#i've never played it. if that matters

[wumblr]

LMAOOO. they implemented housing co-ops and deprecated landlords because they were, surprise, game-breaking

Let’s start with Rent. Most likely you have run into complaints of “High Rent” in the game, so let’s talk about it. To complement the Land Value changes in patch 1.1.0f1 in March, we have tweaked how Rent works. First of all, we removed the virtual landlord so a building’s upkeep is now paid equally by all renters. Second, we changed the way rent is calculated. For those interested, the calculation looks like this: Rent = (LandValue + (ZoneType * Building Level)) * LotSize * SpaceMultiplier​ This of course affects the “High Rent” notifications you may have encountered, but we’ve tweaked those directly as well, so they are now based on the household’s income. That means that even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption. Only when their income is too low to be able to pay rent will they complain about “High Rent” and look for cheaper housing or move out of the city. Besides rent, households and companies need to pay for the building’s upkeep, which in turn affects the level of the building. When they pay the full upkeep fee, the building condition increases by a constant amount until the building levels up and the tenants start paying towards the next level. Similarly, if they cannot pay it, the building condition decreases by the same amount until it’s in such poor condition it collapses.

this uses the words "based on income" but it's less like income-based rent control and more like putting on a damn sweater because the electric bill is too high (?)

for the cardinal sin of "reposting a tweet screenshot that was a text screenshot where the font is so small it's completely illegible," you have been sentenced to "not doing that" with the added notes entered into the public record that "you made me look it up and i ended up reading about inter-subreddit drama regarding why r/loveforlandlords got deleted and replaced with r/loveforlandchads," and "this resulted in me reading unironic use of words like 'rentoids' and/or phrases such as 'safe space for landlords, the most essential and oppressed profession' as well as baldly incorrect usage of the term 'verily'"

[sergle]

you bitches have got to watch Scavengers Reign if you haven't yet, i'm only a few episodes in and it's already completely unlike anything else i've ever seen

[oceans-beloved]

Meme dump yayyy🥳✨️

(off to make more now muhahaha >:3)

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

[vaguely-concerned]

btw my headcanon for sophia amell in veilguard is that she has been 'oh no... I think your letter got lost on its way to me first warden... too bad, I'll just stay here in amaranthine until I hear from you, then.... is this a letter I see before me...... a tragedy. I can't read all of a sudden. my eyes. you sent a messenger? my messenger now I'm adopting them. no message received sadly try again'-ed all summons to go to weisshaupt, so she's in denerim with alistair when stuff starts to go to shit and at least they spend the impromptu superblight together. they may both be right on the edge of the calling (? we just don't know!) and ferelden might be about to fall, but at least they're king arthur and merlin-ing (erotic and romantic connotations) it up together at the end of the world and kissing and holding hands about it. and what more could I hope for for them. that's what beating the odds looks like for wardens I think.

there's a particular incident where she saves his life through the power of spirit healing and. maybe the guiding hand of Something that seems to still reside in the petals of the rose he gave her that she's worn in a little glass vial around her neck and that have not withered all these long years, and it inspires actual myths and romantic literary traditions and folk ballads and all sorts of nonsense that outlast them both. neither of them care tho they're just. hugging right now. drenched in darkspawn blood like the old days. resting their foreheads together. taking every moment they may have left just to be together. whatever you do don't go without me. wherever you go let me go too. and with you let me be buried, and where you go after that let me go with you then as well. (of course. of course. after all of this, where would I ever go without you. the one good thing about the blight is that it brings people together. the one good thing is that it brought me to you.)

[sysig]

Go play pretend on your own (Patreon)

[randomnameless]

Dragons matter, fuck human supremacy!

Found Zephiel's account lol

All jokes aside, it's very telling how Roy was meme'd as "uwu racist" in FEH because of his skills, when Roy is arguing for coexistence between humans and dragons to Zeph, who wants to get rid of humans.

Roy wants to tell Zeph to still have faith in humanity - and not write it off - so humanity can still live and thrive and prosper alongside dragons!

Usually the other antagonists want to erase or look down on the non human race to prop up humanity - but in FE6, Zeph's reasoning is reversed!

And Roy's solution is the same as every other lord faced with this issue - Fodlan excluded because Fodlan treats this issue as horse piss, only relevant, fittingly, in Tru Piss - it's not X over Y or Y over X, it's X and Y living together.

It's kind of frightening how the newest FE games (bar Engage, so maybe it's just a Kusakihara thing?) completely elude the "live together solution" and end up pushing the "Humanity fuck yeah" answer...

