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astoldbygingersnaps · 5 years ago

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On Petco and COVID-19:

I’ve seen a lot of stories and reports about various companies and how they are treating their employees poorly in the wake of COVID-19, but to my surprise I haven’t seen anything about my company, Petco. I suppose it makes sense, given that Petco isn’t as large a company as Target, Starbucks, or Walmart, but I believe people should know what we as partners have been dealing with since the outbreak really picked up steam in the US.

Before I detail exact what my personal struggle with the company has been, I’d like to make one thing clear: I am a hard worker. I have spent five years of my life--half a decade--dedicating myself to this company. I am both a dog trainer and a keyholder, and I take both of those duties very seriously. Nothing means more to me than taking care of pets and their people, and I pride myself on providing the best care and service to our guests as possible. So when I say that this entire situation is forcing me to abandon my job out of disgust for the way I and my fellow workers have been treated, I want you to understand how much that means.

I love the work that I do, but that does not change the fact that I, along with many other Petco partners, have been exploited, dismissed, and outright lied to during this crisis. While I understand that we are living in a dangerous and chaotic time that is difficult to navigate, such a fact makes it all the more necessary to treat people with dignity, compassion, and respect. I do not enjoy putting an organization that I have given so much of my heart and soul to on blast, but the events of the previous month have made it clear that Petco as a company does not care whether or not its employees or even its customers are harmed or killed because of their negligence.

For almost a month our concerns have been ignored, belittled, and redirected, and the little action that has been taken has been incredibly delayed and led to even more confusion. Furthermore, we’ve had little clear guidance on what we, as partners who work in retail stores, should be doing to take care of ourselves and our guests.

It is also worth noting that our CEO, Ron Coughlin, was sending out emails to Petco Pals Rewards members in the beginning of March claiming that stores would be instructed to disinfect and clean regularly, but no such instructions were ever given. We never received any emails or forms of internal communication telling partners on how they should be cleaning, and because of this my own store took time out of our day to develop a cleaning schedule and shared our template throughout the district. Again, this is something we did OURSELVES, NOT something we were explicitly told to do. So, if you don’t care about how retail workers have been treated, at least care that you, as a customer, have been lied to.

From the beginning, there has been a very clear divide in how store partners have been treated compared to corporate/office workers. While corporate/office workers have the luxury of working from home with full benefits and are allowed to perform social distancing to the CDC’s guidelines, we are not so lucky. Again, I understand this, to a point: because of their positions they are able to perform their jobs from home while we are not. But such a decision was consistently framed as “difficult” and “emotional,” which, frankly, is bogus. What’s so hard about giving your employees access to work from their personal computer? And what’s so difficult for them anyway considering they’re not the ones who have to come in contact with the public day after day?

Through the second week in March, numerous communications were spread throughout the company on our internal Workplace service, each one more inadequate and inefficient than the last. The worst was a ten minute long video where our CEO repeatedly stated that “pets are our main priority” and described over and over again how we simply MUST stay open for our customers. It wasn’t until the very end of the video that any mention was given to partners at all. The entire post was incredibly off-putting and made me, as a partner, feel incredibly undervalued.

What made things worse, however, were the comments under the video. Floods of partners shared their concerns and disappointments. Many of them cited having young children or older relatives at home, or were immunocompromised themselves, and worried about the danger that working in a retail environment put themselves and their loved ones in. And what was the company’s response? To tell these people over and over to simply “partner with their district manager if they were worried.” That’s it. No direction, no guidance, no words of comfort. Nothing. One person was even accused of simply not having a desire to work rather than, I dunno, A FEAR OF CONTRACTING AND SPREADING A DEADLY ILLNESS.

The post in question (all names have been blacked out to respect privacy):

It was some of the most vile behavior I have ever witnessed, both from upper management and lower-level employees like myself who were displaying an almost slavish devotion to a company that was so ready and willing to dispose of them. Multiple people stated they were proud to work for our company in this moment, which was utterly baffling to me, as I had never felt more worthless to Petco than I did seeing those messages.

