#inherently opposed to gaming itself and people who play video games

[that-wildwolf]

every time i see fanart of the last of us (original) on my dash these days I let out a squee of joy! that's the Original™ ellie! the Original™ joel! omg! ohohoho! a rare sighting in the wild these days! and i think to myself that im so lucky to have seen this! and i literally only saw it bc one of my mutuals reblogged it 💀

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Something I've been considering recently: the big storytelling difference between Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro.

There's an obvious reason I've been thinking about this, I feel: both these guys are, on the surface, exceedingly similar. They're both well-known Japanese video game creators*, they're both known for their eccentricities, they both tell stories that run the razor-thin line between 'Violence is corrupting and immoral' and 'Okay, but that bit of violence was pretty sick, right?' really well, as well as throwing in some really funny 'Hey, what the fuck did I just watch?' energy, hell they even both had a game in their series directed by Platinum Games, I don't especially think this is an overreach, here.

But they are different creators, and I've been thinking about their differences (specifically in storytelling - obviously one makes Action-RPGs and one makes Stealth Games and Baby Postman Simulators) as I play MGS3 and Nier Replicant, and I think I've come down to this: it's in how they condemn violence, and especially war.

Kojima bases all of his stories in reality - a heightened reality, perhaps, but there's a reason multiple MGS games end with long lists of dates and events, Kojima's made-up ones slipped in-between the actual history. Kojima bases his critiques on things that are real and tangible - MGS3 itself, more than any bee-wielding supervillain or photosynthetic sniper, is about the Cold War, and it's no accident that the Boss' speech at the end isn't about the Philosophers, or Volgin, or Metal Gear (METAL GEAR?) it's about soldiers, their fates and their traumas. Kojima lives in the world of... not exactly reality, but allegory-through-reality, and it makes his games pretty explicit in their messaging - which in my mind is a good thing, because it means that people who fundamentally misunderstand MGS aren't just wrong, they're obviously wrong - show me an MGS fan who thinks they're pro-America and pro-military, and I'll show you someone who did not pay attention to MGS.

Yoko Taro, on the other hand, is entirely a creature of allegory. Yoko himself has said in interviews that he tells stories primarily as a way to get people to feel something, and all other things like connections to the other games or even internal consistency comes as a secondary concern (as someone who's tried multiple times to tie everything Drakenier related together - that's believable.) As an inevitable result of this, his stories aren't really 1:1 parallels to history or the modern day, they're very general conflicts that speak to a wide range of topics.

Put it this way: in MGS4, Kojima describes in great detail a situation that is the natural endpoint of the geo-political situation (especially re: America) during most of the early 21st Century, especially The War on Terror - instead of war being a means of obtaining resources to generate income for big corporations, now war is the means of income, and all the inherent flaws of American late-stage capitalism have been applied to it - to the point that soldiers have to pay extra to use someone else's gun. It's a heightened, at times absurd version of reality, but it focuses on specific issues and flaws with the subject matter - The War on Terror, and through them highlights issues with our current world - hell, Kojima may have predicted some of the issue we currently face with capitalism.

In Nier Automata, however, Yoko doesn't present an exaggeration of a real-world conflict to portray it's flaws and its hopelessness. Instead, he constructs an entirely hopeless war, a war that is literally pointless on every side, and explores how people react to that. As opposed to Kojima's slight exaggeration of the War on Terror, by the end of Automata Yoko has presented a proxy war fought on behalf of two races that died off millennia ago, between two groups that are, at their core, exactly the same, made from the same components, fought on one side because of a poorly worded instruction from their creators that necessitates eternal total war as a basic fact of their evolutionary cycle but also inevitably results in their evolutions being violently purged because any form of passivity is betrayal, and on the other as a grand Machiavellian scheme to kill off their own troops, thereby concealing the deaths of their creators – a scheme, it’s worth noting, conceived of by an android that no longer remembers conceiving it, because his own scheme necessitates his constant assassination by the person he cares about the most to prevent him from discovering his own plan. Kojima's wars in MGS4 are absurd and pointless for us because we know what the results of the War on Terror were, Yoko's war in Automata is kinda like an onion - every layer you peel back on it, you discover a new way that it's pointless, and every time you do, you're crying a little bit more.

So, wrapping this up before people realise I just used the ultimate cliche of poorly-worded food metaphors, if you were to ask me what the big difference between Yoko Taro and Hideo Kojima was... well, I'd still go with the gameplay genres, but I'd also say that it's a slight, but really interesting, difference in how they go about their metaphors. As for which is better... neither, obviously. They're both really talented creators, this is just a style thing. You seriously expect me to choose between a series that includes 'a man pretended to be possessed by the ghost of his crush's son because he grafted his arm onto him and everyone bought it' and a series that includes 'at some point the Earth stopped spinning. This has never been explained in any of the games'? What are you, a cop?

*albeit if Yoko ever heard someone compare him to Kojima he'd probably simultaneously die of embarrassment and make a joke about being a younger, hotter Kojima.

[hope-grace-serenity]

In Defense of the Deputy: Morals and Ethics in Far Cry 5

The narratives of recent Far Cry installments have been framed in a way that make the player question whether or not they’re truly playing as the “good guy.” In Far Cry 3, Jason slowly embraces the violent lifestyle on Rook Island, gradually finding the killing to be a fun power trip instead of the horrifying reality that it is. In Far Cry 4, Ajay topples a ruthless dictator, only to replace him with a revolutionary that is either a religious extremist or a person who has children kidnapped in order to make them into soldiers/slaves. In Far Cry 5, the Deputy goes up against a professed prophet in an attempt to subdue him and his cult, only to find in the end that the prophet was right about the end of the world. It is logical to think that if the Deputy would have just left the cult well enough alone, then that would have been the right choice, as it would have avoided the war between Eden’s Gate and the rest of Hope County, as possibly the Collapse itself. However, there is a different way to view it.

The purpose of this post is to convey that Joseph being accurate regarding the Collapse does not necessarily mean that avoiding confrontation with Eden’s Gate or joining them would have been the “right” thing to do. In fact, it will suggest the opposite: that the Deputy has a moral and ethical obligation to fight *against* Eden’s Gate and that the actions of the cult are firmly wrong despite the Collapse happening. While we as players can certainly feel empathy for the Seeds, their actions within the game make them the clear villains in this scenario, in my opinion. The Deputy deserves no blame for attempting to subdue the cult, and I will explain why by focusing on both in-universe rationale and looking at the narrative from a broader perspective.

The Warrant

First, we need to examine the idea of morality and ethics. Morality refers to a person’s principles of right and wrong--this is something that can be influenced by a person’s culture, religion, family, experiences, etc. Ethics refers to rules of conduct given by some kind of external source. In Far Cry 5, the protagonist is a law enforcement official with an ethical obligation to uphold the law and confront those who break it. Furthermore, from the perspective of a 21st century American--which we can assume the Deputy is, based on the setting of the game--Eden’s Gate commits several acts that cause harm and remove the personal agency of others, which provides the Deputy with a moral motivation for stopping them, as opposed to solely an ethical one.

An arrest warrant is made for Joseph Seed due to suspicion of kidnapping with an intent to harm. The Deputy choosing not to go through with the arrest would be bad from both a moral and ethical perspective. “Kidnapping with an intent to harm” is a serious charge, and can be a matter of life or death for the victim. Imagine if you were the parent or sibling of the kidnapping victim, and you found out that the law enforcement officials chose not to go through with the arrest of the suspect because they were afraid of rocking the boat. If that information was made public, the law enforcement officials would be rightly criticized for not doing their jobs, and for prioritizing their own desire for convenience over bringing justice to the victim. By arresting Joseph Seed, the Deputy made the moral and ethical decision.

As we see from the main game, the “suspicions” listed in the arrest warrant are later proven to be correct. Alex is killed, and his body is mutilated and put on public display as a warning. Hannah is tortured physically and psychologically, and is also killed due to her forced participation in Jacob’s trials. Joseph and several members of Eden’s Gate knew that they kidnapped the film crew. They knew in advance that Law Enforcement was coming. So, how do they decide to handle this? In a way befitting for characters who are meant to be viewed as villains.

Before the Reaping

Before we get into what the Deputy actually sees in-game, one thing needs to be made clear: Eden’s Gate always had an underlying darkness surrounding them. Regardless of what they looked like on the surface, they were never some peaceful hippie commune that was minding its own business before the Deputy came along. They’ve been committing crimes and getting away with them for years. They didn’t suddenly snap once the Deputy arrived--the Deputy’s arrival simply peeled back and revealed what was already there.

We know from the “Grieving Note” that Angels have been with Eden’s Gate for several years, longer than the current Faith has been with the group. Angels are humans who are exposed to an extreme amount of the Bliss drug, which causes them to lose their capacity for human thought and essentially act as a literal mindless follower. Their loss of identity and individuality is furthered by Eden’s Gate shaving the heads of the Angels and surgically removing their ability to speak. They act as slave labor--described as "beasts of burden"--and are fed dog food and garbage. The idea of becoming an angel is used as a threat to fellow cultists in the “Cult Note” in the King’s Hot Springs Hotel. The fact that Eden's Gate creates and condones the existence of these Angels is truly disturbing from a moral perspective, due to the inherent exploitation and dehumanization. When Angels die, their bodies are tossed in a pit of “boiling muck” in Horned Serpent Cave to disintegrate.

Angels aren’t the only ones thrown in the pit to disintegrate: Joseph threw the body of Lana, a previous Faith, in there as well, despite being told by him that she was “special.” There is a reason the writers chose to highlight that the bodies were disposed of in here, as opposed to the cult simply burying them. Bodies are disintegrated if you want to hide evidence, and by tossing the bodies in a location with properties dangerous enough to require a bio-hazard sign, any crimes are easily covered up. We don’t find the bodies of Selena or the other previous Faiths who were "used up and thrown away" by Joseph, but considering there are hints that point to foul play (disintegration of Lana’s body, Megan leaving out of fear of what Joseph could do after seeing that there was a new Faith, the way the position itself is dehumanized, the fact that Joseph has a designated corpse disposal spot in the first place, etc.) and absolutely zero evidence towards any kind of alternate fate for the previous Faiths, it’s easy to put two and two together and conclude that the previous Faiths met a grisly fate that was covered up as well.

Eden’s Gate was also involved in animal abuse through the creation of Judges, which were unleashed after the reaping. These animals were kidnapped and forcibly exposed to an obscene amount of the Bliss drug, which purposely causes them to act like rabid killers in the service of Eden’s Gate. According to NPCs, they were trained to hunt humans.

Let’s also not forget that Joseph personally gorged a guy’s eyes out for being a traitor. If the developers didn’t want us to view Joseph as someone who was capable of doing that, then they would have removed it from the introductory video, but they didn’t. Also, the fact that Eden’s Gate has been planning for the Reaping for a while now shows that this group had the intent to launch a large-scale attack from before the Deputy even arrived at the compound.

And last but certainly not least, YEARS before the events of FC5, Jacob sent the Cook to kidnap Jess’s family. The Cook starved the family for days before torturing the parents and children by playing sick mind games and feeding the parents' flesh to their children. After all their toes were cut off, the parents were set on fire in front of their kids. The fact that this happened years ago, and this Cook is still with the group, is quite telling and reveals a lot about the morality and priorities of Eden’s Gate. If they wanted to get rid of him, they would have.

So as we can see, Eden’s Gate has no moral high ground to stand on at the start of the game. Not only is Joseph guilty of the crime he is accused of, but he and his organization are guilty of so much more, and have been for years. These actions committed by Eden’s Gate violate numerous laws and are morally wrong, as they bring severe harm to others and/or forcibly remove another’s personal agency for the convenience of the cult. The Deputy uncovers all of this throughout the course of the game.

During the Reaping

Knowledge of Eden’s Gate’s past crimes would be reason enough to take down this cult, but the Deputy also sees the current horrors firsthand. During the Reaping, cultists kidnap, torture, mutilate, and murder numerous unwilling participants. They steal supplies and were willing to kidnap a beloved pet dog in order to perform experiments on him and turn the poor dog into a savage killer, after killing his owners. Defaced corpses are decorated and strung up as warnings. Some citizens of Hope County are fed to Judges, while others are turned into Angels or are forced to leap off a giant statue. If someone doesn’t convert to the religion of Eden’s Gate, then they are either tortured or drugged until they give in, or murdered.

The Deputy has zero incentive to walk away from this conflict. Why would they? As a deputy of Hope County, they have a moral and ethical obligation to protect the county’s citizens, and those citizens are under attack by Eden’s Gate. Eden’s Gate are the aggressors in this scenario. *They* are the ones who are kidnapping, murdering, torturing, and brainwashing the Hope County citizens. As far as the Deputy is aware at the beginning of the game, they are the only remaining police officer and only person in a position of authority to fight against the cult. It is their responsibility to fight against the people causing grievous harm to the county.

Throughout the game, the Deputy’s personal encounters with the heralds further reinforce the idea that Eden’s Gate is dangerous and beyond reason. While confessions can and should be voluntary, John does not approach it in that way. John kidnaps, terrorizes, and tortures the hardened Joey Hudson to the point of tears, and brings the Deputy to his torture dungeon where he once pried confessions under duress from prior individuals of the county. He kidnapped the Deputy in order to forcibly baptize them to the point where they might have drowned without Joseph’s interference, and captures them in order to make them confess, using the presence of Hudson as leverage (Hudson’s misery was also used as incentive on the video to draw the Deputy to the Holland region). He lures the Deputy to the church in the same way (by kidnapping their friends) and then permanently modifies their body against their will. Despite his proclaimed desire to have the Deputy atone, John also expresses desire to see the Deputy dead on occasion, such as after they destroy his sign.

While it might be easier for the player to sympathize with John due to his backstory and dynamic with Joseph, from the Deputy’s in-universe perspective, his instability represents a very real, tangible threat not only to them, but to the people of Hope County as a whole. At every turn, John has either imposed his will onto the Deputy by removing opportunities for agency and/or harming others. The Deputy owes John nothing. Any "choice" he gives of saying "Yes" is undermined by the massive amount of strings attached. It is difficult to envision a reason why the Deputy would decide to give into John’s philosophy, aside from faking it in order to protect their allies. This is a failing on John's part, not the Deputy.

