitty cosmetic items, crap DLC quests, and other such symptoms of the disease that is modern DLC culture. And while I can’t say with certainty that Guerilla Games won’t release anything else for the game, there’s something uniquely joyous in knowing that to buy the DLC for Horizon is to improve a complete game with some relevant extra content that expands the lore and experience, rather than feeling like you’re just stapling something functionally redundant and narratively incongruent to the body of the main game.

With God of War’s recent release to massive acclaim, I’m becoming more and more convinced that console-exclusive games are one of the few things keeping the spirit of artistic integrity and quality in the ‘AAA’ industry alive. Were it not for games like that and like Horizon: Zero Dawn, which stand sparsely in resistance to the flood of catch-all money-machine publisher/developers that produce barely-iterative annual-release tat, we’d be drowning in a sea of games infinitely wide and an inch deep (and yes, despite my positive impressions of their newest releases, I’m still talking about companies like Ubisoft, whose games are both fun and tiresome at the same time). And so it is that Horizon: Zero Dawn is legitimately one of the best games available to play on the PS4 right now, and one of the best open-world action-RPG games ever released, and it’s a shame that rather than shining down upon us like a beacon from the heavens, its light is somewhat lost amongst the sea of other lesser, but like-minded releases. I suppose one could call this a flaw in the game’s design, but when you get down and play the thing it becomes difficult to figure out how to frame it as such when everything it does is in some way an improvement over how its been done before. It is, without any doubt in my mind, a must-play, and I really need to talk about the story with someone, so please, for the love of god Alice, finish the damn game already.

9.5/10

(Very) Outstanding

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iain-games-firstperson · 4 years ago

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First person games research

Call of Duty COD is one of the easiest first person games to talk about, because it’s been basically the same for about 200 years. It’s a basic first person shooter, the story is badly written and disinteresting, and the game is basically an overpriced multiplayer mode with an optional game tacked onto it. But that’s sort of ok, if you’re the type of person who enjoys that sort of thing, because the gunplay is pristine. It’s beautifully designed so that the guns have a visceral kick to using them, and sound great. It’s extremely polished, and I personally see it as a baseline for all other, better shooters to work from.

Return of the Obra Dinn Return of the Obra Dinn is much more my speed than COD. It’s a contemplative, first person detective game set on a ship, and is, without a doubt, one of the best games ever made. Set on the abandoned ship, Obra Dinn, you are tasked with solving the fates of the 60 crew members. To my mind, it’s still the only game that’s ever done detective work properly. It has measures in place to stop you brute forcing the problem with trial and error, like the fact that you have to solve 3 murders at a time before the game will verify if they are correct or not. At the same time, the puzzles aren’t super easy and your character is completely mute, so you don’t have any of those moments where you’ve very cleverly worked something out for yourself and the protagonist proudly shouts out “I THINK THE ANSWER IS...,” completely ruining the moment for you. It leaves you to deduce things from clues and it leaves you with a genuine feeling of accomplishment whenever you solve a set of deaths. The main downside is that you can only ever play it for the first time once, which is a weird thing to say about a game, but once you’ve solved it for the first time, you can never solve it properly again. You definitely won’t feel the same sense of accomplishment.

Portal Portal isn’t a puzzle game. It’s the puzzle game. The quintessential puzzle game. It was unique among first person games at the time, because in 2007, the top selling first person games were Call of Duty, Halo and Bioshock. While these were all (and by that I mean Bioshock) extremely good, important games, they were all, on a moment to moment basis, about killing a bunch of dudes in a grimy corridor. Portal, on the other hand, was about subtly dark humour, complicated physics puzzles and accidentally creating one of the most universally recognised memes in all of internet history. It was witty and challenging and amazing. Portal 2 was also an amazing game, but compared to the original, it felt less experimental, and more focused on showing of big set pieces, which wasn’t fully in line with the original’s themes. It’s still one of the best games ever made. But Portal 1 is better.