So! Let’s talk about partnering with your local leader! (Spoiler alert: it’s fucking useless)

On March 15th, my direct supervisor and I made a call to our district leader to “discuss our concerns.” What followed was thirty minutes of our life wasted where we were told the exact same thing as we had been told via the Workplace post: no partner would lose their job for taking time off if they displayed symptoms or came into contact with a person who had COVID-19 (the absolute bare minimum, in my opinion), but they would be required to either take a fourteen day unpaid medical leave or use their personal PTO and sick time to cover the cost. Around this time I was both showing symptoms (dry cough, fatigue, shortness of breath) and learned that my fiancee, whom I live with, came into direct contact with someone with the illness via her work. The possibility of contracting COVID-19 was especially worrying for us, as my fiancee has severe asthma and I have scarring on my lungs from chronic bronchitis; were we to get sick, the consequences could be severe. It’s even more concerning given that the state we live in, Massachusetts, has one of the highest rates of infection in the US and hospitals are in danger of becoming overwhelmed. Therefore, I decided to make what I believed was the most responsible and ethical decision, and went on leave.

Fortunately, I am lucky; as a full-time worker who has been with the company for many years, I have accrued enough PTO and sick time to cover the weeks that I would be gone for. But many people who work for this company are not so lucky. Many are part-time workers who are not entitled to benefits, and some are full-timers who may have already burned through their paid time off as it resets on the anniversary of your hire date. So now these workers, like many other workers across the country, are being asked to choose between taking care of themselves and their community or putting food on the table. It is absolutely inhumane, especially given that last time I checked our CEO is worth more than two million dollars--yet the rest of us are forced to worry about paying our rent and feeding our families while we do the dirty work on the front lines.

Since I initially took leave, this has been amended, and employees who have been affected by COVID-19 have been given access to 40 hours of sick time, regardless of their status as full or part-time. But that only covers one week of the mandatory self-isolation period, meaning partners are still at risk of losing money.

Time and time again we have been told how much our overlords value us. We have been thanked, we have been praised, and we have had so many meaningless words and tiny gestures thrown at us. Sure, our store hours have been cut and we’re offering curbside pick-up to reduce foot traffic in certain stores (my store, a smaller Unleashed location, doesn’t qualify for curbside pick-up, because of our size). Sure, changes have been made to the dog training program to freeze classes and puppy playtime for the time being. And sure, there has been a partner assistance fund opened to support partners in these ~trying times. I applaud the company for making these necessary changes and for putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to donating directly to us.

But in a lot of ways, it’s too little, too late, and so many of these services remain inaccessible to all partners. Hell, partners have even been policed about when they can actually utilize their own personal sick time even though we are in the middle of a global health crisis.

Even for those of us who have done everything exactly as we were supposed to, we are still getting screwed. Currently, I’m battling with Petco HR to get paid for the first week of my self-isolation as, even though I submitted all my time off requests accurately, none of it was reflected in my paycheck; because we get paid by-weekly, I have yet to see whether my second week will be covered, but I suspect I will have to battle for that as well. As a person who lives paycheck to paycheck in one of the most expensive cities in the country, I quite literally can’t afford this right now. But, of course, the HR team is off work right now because of COVID-19, because unlike us they have that luxury.

In addition to this, I’ve also been prevented from coming back to work because our Leaves Coordinator now claims I need a doctor’s note to return to work even though I have it in writing, from paperwork directly from the Leaves Department, that I do not, as evidenced here:

I would also like to note that I confirmed that I would be returning to work on the afternoon of March 27th and received an automatic reply that I would hear from a representative in 24 to 48 hours. I did not, in fact, hear back from a representative until March 30st at 11:59pm EST, ten hours before I was scheduled to return to work, as you can see here (again, I am hiding my personal information as much as possible to try and avoid retaliation from my employer):

While I understand delays given that our HR and Leaves Departments are no doubt bogged down given how many employees are currently in the same boat as me, it does not change the fact that I am suffering because of their lack of action.

It would be one thing if the facts had been clearly communicated from the very beginning, but as you can see that’s very much not the case. Instead, I’ve been jerked around, lied to, and, again, had my pay withheld. Every day I spend at home fighting with these people is another day of pay I lose and cannot get back. Words cannot express how terrible this whole experience has been. I’ve cried nearly every day and been so anxious and depressed I’ve literally vomited from the stress. All the years I’ve spent building my career and taking care of clients while earning money for this company and this is the thanks I get in return. It is quite literally sickening.