Like John, Faith also expresses a desire for the Deputy to give in to Eden's Gate. But unlike John, she initially appears to the Deputy in a more pacifistic, less confrontational way. Despite this, the Deputy is still able to see her darker side due to her views on the Angels and fate of the unfortunate souls who walk the path whipping themselves and take a literal leap off of the statue of Joseph. Furthermore, she overrides the Deputy’s agency through the use of Bliss, which drastically warps one’s perception of reality. The Bliss that she now controls makes the horrific creation of Angels possible, and this Bliss is also used during baptisms, which muddles the issue of personal agency and consent to John’s process in addition to her own conversion process. The dangers of the Bliss and how it affects one’s thought process become highlighted in the Henbane region, and letters, voicemails, and NPC chatter show that Faith is not one to be trifled with. This comes to a head when Faith brainwashes the Sheriff and manipulates the Marshall into killing Virgil before killing himself. While it’s easy to have sympathy for Faith and her experiences, from the Deputy’s perspective, Faith is still a potential danger, which is why they step back when she leaned toward them during her death scene.

Jacob too removes the Deputy’s personal agency by literally brainwashing them and turning them into a tool that he can command, which eventually results in the Deputy being forced to kill a friend. He forced captives into competing against each other in life or death trials. He keeps the Deputy in a cage with a dead body and feeds them “mystery meat” after seven days of starving them while telling them a story about how he cannibalized his friend. The Judges are his brainchild that he sends to attack and kill others. Like John, Jacob also kidnapped and tortured a fellow police officer, to the point where they act like a slave to Jacob’s whims. Jacob has not done anything other than convincing the Deputy that he is a threat.

It is not the Deputy's job to fix the Seeds' personal issues--it's their job to protect Hope County. Throughout their journey, the Deputy sees various atrocities being committed, both to strangers and to themselves and the people they care about. There is zero reason for the Deputy to genuinely give in to the Seeds and join Eden's Gate, considering the horrible way they were treated and how they saw others being treated.

Joseph and the Voice

The Deputy’s presence did not *force* Eden’s Gate to start the Reaping. *Joseph* was the one to initiate it as a reaction to the Deputy’s presence, and all of Eden’s Gate followed him lockstep. When given the opportunity to finally confront and arrest the man responsible or walk away, it almost feels laughable that it’s even a choice at this point.

As leader of Eden’s Gate, Joseph oversees all parts of the Project. The buck stops with him. If he had any issues with Faith’s Angels, or Jacob’s trials, or John’s torture, he could have and would have said something--such as when he intervenes during the baptism--but he doesn’t. Because it furthers the goal of the Project, he doesn’t see any issue with these actions and feels they are justified.

Joseph’s vision of the Collapse coming true doesn’t mean that his actions throughout the game have greater inherent morality than the Deputy. It just means that he’s right about the Collapse. Regarding the Reaping, I do not believe that Joseph was motivated by a sense of cruelty, but that doesn’t change how many of the actions he participated in and oversaw *were* cruel. In real life, we see various examples of some people (not just in religious institutions, but in positions of authority in general) who commit harmful acts for the sake of a perceived “greater good.” And many of those people genuinely believe in what they are doing, believe they are in the right. But that doesn’t mean they actually are.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: the Voice. If the Voice of God supports Joseph, then surely the deputy is automatically the “bad guy” for opposing him, right?

Wrong.

First, we have to be willing to admit that we know next to nothing about the Voice. The only things we know about it is what is conveyed to us by Joseph. We do not know the exact wording of what the Voice says, the level of detail it gives him regarding expectations (if any), or even what it is. Is it the voice of God? Satan? A real angel? Some kind of eldritch entity from another dimension? How accurate is Joseph's reiteration or interpretation? Sometimes it seems to directly tell Joseph things (hence the title, “the Voice”), other times it shows him visions. Clearly, there is some kind of supernatural component, as it allows Joseph to see the future, but since we don’t know much about it specifically, we can’t automatically assume or attribute inherent benevolence or morality to it.

Second, it’s entirely possible for a genuine prophet of God (assuming the Voice does indeed belong to a benevolent creator), or those who have/had God’s favor, to engage in morally questionable behavior, both in the eyes of God and/or in the eyes of 21st century readers. While the Project at Eden’s Gate is its own distinct religion, it takes most of its cues from Christianity, both in terms of practices and beliefs. In the Bible, King David had a man murdered so he could sleep with that man’s wife. Jonah wanted the entire population of a city to be killed off instead of having them repent. Jacob (the Biblical figure) deceives his father into giving him a birthright that belonged to his brother, and shows blatant favoritism to one son which ends up causing a lot of internal strife within the family. It’s fully within the realm of possibility that Joseph’s actions are not meant to be endorsed, either by the Voice itself or by the narrative in a broader sense.

In New Dawn, Joseph alludes to his own personal failings by saying, “My soul has become a cancer. I am a monster. I only spread suffering and death in the name of God.” The death of his son and the destruction of New Eden act as a moment of awakening for Joseph, as he finally realizes the harsh reality of his actions and how they affect others. He then expresses a desire for death and says, “There is only the justice of God’s hand.” The implication of “justice” being done indicates that the Voice (“God”) would not be happy with some of the actions that Joseph did. So while Joseph’s actions in FC5 were done with the intent of serving the Voice, his execution of these ideas was something that Joseph feels God would not like, as his actions spread death and suffering.

And thirdly, we have to remember that the Deputy and the player are viewing the idea of morality from the perspective of a 21st century human. Let’s say that, hypothetically, the Voice specifically instructed and condoned the erasure of free will/murders/kidnappings/etc. for whatever reason, and by enacting them, Joseph and Eden’s Gate were “just following orders.” Does this absolve Joseph and Eden's Gate of responsibility? No. Willing participation in the crimes committed, even if it wasn’t “their idea,” can still have legal consequences and can still be viewed as “bad” from a moral perspective because of the results of those actions.

The Collapse

It has been discussed elsewhere (on this site and in outside articles/discussions about the game) that the actions of the deputy correspond with the role of the Lamb in Revelations, and by breaking the seals, the Deputy’s actions supernaturally trigger the Collapse. This interpretation is fairly popular, and is one I personally support. However, I do not feel as though this interpretation lessens the morality of the Deputy's actions. Their decision to fight the Seeds is still the right one, regardless of whether or not their actions resulted in some kind of cosmic game of dominos.

First off, when the Deputy is attempting to take down the Seeds and protect the people of Hope County, they are not doing this with the intent of playing a role in a cosmic prophecy that will result in the death of millions. They’re looking at the situation from a human perspective, and acting accordingly and sensibly. The Seeds, on the other hand, were willingly harming innocents both before and during the Reaping.

Second, if there's a need to assign blame to a human for starting the Collapse (and I personally don't think there needs to be), it would be the Seeds, not the Deputy. The Sheriff and the deputies wouldn’t have arrived with the arrest warrant if the Seeds were not kidnapping and doing other illegal actions.

And thirdly, if one does attribute blame of the Collapse to the Deputy, then one also must attribute the birth of the new world to them as well. Following along with the idea that the events of FC5 are a fulfillment of Revelations, then the Collapse is ultimately viewed as a Good Thing within in the context of the Book of Revelations, even if the player might not personally share the sentiment. The Book of Revelations describes how the new world that is supposed to emerge from the ashes of the old is meant to be much better than the one before. And if we look at the world of New Dawn--and I’m going to copy and paste something I wrote previously here---Nature is allowed to flourish, people work together and support each other in a tight community, all the social ills mentioned in the Book of Joseph (and by the characters in-game) no longer exist. The only “snakes in the garden” would be the Highwaymen, and they are abolished by the Captain, who Joseph prophesizes to be some kind of Messiah-like figure. The final scene of New Dawn is one of hope, where the characters talk about building a better future. The way Joseph and Ethan’s storyline ends also connects to the whole idea of breaking away from the past and moving forward. If one believes that the Deputy is responsible for the Collapse, then this new world shown in New Dawn and the context of Revelations complicates the idea of viewing the Deputy's actions as being inherently bad.

Some might also argue that the Deputy has responsibility for not taking Joseph's warnings more seriously. Why though? Why should the Deputy attribute more credibility to Joseph's claims than, say, those of Marshall Applewhite or David Koresh? As players who know the ending, it’s easy for us to say that the Deputy should have listened to Joseph's warning about the Collapse, but there’s no in-universe rationale for the Deputy to do so. Issues of belief aside, Eden’s Gate’s actions alone are enough to paint an extremely negative picture of the group and would be enough to make any regular person not want to associate with them.

Under the framework of the Revelations prophecy being the intended interpretation of the game events though, I personally don't feel that any character "deserves" blame for the Collapse happening, not even the Seeds. I blame the Seeds for what they do to people within the game and before the events of FC5. And my perception of the Deputy is based on what we see in the game as well. But again, the Revelations prophecy idea is simply one way to view the game. Regardless of whether or not this interpretation is the correct one, the deputy still has the moral high ground in their fight against the Seeds.

Conclusion

Joseph being right about the Collapse does not mean that his (and by extension, Eden’s Gate’s) actions during FC5 were justified, and the Deputy should not be blamed for fighting against them. Just as the Deputy made a choice to arrest Joseph, Joseph made the choice to react in the worst way possible with the Reaping. Eden’s Gate were the aggressors who were kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people throughout the county. The Deputy fights against Eden’s Gate as a direct result of *Eden's Gate's* actions. The Deputy deserves no blame or guilt for killing the Seeds and destroying their bases of operations, as they reacted in a logical way based on the quality of information they had at the time.

In New Dawn, the Deputy expresses an extreme amount of guilt, which transforms them into the Judge. This guilt is misplaced and should be attributed to the other resident of the bunker, which is something Joseph himself even alludes to during his final speech in New Dawn when he criticizes his own actions. If Eden’s Gate did not start attacking the people of Hope County, the bunkers would still be standing, and the Seeds and many other cultists would still be alive. But they did, so they’re not.

While I adore all four of the Seeds as characters and have varying degrees of sympathy for them, they are firmly villains within the context of the story due to their actions. The deputy is not a bad guy for trying to stop them. The fact the Seeds sided with a guy who kidnapped and starved a family, then fed the parents' flesh to their children while playing “this little piggy” with the parents’ toes, and then murdered said parents in front of their children should speak for itself.

TL;DR: The deputy’s decision to confront Joseph instead of walking away was the right one.

[blue-shaded]

Hey Dolphin anon! While I respect your opinion, I disagree on some points. I don’t know where the popular sentiment that he doesn’t denounce his stans’ toxic behavior came from but he’s said multiple times that he denounces it (https://twitter.com/PooGnf/status/1399592255657156608/video/1 ignore the user lol :) ) and that’s just what he says on Twitter. Some of it yeah is a little more lighthearted, like when he talks about Detective Dream in some of the tweets, but I’d say that a fair amount of those tweets lack sarcasm and are said in full seriousness. In addition, he’s also said not to send hate on his behalf during multiple of his own livestreams, he said it when he went on Kaceytron’s streams, he said he didn’t condone toxic behavior during Kavos’s video, as well as multiple times throughout various drama like the speedrunning situation and the John Swan situation (for Blue and others, John Swan is a commentary youtubers who basically did a lot of weird shit, who Dream worked with in the past and had a bad experience with. man imitated Dream’s discord profile and pretended to be him while sending sexual things to a minor, and then tried to blame everything he did on his 12-year old neighbor when he got caught, saying he left his computer open and that that neighbor got on Discord and was the one who did all that weird shit. Obviously false and got proven false, but even when Dream was debunking the situation on stream, he said not to send hate). He’s said it multiple times and I agree that he should continue to say it as he continues to grow to remind both new and old fans but he’s said it multiple times and at this point, anyone who Is still sending death threats is aware that it’s wrong and that he doesn’t support it and they just don’t care. I personally think that behavior is disgusting and I know most of the people I interact with on Twitter do as well. At this point, it’s just sort of a question of to what extent do people want him to say it. The most recent time he denounced death threats was on May 31st both on Twitter and on stream, and he’s probably said it at least once a month almost every month since like December, so he says it quite a bit, so going further would be personally DMing each toxic person he sees and telling them to stop which. I just think is a little absurd. I know that others want him to post a video on his main channel about it and condoning it as well, but I sort of disagree? While death threats can be sent on any platform, the platform on which people receive it on the most is Twitter. Anyone who’s obsessed enough to send death threats is going to be following him on all socials so they’ve definitely seen him condemning it as he’s tweeted saying that he doesn’t support that type of behavior multiple times, but of course, others are allowed to disagree with me on that, I just think that it’s hard to find a good course of action past that. I agree that toxic behavior should still be called out, but I feel like a lot of people advocating for him to do it more than he is now kind of don’t understand how out of control toxic behavior is and how they rarely listen to creators themselves.

The speedrunning stuff I kind of agree on, though I’ll just go a little more in depth about the situation. basically, for those who don’t watch Dream’s videos, dream codes mod videos for Minecraft and these mod videos would consist of things like “Minecraft but everything is dark” and “Minecraft but we can only see one chunk at a time”. Now because Dream still runs the dream SMP and did speed running at the time he had to move these mods out of the mod folder in order to do everything else that he was doing when he wasn’t recording videos. This would later on lead to the problem where the speed run moderators would ask for his mods folder and he wouldn’t be able to provide a full copy because he had since moved stuff around because it had been a week after the actual speedrun streams they were inquiring about. The thing that ended up being the problem was a recording mod that Dream had asked a separate developer to create for him and the Dream Team in order to make their recordings smoother. that was sort of it there weren’t any specifics given, he just wanted recordings to be better. Now because it was just for recordings and since the mod ran well dream didn’t ask the developer for the specifics of what they coded into this recording mod at the time. In his mind this recording mod sort of just clean things up visually. And for those who have never really played Minecraft, what I mean by that is if you press F5 in Minecraft you get a whole ton of information on your screen about coordinates and computer specs. When people say that the mod cleaned things up visually, they mean that all of that irrelevant information that clogs up the screen in a video was minimized to just coordinates. he was wrong in this assumption, the Recording mud also included coding that allowed for better trades. again for anyone who doesn’t play Minecraft, Dream and the Dream Team record their videos in the 1.16 version of Minecraft. In this version of Minecraft, it’s a widely used tactic to use piglin trades to get ender pearls. Since their videos aren’t just about beating the game regularly, there’s usually more of a focus on fighting or the specific mod that they’re using for that video, the developer increased the likelihood of ender pearl trades with pigeons in order to make recordings go faster. Regardless of that and his misconception of what the mod actually did, Dream didn’t believe it mattered because there was no record of him having loaded that recording mod during the speedrunning streams in question. This is because Dream uses something that a lot of speed runners use, he uses Fabric. Fabric API is something that both allows your Minecraft to run smoother (which is why a lot of speed runners use it, it’s approved to be used by the speed run moderators) and for those who wish to do so, it also functions as a mod loader. So when I said that he had no record of him having loaded the recording mod, I mean that when he checked the logs of Fabric API, it said that the only thing loaded was Fabric itself. this was inherently a wrong way to go about it because the way Fabric API logs work is that you have to be searching for a specific mod, so you can’t just look at what the log says is loaded on because sometimes the logs don’t show a mod unless you specifically ask the program to look for it. Dream figured this out a couple months ago, he went back through the logs, talk to the developer who coded the recording mod and got confirmation that yes, he did have the recording mod on and yes, the recording mod does increase ender pearl drop rates. He recently wrote a pastebin that has since been taken down by the pastebin staff though screenshots of it are still easy to find. I do wish that he had come out about this sooner because he knew of this information for a couple months before openly sharing, but I do get the situation has sort of faded and that he wasn’t excited to re-open that discussion when he himself had gotten a lot of hate and the threats during that situation.