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind Morrowind is, in my eyes, the perfect Elder Scrolls game. It has good characters, an awesome world, and the most ideal core gameplay loop for an open world RPG of it’s type. It forces you to take notes of your surroundings, read road signs and actually talk to people to ask for directions. Morrowind gives me the feeling I get when I watch Lord Of the Rings, except it’s not about some big world ending threat (it is, but it doesn’t really feel it.) I’m just an ex-convict, wandering around the world, finding a guild to join and starting a life for myself. It’s the melancholic, slow pace that I want to take over to a game more based around characters and detective style gameplay.

Bulletstorm The shotgun sounds like god slamming his car door, and you have a grappling hook. You can power slide in and kick a dude into orbit. The story sucks, but it doesn’t matter.

Doom Doom (the original, 2, Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal that is. Not Doom 3) are some of the most important shooters in the industry because they’re fun. The original game was from a time before shooters all got bogged down in gritty realism and was just about a guy who could run at the land speed record indefinitely, and was literally killing his way out of hell. It’s fast paced, gory and just plain fun.

Subnautica Subnautica is a first person survival exploration game. The only thing that really needs mentioning in Subnautica is the fact that it controls absolutely beautifully underwater, it truly feels amazing. Also literal terror.

Superhot Superhot is an innovative idea, in that time only moves when you move, or rather, the game slows down immensely and gives the gunfights a really slow, methodical feel to them.

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vonsvarietyblog · 7 years ago

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Retropective: Monster Hunter

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or in heat. May the Lord have mercy upon thy soul

So, you played all those newfangled Souls games but you crave for something a bit more... different? You’ll probably feel confident enough to take on this odd yet incredibly popular Japanese game which sadly, suffered the same fate in terms of how well-known it is in the West. It has all the bells and whistles that makes the combat just as nuanced and perplexed as a Souls game would. But then, when you just try to get that woolly mammoth thing’s delicious meat and all to barbaque on a spit you brought along in a snowy place, you’ll suddenly get greeted by a huge dragon-like creature that would crawl really quick right to you after dropping straight down. A roar that could send an avalanche rolling down, snapping its jaws, sharp teeth and all. You’re just armed with a toothpick. And wear paper for armor. It’s 5 feet right in front of you.

Welcome to Monster Hunter.

The recent developments of the game, having an open beta of Monster Hunter: World this week (which unfortunately, only PS4, PS+ users are allowed to take part in) for a stress-test of their servers, had me hyped since the game was first unveiled in E3 this year. It is a fantastic, long-awaited take for the game itself. Finally there are changes that makes sense in the game that long-time players would be more relieved than be disgusted by, honestly. At least in my opinion. But I do find it a bit awkward that these kinds of changes that I would had fantasized of when I was just a new player back in ‘08. It’s uncanny!

Monster Hunter is a game that first came out in 2003 when Capcom was not crap trying to make full use of the PS2′s internet connectivity option for online multiplayer. So they came out with 3 games: a racing game, a Resident Evil/Biohazard: Outbreak and... this. Of the lot, Monster Hunter actually managed to came out top, even against friggin’ RE which is not exactly a bad game though with somewhat questionable implementation. The thing is, the team that wanted to make this game put a lot of effort into it. It wasn’t generic or half-assed like the other two, it actually had a more unique gameplay mechanic in comparison. The music produced for the game is gorgeous, the worldbuilding around the game surprisingly meaty even if most of it isn’t really fleshed out in-game, they have adorable cat-men made, and basically the whole pull for the game is that you constantly beat the hell out of the dragons and dinos you find and wear their skin as hats. Awesome. The game later managed to be honored with a remixed version endorsed by Capcom that added the G-rank, more monsters in the roster, more weapons, more maps, some new improvements, just about everything! And you get to pay for it full price after buying the first game. Typical Capcom business as usual.