Throughout this entire process I and many of the Petco employees in my area have been treated like absolute garbage. The stores in our district are running on fumes because so many partners are sick and/or on leave. Employees are running entire stores on their own and not getting breaks because we’re so short-staffed. One store in our district even closed down because a groomer tested positive for COVID-19 leading to the entire store shutting down and being professionally cleaned... and then re-opened almost immediately, causing even more of a burden on the remaining employees scrambling to cover all these near-empty locations. Our technology is over-loaded and crashing because it can’t bear the weight of our increased Buy Online, Pick Up In Stores (BOPUS) and curbside pick-up orders. It’s absolute insanity and it needs to stop.

I am not the first person to say this, nor will I be the last, but the crisis we are currently experiencing has starkly exposed how broken our economic and social structures truly are. Along with doctors, nurses, and medical care professionals working in hideous conditions to keep the rest of us healthy and safe, the people who contribute the most to our communities are those that have traditionally been looked upon as unskilled and overall less-than: janitors, housekeepers, garbagemen, cashiers, shelf-stockers, etc. Very quickly public perception has turned, and now society as a whole knows what those of us who work these types of jobs have always known: we are essential. We have the power in society. And we should use that power to defend ourselves and each other, which is why I’m writing to you now. By shining a light on the flaws and failings of this company, I believe we can hold them and others like them accountable and demand better, because we absolutely deserve it.

The bottom line is this: if you care about workers’ rights, if you value the safety and lives of your fellow humans, and if want to slow the spread of this disease that has upended everything we hold dear, don’t go to Petco. Don’t reward this company’s bad behavior with your money because they have proven they do not deserve it.

#petco

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videogametim · 6 years ago

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Octopath Traveler: Final Review

It’s been a little over a month since I posted my first impressions for Octopath, and after 69 hours of playtime I have finally completed all chapters for each character. I’ve got a lot of new things I want to say about the game ever since my last post about it, so let’s get to it. I’ll go over some light spoilers but will avoid saying anything too specific about plot details.

After almost 70 hours, I never got over the art style. Even well into the late game, I was still being consistently wowed by the visual details and area designs. Around the map there are 8 distinct “areas” that branch off of the starting towns and follow that respective theme. For example, Tressa’s starting town of Rippletide is a humble fishing village with stone bridges and golden beaches, and the final town in that section of the map is Grandport, which features an elaborate stonework Market area and coliseum, surrounded by water. It’s nice to see the progression of the themes in each area as you get further into the game. A criticism I do have is that especially later on, a lot of the dungeons look very samey. There are tons of identical forests and sewers and ruins which is a real shame. Sometimes it even seems like a wasted opportunity. In one later chapter you have to go to a city that is overrun by enemies that are looking for you. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the dungeon was the city? Instead, you just go down into some cellars that are hardly visually distinct from some sewers I went into earlier. Despite these hiccups, I still have to imagine Octopath will be in my mind for years to come when I think of the most beautifully stylized games.

As far as the music goes, the soundtrack does the job it needs to do. It has the nice touch of the battle theme evolving when you get into new chapters, as well as new themes for later boss fights. One thing that did disappoint me is that each new town doesn’t have it’s own theme, and so there’s only really eight different ones in the game. It would have been cool if there was a simple variation of the theme for the starting towns, and it had two more variants with more instrumentals as you got into the later towns.

Octopath Traveler’s stories are a mixed bag. Some characters definitely got more love than others in terms of interesting stories and even just general writing quality (for example, I found that Olberic got far and away the most exciting story while Therion’s fell kind of flat), but ultimately each character is endearing in their own way. The collection of eight different tales is a unique way to handle storytelling because they all cover largely different tones and each story has its own morals. Tressa’s story is about the love of adventure, Ophelia’s story is about coming to terms with mortality, and Primrose’s is an extremely dark tale of revenge. Of course there are also some themes that persist through multiple stories, most notably on finding one’s purpose in life.

Due to the free nature of the structure of the game, it’s difficult to have meaningful party interactions during story beats because you could have any sort of party composition. Overall I think Octopath does an admirable job despite this. During my playthrough, I got at least 1-2 and sometimes as many as 4-5 party interactions during each chapter which is impressive considering how many possible party compositions would have to be accounted for. Almost always it is the interjecting party member commenting on the situation with their own perspective, or sometimes it’s just Alfyn trying to flirt with Primrose. Without getting too deep into spoilers, I can also confirm that every character’s story is intertwined with the other’s in some meaningful way. It’s also worth pointing out that almost every interactive NPC has a story blurb written and those NPCs likely numbers in the hundreds. They’re usually just little anecdotes, but sometimes there’s a good laugh to be had or an interesting story to be heard.