Obviously as outsiders looking in we will never know how genuine he’s being, if he’s telling the truth, but I choose to believe that he did feel as bad about the situation as he said he did because for a lot of people who do consume his content, it’s been very noticeable within the past couple months that he’s been a lot less active both in terms of streaming and just interacting with the community, but of course, it’s all just personal interpretation and we will never actually know. 

Just wanted to explain the situation fully because people who may not play Minecraft and understand it the developing behind it may not understand how he could’ve possibly not seen the mod or not have a copy of the mod folder. I would disagree with you on the point that the controversy around Dream’s speed runs has delegitimized the rest of the speed running community. As someone who still watches well-known speed runners like Bennex and Illumina (TapL and Punz if they count as well), I don’t think any of them have really argued that they think that situation has delegitimize them, though I guess you could argue that they simply haven’t spoken up because they’re a little too afraid to speak up against a big Youtuber, which is fair. But as someone who has spoken to a lot of people who have sort of slightly read up on the situation without actually caring about Minecraft or Dream, none of them have said that they think that the speed running community is not legitimate because of it. Not to sound flippant because I do like watching speedrunners (albeit the already more popular ones) or anything, but the Minecraft speedrunning community isn’t exactly very mainstream, not very many people care enough to actively oppose it or say that they’re not legitimate, from what I’ve seen it’s either just you support the community or you don’t care. Even people who actively thought that dream cheated from the beginning, never used that to discredit the rest of the community (at least from what I saw). They simply didn’t care. anyone making that argument is sort of ridiculous, before the 1.16 speed runs that got investigated, Dream already had a couple official speed runs on his YouTube channel. At the time they were posted, they were approved and legitimate (though I believe one’s been taken down now), so it’s not like even Dream’s entire time in speedrunning was completely falsified, so anyone using one situation to delegitimize a whole community is being a little ridiculous. In addition, anyone who actually knows and cares enough about the speedrunning community to try to claim that all of them aren’t credible, would know that a lot of the speedrunning community didn’t even like dream all that much, even before the cheating out allegations, and they didn’t really associate with him, so they would know the Dream’s actions don’t define the entire community. If you’re talking about Dream’s more general fans, like those who watch his YouTube who may now be skewed against the speedrunning community, you can look at comments in his community tab on his channel and see that people aren’t actively against the speedrunning community, they just say they don’t care and they want it behind them which is very different from thinking that they are all illegitimate. Though if you have substantial proof of multiple cases of multiple people being biased against speedrunning community and believing that they’re all cheaters after Dream’s situation, I’d be open to see them.

I also disagree with your point over Dream being a “professional speed runner”. He says this in responses to claims that speedrunning is a huge part of his career. And he’s correct when people talk about dreams achievements, none of them really talk about speed running that much it’s always about the SMP, his manhunt videos, and his coding videos. He’s not a professional speed runner in the way Illumina and Couriway and Bennex are. His career isn’t based on professional speedrunning. Citing the Minecraft manhunt series as proof that he’s a “professional speed runner“ is definitely a little skewed and ultimately wrong. If you tried to claim those as official speedruns, the moderating team would likely have a little laugh and then reject it. Yes, he has speed runner in the title and yes in a way, it is a speedrun because he is trying to beat the game as fast as possible, but more so he’s trying to avoid being killed by his friends in the game so it’s about both speed and being smart. Everyone within the speed run community and a lot of those outside of it would know that being chased down by your friends during the game isn’t a real category in Minecraft speedrunning and therefore the Minecraft Manhunt videos aren’t official speed runs. So people claiming that dream is an official speed runner and that that’s his career is ultimately false, which is what he was saying. His official speed runs were all done for fun and have never been the main focus of his content.

When you say that the legitimacy of the speedrunning community was called into question, I will admit, I’m unsure if you’re talking about the community itself and the people with in it, like the actual speedrunners, or if you’re talking about the moderator team or both.  I will admit, even as someone who hyperfixates on Dream, his initial reaction to the moderators video saying that he cheated was godawful. for Blue and others who aren’t as into this and don’t know, basically the gist was he was lashing out and saying it was total bullshit and calling them idiots. He has since deleted that tweet and apologized for it and admitted that it was incredibly childish and impulsive. While I do get why he was so mad since the video had blindsided him after weeks of radio silence from the moderators and as a kid who didn’t finish high school he didn’t really understand the statistics that were being said in the video and since at the time he genuinely didn’t think that he cheated (a lot of people have said that all this combined led to heavy RSD which is why he lashed out like that), I still think that he could’ve handled the situation a lot better.  on the other hand I think the moderators could’ve handled this situation a lot better as well. I don’t want to talk about the whole moderator team but I do want to talk about specifically Geosquare, who is probably the most talked about moderator when it comes to the situation. Dolphin anon, if you’re talking about the legitimacy of the moderator team being called into question, I’m assuming the situation surrounding Geosquare is likely what you’re talking about, which is a slightly different situation from just the speedrunning. So for Blue and others, before the video talking about Dream cheating was released, Dream had been told that there were people on the moderating team who didn’t like him. Knowledge of this bias is also a part of what caused Dream to lash out more in his initial reaction (though again it doesn’t excuse it). The biased moderator in question turned out to be Geosquare. This was heavily proven later on in about March of this year, where Geosquare played a large role in spreading the video of fake ‘dream’ saying the n-word. Geosquare was a speedrun moderator, he Has investigative skills and he got called out for spreading that video without doing any sort of investigating because it was clear to a lot of people that the person in the video wasn’t Dream. There were multiple things that made this video seem not credible, all of which easily could’ve been found by Geosquare.

Firstly, antis of Dream had been saying since January that they were going to try to find a way to accuse Dream of saying the N-word whether that just be through spreading rumors or faking a video or whatever else. Secondly, the video really sounds nothing like dream. Now I will say this video that the clip of someone saying the n-word was from 2016-2017. I’m not saying the video was fake, I’m not saying that someone somehow predicted that Dream was going to become a big creator or time traveled and went back in time to set him up for that. but the most common theory is that and he simply did go looking back through old Minecraft videos in order to find something incriminating. Both the creator of this video and a friend of the person who was saying the N-word in the video have since explained this.  so basically for blue and others, Dream has not always on the Minecraft username Dream. He got it from someone else. And so the person in this video is called Dream. Since it was a while ago the timeline’s a little fuzzy for everyone and it’s unsure if this video occurred before Dream got the username or if it occurred after Dream got the username and the people within the video simply still called the person in the video Dream because that was what they were used to calling them. The clip’s a little too grainy to see the usernames and the video has since been taken down by the original poster. Either way, two different people. Geosquare has since admitted that this was bias on his end and that he apologized to Dream and that they’re all good and has given an apology to the black community for using the n-word as a weapon for his own bias and he has since stepped from the speedrun moderating team. so dolphin anon, when you’re talking about the legitimacy of the community being called into question if you’re talking about the moderating team, yes, you’d be correct, it was called into question, but I would say for valid and good reasons because it ultimately was biased (though again, doesn’t change that Dream was the one in the wrong in the speedrunning situation w how he initially reacted).  I don’t want to fully blame Geosquare and say that it was completely obvious it wasn’t Dream or make it seem completely obvious to you guys, because things like mic changes and puberty do exist, so I’ll give the clips and allow you all to decide for yourselves.

The clip of someone, accused to be Dream, saying the N-word: https://twitter.com/Tommathyinnit/status/1375395156791336964/video/1 (I am not entirely sure which speaker is being accused to be Dream, which was sort of the first indicated to me that it probably wasn’t him because I don’t think peoples voices change That much, but I think he was being accused to be the person who was saying “well you can bring your friend...”) Again, this video is from 2016-2017.

A clip of Dream talking, also from 2016-2017: https://twitter.com/Onciescumbucket/status/1357440678909923335/video/1 (okay so. again ignore the user 😭 but it’s confirmed to be Dream by the fact it does sound like him and his long-time friends Sapnap, who used to go by PandascanPvP, and BadBoyHalo being in the video. I believe the video has captions so even for those who don’t know Dream or what he sounds like, it’ll tell you which one’s him and you can compare that voice to the one in the other clip)

But yeah. aaaaa I’m sorry for such a long submission, I’m hyperfixated on Dream and the Dream Team, though I do understand that there are legitimate criticisms on all of them and that no one’s required to like them, and people don’t need real reasons to dislike them because people are allowed to dislike whomever they want. Definitely not any hate towards you dolphin anon, I think that you do have points, I just wanted to express my disagreement with some of them and it’s nice that you do acknowledge that the toxicity goes both ways for both stans and antis. I think a big problem is that a lot of the creators who condemn or speak against Dream (people like Slasher and Noah Hugbox and Kavos) don’t openly condemn the toxic behavior of their own fans as much as Dream does, so it becomes a very hypocritical cycle where they’re making videos about the toxicity of Dream stans and yet their own fans send death threats to Dream and his community. And since the death threats towards Dream come from multiple different fanbase rather than one centralized fanbase the way it is if toxic people from Dream’s community are attacking someone, he can’t really pin it on one person and ask them to denounce their fans so it just becomes a thing where he’s both receiving a ton of death threats while being asked to denounce death threats towards others when there’s no one really denouncing death threats towards him, which is just discouraging for his community to see, but that’s just how the Internet is, I suppose. Again, no hate to you dolphin anon and I’m sorry if any part of this came off as such, and again Blue, I’m sorry for such a long submission

MY GOODNESS WHAT A SCROLL Not gonna read all of it cuz its clearly dedicated to my dolphin anon.

[shinythingsbyorindrake]

I've been watching, as in really paying attention to and planning to see, Desert Bus for Hope since DB5.  I've been participating in the Craft-Along since DB6, and I have the crafter's patches to prove it.  (I really should... put those on something.)  It's an event that I plan for and look forward to every year.  Even last year, when I had to miss most of the beginning because I was actively moving into an apartment with the worst internet I've encountered since dial-up. Unfortunately that's the internet I had this year too, but it's worth occasionally having to reduce the stream to the lowest visual quality just to lean way far back and keep watching.  Hey I do pixel art, I know how this works.  I had to catch up on the last 3-ish hours of the run later on, because sleep is a thing that has to happen, or so I'm told.  The catch-up period usually gives me a chance to reflect on exactly why I look forward to this fundraiser in particular.  It’s always difficult to put the experience into words. First is the charity itself.  Basically, Child's Play makes people who absolutely are not okay, a little more okay.  And anyone who has ever been not okay is going to understand the value of that.  It's more than  a provider of video games to hospitals and women’s shelters; it's communication devices that allow kids to talk to parents and classmates, and attempts to allow bed-ridden young folk to explore places via robots with cameras.  It may sound silly to you, but if you're in that bed wondering what the point of living another day is?  It's everything.  Hearing there's more research going into virtual reality as a means of pain management made the rest of my year.  And we all know that sometimes life goes to crap and what we really need is to pick up that game or that book and just... therapeutically zone out for a few hours.  It may not "solve" anything, but it is absolutely essential to mental well-being.  And not just for the young people themselves, but for those older folks who care about them, their comfort and mental state.  It is specifically about the children, absolutely, but also goes well beyond them.   It's an actual investment in the future, in the power kindness to and from everywhere in the world, always expanding its reach. Desert Bus for Hope, the event raising money for Child's Play, is a little like watching that "PC nightmare" authoritarian establishment folks keep "warning" everyone about: where the humor isn't mean (but does not lack teeth) nor directed toward attacking anyone, where all identities are openly accepted and everyone's welcoming and polite to each other, where supportive casual contact isn't met with "no homo", where whoever wants to paint their nails gets to paint their nails, and the style is clearly "whatever you want to wear" and always glorious.  But you know what?  It feels amazingly good to watch.  Like how amazingly good it is to see all of the passion and love put into all of the handmade donations which get auctioned off or given away in drives; I'm always floored by everyone’s work that mine gets to be amongst and all of the different types of skills.  I described the whole of Desert Bus for Hope as "aggressively positive" and I will continue to say as much: the fundraiser has only become increasingly positive in the wake of what's happening elsewhere in the world, leading a fierce example of how very powerful and important kindness and the desire to improve things for each other, and for and those who will "inherit the future" so to speak, can be.  Direct open opposition and leading by example.  Love and encouragement as defiance.  A community that actually takes care of itself, full of vastly different types of people, joined by inherent geekery of different kinds, all coming together to raise money to help people who aren't okay, be a little more okay. The event title is even more poignant right now, because we need that hope.  We need the demonstration, need to see the power of kindness, how strong it actually is as opposed to the people trying to tell us it doesn't matter at all.  It's absolute proof that we can all pitch in something to help and be inspired to keep that going, that just watching this silly fundraiser every year is enough to remind us that there is in fact hope.  So many of us are so, so tired of seeing the hateful, fearful, downright worst side of humanity seemingly getting louder, and this is one of those shining beacons of nonsensical exuberance and aggressive positivity that reminds us of how being a jerk isn't actually the default.  It isn't anywhere near as powerful as... well, whatever Desert Bus for Hope is.  Full of silly and celebration and feels and a reminder that no one is alone, and there is a community out there for them to find.  Plus, there's another one coming up next year.  Something to keep in mind when The Final Busdown is a celebration of singing and crashing (or towing). The Bus Place is a good place, and I look forward to seeing it again next year.  After everyone's had a chance to recover.  In theory.

[forumsblog858]

Homeworld 2 For Mac

Homeworld 2 For Macbook Pro

Homeworld 2 For Mac Catalina

Homeworld 2 Mac Download Full Game

Homeworld 2 For Mac Iso

Homeworld 2 For Mac High Sierra

Gameplay Sound Graphics Value

Publisher:Aspyr MediaGenre: ActionMin OS X: 10.2.6 CPU: G4 @ 800 MHz RAM: 256 MB Hard Disk: 1600 MB 8x CD-ROM Graphics: 32 MB VRAM

Nov 24, 2004 Hi folks, So I picked up homeworld 2 for mac having played it on a friend's PC, but really missed the ability to add mods for multiplayer games when i played it on mac. I even emailed Aspyr, but they were no help. Then the other day i came across a an explanation for how to do it, at least.