But the series never truly shined until it comes to the handhelds. Sure, it had a console release soon after with Dos but the real reason why this game is developed because the game emphasizes multiplayer a lot more than you think, having the Gathering Hall readily available for online play. Unfortunately, consoles don’t really solve the age-old problem of Japanese salarymen lacking time and money to own and play consoles at home, their very target audience. So, let’s say getting the game to run on the PSP is not only technically impressive, but it does make a hell lot of sense. You could go for a quick curbstomp with some random strangers or friends travelling along the train ride to and fro, the rush hour is always a frantic but sometimes frustratingly dull daily routine. Or, get to your friends’ house to play MonHun together instead of theirs to play. Either way, a 4-man hunting party taking down a fiery dragon is always a magical experience, not quite like how you’d have seen before outside of a drab MMO. Strategy and skill (and a big stick) is what you need to kill a monster but teamwork makes the job all the more enriching than taking one down alone. Even the later Portable versions of the game pretty much made the game mandatory for multiplayer, even in singleplayer with the introduction of Felyne Comrades (later known as Palicos), adorable little cat-men decoys/light support hunters that you have them tag along in hunts.

You just can’t say no when it says it wants to go with you!

Of course, all the big fancy fights and nice weapons and armours you’d get along progressing the game later would ultimately boils down to slow, hard, meticulous, gratuitously grindy work. A very Japanese thing sometimes. Besides, you’re not a Monster Hunter just because you happen to have a chest full of weapons and armour that popped out of nowhere right? You have to understand firstly that your character here took this as a career. Your character definitely signed up for this. Most of the time, your character will start off as the village Exterminator- I mean, Monster Hunter, where he/she accepts quests from the local village chief to do jobs and bounties posted by just about anybody in the game. A newlywed? Chef? A friggin’ Princess? The Chief? Yes, anybody! Sometimes you don’t even need to go through the details why, just take it for that sweet, sweet zenny reward. And maybe you’d be able to make that hat you always wanted along the way. Or if you’re down with the fluffy bits of the game, you could get to know who your clients are with the descriptions detailing the job you’ll be taking. Some desperate for reprisals, some makes sense, some petty, some irresponsible, some are dubious. Some even came from kids who just wanted you to gather some plants in the woods. Yes, you don’t always get to kill monsters in this game, filling out that hunter-gatherer criteria of your job.

In that matter, gathering (and eventually hoarding) stuff in the game would be your bread and butter in the experience. To get plants and mushrooms totally for medical stuff is one of the earliest thing you have to do in the game. Preparations before taking on the big ones are key to surviving your fight, just as crafting, farming and cooking would. In this early phase of the game, the really slow burn, grindy part of the game would center around you familiarizing with the game before eventually getting to finish the main story in the game in less than 10 hours in-game when you come back a veteran. Hoarding enough of your stuff in the wild would eventually lead to you actually make cool stuff with it too! Mainly the fancy hats.

Capcom might have called this a hack-n’-slash but you never get to play this like you did with Dante in Devil May Cry (another Capcom release). When in that game, you’d be more aggressive and pulling your attacks, lightning-fast and never get tired from it, Monster Hunter is much less so about that. Even the fastest weapon you can play in the game stresses in a way that you must position yourself in a good spot before pulling off some fancy moves. Wrestling with how the game’s control scheme shits on the more simplistic, button-mashing style of gameplay in most hack-n’-slash games could be half the pleasure, especially if you happen to master them as well. But the game still relies on you methodically placing your attacks, learning attack patterns of your enemies, knowing when to run, set up traps, manage stamina and health, noticing telltale signs of it about to pull off moves or ready for capture. All the while not knowing when you’ll know when the monster would drop with the lack of a health bar. It does sound complicated on paper but in practice, well, even less so. All those things would happen in the heat of the moment and it’s up to you to manage them. No amount of preparation could save you of you can’t utilize them properly here. The weapon animations are, however, mostly uncancellable and sometimes you got to drop the hammer in the right place in the right time if you want to do some serious damage. That includes finding openings for the monsters and targeting their soft, squishy parts for that extra DAMAGE. The game would really punish you for doing haphazard attacks but sometimes it’s not really your fault as much as the game itself.

What do I do to deserve your hitboxes?