The coolest thing about Octopath’s gameplay to me was the job system. Because the bulk of your stats comes from the equipped gear and job, it means that effectively any character can be made to work with any sub job. In the above screenshot you can see I’ve got Ophelia rocking the Hunter secondary job. This is great because every character takes on a different outfit based on what their sub job is, and each one is tailored specifically for that character. For example, Ophelia’s Dancer outfit is extremely different from Cyrus’ Dancer outfit. What’s more, each character even has recorded audio for all the skills that are outside their regular kit. If you make Olberic a thief he’ll have lines about using daggers, if you make Primrose a Scholar she’ll have lines about the elements.

Each primary and secondary job has “support skills”, which are passives that each character has 4 slots to equip. The cool thing here is that those passives remain equippable even when you change the related sub job. Want all your characters to have halved SP costs thanks to the Merchant’s SP Saver passive? You can do that. In total there are 12 jobs to equip (8 standard, 4 advanced). The standard jobs you can obtain by just visiting shrines in chapter 2, and the advanced jobs are in some chapter 4 areas and require a difficult boss fight to obtain. I only got one of the advanced jobs in my playthrough, but it was more than enough to breeze through the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, that is the reality of the late game. Once you reach a certain point, you’ll find yourself steam-rolling the boss fights if you have a healthy mix of different elements/weapon types in your team. 12 different jobs means a lot of different potentially overpowered combinations. With the right setup you can be demolishing most random encounters on turn 1. Something the game does not tell you is that you cannot swap out your main character until you have completed their story. My choice was Cyrus and his was one of the last Chapter 4′s I did, so by the end of the game he was level 70 whereas Chapter 4 recommended levels are 45. For this reason you are likely going to run into big level differences in your party at some point since benched members don’t gain any exp. The map is littered with tons of optional dungeons to mitigate this if you need it, but I personally didn’t have trouble just main-lining the required dungeons. Also worth mentioning is that dead party members don’t get exp either, which may sound brutal but it’s also a much needed dose of challenge if you have a weak party member as it prevents you from immediately brute-forcing enemies if you want to catch them up.

Overall, I think Octopath Traveler is a great game. There’s a lot of content there in the way of optional dungeons, side quests, and even post game content (which I didn’t personally get to). Combat is at it’s peak in the early to mid game until you really get a handle on how to break it, and then it comes down to how much you enjoy doing that without a way to speed up encounters. The stories all have their moments and are full of excellent characters and wonderful tales ranging from wholesome to heartbreaking. It’s definitely one of the best JRPGs on the Switch, and one of the best looking games too. I recommend it to anyone looking for a long game to play on the go.

#octopath traveler #review #nintendo switch

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kusunokihime-a · 6 years ago

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[ So this is a long time coming: basically my thoughts on this blog, and...honestly what to do with it. Before anyone (if anyone) panics, I’m not leaving. I’m just...well, conflicted. About a lot of things. So this is gonna be me rambling about my options, feelings, and just...idek. If you wanna know what’s up with me and my sucky activity lately, um...give this a read? No idea how long it’ll be - I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. In short...I’m considering a hiatus, or maybe remaking, or...maybe both? Maybe neither? Hence being, as said...conflicted. ]

I’ve had my misgivings about the blog overall for a while now. I think, in part, I’ve tried spreading myself too thin. I’ve had this blog for over two years now, and granted while a lot has changed...I still have pages that aren’t finished. I have muses that have never had a single ask or thread. At times I wonder if I have too many, if I have too few, or maybe I should go back to my roots and have the blog JUST be Ryū’s again.

But I don’t want that. I don’t think I don’t want that? Some days I’m so frustrated with various things I want to drop everything. Other days I want to do even MORE.

...I’m getting ahead of myself. And yes, this is mostly me talking to myself. I think better when I write things down, and...honestly, I need some major self-reflection. If you don’t want to get into my “personal” life, then uh...skip ahead a bit. I dunno. I just feel like it’s vital to understand where this is coming from.