Homeworld 2 November 1, 2004 | Michael Yanovich

Pages:123Gallery

Secondly Homeworld 2 was written and ported to the Mac in such a way that you can take advantage of many of the great game mods out there. I've run the version of the game wherein all the ships are Legos, for example.

The Homeworld Remastered Collection introduces Relic's acclaimed space strategy games Homeworld and Homeworld 2 to modern players and operating systems using the newest sophisticated graphics rendering technology, plus a fully remastered score and new, high fidelity voice recordings by the original actors.

Click to enlarge

I never played the original Homeworld – it didn’t make it over to the Mac and I don’t own a PC – so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got this game. I’d just heard lots of positive buzz, and something about a real time strategy game set in outer space. So I wasn’t surprised when that’s exactly what I got. What did surprise me is how exceedingly cool this game is.

But first, a few words about most RTS games in general. In my experience, single player campaigns start off fairly slow and easy and gradually introduce new units as the storyline progresses. Many players finish up the single player campaign and then move on to multiplayer battles over the internet, where experience levels really matter. That is to say, most of us can beat a single player game with enough save points and a couple of tries. You just don’t have to be an especially good player. But multiplayer games tend to fall into two categories. The first, games with a few friends, all of whom know the game basics but aren’t particularly amazing. Then there are those players you frequently run into in online ladder games, opponents who are really great players. They know the ultimate build sequences, unit locations, rush strategies, resource gathering patterns… they have the entire battle plan in their head before they even start a game.

Well, maybe it’s just me but Homeworld 2 seems to require you be the second kind of player – the highly skilled one – to really get into this game. This is clearly not meant for casual gamers, and frankly I felt a bit overwhelmed at times. But even in the midst of a heavy battle where I was getting my butt kicked, I loved this game!

There seems to be a decent story here, which is told in stylized animated cutscenes with top notch voice acting. I confess to not fully understanding the major plot points, mainly because the “Here’s what happened in the last game” intro wasn’t particularly clear. But whatever. Seems like humanity’s survival is in jeopardy and you must lead a ragtag fleet of ships through space on a lonely quest for a planet known as Earth. Oops, that’s Battlestar Galactica. Sorry! Anyway, change the word Earth to Homeland and you’ll be relatively close to this game’s plot.

I know I’m in the minority when I say stories aren’t that important in many games. If I wanted a plot I’d watch a movie or read a book. Gamewise, the only story points I care about are the ones I need to know in order to play the game. But I will admit that these cutscenes were entertaining enough that I actually paid attention to what was going on, which seemed like a lot of “we’re getting our butts handed to us, let’s run before we lose more ships,” followed by a brief, “Whew, we’re safe! Let’s rest. What? Drat! They found us! Quick, fight them so we can run again!”

Homeworld 2 For Macbook Pro

And that’s fine by me. It kept me focused on the end goal of saving our species from the alien hoards. But in all seriousness, there does seem to be enough of a plot to keep story fans satisfied in between epic battles. And that’s what this game is all about. Epic. Freakin’. Battles!

Pages:123Gallery

In 1999, Relic Entertainment’s groundbreaking Homeworld took the gaming world by surprise. Still widely regarded as the gold standard of space real-time strategy games, it successfully coupled lush graphics with a sleek interface that made manipulating camera angles and toggling between build and formation menus in 3D space incredibly easy. Homeworld 2 takes the original and upgrades it. With a new game engine, especially during massive battles of all ship classes, you can’t help but admire its finer points, from its lovely dynamic lighting to its chilly “realism.â€

The Homeworld universe is “hard†science fiction, as opposed to, say, StarCraft. The large, complex battles it depicts have an austere, clinical feel that’s more admirable than immersive, regardless of the camera angle. But it’s great hard sci-fi, and the visuals really suck you in —literally—as you zoom in closer like a jeweler with a loupe, and the distant flashes gradually coalesce into thousands of stories unfolding. For a game totally devoid of visible living organisms, Homeworld 2 compensates by making you care about simulated husks of flying machinery. Your people live inside those fragile husks, fly them, die in them—the exhaust trails become their souls. As in Homeworld, you feel for these poor trusting bastards scrounging for asteroids out in the middle of genuine nowhere.

Which is partly what makes much of the martinet story campaign such a bummer. Homeworld’s poignant air of cosmic mystery is largely absent; here everything’s all grueling puzzle and puzzling grind. Instead of offerings like Homeworld’s wonderfully eerie Garden of Kadesh, the sequel gives you exhausting debacles like the fourth mission, in which doing things in sequence directly opposite from what’s suggested is not only possible but proves a tenth as ulcerous, and the outright sadistic red herring of the tenth one. There’s no let-up, just an overriding sense of attrition and hopelessness as you watch your entire “persistent†fleet get persistently pulverized many times over.

It’s not just the difficulty either, but the logic. The third mission introduces marine frigates, which “capture†enemy ships in multiplayer, but in single-player only give the misleading impression of being able to do so (including attaching to the ship and displaying a steadily increasing “capture barâ€). Also annoying is the automatic collection of resources. The lack of such an option was, ironically, one of the few valid criticisms leveled at Homeworld. Here, automatic collection occurs the second you’ve completed your mission goals, which entails starting the next level short-handed.

The storyline has its moments, but after Cataclysm’s strange, daring waters, Homeworld 2’s scavenger-hunt plotline feels for most of its length like an almost spitefully conventional rehash, top-heavy with extra-galactic ancient races that no longer exist except as convenient plot devices. (The whole thing’s an anthropomorphized riff on David Brin’s Uplift novels, which take space combat imagery to heights Homeworld 2 can only dream of). Your new enemies, the Vaygr, have swanky vertical missile launchers but don’t seem inherently distinct as a culture from your own Hiigarans; they are supposed to represent a “conglomeration of races.â€

Homeworld 2 For Mac Catalina

Homeworld’s interface involved toggling to separate screens for building ships and researching technologies, but there were few options, it never seemed cumbersome. Here the menu takes up a third of the screen, obscuring your view of the luscious space graphics, and you can’t move or shrink it. Hitting R minimizes the research menu, but B doesn’t minimize the build menu. For all their bigness, the menus don’t seem to use their space wisely; it makes you long for the minimalist simplicity of the sensors manager.

Many basics feel harder, although you get used to them. You now build the smaller ships in complete squadrons, presumably to make the battles bigger and more spectacular, but clicking on an individual ship gives you the relative health of the entire squadron at the bottom of the screen, which is less precise. Why not an AI setting to have ships auto-dock when they’re near death? Why can’t collectors auto-repair? Why no patrol? How about being able to assign docked craft to groups? Alt-bandboxing a group of ships that includes hostiles doesn’t show a list of all those selected, as it did in the original and Cataclysm

The beloved formations such as sphere and claw have been abandoned for new, more efficient “strike groups,†fleets that can include multiple ship types but move at the speed of their slowest unit. Familiarity with these is a major factor in combat, but the rock-paper-scissors consequences of using each type are barely touched on in the slender manual, itself a mockery of the original game’s thick, detailed documentation.

For all its clumsy new baggage and rushed feel, Homeworld 2 takes itself seriously, designed from the ground up as a reward to the faithful rather than an olive branch to the casual newcomer. The lucky few up to its Sisyphean challenges will find themselves rewarded for their loyalty.

Homeworld 2 Mac Download Full Game

System Requirements: Pentium 500 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB Video, Win98

Homeworld 2 For Mac Iso

Buy Game www.gog.com store.steampowered.com

Download Demo fileplanet.com

Vintage Website www.relic.com

Homeworld 2 For Mac High Sierra

Tags: Free Download Homeworld 2 PC Game Review

[andyjamesart]

final project collection. 

I choose to present these together as they are all part of my deep dive into interpretation of Lovecraftian unknowns. 

Kaleidoscope is the most colourful piece. Many of Lovecraft’s stories describe things as kaleidoscopic and dream like and this was my attempt to bring that to life, in the form of a 3D printed exploding kaleidoscope. This idea was to deliberately deviate from the overwhelmingly monochromatic body of work. The idea was to take the general themes of his work (that being of reality cracking and being split apart) and apply it to his imagery (the descriptions of kaleidoscopic scenes). It is interesting to me how many Lovecraft scholars specifically describe reality as cracking and shattering, like glass, and a kaleidoscope with its glass mirrors and lenses.  3D MODEL HERE. If you cannot view the model, you need to enable WebGL in your browser. There are instructions on how to do this online.

Dagon // Seascape: These two projects explore vastness and loneliness in infinity. Seascape was inspired by my own fear of the ocean, and I wanted to create something massive that viewers could get lost in. It is highly reflective, because I wanted it to look wet, and the texture is sculptural, rather than painted to look texture. The fact it is so reflective doesn’t make for good photographs, but it really emphasises how despite there being so much space, you could be completely alone. Dagon is the progression of this. I was frustrated by being limited by constraints of transportation and price of materials, and despite Seascape being 1m square, it is not big enough. I thought a video game would capture the interactive experience of loneliness that I really wanted to express. I used RPGMaker2003 as (as someone who plays a lot of games) I am familiar with its popularity as a tool for horror games, and although I would not describe Dagon as a horror game, as such, something about the crunchy graphics and small window size is really charming to me. I wanted a space where people could go, theoretically forever, and not find anything or anyone or any resolution. Even with the biggest gallery spaces, you’re confined by the limits of having to exist within a physical space, whereas with a video game I can loop screens, and use sound to impart a sense of immense vastness that just isn’t possible in the physical world. It will be available to download from itch.io when I am finished, in the next month or so. 

Landscape is my interpretation of a Lovecraft passage, specifically including the word “unimaginable.” (”unimaginable cosmic castles” from At The Mountains of Madness). It seems that he was describing a fada morgana mirage, so I used classical features of those, such as the reflecting structures and joins, to create a landscape that does not look like a landscape. I was fascinated with the idea of the earth itself becoming unimaginable, so I endeavoured to make a landscape as unrecognisable as possible.

Grave, Small is a smaller version of a project I want to complete when galleries are open again. I wanted to create a 3D space that does not look 3D, and allow viewers to interact with the space. I really enjoy the idea of people reaching to touch what seems like a black rectangle, only to be surprised when something isn’t as it seems to be. Emotionally, I want this to either disturb or comfort, two diametrically opposed emotions that rely on the context of each individual to be imparted one way or the other. As this is more of a proof of concept (and my bank account being in the negative), the construction is crude, however it turned out very well, with the black box looking even more like a painted square than I hoped. I used a crude frame, as for the larger version I am hoping to use a rough wood frame, reminiscent of a crude coffin.

Construction:

Overall, with this project I wanted to explore a more emotional side of Lovecraftian horror; a side that critics (and literally anyone who reads his work) find vastly lacking. The loneliness of unexplained events, the temptation for self destruction, and the anger and sense of deep unfairness of being the victim of random chance is something that is rarely considered in Lovecraft, with the spectacle of the unknown taking the forefront of many readings, and thus adaptions, of his work. I also wanted to explore the strange beauty in something visually incoherent and without meaning with Kaleidoscope, to contrast the much bleaker emotional resonance of the other pieces.  I used the names of these works to describe, basically, what they are in the most literal sense. Seascape and landscape are just that, and Grave I titled because there is something about a black hole that inherently feels like that- also there is something to be said about death being an abstract, that can never happen to me, kind of concept until you touch it. 

[catwhite7-blog]

A match which blends thirdperson actions with MOBA and also hero-shooter mechanics to build an appealing but flawed activity esport.

After you get eight situationally mindful players, even nevertheless, there's a lot to adore. The characters-- both their design and balance--are the optimal/optimally aspect of become alpha sex game. From the conventionally cool graffiti-artist street samurai Daemon to Maeve, the cyberpunk witch, to Cass, an E Mo assassin with robotic bird bottoms, each of those 11 characters in the initial roster has an exceptional and interesting appearance.