It may sound like a feeble excuse of not being good at the game fighting it but there is a reason why the Plesioth, the big fish monster thingy, is universally reviled as a monster to fight. Simply because hipchecks are incrdibly annoying when mixed with the large hitbox sizes in the earlier iterations. Capcom managed to fix this AND not having it back in later games, thankfully. So all is well.

Outside of combat, you’ll notice how explorable the maps can be when you step foot in the hunting grounds. Most of the time, they felt like natural locations, sometimes asymmetrical but never quite felt like it intended to direct the players to a certain location like some level designs would. More like, how much you could explore the whole place to sate your ever-growing curiousity. Hiddn paths, shortcuts and potentially exploitable spaces you’d find along the way while looking for your prey. It’s also the little things about the whole environment that you’d notice. It’s incredibly diverse, never feeling samey or generic as most fantasy-themed game would when involving dinos and dragons to kill. Sometimes you’d enjoy the little details surrounding the map, like a giant shell of an elder dragon on top of a mountain or how nature had reclaimed an age-old ruin in the middle of a jungle, large swathes of desert sands or lava that actually behaved differently depending on the time you are in there, day or night. Or simply something more aesthetically pleasing like a mountain you see right in front of the first area of the map or islands with waterfalls come crashing down from a height as far as the eyes can see. Those maybe just blocky polygons and textures at the time but they never fail to capture my sense of wonder and the fact it reminds me that I couldn’t explore at those parts of the game. If you want to know how immersive the game world can be, look no further.

Perhaps this is what their newest game wants to convey to us. The maps of the previous games are beautiful but barely interactable. You could only hop onto ledges, swim and gather at select sites at that point. But nothing further from that. The new game, Monster Hunter: World would explore more on this, allowing players to actually do something cool about it. Breakable obstacles, environmental destruction for opening new paths or traps, places you could actually hide in, animals you can find there to travel to new areas or inflict status effects, the amount of the detail they put in this is crazy, limited only to your imagination. All in one, massively seamless map. One might fear these could lead to a wasted effort since sometimes it’s not a big focus during fights, especially when you’re timed during your job to take down one big monster before it’s up. The emphasis on exploration could potentially be ignored in the favour of a more direct action-oriented play. Players more accustomed to focusing their efforts onto fighting monsters for more than 4 games may not even try something new for that but it remains to be seen. What appears to be a novelty may evolve into something bigger when you have all the time you need to explore on the map, opening up more possibilities to what you can do in the game-world later in the full-game.

#monster hunter #retrospective #gaming

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monstrous-hourglass · 7 years ago

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Guild Wars 2 Beginner’s Survival Guide

In light of the new expansion, I see people dipping their toes into the game, so here are a few tips for new players who want to give free to play a spin.

This is focusing on PvE. You don’t gain access to WvW (world vs world, the big group pvp content ) until you are level 60 and there isn’t much to say about regular PvP. If you plan to go into those, I suggest checking Metabattle for some of the popular builds.

Character creation

Everything starts with making your character. Keep in mind that you can’t change your race or class later in the game. Your race and to some degree the choices you make during character creation determine your personal story and give you one race specific elite skill, but otherwise have no bearing on gameplay. Your class determines gameplay, but have minimal effect on story.

You can try your profession in the PvP lobby

There is no traditional levelling in pvp so whenever you enter the lobby (crossed swords icon on the top left menu bar) you get access to all your skills and core specialisation trees as well as vendors you can get every weapon type from. If you aren’t sure which profession you want to play, hop in there and punch out a golem or three. There are even npcs you can duel for practice.

I wouldn’t recommend jumping into pvp right away, at least not until you know with confidence what each and every one of your skills do.

What profession to pick?

If you are looking for easy classes to start with, Necromancer (good survivability, can solo a lot of small group content with minions), Ranger (good mobility, good survivability with pets) and Warrior (decent balance between tankiness and damage, can get out of a lot of tight spots with stun breaks) are a good in that regard, but be warned they are not the most interesting things to play.

End of the line, play what feels the most fun. In PvE neither gear nor build matters much.