Basically for at least the last...we’ll say four months...my mental health (while it’s always been very poor) has gotten...exponentially worse. Especially worrying given that I have NO mental health care, and never have. Basically a lot of “real life” issues have been popping up, escalating, and bogging me down until I’m at the lowest I’ve been in...a very long time. I’d wager the last...more than ten years? It’s just that all these bad things have happened or gotten worse this year, and all at about the same time.

Which makes doing ANYTHING, let alone something like running an RP blog...very difficult. I know I put on a very happy, positive face...and while that’s a lie, per se...it also covers up a LOT. I realize no one likes to bring the negative of their life onto their blogs. And a lot of us have a LOT we’re dealing with. I just...am not sure how much longer I can keep this up.

...especially given that, again, I can’t afford any kind of help. Therapy, medication, ANYTHING. I’ve been fighting a very off-kilter brain all my life without anything to aid it. I’ll be blunt: it’s a miracle I’ve lived this long. And part of the reason I HAVE, is because of the friendships I’ve built here. Some have been lost, some are newly started, but...a lot about this blog has kept me afloat.

Which, getting back on track, is why it’s so...distressing to me that I’m slipping here. Things aren’t how they were, and I’m not sure how to fix them. I dunno if it’s purely my slipping mental state (very believable), or if something actually DOES need to change here.

Granted, there are things here that frustrate me. I have a good number of mutuals, and despite having open posts rather often, especially over the past month or so, I have interactions with a very small percentage of that...and even less of that is something steady. Don’t get me wrong: I ADORE everyone who writes with me. And to those who don’t, I’m not angry. I just feel like...I need to clean things out. Narrow my focus. To be frank, it’s...disheartening to see how many people I follow/follow me, and how many reach out. Granted, I don’t go to others’ inboxes willy nilly, but...I’ve put out a LOT of inbox calls. A LOT. And despite some people I’ve not interacted with being online when they’re posted...it’s always the same (lovely) people. Like...what else can I do? Hence feeling like maybe I need to remake, get the cobwebs dusted out. Start over with a fresh slate and maybe not feel so...bogged down. Maybe be a lot more selective about who I follow, and just stick with the people who have put in the effort, y’know?

As I said earlier, I have muses that never get touched, either. Granted, it may be due to their origins (as all of the muses I have in mind are OCs). And though a few people have at least hinted they’d like to interact...there’s little to show for it. Which is, at the very least, partly my fault. But I guess I also feel like I should cut those muses if they’re not going to be written with. Which...sucks, cuz ALL of my OCs have YEARS of planning put into them. I’ve been writing/planning/RPing ALAS since 2012. And yet those like the twins, and Hinode, Ayame and Higure feel very...unwanted. Which I can understand: not everyone is gonna like every muse. Hinode’s technically the only one who hasn’t had any playtime. But the rest are still significantly beneath the canons, and those like Ryū and Reika. So I wonder if another way to clean house is to just...either cut muses entirely, or...move them to some kind of side page? idek at this point.

My blog just feels very...disorganized, which drives me UP the wall. And yet I also lack the energy and the drive to finish it up: especially given that I’m not sure what to do with some of it. Keep it, cut it, change it...I dunno. And that’s both frustrating and anxiety-inducing.

...I dunno. I have some drafts and owed things I’ve been staring at for ages, and I just...can’t seem to think up a response. I dunno how to get my mojo back. I dunno if a hiatus would help? I’m not even sure it would last: I spend a lot of my free time here, and don’t have many other hobbies to fill that slot. But at the same time I’ve spent that time staring at owed things and wondering what the heck to write. Which means I’m not really doing it anyway.

And then there’s my sideblogs. Several of which are very important to me (my art blog, drabble blog, nightwalkcrs, etc). If I remade, I’d have to move them all over, and all their content...which I can do with a queue but gods that’d still take ages to go through everything. Especially since some is from date-specific challenges. And the drabble blog’s got SO many posts @~@ Granted, some of the sideblogs I need to cull anyway.

...I’m just...feel like a chicken running amok with my head chopped off. I dunno where to start, what to do...I owe drabbles from the giveaway from over a month ago, and I still can’t think of what to write. (If any of you want something else...let me know, because I feel awful). I’ve been here almost three years, two of which are on this blog (and like eight months on the first, which...let’s not go there). I don’t want to lose what I have here. I don’t want to LEAVE. But I feel like if I don’ t change something, I’m gonna reach a point where I have no other choice but than to just dump everything.