[fideidefenswhore]

the downfall and execution of a tudor queen (2023) / the boleyns: a scandalous family (2021) / the king's pearl: henry viii and his daughter mary (2017), melita thomas / anne boleyn (tv miniseries 2021) / the mirror and the light (2024) / elizabeth (1998)

[fayeandknight]

Well tonight's practice did not fill me with confidence.

We treated runs like the real thing and had classmates in the ring. On our first run Forte broke his start line sit to circle the person who threw the piggy for him last week, looking for it.

It took an embarrassing effort to get him back.

Our second run he hit the contacts but blew through them instead of stopping for 2on2off. I went back each time and made him stop but it took several attempts.

And our last run was better in terms of performance but I was super anxious and the instructor called me out on sounding too stern. Which, fair. This is supposed to be a fun game we are playing together.

My plan is to not bring the piggy in from the car at all for the trial. I'm going to try to let go of any feelings of embarrassment and just figure we'll NQ.

It's an opportunity to practice in a different environment since I expect it will be far busier than practices. But at least it's at our club so there will be some familiarity.

At the end of the day, a Q is not more important than maintaining positivity both for Forte and for myself.

I am glad I only signed up for two runs a day and two days. I think trying for four runs in a day or three days, even with only two runs, would be too much for me.

This is a reminder to myself to take deep breaths and not let my anxiety get the better of me. We both enjoy playing agility and it would be foolish to sour it with putting too much pressure on either of us.

[thebirdandhersong]

layers of school and family and health issues and future planning and final exam stress aside, do you ever feel like there is a long ongoing scream inside of you that seems to have no end ha haaaa

[blujayonthewing]

fighting for my life to Be Cool About It playing felix as a dnd character who has only known the party for one(1) egregiously shitty week rather than get carried away with romance subplots I'm inventing in my own head, as if simon getting Enthusiastic and visibly excited while talking a lot doesn't instinctively trigger, in felix, the exact same profound heart eyes reflex that justin doing so does for me in real life

[rosecandyart]

Before the day ends:

Happy anniversary to the game that made my lifelong dream come true <3

Mario Wonder is one of my favorite games of all time, and the fact that the first mainline game my girl was playable in is this masterpiece makes me so happy

[emmavakarian-theirin]

i've spent the last 2 days getting veilguard on my laptop wanting to give lucanis my 4K Gale Treatment because if my laptop can handle games like bg3/witcher3/anthem at full graphics then surely veilguard wouldn't be a problem?

.....it can barely run even on the lowest settings smfh

[vaguely-concerned]

sophia seeing cailan's body hanging there when they go back to ostagar, and suddenly all she can see even through the rot and the ruin is just how much he looked like alistair...... :'(

a mental image that totally will not haunt her through alistair's many years on the throne as rebellions and assassination attemps come and go. doesn't send her unhinged and unwise even a little

[glacierbash]

Y'know, any time I start to talk about this game, I feel obligated to lead with the funniest fact I have: I absolutely hated Final Fantasy, for myriad reasons both personal and amusing. I hated, for example, the way Elezen were shaped. I hated that Lalafell looked so young. I hated that everybody acted like it was so great, and by sheer contrarian nature I decided I would simply never play this game. And for quite some time, that worked! I'd bombard my partner with whatever media algorithms recommended me involving FFXIV, just to make fun of it. I detested this MMO, without having ever tried it. And yet, deep down, I knew I wanted a community. I wanted to be around people, even if through an online medium. When I worked at the library, my coworker set up a WoW private server that I spent some time fucking around in, but deep down I wanted people. Try as I might, I couldn't deny some part of me wanted to see what the game was all about.

So, I tried it. I spent 30 minutes exactly between opening the character creator to first posting a name that, genuinely, would define more than 2 years of my life: Iverelle Vauvenelle.

I spend about 2 days playing the game, one being chased around by strangers who my partner swore were good people, and one just questing on my own--and it was fine. I got to MSQ level 24, quite literally one quest away from being able to travel to other city states, and I stopped. I played my fair share, I played 5 hours, and I decided the game wasn't for me. I put it down for several months, when I was approached by somebody who I am no longer friends with. He said I should play the game again, keep going just long enough to travel to Gridania, so that I could see one of his alts--and maybe, we could play together! I didn't want to upset him, so I said "fine," and gave it another try.

By the end of the week, I was finishing up ARR, and moving into post patch, and something just... Changed for me. I'm not sure what it was, honestly. It's not like the game magically changed for me then, or if Iverelle had become perhaps my most meaningful character ever, but something shifted, and I found myself enjoying the game. It didn't even make sense to me then when I bought a subscription to the game, but I knew that something here was special. I just... Had to.

Post patch took me about a month, with multiple days spent stressing out over queuing into Good King Mogglemog out of fear and anxiety, because the trial was labeled as hard and my disorder was, frankly, at its worst. But, I managed to do so anyways. The victory was meaningless for most people, but for me? It was beyond words, just how important it was that I did content with other people, especially considering I went through all of ARR solo.