Gearing and levelling up

Should you worry about min-maxing your skills/gear/etc. while levelling up? No, not at all. Just use the highest level gear you find, it really isn’t worth wasting your hard earned coin on trying to buy X type of weapon or Y type of armor.

You unlock specialisations and utility skills with Hero Points that are earned in the open world. If I can suggest something, spend your point on utilities first, you’ll get more mileage out of those than the passive traits from specialisation.

Any utility that gives a passive speed buff is nice to have. So are skills that apply swiftness or remove conditions and debuffs.

Tips for rush levelling

Try to stay in your level appropriate area. That way you get good amount of experience for discovering the map and you can kill the mobs around you with relative ease.

As you move through the map, only do the hearts/events that involve killing mobs to make the best use of your time.

You will see ambient creatures with yellow names that won’t become hostile until you hit them. The game has a system that gives extra experience if a mob hasn’t been killed in a long time, so finding mobs in remote places and killing yellow mobs is a good way to speed up levelling

Don’t bother with veteran mobs. You might think the added difficulty will translate into more experience gained, but they are really not worth the effort.

If you have the materials, you can get a few guaranteed levels out of crafting.

(Only applies for the maps in Orr, but there you are better off ignoring mobs. Exploring the map and doing the occasional group event will give you more experience than chasing the zombies around.)

Salvaging extra equipment

If a mob drops something you can’t use or it’s worse than what you are wearing, you can salvage it for base materials. Equipment is rated through colors (white for the worst, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple towards best) and you have different tiers of salvage kits you can use.

Don’t waste expensive salvage kits on low quality gear. Master’s for high level yellow or orange gear to increase the drop rate of expensive materials (ectoplasm, Hardened Leather, Elder Wood), Fine or Basic for everything else.

Exploring the world

You will start in the beginner zone corresponding to your race - Caledon Forest (sylvari), Metrica Province (asura), Qeeunsdale (human), Wayfarer Foothills (norn) and Plains of Asford (charr). You will have one Waypoint (your way of quick travel) unlocked in each zone, so if you bore of wandering in the zone you started in, you can go explore others.

Your personal story starts at level 10, till then you don’t have to worry about anything and if you are having fun wandering the world, that personal story won’t go anywhere.

The game really builds on exploration - finding new areas, Points of Interests, Vistas and new Waypoints will all award a good amount of experience, discovering a whole zone always gives Achievement Points and a chest with rare goodies. Also you can always stumble into a dynamic event.

Dynamic events and Heart quests are the two most common things to do in the zones. Dynamic events can happen almost anywhere, at any time. They are usually fun to do and give good amount of experience and they can have an effect on the area. For instance, if you fail to protect a bridge from a bandit attack, that bridge will stay in ruins until it’s rebuilt.

Heart quests are static, more of the standard mmo quests. They are simple to do, count towards map completion, award karma (a unique currency) and let you access to a trader when done.

If you are missing just the one POI or Vista on a map or you want to find the Jumping Puzzle for a change of pace, you can use the Interactive Map of Tyria to check what is where.

Jumping Puzzles are unique challenges where you have to climb an obstacle course - hop up the side of a mountain, climb a set of ruins, jump along the leaves of a giant tree, run around the roofs of Lion’s Arch. They can be simple and straightforward or very challenging, if you have any fondness of platforming you are probably going to enjoy most of them.

Gathering is important. Try to have the highest level gathering equipment you can get and gather all the wood and ore you can. Vegetables and herbs aren’t all that important, but wood and ore are your best friends. They are needed for crafting and sell for a fair bit of coin.

Things to avoid in the open world

You can stumble into Champions even if you are on your own. They are group content, avoid them if you can. They usually stay in one place or patrol with a very short leash, so if one of them starts to chase you, run for your life.

If you see a group gathering to tackle a Champion or they are actively fighting one, you can join in. The more the merrier and they drop decent loot.

Veteran and Elite enemies aren’t as tough as Champions, but don't underestimate them. Elites usually turn up for events so you won’t see them all that often, but Veterans can turn up almost anywhere and they are not to be underestimated. They are significantly tougher than regular mobs and take forever to kill on your own. Avoid them if you can.