I dunno if a hiatus would work. I dunno if it’s worth remaking. But something’s gotta give, and I dunno what’ll be first: me, or the blog.

#sylvie speaketh [ ooc ]#long post #negativity mention #so uh #if anyone's got any...advice?#idk?#please lemme know

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dapperkobold · 7 years ago

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Review at Random: Warframe

Okay, this has been coming for a while. Have I finished it? No, but at 175 hours in I certainly hope that I’ve seen enough to have a measured opinion on it.

This is by FAR the best free-to-play game I have ever played, and though less than perfect it’s still amazing.

Presentation

This is a darn pretty game even at the graphics levels it takes to run smoothly on my computer. I have basically everything at minimum or off except the Anti-aliasing and the weapon elemental effects, and you know what?

It looks darn good. This here is a well-optimized game, and OH it shows. Anyone who tells me that my computer simply can’t handle good graphics needs to answer to this game. No, it can’t take the best stuff, but even whittled down to the bare bones this is a beautiful game. I’ve played several other games that can’t claim that.

Soundtrack? Wonderful. Voice acting? Phenomenal. User interface? Good. This is a beautiful game in every sense of the word and anyone who disagrees is asked to look outside the window of their lander. I’m thinking and I can’t think of any part of the presentation that’s annoying or distracting. I’m sure there’s something, but when I think of ‘annoying in warframe’ none of the graphics or sounds come to mind. I’m sure I’ll think of something later, but whatever it is is pretty minor..

However, there’s another part to this game. And I feel that this is as good a place to address it as any: the business model.

Now, whether a game’s business model fits in the presentation category can be argued, but for now I think it will stay here unless it somehow specifically directly impacts the gameplay or writing. However, I am tangentially aware that it’s unpopular to discuss a game’s business model in reviews? Something about a separation between the game and the business behind it?

I think that’s stupid.

A game is shaped by its business model. The impact of a business model on a game can only be matched by the game’s engine and the core mechanics. Any game with a microtransaction business model needs to be built around having a microtransaction business model, and if you think that won’t have a sizable impact on the resulting game I believe you haven’t done enough research on the subject.

I try to assume a lack of education before some kind of innate failing, I strongly hope people around me can improve.

Warframe works on a premium currency system (called “platinum”) that you can almost entirely ignore if you want.

The short version is that the one thing that you really are going to need eventually and can’t get with in-game effort is slots. Warframe and weapon slots to hold your stuff. In fact, to my knowledge the list of things you can get exclusively with Platinum is cosmetics and slots.

You can get other things, you can buy weapons and Warframes with platinum, you can get special items and resources, but you don’t NEED to. I am a little upset that buying resources with platinum is possible, it’s an incredibly foolish thing to do, but it’s kind of an outlier. Most of the deals involved are, eh, not bad. There’s a fair amount of things that you really shouldn’t bother buying with your Platinum, but the deals that are worth it seem pretty worth it.

That’s even before prices start getting cut. Every day a guy, Darvo, has an item available for platinum at a cut-rate price. Sometimes at random you’ll get a coupon for a price cut off the platinum purchase itself, too. Sometimes as much as 75% off. No joke!

And those weapons and warframes that you can buy? Not all of them are worth it (not by a long shot) but anytime you buy a weapon or warframe with platinum you get a free slot to go with it and a free upgrade item already installed. Yes, they cherish your purchase enough that they basically gift-wrap your new toy in its own personal box and have pre-tuned it for your convenience.

I am biased against microtransactions, and there are a number of stinkers on the Warframe market, but the way in which they handle weapon and warframe purchases does impress me. It shows respect for the players and almost a sense of gratitude.

What’s more? No loot boxes. And good riddance, loot boxes are like a cross between the bubonic plague and harlequin ichthyosis (don’t look it up).

What’s more, the market isn’t the be-all end-all. There’s a lot of things, really good things, you simply CAN’T get on the market. Do you want the best gun in the game? You’re not going to find it in the market. The market’s existence does not in any way invalidate the rest of the game, there’s a LOT of stuff that you can’t use the market to get. You have the play the game.