become alpha porn is really a self-evident aggressive multi player"brawler," but exactly what does this actually mean? Depending upon your own purpose of reference, you might call it a"boots onto your ground-style MOBA" or some"third-person hero shot ." It truly is an activity game where two teams of four fight within the narrative framework of competing at another of 2 team sport --a King of those Hill-style"Objective get a grip on" situation and"energy Collection," a more resource-hoarding style where people want to violate vitality canisters and reunite their own contents into specified factors at specific occasions. Though the two versions possess their own quirks, both boil down to lively point control. Whether you are delivering protecting or energy your"hills, then" you want to shield a position. If you're attempting to dam the enemy from scoring in mode, you ought to have a situation. There is a little room for customization: in between games, you could equip a set of mods--which you can generate by playing with with specific personalities or acquire in-game forex --to Enhance your stats and techniques in various manners. In the event you believe one strike or special ability much more significant than the others, you can min-max those boons to adapt your playstyle. Each character begins having a set of default option mods, therefore there is an inherent sense of dealing emphases, in place of construction power as time passes. Movements in aggressive multiplayer matches is frequently a fool's gambit--most matches damage their stability with overpowerful gear--but become alpha porn games's mods thread the needle. They truly are successful to punctuate certain skills, without creating them unstoppable. What's more they also have a set of abilities that causes them specially well-suited to their precise sort of playwith. In modern day competitive manner, each and every character have a special collection of rechargeable and stats special moves that make sure they are useful in a particular context, which only presents itself when coordinating with your teammates. The characters have been divided into three classes--harm, Support, Tank--but each personality's approach into this job is exceptional. As an instance, Buttercup--a human-motorcycle hybridvehicle -- is a Tank designed for crowd controller: She forces enemies to engage with her from yanking enemies for her having a grappling hook and also use an"oil slick" capacity to slow them down. In comparison, fellow Tank El Bastardo is marginally less durable but deals more damage thanks to a exact powerful standard attack and also a crowd-clearing spin strike which may push enemies apart from him. It will take just a little exercise to fully understand these distinctions well-enough to take advantage of these but it is easy to learn how every fighter functions. In some ways, building on the base created with additional E-Sports works to become alpha sex game's advantage. Inspite of the fact that it has a brand new game using lots of of guidelines and idiosyncrasies to find out it can quickly feel comfortable and at ease to enthusiasts of competitive games because so many of its gameplay elements, from match types into character talents, are modeled off ideas from other video games. No character normally takes very long to learn, which means you are definitely going to locate your groove and begin having pleasure quickly. And, eventually, become alpha porn games's third-person perspective and a roster with tons of melee and ranged fighters distinguishes itself from the remaining portion of the package. As soon as you begin playing, it's simple to check past the things you comprehend and appreciate the advantages with the new configuration. Still, for all that become alpha sex games gets appropriate, it actually seems like the game's"early days." It's overlooking fundamental principles of competitive games, such as ranked play, that enables you to invest the experience and keeps individuals taking part in, long lasting. I want to believe Microsoft and Ninja principle will keep tweaking and enlarging the match so that it can compete together with additional competitive multiplayer matches, but it feels as a temporary multiplayer fix for gamers looking to divide the monotony, as opposed to the next E-Sports obsession. While each and every personality is well-balanced separately, the roster as an entire feels unbalanced on occasion. Considering the fact that you just have 4 players on every team, it's simple to receive forced to a specific role and sometimes perhaps a specific character. With 11 characters (and one more announced fighter in the way)there are a limited number of alternatives at every placement. On top of this, the certain personalities satisfy out the job a lot better compared to many others. Zerocool, the user, may be the only pure healer, for example. Unless teammates use the other support personalities in tandem, it truly is tricky to justify not selecting him when playing this role. The absence of choice can be bothersome: Actually in match making it could make you feel obligated to engage in since a personality which you really don't like and could result in you actively playing from personality, which isn't very fun. The caveat, though, is that everyone else needs to"play their class" as soon. With only four people to some workforce, having one man who isn't focusing to the purpose or with their skills that will help the staff could drain the fun out of this match very quickly. This ends match making in to a tiny crap shoot. You will never know if you will get teammates that understand the score, or certainly will drop what to start fights, or play the objective too much and ignore the team. Even though a warning after you turn the match for the first time that communication is critical, only a small number of players employed headphones in my adventure. While there's an Apex Legends-style ping method that works reasonably well for quiet players, so most players do not listen into it. Despite solid communication options, the rigid demands of this gameplay help it become easy for a single stubborn human being to spoil the exact game for the others. A game that combines third person action with MOBA and also hero-shooter mechanisms to produce an appealing but flawed action esport..xxx. There's no easing in to producing a competitive match in 2020. Already bombarded with matches like Overwatch, Rainbow 6 Siege, the battle royales, the MOBAs, and also the vehicle chesses, people have plenty of selections, Thus in the event you want to present another, it'd been ready for prime moment. become alpha porn games, the new third-person competitive brawler from DmC developer Ninja Theory, does not feel as if it is there yet. There's a good deal of possibility : Its four-on-four scrums combine the mashy feeling of the old school beat-em-up using the strategic criteria of MOBAs and hero shooters, setting it apart from anything you are going to find in common scenes that are competitive. However, it is affected with"ancient days" increasing pains which can push away players, rather than simply draw them . Both things need all four gamers to work as a group. While a few fighters are far best suited to one-on-one combat than others, moving and fighting since a squad is compulsory as the team with larger numbers more often than not wins, irrespective of ability. Inevitably, every single match gets to be a collection of staff struggles for control of an area. In the present time, these battles can feel a bit mashy and sloppy since you rapidly hit the strike button, but there's a lot of technique involved around creating favorable matchups, mixing abilities to optimize damage coped and reduce harm obtained, and positioning to avoid wide-reaching audience control strikes. On top of the, each of the amounts pose some type of environmental danger around one or more of those crucial points onto the map, that can throw a wrench in the gears of their most pivotal moments in a suit. We ought to also deal with hyper-intelligent 800-pound gorilla within the space. become alpha sex games cribs far from Overwatch. Though unique and clever, the character designs collectively exude the exact same faux-Pixar veneer because the Overwatch throw. Then again, they cut it pretty close some times. Mekko, the 12th become alpha sex game character, is just a marathon commanding a huge robot,'' that sounds much such as Wrecking Ball, Overwatch's Hamster at a huge robot. But on the technical degree, each of become alpha sex game's modes feel very like Overwatch's"get a grip on " Don't get me wrong: King of the Hill is not particular to Overwatch by almost any means--multiplayer matches have been riffing online for years--however, the MOBA esque skillsets of all become alpha sex games's personalities guide one to technique people scenarios using hero shooter approaches.

[nullconvention]

I've been thinking for a while - and I'm not clear on this - but that the demographic of "gamer" is kind of a cipher. I suppose there was a time when it sort of made sense, much like any other demographic largely characterized by a media obsession that was *also* obscure. Today, though, almost everyone is at least familiar with video games, and it's not unusual to play *some* video games. The younger you are, the more you're likely to play one or two games a year. This isn't really a whole lot different from reading! There are 'bibliophiles' or people who characterize themselves as readers, and I think you'll notice that this doesn't really described what kind of books one would be reading. But although we can refer to audiophile, cinephiles, bibliophiles - lovers of media - we don't tend to group them as a semi-political demographic, and *if* we do, it's very likely subordinate to preferred genre which is circularly looped to their political preferences in the first place. So, "gamer," unlike other media lover categories, singularly separates itself by gender with men as the default. (Sexism is still rampant in every category, but there are gamers and 'girl gamers' which feels different to me than 'woman readers,' which is never, by the way, as far as I have seen, 'girl readers.') "Gamers" are categorized by escapism as a way of being, as opposed to an occasional useful tendency, and politically, there is an assumption of marginalization even though categorically this isn't the case. Where does the demographic come from, then? How is it they feel as though they can construct a coherent demographic group on the merits of a leisure activity that's inherently somewhat privileged? (In that there is some income and time required to devote to an activity/demographic rooted in conspicuous consumption.) Where does their sense of marginalization come from? I suspect that it comes from a demographic (largely white, self-imposed male) that, due to the economic decline, has a difficult time (like everyone) in finding dignified work and becoming financially independent, and so spend a large amount of time online, connecting with others who self-identify in nearly identical ways. The collapse of the middle class, a class they felt they were promised and entitled to (whether or not this is fair or true is a different conversation), and that they felt they were inherently better disposed to than systemically marginalized groups (growing up on white supremacist propaganda, in many cases, from various channels) makes them resentful. Their demographic isn't, then, oriented around their identity or media consumption IN TRUTH, but the way in which they communicate and form their social circle. Gaming platform voice chats, writing channels, fora, and conventions create environments where people in similar situations, coping in similar ways, communicate. They only identify as gamers because the media allows quick reference visual cues. That's why they're so resistant to minority groups and women "infringing" on their spaces - it's not about games, it's about keeping their communication channels demographically "pure."

[listoriented]

Card City Nights

acronym party

My twitter feed today is half references to the pumpkin fascist’s amplification of civil war threats, and half untilted goose memes. But it’s Tuesday, so I’m going to uh, I’m going to write about Card City Nights.

Card City Nights (CCN) marks a couple of firsts here at List Oriented. First first: seventy-seven games in and it’s the first Digital Collectible Card Game (DCCG) that we’ve encountered. Second first: three decades into life it is the first such that I’ve ever played. I know, it’s been a popular genre for a few years now. Hearthstone, Gwent, Slay the Spire, Artifact, that other one you’re screaming at me to say but I’m not going to — I’ve heard of them all, tried none.

I am as ignorant of wider context here as I’ve ever been, basically, with little to compare CCN to, beyond the time I got into Wizard of the Coast’s (WotC) popular long-running (non-digital) collectible card game (CCG) Magic the Gathering (MTG) as a ten year old, and quit a year later because the friend who introduced it to our group moved back to Canada, and it’s not the kind of hobby a ten year old can afford to keep up with. So while I know CCN is not heaps similar to MTG, I don’t know if it plays at all like any of the other popular DCCGs.

So, I’m going to take the opportunity to try an experiment and attempt to describe this in reduced terms. Wish me luck.

Card City Nights is a video game. You, the player, play as someone who lives in a town (graphically depicted as an island-town) populated by cartoony people along with various supernatural cartoony creatures (the meta-text says that these are all characters from “the Ludosity Universe”, though I cannot speak to this because I have not played any of Ludosity’s other games (oh, I guess that marks a third first)). You can name your character whatever you like and pick their appearance from several options. Anyway, you find out that your town has all gone completely mad…for a card game! I can’t remember if the card game has a name, in the game, or if it’s just referred to as “the card game”. Someone shows you how to play it, and then you find out that if you collect eight unique “legendary” cards, which have been obtained by various people around the town, you can win a million (dollars? credits? coins?) maybe.

How do you obtain the legendary cards from the people who have possession of them? By beating them at the card game, of course! But you’ve got to find the right people, and often you’ve got to beat other people at the card game first in order to get to the legendary card owners, and sometimes there are other people who you can fight for booster packs of cards, as well as money (to buy more cards), but they aren’t strictly compulsory to your progression. Anyway, the point is that Card City Nights is a video game where you role-play as someone who plays a card game in a town full of people who want to play the same card game.

The card game itself is (unusually, I suppose) about placement. Players take turn placing cards onto their own 3x3 grid from a five-card hand. Most cards have one or more arrows pointing along eight directions. You build combos by having the arrows flow into one another, so for instance placing a card with a direct-left arrow to the right of a card with a direct-right arrow allows those two cards to combo. Combos usually require a minimum of three connecting cards, though some cards allow combos of two. As soon as a combo is made, an action is resulted and the cards disappear — you can’t choose to keep trying to add more cards to the combo. Actions depend on the type of cards within the combo. Cards can be either Attack, Defence, Revive or Neutral. Attack combos either reduce the opposing player’s health, or can disable a target card on the opposing player’s board. Defence combos add health to the casting player. Revive combos revive a previously disabled card. Neutral cards can be used to build any of the above combos.

You win if you can get your opponents health down to zero, or if they fill their grid and can’t place any more cards. Each deck has a minimum of twenty-five cards and a maximum of forty. If one player runs out of cards from their deck, they can’t pick up any more and they’ll lose health each turn. Because running out of cards is BAD but your deck has specific quality thresholds, you’re therefore going to be choosing between endurance and stacking, along with if you’re gonna hedge bets with your strategies, or have a deck more focused on attack or defence. Some cards also have special abilities to do with, say, disabling or flipping your opponents cards, or discarding from their deck.

The connective mechanic of the game is fun, and after several hours with the game I start seeing the green lights of a combo pathway in my minds eye as I’m going to sleep. It’s a mechanic that I can see working particularly well for a DCCG rather than a CCG, owing to the aforementioned green-light (I’m not what this game’s physical analogues are, or if such a game could work as well if the players were monitoring their own combos). I got less enjoyment from the process of trying to balance my decks with arrows that match up. It felt like the kind of thing I could fidget with endlessly, but in a “trying to remember a sliver of information that I’m sure I know” way rather than a “doing this is an inherently interesting experience” way.

I did enjoy the setting, for the most part. It leans into cartoon ridiculousness, but there’s something kind of wholesome and homely about the idea of this town, alive at night, everyone playing the same game. The narrative is pretty superfluous, but the writing is light, reasonably self-aware and funny and some of the characters are worth having the extra chat with. It could have used a little more in the music department, just IMO — the loop that plays during card battles repeats a short riff to the point that I couldn’t go more than a few minutes without muting it. But that’s also okay, because it’s the kind of game that pairs alright with other things going on in the background.

I think I’m about halfway through, four legendary cards collected, twenty-four wins and four losses notched. I’m a little sad to be leaving it here unfinished. Perhaps I’ll continue with it, for once. In my own private, unblogged time. Perhaps.

Where/When/Why/Who: Card City Nights came in the Humble Card Game Bundle of January 2015. I bought mainly with the intention of playing Dominion online, a thing I have not subsequently ever done. It was made by Ludosity [website], who are from Sweden (I think?) and also made, uh, Ittle Dew, and most recently uhm, Slap City. Card City Nights launched in 2014, and its sequel came out in 2017.

next is The Cat Lady

[gamerzcourt]

How Nintendo Uses Luck To Make Games Fun For EveryoneHow Nintendo Uses Luck To Make Games Fun For Everyonevideo games

New Post has been published on https://www.gamerzcourt.com/how-nintendo-uses-luck-to-make-games-fun-for-everyonehow-nintendo-uses-luck-to-make-games-fun-for-everyonevideo-games/

How Nintendo Uses Luck To Make Games Fun For EveryoneHow Nintendo Uses Luck To Make Games Fun For Everyonevideo games

Since its pre-video game years as a Japanese playing-card company, Nintendo has designed games that combine strategy, competition, and luck. This mixture takes competition-centric pressure off players, making the game less about winning and more about having fun.

Franchises like Mario Party, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros. are designed to put advanced players and novices on a more equal footing. These games are easy to pick up and understand, can be played alone or with others, and have high replay value.

However, some players rebel against luck in video games, arguing that skill and technical prowess should be the ultimate arbitrators of who wins or loses. They see games as a meritocracy and view luck as punishing some players for being good, while unjustly rewarding other players who didn’t put in the time and effort to improve. But for many Nintendo games, the focus on competition isn’t the point.

Dr. Nicholas Bowman is an associate professor at the Interaction Lab at West Virginia University. He researches interactivity and media psychology, analyzing how people react to media on screens. Bowman says Nintendo games such as Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Super Smash Bros. use elements of luck to downplay cognitive aspects of gaming (strategy, reflexes, choosing what button to push at the right time, etc.) to enhance the social experience of playing.

“In some ways, they take after board games, which always have that element of luck, whether you are playing Monopoly or even something like Dungeon and Dragons,” Bowman explained. “No matter how good you are, you still have to roll the dice.”

What Nintendo knows is that an important part of having fun is those around you also having fun. Adding dice rolls to Mario Party, or items based on your place in a Mario Kart race, or stage obstacles to Super Smash Bros. creates an element of surprise that makes each playthrough unique and offers novice players a chance to win. Bowman argues that these Nintendo games are meant to allow players of varying experience levels to have fun playing against each other.

“You know that if you had five friends come over, and they never touched a video game in their life, you could have them play one of those games and they’d be fine,” Bowman continued. “But the most important thing is they think they have a chance of winning.”

Bowman also studies video games and nostalgia, and said the ease and casual nature of these Mario multiplayer games facilitates greater levels of social connection.

“What you find out is people aren’t nostalgic for the game itself, but the game reminds them of the people they were around when playing it,” Bowman said. “Putting Smash Bros. on 100 lives is ridiculous–unless you want to spend hours with your buddies–then it’s awesome. The things that are most nostalgic are things that have these social connections with them.”