I made it to the end of ARR, to the infamous cutscene, when I realized I was sick with covid. In VC with two of my friends, I said the infamous line: "I think I have a fever." What a way to enter Heavensward, huh? I think it is in no small part due to Covid that Heavensward ended up being my favorite expansion of all time, and why Ysayle Dangoulain ended up being my favorite character of all time. Sickness and quarantine gave me all the time in the world, and being far too sick to be anxious, I sped through the story. One week later, I was done with Heavensward.

And of course, by now, I am finished with Endwalker and awaiting Dawntrail. For 2 years of my life now, I have been playing this game nigh daily. I stay up late playing it, I finish my daily responsibilities as soon as possible to play it, and I find myself enjoying it. I never thought that would happen, truth be told. More importantly than enjoying the game itself, though, is the friends I met.

I have lived a very isolated life. Partially due to my anxiety making me extremely averse to interacting with people, and partially due to how I've been raised, I struggle a lot with people. Autism, anxiety, and having not been properly socialized made me terrible. I longed for new friends, but I hated the effort that went into it. Imagine my surprise when one day, I found myself driving out to meet people who I play this game with, to spend time with them? When I found myself wanting to meet them?

And yet, here I was. I was driving out to meet these people who I play this game with--and more importantly, they wanted to meet me. Even as I think back on that day, I start to tear up. It was one of the most important days of my life. Were it not for this game, for playing it daily, for being dragged into a Free Company and for sitting in calls with people because of this game, I would not have known these people. They are some of the most important people in my life.

I think of the late nights playing Mahjong, or doing PVP, or treasure maps, or just sitting around talking. I think of those nights and then having to wake up early for work, waking up exhausted but so happy. I think of staying up until damn near 5 in the morning talking about whatever it is that comes to mind. I think about stupid inside jokes, and shared experiences, and the stories that I'll tell for years to come.

It's just a game. Final Fantasy XIV is, at the end of the day, just a game--and yet, that game has served as a way for me to grow as a person in ways I've never thought possible. My anxiety has not magically been cured, mind; but, when I'm able to talk to strangers and my heartrate doesn't skyrocket, when I'm able to do things in this game that once terrified me, when I'm able to exist comfortably not just in this game but in the outside world, I realize that it's done more for me than I'll ever be able to say. Yes, it is just a game, but people play a game due to a shared interest, no? And through that shared interest, friendships can blossom. To say that I love my friends, the people I met ultimately because of this game, would be an understatement, and I fear I do not make that clear enough.

Stupid as it is to say, Final Fantasy XIV has changed my life, for the better. Dawntrail is coming in just a few short hours, and though I am a whirlwind of emotions, the predominant one is excitement. I was there for the end of an era, and now I am here for the start of a new one.

So thank you. If you read all the way through this, thank you. If you skimmed just to the end, thank you. Thank you to my friends, especially. I would not be here as I am now were it not for you all.

Here's to a new adventure, friends :^] (Second screenshot featuring: @gailiag, the best viera on hydaelyn)

[myheartismadeofstars]

Never Fall, Never Rise

An AU where XL didn't ascend...but that doesn't mean everything is okay

Cults spring up convinced he's a god even though he isn't, leaving the awkward situation where his father can either anger the Heavens or the rapidly growing population of people who worship his son...(spoiler: he chooses the people)

XL ends up being constantly in danger of people trying to "prove" his divinity.

Things this story includes:

Characters all living at the same time for the fun of it (also I wanted SQX and the Xianle Trio interactions) and worldbuilding to fit

HC growing up and not dying (also finding a way to circumvent his fate and becoming immortal adjacent) (obviously he joins the baby cults for a bit before leaving)

Examinations of characters' families whether mentioned or not (including HX and FX and to a degree HC's as well)

Rivals to lovers Fengqing

XL & QYZ friendship (and salty AF QR)

HC getting what he deserves~ (he gotta work for it though)

Hualian together (like around each other, not romantically) pretty much since the Land of the Tender incident

HC living a double life since he's about 16 lol (one as Wu Ming, the loyal bodyguard and brat and the other as Lord Hua, the self made city master who everyone is afraid of)

HC using magic as a human (mostly glamours for himself and E-ming but occasionally making magical items like his dice as well)

JL is FX's legal concubine (for her own protection, he didn't want to take one) and Cuocuo gets to live and grow

No one dying unnecessarily (that doesn't mean no one suffers...)

And much more!!

However: I should warn you that this is an Omegaverse au (it wasn't supposed to be but it ended up making the most sense for ONE THING and the worldbuilding got away from me.)