The premium market is maybe one of the LEAST toxic examples of a premium market I have ever seen. But I prefer to look at that kind of thing in a void: is this a toxic business model in and of itself? I don’t think so. It’s not great, it could be improved, and the Market UI takes some getting used to (I KNEW I’d think of something!) but as far as a Free to Play business model goes, it’s a good one.

Business Model Score: PASS

I’m never going to add points for a business model, but if one passes muster I won’t have it impact the final score.

With having passed the presentation core with flying colors and the business model analysis triumphant, there is but one more hurdle for this game to face in the Presentation category: Bugs.

Now, bugs aren’t a big deal for me. Especially in a ‘living’ game like Warframe, they’re going to happen. And in fact they are often found and dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

Alas, there are some that are pervasive enough or bad enough that they stand out. These bugs sometimes stick around for a long time, even when they’re rather major and consistent. I’m sure the developers busy, but I would think that some things would be higher on the priority list than they seem to be. There’s only one that really leaps to mind that was real game breaker, a problem with the Lephantis boss fight, and though it was recently fixed it persisted for a LONG time. I mean, I alone must have logged 180 hours of playtime before they fixed it.

Final Presentation Score: A

Make no mistake, I’m sure there’s prettier games out there, but I don’t care. There’s a certain point of presentation goodness where I stop caring if it gets better, and Warframe is there. The only thing keeping it from being a A+ score is the occasional extreme bug, but most bugs are minor and almost completely harmless.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise, it’s pretty slick. The basis is third-person shooting with an amazing amount of mobility, and a fully functional stealth system that can work well but by no means is required. If you want to stealth your way around, taking careful bow shots and never being seen, you can. If you want to go in with a grenade launcher and annihilate everything in your path while they throw everything at you, you can. There’s a few foibles that take some time to get used to, and the beginning loadout really doesn’t communicate the capabilities of the full game to you, but once you get into the experience there’s plenty of good stuff. It will take a bit to get a really solid basic loadout, but it’s nothing too uphill.

Multiplayer runs smoothly, you can hop in a random mission with three other players and I’m not too worried about it lagging. IT does sometimes, make no mistake, but they aren’t reliable problems. However, if you DO have lag issues you can just change to solo mode and not have a problem.

Other than that, I’m going to be a little sparse in this section. The long and short is that the base gameplay is good, but the details may change. As a ‘living’ game that receives basically monthly updates it’s hard to state for sure that said little foible or little joy that exists in this point in time will still be there in the future. However, I can say with certainty that the developers have big dreams: They recently made a very open-ended sandbox area that has a lot of potential, and even though there isn’t much there for the starting player it seems appreciated by the more experienced parts of the fanbase.

It’s far from perfect and rather grindy, but that’s normal.

Wait, that was important, let me back up.

The entire game is kind of grindy. NOT in the ‘come back tomorrow to let things happen’ way, where it works to get you addicted, but in the ‘you need to farm random drops’ way that MMOs have been slowly perfecting over the years. And sometimes those random chances are really harsh, too. Even the core mechanic of leveling up is based around grinding: Your Warframe and weapons gain levels, and you gain basically player experience from leveling them up, and when you get to a new player level you take a little test and unlock new weapons. It works, but if you HATE grinding and farming in games this is NOT the game for you.

That said, I consider myself only mildly grind-resistant and I don’t regret logging 242 hours into this game. It is, make no mistake, a fun grind.

Now, there are also systems that are based on daily limits, but they’re not the core systems. If you decide you want to sit down for a six-hour marathon and make a lot of progress, you can sit down and make progress for six hours straight. If you happen to forget to get on the game for three months, the game will be waiting where you left off with one exception.

Said exception is the pets, and while I don’t want to lean on them too hard they are worth mentioning for this reason. The pets in this game need... not daily maintenance, but maintenance about once every four or so days, and they CAN die from neglect. Hi! Future kobold here, due to advances in black magic and petsitting pets can no longer die from neglect. There is an upgrade that increases the decay time and prevents death, but it’s expensive. However, it’s perfectly possible to just play through the entire game without pets, and they’re not needed for anything other than a few niche things. In addition, if you know you’re going to be away for a bit you can just put the pet into stasis where nothing will decay, it’ll just take some real-life time to thaw out before you can play with it.