But many casual gamers, for whom competition isn’t a big motivator, often feel the broader gaming community looks down on those in it for the “play.” In his book, “The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games,” Dr. Christopher Paul is critical of the ways in which gaming culture has come to over-emphasize meritocracy at the expense of enjoyment. He writes that, as games became more popular and the community sought to carve out space as a legitimate sport, gaming culture uncritically accepted the idea that “success in video games is something that is properly earned by players through effort and labor.”

Paul, an assistant professor at Seattle University, argues that this thinking and other cultural assumptions underlie toxic in-group versus out-group dichotomies of who gets to be called a “real” gamer. Those who accept this framework are likely to think luck has no place in a game, because randomness erases complete control and makes the game “unfair.”

The logic goes that if a game is easy to learn, it takes less skill and less time to learn that skill; therefore it isn’t a good or fun game, and those who play games like Mario Kart or Party are not serious about gaming or are “not real gamers.” If luck makes it so that “anyone” can win, why play the game?

Super Smash Bros. is the traditionally considered the most skill-based of the Nintendo games previously mentioned; there are tournaments such as EVO, where items and certain stages are banned in order make the battles solely about skill. Mario Kart, meanwhile, has gotten some of the worst flack, mainly for what critics feel is the unfairness of the “blue shell.” Many advanced gamers are critical of Mario Party, seeing it as too random, as opposed to being a genuine test of skill.

These critiques are indicative of what many more advanced gamers feel about Mario spin-offs, but also highlight that they are likely conflating skill, competition, and technical mastery on one hand, and “fun” on the other. Not being able to see the value of games like Mario Party is overlooking and diminishing the social intent behind them.

The rationale behind critiques of these multiplayer Mario games can be a bit contradictory. The stigma placed on luck or randomness is often at odds with how unexpected moments in games are often the most enjoyable. If you flip through Fortnite highlights on Youtube or Twitch, a constant thread is moments where players, even professional ones, get lucky. It doesn’t mean these players didn’t have skill, but shooting an opponent from a distance so far that you can barely see them is as lucky as hitting the first place driver with a red shell right before they cross the finish line.

Also, some gamers defend gaming as a sacred space of competition in ways they would find unacceptable in more traditional sports. If you and your friends went to shoot some hoops, and someone came over to say what you all were doing wasn’t “real basketball,” what would your reaction be? So why do we do this–either implicitly or explicitly–in the gaming community? Bowman thinks sometimes our competitive drive can bring out the best and the worst in us.

“Most people don’t realize, it’s not the in-group that’s dangerous, it’s once you start calling other people out-group,” he said. “It’s okay to be proud of who you are or the time you put in, but when that means other people who aren’t you can’t be proud, that’s a problem.”

What may be overlooked is the fact that the chance and probability elements of these games are meant to alter and augment player strategy, not diminish it.

There are scenarios in Mario Kart games where the best position to be in is second place, but if you are in first, you may want to hold on to a Super Horn to neutralize attacks from possible red and blue shells. After a few times playing Smash Bros. games, you understand how going after items is both an opportunity and a distraction. The randomness of their appearances forces players to constantly adjust their strategy and to see offense and defense as simultaneous choices, not separate ones. In Super Mario Party, players can take a risk and roll their special dice to move around the board faster, but also have to account for the probability that buying a star can help an opponent as well, since it moves the Star Space to another place.

Good players learn how to not only navigate the balancing elements of these games, but use them to their advantage. But while these games use chance as a way to even the odds a bit, they don’t overcorrect to the point where skill and strategy are no longer vital.

For example, being good at mini-games gives you a big advantage in Mario Party. Anyone who has played Smash knows that the random item appearances or the obstacles on different stages aren’t going to help a novice opponent who doesn’t know how to block and dodge, or who hasn’t learned how to overcome edge guarding. Mario Kart’s director and producer Hideki Konno previously noted that Nintendo wanted an experience where “everyone was in it until the end,” but the “best” player is still going to win most of the time–like they would in pretty much any other game.

On its website, Nintendo’s marketing for the Switch includes phrases like “keep the focus on fun,” “connect and make memories,” and “something for everyone.” These Nintendo favorites don’t eliminate the incentives for mastery or autonomy, but they do place a premium on social interaction. Nintendo designs its games for families and those who want to have fun social experiences.

Skill and technical prowess will always be a key aspect of gaming. Wanting to win isn’t an inherently bad thing. But adding a little bit of luck can make each playthrough unique and give players of different skill levels a chance to compete–all of which place more emphasis on the “fun” and not the “win.”

GameSpot – All News

[studyingbymylonesome]

When the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to include “gaming disorder” in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases(ICD-11) in mid-2018, it did not at all settle the long-standing debate whether electronic gaming — online, by video consoles, or on smartphones— could be addictive enough to be considered pathologic.

Rather, the decision further inflamed the controversy, polarizing researchers who have argued opposite sides and leaving many others trying to make sense of limited evidence.1 At even the most practical level, many researchers note the lack of accompanying guidance for the addition.

“We don’t have the appropriate diagnostic tools, and the WHO did not really bother to define any symptoms,” said Chris Ferguson, PhD, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, who opposed the inclusion. “I think where things went off the rails is focusing on the behavior people are addicted to instead of traits of the individual,” Dr Ferguson told Psychiatry Advisor. Within public discourse, he said, people discuss video games as though they are inherently addictive, yet people overdo a wide range of behaviors.

He offered an example of the absurd: “We do not talk about cat addiction, but almost everything you could say about gaming addiction you could say about cats,” he said. “Stroking a cat tends to release dopamine, and cats have mechanisms to try to keep you petting them.” A quick Google search makes evident the problem of cat hoarding, he noted. “Is it something about video games that makes them different from shopping or exercise or food or sex or other things people can do excessively, or is it that individuals have difficulty regulating a fun thing?”

That was a key question the American Psychiatric Association wrangled with in updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5th edition(DSM-5). Ultimately, the American Psychiatric Association included “Internet Gaming Disorder” as a condition for further study rather than its own diagnosis. “There was not sufficient evidence to determine whether the condition is a unique mental disorder or the best criteria to classify it at the time the DSM-5 was published in 2013,” the organization wrote, but they proposed symptoms and potential criteria (5 or more symptoms within a year) for the disorder.

The WHO, meanwhile, announced in a September 2018 press release that gaming disorder becomes “a clinically recognizable and clinically significant syndrome when the pattern of gaming behavior is of such a nature and intensity that it results in marked distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational functioning.” Mental health providers remain caught in the debate.

Pushback from Industry and the Profession

Not surprisingly, the Entertainment Software Association pushed back on the WHO’s designation even before its formal announcement. In March 2018, Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, said, “The WHO’s process lacks transparency, is deeply flawed, and lacks objective scientific support.” The Entertainment Software Association drew attention to “A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: Let us err on the side of caution,” a paper in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions that responded to an earlier open debate paper on the WHO’s ICD-11 proposal and argued against making gaming disorder its own diagnosis because of the weak evidence base.

Dr Ferguson was among the 36 authors who acknowledged the potential for video gaming to interfere with people’s lives but argued for an “extremely high burden of evidence and the clinical utility…because there is a genuine risk of abuse of diagnoses.” They described what additional research was needed to legitimize a diagnosis.

One central issue is whether gaming is a disorder unto itself or a manifestation, in the form of a coping mechanism or self-medication, of another mental health issue, such as anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or other established diagnoses. Neurobiology research does not clarify this question, according to Michelle Colder Carras, PhD, one of Dr Ferguson’s coauthors on the opposition paper and a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“The way [many existing] studies are designed, we don’t have a way of telling the way the brain changes from video games compared to other pleasurable things, so it’s like we are comparing sex to drugs instead of comparing sex to some other decent thing that’s fulfilling,” Dr Carras told Psychiatry Advisor.

Dr Ferguson pointed out exaggerations regarding gaming’s effects on the brain. It’s true that gaming involves an anticipatory dopamine release in the brain — but so does “looking forward to going on a trip, having sex, or eating a pizza,” he said. “It sounds more ominous than it actually is.” The dopamine release associated with gaming is similar to those activities, whereas cocaine or methamphetamine release 3 and 12 times more dopamine, respectively.

The Framing Problem of “Addiction”

Another issue is the addiction paradigm itself: Is there a better way to frame problems of excessive use of a substance or excessive behaviors than saying the brain is addicted to that substance or behavior? Research suggests the underlying cognitive psychology of internet gaming disorder is complex and poorly understood.2

Dr Carras said she and colleagues have advocated for “broader category that could encompass different behavioral problems” when people lose control and excessive behaviors have a negative impact on their lives, although she acknowledged they lack a name for such a thing. “Compulsion” is an ego-dystonic behavior and hence not quite accurate: “You do not want to do it; you have to do it,” she explained.

Vladan Starcevic, MD, PhD, also an opposition paper coauthor and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney in Australia, agreed, noting that compulsion “refers to having an urge to do a certain activity because you are afraid if you stop, there will be negative consequences.” Although people who cannot continue gaming may feel “restless, angry, or frustrated,” those are psychological symptoms, not physical withdrawal symptoms, which current evidence has not revealed so far.

For gamers, however, negative consequences exist in the form of lost status in the game, such as lost points or reduced rankings relative to other players, according to a presentation that Barbara Craig, MD, a child abuse pediatrician from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, gave at the American Academy of Pediatrics annual meeting in November 2018. She agreed with gaming disorder as its own diagnostic problem and described pediatric abuse and neglect, including deaths, resulting from parents’ spending 12 or more hours a day playing games.

Still, is that behavior actually “addiction” per se? Dr Starcevic agrees with Dr Carras that “using the addiction paradigm is wrong” and called for caution in applying that label. “When you cross that boundary and something becomes a disorder, it has implications,” such as the stigma attached to any psychiatric diagnosis, Dr Starcevic told Psychiatry Advisor. He worries about making a pathological reason for excessive indulgence in everyday activities, such as shopping or sexual activity, while existing diagnoses already face challenges.

“There is not much support for many of our existing diagnoses,” Dr Starcevic said. “We are struggling to defend some of the existing diagnoses, and now we are introducing yet another that is difficult to defend.”

That does not mean problematic levels of gaming — or other behaviors — do not exist. However, boundaries distinguishing excessive or problematic gaming are not well defined, Dr Starcevic said, and these blurry boundaries can lead to stigma.

“There is a lot of literature on so-called moral panic and stigma associated with diagnostic labels,” Dr Starcevic said, which can be exacerbated without a “clear boundary of what could still be a variant of normal behavior.”

Supporters Recognize Risks Too

Even those who do believe gaming disorder should be its own diagnosis are cognizant of the risks. Petros Levounis, MD, MA, chairman of the psychiatry department at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, believes gaming disorder does need its own diagnosis and told the New York Times that one positive consequence of the WHO’s ICD-11designation is the potential ability to get reimbursed for treating people. No pharmacologic treatments exist presently, he told Psychiatry Advisor, so treatment consists of psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, or 12-step programs, albeit without much evidence.3 Yet he agreed with being cautious.

“The issue in psychiatry is that there is so much stigma associated with mental illness that before you call something a disorder, you had better have your ducks in a row and know what you are talking about,” Dr Levounis said. However, stigma of other diagnoses — including psychiatric issues that potentially contribute to excessive gaming — may supersede stigma associated with gaming as a disease.

“Maybe the internet gaming is a response to the underlying condition,” Dr Levounis said. “It could be that it is easier for parents and young kids to formulate their troubles in terms of internet gaming instead of saying it maybe a sexual or gender or depression issue.”

That brings things full circle to whether making gaming disorder official runs the risk of leaving those problems undiagnosed and/or untreated. Dr Carras takes a pragmatic approach to this question in a way that breaks somewhat with her skeptical colleagues.

“If the behavior is leading to significant life problems — children not getting to school, not going to work,a spouse is going to leave you — then regardless of whether it is because of a disorder or addiction, it makes sense to treat the behavior,” Dr Carras said, agreeing that the stigma associated with treating gaming might be lesser than when treating other conditions.

Research Gaps Remain

The problem remains that the evidence on excessive gaming is spotty, with too many open questions.4Both Dr Carras and Dr Ferguson pointed out the problem of adequate measurement, for example.5Even vocabulary presents problems — including even whether gaming should be discussed within the context of the internet, as an offline technology, or both.6

“We need a way of defining technology-related problems that is able to keep up with changes in society,” Dr Carras said. She and Dr Ferguson pointed out the research base’s glaring lack of voices from gamers themselves and the industry, which can only worsen generational problems with characterizing the disorder. Dr Ferguson pointed out that most of the WHO researchers pushing for gaming disorder’s inclusion in ICD-11 are likely over age 50 and not familiar with gaming in general.

“They really missed an opportunity to get a more diverse view of this issue,” he said. “If all people who do not like video games came up with a mental health diagnosis, this would be it.” Dr Ferguson also brought up the complexities of cultural differences in perceptions of gaming and mental health and suspected the WHO felt pressure from some countries in Asia to make gaming disorder official.7

Jeffrey Snodgrass, PhD, a psychiatric anthropologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins who has researched problematic gaming behaviors, told Psychiatry Advisor that the evidence does suggest “symptoms vary somewhat cross-culturally, pointing to a place for culture-specific ‘problem’ gaming that is not well captured by the ‘addiction’ frame.” Immersed in the research, he goes back and forth on the issue.

“I go where the data take me, and that varies from analysis to analysis,” he said, noting that even 2 of his most recent papers came to different conclusions on whether to support the addiction model.8,9 In fact, it is because Dr Snodgrass follows the data that he felt he was not the best person to offer a full-throated defense of either position in a point-counterpoint discussion. Perhaps that his research has not pointed solidly in one direction or another is a testament itself to how much more research is needed before a real consensus can begin to emerge.

Disclosures: None of those interviewed had disclosures.

[theantisocialcritic]

This AntiSocial Life: Borealis and Artistic Purity

Storytelling is one of the hardest jobs their is. The reason why is both simple and frustratingly complex. Stories require specific functions in order to create their desired function and most people don’t recognize those things. This is often the mile high hurdle that pushes down against young creatives as they struggle to try and create their own place to express themselves to an audience. Most people are il-equipped to handled such tasks. This isn’t for a lack of trying or creativity on the part of most people of course. It’s just a problem of difficulty that our greatest stories are so hard to grasp and recreate and most people never end up learning the skills necessary to do so. 

Growing up the closest I ever came to throwing my hat in the ring was with the Machinima fad of the late 2000s. The fad came as something of a strange artistic wave within the gaming community. Born in the 90s by the hands of a group of Quake gamers who created short narrations based in the world of the game, the phenomena launched in popularity after the breakout success of a small web series called Red vs Blue. The pitch was a simple parody of the in game mechanics of Halo: Combat Evolved’s multiplayer engine but the small Austin, Texas crew struck gold. 15 years later the same crew how own and operate their own Film studio. 