World Bosses. Not much needs to be said. Depending on difficulty they can drop some very awesome loot, but take huge, organized groups to kill. Most of them either spawn on a timer (you can check the Event Timers or the wiki if you are curious) or at the end of a quest chain. If you run into one and don't see at least fifty people clobbering it to death, turn around and come back later because on your own, you won’t even put a dent in it.

A note on dungeons

Dungeons are fun and a very good way to get good level 80 gear. However until you are in the end game or you have a group of friends who run with you, you should stick to the story paths. It’s a good introduction to the dungeon mechanics. Regular dungeon paths are more suited to experienced players. If you decide to join a group of random people (you can access an LFG feature through your contacts menu to see if there are any open groups) then it’s best to ask them if they mind an inexperienced player tagging along.

A suggested route through the zones

This is just a suggestion, but I heard of people dropping the game because they never moved past the starting areas and grew bored, so here's a possible, no frills walkthrough if you want to keep constantly moving as you level up.

Brisban Wildlands (15-25) Accessible through Caledon Forest, Kessex Hills or Metrica Province. After your starting area of choice, you should take a stroll through here. It’s a big map with a lot of things going on, but most important because it connects to the Silverwastes. The Silverwastes is a level 80 map and hands down the best place to earn gold in Core Tyria. Also it’s the gateway to the Heart of Thorns maps if you decide to buy the expansion.

Gendarran Fields (25-35) Accessible through Queensdale and Snowden Drifts. Not that big of a deal on its own, but at level 35 even you get access to Lion’s Arch which is the big, central hub city. Very important.

Here you have a choice to go Harathi Hinterlands (35-45) which is bit of a dead end to the north, take an asura gate to the Fields of Ruin (30-40) and move up to Blazeridge Steppes (40-50) which gives access to the Shatterer World Boss or head south to Lornar’s Pass (25-40) and Dredgehaunt Cliffs (40-50) which has the Sorrow’s Embrace dungeon.

Bloodtide Coast (45-55) should be the next stop after this, just south of Lion’s Arch. The main event of this map is Triple Trouble, the first Hardcore World Boss you can encounter. If you ever catch GW2 Community organizing a TT run, I suggest you tag along because they have a great success rate slaying the beast and it has a chance of couching up very high tier (ascended) gear or even a miniature.

Sparkfly Fen (55-65) is next, with another Hardcore World Boss, Tequatl the Sunless. He’s easier to slay than TT, and he can drop unique ascended weapons and a mini (also a spoon. May the spoon be with you).

Mount Maelstrom (60-70) might sound like a detour, but it has the Crucible of Eternity dungeon in the top right corner and it’s a popular resource farming map so you can pick up a couple of golds worth of ore or wood on the way.

There is only Orr left to do, Straits of Devestation (70-75), Malchor’s Leap (75-80) and Cursed Shore (80). You need to come here for the last leg of the story quests anyway and there’s the Arah dungeon. Primary source of Ancient Wood in the Core maps and they don’t have heart quests. Drawbacks include the zombies. You are walking neck deep in zombies and they aren’t the most pleasant things to fight en mass.

Alternatively you can just ignore Orr altogether and go up to Frostgorge Sound (70-80) (you can get here from Wayfarer Foothills) that has both a World Boss (Claw of Jormag) and a dungeon (Honor of the Waves). Also talking polar bears.

Either way, you are now level 80, congratulation. If you got this far, you probably know enough of the game to decide where to go next (start hoarding achievement points, do map completion, join a guild, get rich and fashionable, become a pvp/wvw god, etc.) and if you like the gameplay enough to keep playing and invest in the expansions or not.

I hope you found this at least a little useful. If you have any question, throw me an ask and I’ll gladly answer if I can. Have fun playing!

#guild wars 2 #gw2 #gw2 fan submission #beginner's guide #long post #really long post #I haven't gone into the mechanics of the break bar #but this was running long already #and it really isn't that important outside of group content and HoT maps

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