That’s kind of a big part of the game: a lot of the annoying parts can just be ignored of you so choose. Grinding for Prime items is a pain, but if you really want to you can just not. The Dojo research stuff is uphill, but if you really want to you can... just not. The Arcwing stuff you can’t quite ‘just not’, but you can give very little care and still be fine with it.

What, Arcwing? It’s somewhere between a very lame game mode and a very good minigame. It’s kind of disliked in the community and mostly harmless.

Back to the core mechanics, I’d like to take a moment to give kudos to the game’s enemy variance. Oh, sure, there’s some issues, and some things could still be expanded on, but there’s a lot of different enemy types with a lot of different approaches.

Sadly, it takes time to figure a lot of the approaches out. The game isn’t always the best at explaining things, and as a result when you hear about something you can do in the game it can be confusing. Crouching and jumping makes you do a special jump, for instance. The jump itself works very well, but the fact that I had to learn about it from another player is disappointing.

Final Gameplay Score: A

There is no question of the fun I’ve had, parkour and gunplay is all solid. It’s a good solid game with grinding, fine gameplay, and a lot of options. It doesn’t quite have a perfect polish sheen, and the grind can be annoying on occasion, but there’s no denial that the mechanics themselves work and work well.

Writing

Now, with a game like this, it’s entirely possible that they could skimp on the writing and try to run on the mechanics, and I think the mechanics are solid enough that they would have an audience. Thing is, they did nothing of the sort. Instead they wrote, and wrote, and are still writing.

Backstory and lore? very unique. Not presented the best way in game, maybe, but if you care enough to dig a little it’s there fore you to enjoy. If you do not? You don’t need to.

Overarching plot? They’ve got one. It’s pretty good, if not quite traditional. The Quests give it more of an episodic feel than a single unified plot, but it’s done well and (to my knowledge) fairly unique. Even if you don’t play the game, I’d recommend looking up some of the lore and some of the main quests. interesting things happen!

Character writing? There’s a lot of it, and while it’s not for everyone I like it! You might quibble about how cheesy the writing is, or complain about the voice acting, but the more I hear the more I’m convinced it’s all on purpose to communicate the culture of the setting. A culture where cyborg men call highly armed robot ninjas TENNO MAGGOTS. A setting where other cyborgs plan to achieve GROFIT. A setting where an angry AI enjoys listening to cosmic background radiation. The characters are fun (if often fairly straightforward) and while the interaction and characterization isn’t amazing, it doesn’t have to be. Because the writing isn’t the point of the game, the gameplay is, the writing is just there as window dressing. I’m just saying it’s high-quality window dressing.

Final Writing Score: A

If this had claimed to be a narrative-focused experience, I would have been much less lenient, I assure you. But it does not, the writing is not the point, it’s just there too to make everything a little better. And with that in mind, it’s entertaining, memorable, and enjoyable for what it is. Would I like a narrative-focused experience in this same setting? YES, GIVE IT TO MEEEEE. But that’s not the point. The point is instead to have fun shooting things in the face, the writing just makes it better. With that focus in mind, the writing is REALLY good.

Overall

Warframe is a really good game. Now, it’s not like the original Portal, or Half-Life 2, but it’s not trying to be. It’s trying to be its own thing and I admire that. And it does it well!

Sure, anyone could complain personal taste. Maybe they don’t like the art style. But it does have a solid art style. Maybe someone doesn’t like the voice acting, but it;s not because the voice acting is objectively bad, it’s because it’s unusual. Maybe someone doesn’t like the way they do the writing, but they do the writing in a specific way. Maybe someone doesn’t approve of their business model, but the model is a lot more solid than a lot of games I could think of. It’s a matter of decisions, and while people may not enjoy the decisions I can’t call the decisions themselves bad. Could improvements be made? Yes. And it’s by no means a game for everyone, but that doesn’t make it a bad game.

Presentation: A

Gameplay: A

Writing: A

FINAL GRADE: A

This, this here? This is a GOOD game. Look it up, try it if you feel like it!

Awards:

Good Grinding

Please return COVERED IN BLOOD

Ninjas Play Free

#warframe #reviews at random #TENNO #TENNO MAGGOT #GROFIT #CLEM #flipping living game #hope I don't need to edit this again

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genovera942vbucks-blog · 6 years ago

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