Machinima is a very simple concept but complicated in execution. In essence, Machinima involves using video games as the base medium to tell visual stories such as webseries and movies. To accomplish machinima in the earlier days was rather difficult. The process usually involved multiple players controlling different in game avatars and one player to function as the dedicated “camera” from whom the in game content would be recorded. From there the recorded material is edited down into traditional movie form. The process is one that initially required a great deal of time, patience, technical expertise and cooperation in order to pull off. The Quake videos and Red vs Blue did so like gangbusters. 

Red vs Blue’s runaway success reverberated up the chains of both Halo’s developers at Bungie and the gamers who loved the show. The popularity of the show gained so much attention that the developers of the game themselves personally gave the show the green light to continue without worry of legal issues from the publisher. Not long after new shows such as the dramatic series The Codex and the talk show This Spartan Life quickly rose to prominence and critical acclaim.  Given that the fad had arisen via the success of the Halo franchise it was only natural that the studio would come to recognize the golden goose they held. 

With rising popularity Bungie Studios sought to give their machinima fan base the ultimate boon. That boon was the famed Theater Mode. When Halo 3 released in 2007 the mode was one of the game’s most innovative and popular functions. Allowing the player to replay footage of their prior games and position the camera at will, theater mode was the ultimate gift to machinima fans. No more did Machinima require intensive multi-television set ups and multiple people. Now anyone with an Xbox 360 and four controllers could effectively create their own machinima. Namely myself… 

Yah… This embarrassing piece of storytelling was adolescent me’s attempt as creating his own Machinima and it sucks really badly. Not to mention it ripped off multiple other major Machinima series. Normally I don’t enjoy showing this off as it has stood for a while now as something of a personal blemish but I here I think offers a fascinating example of what Machinima was like at it’s height. Almost anyone could do it and often it failed. Occasionally though genuinely great creators managed to find their own strange, funny and/or creative niche to express and brought it to bear. To help foster this came the rise of one of YouTube’s most famous, beloved and hated channels, Machinima. Founded by some of the creators of the Quake videos, the channel became a hub at the height of the machinima craze (approximately 2007-2013). 

The channel’s great innovation was it’s ability to channel great talent into one place and keep them churning out consistent work. Shows like the wildly nihilistic and funny Arby n the Chief and the sketch comedy Sanity Not Included represented much of the best output of Machinima at the height of it’s popularity. Smaller but solid shows like the cult hit Phil also joined the highlights of Machinima at it’s height. Even with all the strong headliners Machinima’s best gift to the form was it’s ability to promote and release the smaller, less well know shorts that talented Machinima creators were churning out. Wonderful comedic bits like The De-Ranker, Gears of Halo-Theft Auto 5, New Halo Update, Birthday Surprise, The Wall, Bungie Police and Everything is Going to Be Alright hit the web to enormous fanfare with hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of views. For me though, one of these sketches has always stood above it’s contemporaries. Though seemingly innocuous on it’s surface and rather lacking a flashy surface compared to it’s contemporaries, i’ve always felt that this short stands head and shoulders above it’s entire medium for the very simple reason that it may be it’s entire form’s example of a pure artistic statement. That short is titled Borealis. 

As much as anyone else i’m all about fun and games. Machinima is nothing if it isn’t a great form for comedy. The inherent problem with Machinima as a form though is that of any art form I can imagine, no other one suffers such enormous creative limitations as Machinima. This genre quite literally is trapped within the confines of the games it is based on. Complex storytelling is immediately forced down by the inevitability of having to find some sort of in story explanation why everyone wears armored suites and carries assault rifles. Naturally there are a few get out of jail free cards for Machinima writers to pull in a pinch. 1. Set the Story Within the confines of Playing a Multiplayer Video Game 2. Set the Story Within the Canonical Universe of the Game

These solutions worth well in a pinch and many great Machinima creators worked out great sketches using them. The problem of course with this comes down to esotericism. Either of these options leaves you telling a story about either Halo or the experience of playing Halo. That’s it. Given that most creators working in Machinima weren’t master storytellers it was rare to see shorts that didn’t devolve into self reference and inside jokes for die hard gamers. Right off the bat this is a huge part of what makes Borealis so unique amongst it’s peers. It manages to be a story both separate from and informed by it’s origins. 

There is no reference in the short at all to Halo or any elements of the stories involved. On the flip side of things, with the exception of the voice acting no element of the short’s production exists outside of the game work. Even the music itself is drawn from the soundtrack of Halo 3: ODST. It’s an excellent synthesis of machinima’s natural limitations being embodied by an original story. On top of that it’s one of the only memorable Machinima I know of that wasn’t a comedy. Most series and shorts chose comedy because the absurdity made for good humor. Borealis actually chooses the harder root and tries to tell a serious story. The end result is a haunting, melancholy little poem about anxiety and one’s place in the greater scheme of things. 

On the downside it isn’t a subtle exploration of the topic. The story doesn’t give way to much real drama and the characters play out the themes of the piece word for word telling you pretty much exactly what they want you to think about. Greater implications can be thought of but I can’t imagine many of these characters truly existing beyond the small six minute snippet that we actually get shown in the picture. To be fair of course much of this is problems of the genre of Machinima as a whole as opposed to merely being this film’s fault. With rare exceptions Machinima isn’t an art form guided by a subtle hand. It’s primarily a niche entertainment genre and it has it’s strengths in inside jokes and subtle nodes to things most fans of Halo and other games would recognize. The closest I can imagine to a subtle hand in the genre comes out of later years Arby n the Chief which heavily relied upon darker themes and shocking plot turns. Borealis flaws and all certainly holds up amongst the best of them. 

When I call Borealis a poem I truly mean it as such. More than in it’s storytelling I find it to be a surprisingly thoughtful spoken word speech of these two characters musing on their place in the universe at one small place in one small time. This is a story about a confused young person being guided by an external force to help set his place in the universe. He starts out as a soldier, confused and alone. Sergeant Gabrial shepards him through his moment of frustration to find perspective to the state of things. His life will ultimately be defined by his choices. He very much is a small, insignificant person lost in the universe, but that universe will remember him for what he choses. The short then ends on a question to the viewer asking them the same haunting question. How will the things you do echo in the halls of eternity? 

Director Robert Merritt of Hallow Robot Productions who originally collaborated with Machinima’s Directing Program, Euphorian Films and Daemon Productions was kind enough to sit down with me for a Skype interview last fall to discuss the film and the eventual decline of Machinima and Machinima.com. Unfortunately coinciding with the departure of director Jon Graham from Arby n the Chief in 2013, Machinima.com began phasing out it’s directors program. In time regular contacts to the site began falling out and more and more films were being rejected as the company’s internal politics shifted and the company moved to reshape itself into something more legitimate from a business standpoint. The channel has gone on to partner with a number of major corporations in providing distribution for content for series such as Halo and the Justice League. Creators like Lyle Burrus and Dexter Manning who had previously highly successful jobs with Machinima broke out onto their own and eventually ceased YouTube as their full-time work. Several members of Machinima’s internal gaming crew once known as Inside Gaming even fled ship and reformed as a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth known as Funhaus. Rooster Teeth itself which still maintain’s Red vs Blue as it’s theoretical flagship has diversified it’s content so widely into live action comedy sketches, reality TV, feature films, gaming commentary and animation has largely abandoned Machinima it’s focus. Similarly so most of Borealis’s creators have moved on to various pursuits such as video game live streaming, video game development and filmmaking. Robert himself is currently working video games and CGI animation. He was involved in production of the flash game Office Freakout which was featured by YouTube celebrity Markiplier and works commission in independent filmmaking. 

Machinima’s moment in the sun has long since passed. While legacies such as the recently revitalized Arby n the Chief: Season 8 have popped up on occasion even the developers of Halo themselves have largely moved on from the fad, making Machinima in games like Halo 5: Guardians almost impossible by way of certain game restrictions. Given that little hustle has come up about it’s affect on Machinima it’s safe to say it hasn’t had a large effect. 

All that said, as Borealis shows our legacy echoes in eternity. The internet offers a database of potentially infinite possibility and the ability to preserve information for centuries to come. I’ll certainly remember Borealis, Red vs Blue, Arby n the Chief, Sanity Not Included and the numerous other Machinima's that defined this movement. As with legacy, great stories never die. 

Thank you all for reading! if you would like to see more essays like this lemme know by tweeting me at @AntiSocialCriti or commenting below. Also be sure to check out my new review show The Fox Valley Film Critics!

Live long and prosper!

[dicecast]

Blast to the Past: Open World vs. Story Pacing

Welcome back to Blast to the Past, where we look at gaming trends from the so called ‘Old School’ Western RPGS and compare them to the trends of the New RPGs, and this has been requested by @atnak16 who wanted to ask about design differences between games like Baldur’s Gate where you can wander anywhere and kill anyone, and more modern RPGs, which i want to use as a launching point to talk about some of the larger “Genres” in RPGS.  So this question is basically about two different game philosophies rather than a single design choice.  The first i am going to call “Open World RPGs” which focus on exploration and non linearity, and the latter I call “Story RPGS” where roleplaying is part of the core story.  BUt of course nothing is simple, and many games don’t fall into either or fall into both.  Just for point of reference

Open World RPGs

Baldur’s Gate 1

Fallout 1-4 (though the first two have totally different design goals than 3-4)

Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim (haven’t played the other games)

Dark Souls

Bloodborne

Arcanum

Story RPGs

The Dragon Age Series

Mass Effect 1 and 3

Jade Empire

The KOTOR Games

Mask of the Betrayer

Deus Ex

Neverwinter Knights 2

Throne of Bhaal

Ultima Serpent Isle 

Most JRPGS

The Witcher 1 and 2

Hybrids

Planescape Torment

Mass Effect 2

Fallout New Vegas

Neverwinter Knights 1 

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines Baldur’s Gate 2

So this is the map of Baldur’s Gate

Ultima VII

The Witcher 3

Others

Pillars of Eternity 

Dishonored 

All other Deus Ex Games 

The Divinity Series

Games I haven’t played 

Geneforge

Torment Tides of Numenaria 

Gothic 

Exile

Avernum 

Wasteland 

Ok so lets talk about Baldur’s Gate as an example of Open World RPG, this is the World Map 

And from the moment you leave the starting area, you can go....almost anywhere on this map.  The CLoakwood, Baldur’s Gate itself, and Ulgoth’s Beard require some plot traversal, but if I want to not go the Friendly Arm Inn like my foster Father told me too and instead check out the Light House or go to the Gnoll Fortress or if i’m completely insane attempt to take on Durlag’s Tower I am free to do right from the word Go. The Game is basically “Tutorial-, free for all”.  

(Sometimes that is a bad idea) 

The Second Factor is the freedom to Murder people.  This is the Lovely Town of Bergost.

 And if I want too, I can go in and kill literally every single person in that town if I am high enough level to pull it off.   You can actually murder almost everybody in the game, a character called Biff the Understudy shows up and will awkwardly and inept read their lines.  The underlying message of Baldur’s Gate is ‘Go wild, have fun, do what ever you want”

(oh right?)

Baldurs Gate, particularly the First one, is much closer to the Elder Scrolls series in terms of design style, its basically a different take on the same promise of the Elder Scrolls, a wide open Immersive World where you can just mess around and do what ever you want, where right over the next hill might be some incredible new adventure you didn’t even know was there.  Baldur’s Gate is just a very different approach than the Elder Scrolls, where instead of making a connected open world, its a bunch of separate Zones, and I actually much prefer that design style for reasons outlined in the this video here.  

I might in the Future compare the design philosophy of the Elder Scrolls to that of Baldur’s Gate 1 and honestly, Dark Souls 1, because those are three takes on the same mind set 

By contrast this is  the world map of Dragon Age Origins

And the game is structured in such a way  that you open up each area as the plot progresses, there are periods where you can go anywhere you want, but the focus of the design is the main plot, you can’t go to the landsmeet until you do these 4 events, you can’t do those 4 events until you fuck around a bit in Lotherang, you can’t do that until the battle of Ostigar, which you can’t do until the you finish the wilds, which you can’t do until you finish your mutually exclusive origin story.  And while you can run about within those 4 plot marker areas, each one is sort of a mini story with a beginning, middle, and end, which you can’t really avoid.  If I go to the Dalish camp, first thing that happens is the Dalish are like “Yo outsider, here are our issues, Werewolves suck, don’t read too much into this”, and if I instantly go to the Dwarven city they are like “Yo, this is the worse part of the game, terribly simplistic political conflict for the wins”. 

(Fuck y’all)

 And they all have the same beats of a story, introduce of the racial group and their core issue, the “Dangerous area” that you need to go into to solve their stupid problem, you fight through a series of 3-5 areas before the big boss, there is a giant final choice, and then you come back home and have to follow that up with another “big choice”.  And most of the time you pick up a companion.  

(Go fuck yourself Ogrhen)

  Or to take the Witcher, you start out in your little witcher fortress, then you go to the outskirts of Vizemia for the worse part of the game, then you go to a single city district, then a larger part of the city, than an even larger part of the city, then a swamp, than a farm, then back to the city but its on fire now, the pace of exploration is dictated by the story.  

(This will end well)

much like the legend of Zelda series, there is a very specific pace the designers are going for.  And in all these games, you can’t just kill who ever you want, in fact they all have the common design choice of 

Combat is triggered by the enemy

opposed to 

Combat is Triggered by the Player

I can’t just have Geralt randomly cut down people in broad day light, I only can do my whole stance thing when the game feels like it.  I can’t kill both dwarven leaders in Dragon Age by attacking literally everybody, just like how Link cannot stab Tingle no matter how many times I try.  But in Baldur’s Gate I can press the sword icon and kill...literally anybody who I want.  

Interestingly enough, Pillars of Eternity is trying to model itself off Baldur’s Gate but it totally fails, if people are interested I might do a follow up on that 

    So neither approach is inherently better than the other, they are doing very different things and have different challenges, which I think I should get into in different works because this is already quite long.  But at its heart is a different view of engagement.  The First, the Open World Approach, says that hte player’s engagement is through exploration and discovery, that the player’s ability to fuck around is the core version of engagement.  Choice is found in mechanical activity, do I attack, where do I go, should I steal something and how, in what way can I fuck with the game engine to get rewards I shouldn’t have access too?  The latter says the core engagement is in the story itself, that choice is determined by players effecting the larger plot.  Who do I side with?  Do I spare this dude?  What item do I want as a reward?  That sort of thing.   They are both viable and interesting design choices, and a lot of different design choices will help a game achieve its goal.  The biggest problem I feel are games which doesn’t know what their goal is (Pillars of Eternity, Oblivion, Dark Souls 2, Jade Empire, the Witcher 1).  

   I will likely be referencing this article like..a lot 

(please make Jade Empire 2, but not shit) 

[latefrequencies]

Okay so this is how Chromarose and IHNMAIMS are related in their setting

So descriptions of the settings:

as probably most of you know, AM from IHNMAIMS basically has the last five humans on Earth kept in a setting where AM can warp reality and create tortures and imaginary (sometimes) narrative scenarios for the humans, and what most of you didn’t know bc I just fairly recently decided this was that Chromarose has a Torture Basement in which they do all their filming (at first I wasn’t sure where they filmed bc I was like “isn’t a torture basement too unrealistic and cliche” and then I went “well like real life people have had torture basements and gotten away with it for a very long time and honestly where else are you going to have the setting be”) 

yes I am positing that AM basically just created the archetypical “torture basement” setting. He didn’t not do that.

So anyway both are scenarios where somebody has basically absolute power over the settings and creates sometimes very elaborate scenarios for the purpose of inflicting some kind of harm on people. Said creators of the settings have no regard for human life and they never did, thereby creating absolutely no complications in doing their respective things. There is sometimes vaguely religious imagery associated with them being “gods” of their scenarios (AM has the whole “I AM” thing and that’s a phrase associated with God in Christianity and I BELIEVE there were like...at least a few times in the short story where someone said something about about AM being the god of this setting and I’ve drawn Chroma with some religious imagery before and posited “what if they were the god of murder tapes” and I’m like actually considering making something like that canon-ish. Not like making them an actual god but making religious references canonically a thing.)

So you may be going “but Jude that’s what all murder basement settings have in common” but there are two things that basically kind of set Chroma and AM apart and make them similar to each other

First part is the fact that both people (AM is a “people” to me) created these settings and torture people in them because that’s the only thing they can do. AM is a war machine who was literally programmed to do nothing but inflict harm and probably literally only can do that. Chroma THINKS that all they’re good at is devising violent scenarios and they kill people as a means of realizing that “potential”. (I’m going to talk about this like Chroma really is only good at murder ((and also like music isn’t the other thing they think they’re good at)) because in their mind, that’s true and really in this situation what matters is that the person who made the situation thinks it’s true.)

Okay anyway Chroma is only good at harming people. Granted Chroma does kill people and AM. Doesn’t. It’s a plot point he doesn’t want them to die but yknow both do torture people (Chroma usually includes a torture sequence in any given video). They have created these settings of torture because in some way, it was inevitable for them to do so and there was nothing else they were good enough at doing or capable of doing.

Second part is the fact that both settings feature a narrative aspect. In Chromarose’s videos, there is always a sequence that Chroma personally sees as a narrative. They have things in their videos that aren’t the murders (they will interview victims, have them do something for the camera, put music in the video, etc.) and themurder is the conclusion and the finale we came to see, so to speak. To them there’s a beginning (the victim selection), a middle (everything that isn’t the murder), and an end (the murder). 

This is more in the video game than any other version, but in IHNMAIMS, AM creates narrative settings. Like, it’s clear that the “game” he plays with the humans involves putting them in scenarios that come with a narrative and I would entirely not be surprised if he did this kind of thing to them semi-regularly (I mean.....I feel like it’s also implied because all of them seem to have a sense of familiarity when in their scenarios like Oh It’s This Again). Even in the short story he does make a sort-of narrative for the humans, like he does the thing where he makes them go to get the food and provides varying obstacles and painful things along the way but he’s very clearly setting up a (very simple) story (which turns out to be basicaly just a rly mean practical joke kind of but yknow) where it’s like “these people did these things to this effect” and like. It’s clear he can stage scenarios and narratives if he wants to. Granted AM’s narratives are quite different than Chroma’s but it’s still this narrative quality. Like it’s very planned out as opposed to just “hey let’s torture somebody” it’s a specific “scene” of torture (yes I’m aware I just used and quote-marked that word that’s also used in sadomasochistic contexts to mean somewhat kinda the same thing I said it just seemed like the right word) There’s just this kinda stageyness and narrative quality present in both settings that isn’t inherent to the torture basement setting.

There’s also the fact that both AM’s and Chroma’s torture basements have similar outcomes for both themselves and the people in those settings. AM doesn’t kill the humans but he does prevent them from escaping or finding relief (until the end kinda but yknow. Also how many times have I said “but yknow” to mean “not exactly but still yes” in this post.) Chroma kills everybody. It’s not like the thing where the person provides the victims a way out if they do XYZ thing or where the victim escapes there are no escapees there are no survivors in AM and Chroma’s House Of Pain (I don’t know why I said it that way it sounds like I’m trying to be funny I might be trying to be funny I do not know.) And there’s no thing where someone Finds Out and shuts the places down. Obviously in IHNMAIMS there’s no way to make someone do that with AM bc he is Truly In Charge Of Everything. In Chromarose’s story just. That just never happens. 

Also vague religious references. AM’s whole “I AM” thing (that phrase is a reference to God in Christianity like it’s A Thing in Christianity) and the fact that I think at least a few characters call him the god of their world. I can’t remember who says that. I’m too tired to try to find out at this point in time. I’ve drawn Chroma in religious-esque settings (”Your own! personal! Chroma!”) and been like What If They’re The God Of Murder Tapes and I will probably make religious references at least kinda canon (not that I’ll make it so Chromarose is indeed a deity but like in one of the interviews I’m probably gonna do the Thing where someone’s like ‘I know there is a heaven for me and a hell for you” and Chroma’s just “regardless I am the god of the space we are in now and wherever you’re going to I’m very soon to send you on your way”) 

Also the way it ends for the creators of the painful environment? this is kind of a spoiler but I’ve talked about it the gist of it before but Chroma stops making films at around the time that VHS becomes obsolete because they realize they can no longer get attention the same way as they’re used to and their work isn’t serving them the same end (yeah that’s a difference between Chroma and AM never did I say they were like. similar, character-wise, as such. Just that they create similar environments for similar reasons-ish.) but no one stops them they stop of their own volition, and their Final Tape happens at the end of their story when their place of residence is discovered and the protagonists go to the place where Chroma is and they’re like “I’ve been waiting to do this for years!” and they film themself doing the ultimate final video where they kill themself and film it before anything else can be done.

the reason Chroma’s ending has anything to do with AM is because I’ve seen people apparently argue abt what happens to AM at the end of the story? because there are some people who are like “no he’s not really doing time distortion on Ted that’s Ted being an unreliable narrator and genuinely thinking there’s time distortion, AM actually shut itself off on purpose and is now basically dead” which is like. obviously of course a suicide. and then there’s like. apparently uncertainty as to whether or not he keeps doing bad things to Ted after The Event at the end of the story. because some people are like “and Ted just has this one extra horrible thing on top of the other terrible things he was experiencing before” and some people just assume AM doesn’t directly do anything to Ted again (except the time distortion, if that’s a thing) because what has happened now is the Ultimate Torture why does AM have to do anything else now. and like. Chroma dying in one of their own tapes is The Ultimate, time to go home everyone we just got the best on tape. obvs they. can’t do anything else after killing themself but they did see that as their Finale so yeah. in no cases does anyone survive the pain. no one escapes. they just have to deal with these horrifying gods of pain, one of whom is wearing a weird mask. 

[ncscope-archived-blog]

How does the mun feel about the fanon regarding Ana? Are there any particular fanon they do or don't like? How do they feel about Anahardt and Pharmercy, which seem to be the most popular ships for Ana and for Pharah?

For the sake of convenience I’m going to break this post in two, and under the “read more” thingy as to not clog other people’s dash. I’m kind of scared that this is going to turn into a bloody essay about Ana and her place in the O.W fandom. Oh, well.

How does the mun feel about the fanon regarding Ana? Are there any particular fanon they do or don’t like?

I haven’t been in this fandom for very long so I might have missed on a few things, but overall, I’m afraid the fanon regarding Ana is rather limited and limiting. I’ve noticed that very, very very often, the fandom reduces Ana to her being everyone’s mom/granny, and while it’s a trope I enjoy using myself (besides Ana is canonically depicted as the maternal type, her former team calling her “Mama Bear” in the comics), I find it really sad when she’s reduced to that stereotype only. 

Yes, Ana is an older woman, she’s a mother, and she has this strong motherly attitude towards her subordinates. But that doesn’t mean she should be reduced to being the comic relief that sleep-darts McCree whenever he goes “It’s hiiiiigh noon” (though I love these drawings, they’re often hilarious), or goes full on protective mom whenever she appears in a Pharmercy strip. Overall I think Ana is very largely overlooked by the fandom and reduced to her age and gender. I would love to see more art or writing about Ana having to deal with Jack and Gabriel tearing each other apart; and how about her being a bounty hunter with a 70.000.000$ bounty on her head (which is more than the bounty McCree, an outlaw, has on his head, if his spray in-game is anything to go by, surely that tells something about what the hell she’s been up to for these five years)? How about her cynicism towards Jack, when she states she doesn’t care for his war - what is it she means and what does it say about her state of mind as opposed to before getting shot by Widowmaker? I need more ghost Ana and I need more of Ana’s darker sides, she’s such a complex and manyfold character, why would you limit her to her being Team Mom or the Cool Gal in the Overwatch founding members trio? How about her relationships with other Overwatch members? 

That being said, there are things I absolutely love that the fandom has done with her: while there is little fanart of Ana, I always find it beautiful and pretty on point (there’s just a massive discrepancy in terms of quantity, a lot about her as Team Mom and close to none on other aspects of her personality). She escapes the oversexualisation that systematically happens with other female (or even male) characters (though I’ll talk more about that later, in the question about shipping) and I just love the occasional fanart where she’s just a freaking badass soldier.

Overall I don’t think the fanon completely goes off topic with her - she’s just reduced to the Team Mom trope way too often and it can be incredibly frustrating. It’s not inherent to Ana: I’ve played muses who were older women before, and it’s always, always the same thing, people go to them to serve as their muse’s mother figure. And I don’t now if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but when in the same fandom, you get the older woman reduced to her role as a mother, while the men of the same age with similar jobs/functions/responsibilities get so much more developed  and so many more nuances in their depiction and relationships (friends, lovers, enemies, etc), and are not just reduced to beign Team Dads, I call that sexism. It’s nothing new that older wmen get less attention, it’s just a shame when it happens in a fandom that prides itself on the diversity of its cast and leaves out the characters that are less conventionally sexy than others (let’s not even talk about poor Torbjörn). 

How do they feel about Anahardt and Pharmercy, which seem to be the most popular ships for Ana and for Pharah?

I’ve ot to admit, I’m not much of a shipper myself. I’m what I call a passive shipper: I’ll never think of two characters as shippable until you show me a nice art or a nice thread between two characters and then I’ll go “oh yeah, that’s really nice actually, I like it!”. That’s pretty much how I feel towards Anahardt: out of all the ships I’ve been able to see in this fandom, I enjoy it because 1. it makes sense, personality-wise and lore-wise (even though I strongly disagree with the idea that Ana and Reinhardt’s lines in-game indicates sexual or romantic attraction, why can’t it just be playful banter/flirting?), and 2. the fact that this ship is P.ORN-FREE. This ship is nothing but fluff and frankly, in the ship hell tumblr can be, it’s really refreshing. 

As for Pharmercy, I don’t really care fo that ship. They look good together, it makes sense to me, but I’ve seen quite a few Pharah muns complaining about seeing Pharah being reduced to existing solely for that ship within the fandom, which I find just as sad as Ana being reduced to her Team Mom role. Don’t reduce characters to sexy bodies that onyl exist for shipping purposes, buddies. It’s not cool. Pharah is an awesome character who deserves way more than she’s currently getting from the fandom. But then, I have to say, I’ve never seen more shipping art than in the Overwatch fandom, so I’m afraid almost all characters are getting that treatment, sadly. That, or they don’t even get shipped and are virtually non-existant in comparison to those who do.

Which brings me to my next point, aka Ana being considerably less shipped with than other characters, including her male counterparts Jack, Gabriel, and even Reinhardt (again, Torbjörn feels like an exception). It’s not something that really bothers me, since I’m not a huge shipper, buuuut it bothers me to notice that once more, the older woman is left out of this aspect of the fanon. Soldier:76 and Reaper get shipped a lot with each other and with virtually any other character (even 19yo D.Va), whereas Ana, well… There’s Anahardt, and that’s about it, really. I wouldn’t say it’s her most popular ship, I’d say it’s her only ship, really. Once again, the older woman is left out - it’s a phenomenon you see a lot in movies and popculture as well, why do you think they cast 20-30yo actresses to play the romantic interest of 40, 50 or 60yo actors? Because in our collective imagination, women past the age of 40 cease to exist as possibly romantic and sexual beings - on that topic, I highly recommend this video by Amy Schumer (”How about men, who tells men when it’s their last f***able day?” “Honey, men don’t have that day. They’re f***able forever, they could be a hundred years old and nothing but white spiders coming out but they’re f***able!”).

I’m grateful Ana escapes the gross p.orn and oversexualisation other characters and ships can get, but I’d be interested to see her in other ships, heck, why not? Why not try and be creative? Why not Ana and Reaper? Why not Ana and Jack? Shouldn’t they be pretty obvious? The three of them were always very close, she had a special relationship with them just as much as Jack and Gabriel had a special relationship, didn’t she? How about, say, Ana and Torbjörn, two of the characters that rarely get shipped? How about Ana and Mercy, who also have a long (and possibly complicated) friendship behind them, two supports and founding members of Overwatch? I’ve seen people ship Jack with D.Va or the obvious McReaper shippers saying “age gap is not an issue” - but apprently that’s only the case if it’s two men OR when the man is older than the woman and not the other way around. How about Ana being shipped with a younger character? How come the fandom decides Ana complimenting an old friend on how good they look (which I do all the time with my friends, and trust me they know I’m not flirting with them thank goodness) is blatant flirting, but her telling McCree he was always a charmer is not? I could go on with pretty much all the characters but this is already long enough of an essay, so I shall stop there. 

Then again, at least, Ana doesn’t get to be reduced to romantic relationships and that is bloody freaking great. 

I feel like I’m just rambling and half of this post lacks coherence and all of it is just messy thought jotted down without structure, and I’m probably forgetting a lot of things, and I’m really sorry about it, but I just thought a lot about all these questions and finally got the occasion to express myself on the matter, so many thanks Anon!