#long live singleplayer games

[contessaexchaos]

I think Gaider had already seen signs of this happening. It’s possible this isn’t the first time he sat across execs to explain why [insert money-shilling game feature] doesn’t fit with an IP like DA. It’s likely that this or a similar clash played a role in him leaving post-DAI, while Project Joplin was still Project Joplin…only for the execs to scrap their original idea and their meddling, blowing up production costs that they then needed to scrimp and rush to deliver a product they can sell by 2024.

I like Veilguard for its gameplay and robust cc and how beautiful Solas looks. I don’t like its writing. But I think the devs and programmers and the art department and the writing team did their best and pushed hard to make the Bioware Magic shine once more. That’s why the game was stable on release, with few bugs. It ran smoothly for my entire playthrough. They managed to produce a smooth running game on release in under three years, better than other AAA studios that had disastrous releases in 2023-2024.

That said, I grieve for what we could have had if the execs hadn’t meddled with the development cycle. If only they trusted that the BioWare team—many of whom are veterans of game dev and vg writing—have their fingers on the pulse of the DA fandom. All the money they spend to retain their veteran staff, they’d have 10xd in profit after a successful game launch. Instead they slash the studio and tell themselves they were right, that they should have pushed for live service and that’s why VG failed.

They don’t even know the first thing about this IP.

David Gaider: "If I really dig into my empathy, I can kinda see the thinking here. Like, let's say you don't actually know much about games. You're in a big office with a bunch of other execs who also don't know much about games. What are they all saying? "Live games do big numbers!" "Action games are hot!" Your natural response? "We should make more action games, and all our games should have live service!" Cha-ching, right? Then some uppity devs spoil your buzz by saying "that doesn't apply equally to all games" or "we have an established IP with an audience that has certain expectations". You frown. You go look at their sales. Good, sure, but not as spectacular as live service and action games! Profit's great, but what's the point if you're not #1 in the charts? If you're not making headlines? If the devs can't make it work, this is THEIR failure. This, after all, is the future of gaming! Eventually, you're going to ask yourself why we (the company) even bother with those other games. Like single player games. It's a question you've asked aloud before. The fans bristle, but you're not here to supply every audience what they want. You're here to make money and increase share value. Maybe I'm being unkind. There are certainly all sorts of lessons a company could learn from a game like Veilguard (I still haven't played it, so I'm going off what other people have said), but "maybe it should have been live service" being the takeaway seems a bit short-sighted and self-serving. Not that there's any shortage of that, when it comes to deciding why a game doesn't do well. For the anti-woke crowd, for instance, there are woke games that do well and woke games that do poorly and only the ones that did poorly did so *because* they were woke. Says more about them than the game. My advice to EA (not that they care): you have an IP that a lot of people love. Deeply. At its height, it sold well enough to make you happy, right? Look at what it did best at the point where it sold the most. Follow Larian's lead and double down on that. The audience is still there. And waiting. ❤️" [source thread]

--

User: "Maybe they can sell the IP to Larian. Or someone else who would treat it respectfully." David Gaider: "I suspect Larian is, smartly, done with working on third-party IP. You do all that work, and the IP overlords do little more than dictate the minutiae and make your life difficult and then you have to cut them a huge slice of the proceeds too? Not a lot of studios are going to bite THAT hook. [source] I know you said SELL the IP, but there's no way EA will relinquish its hold on an IP that could potentially do big numbers. In their ideal world, a studio takes it on, does all the work, and they rake in the cash. Giving up that kind of potential would require BIG money... and who would buy it?" [source]

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Getting into objectively very big and popular fandoms is wild. Mostly noticeable in seeing casual harry potter mention and taylor swift fans

[horizonandstar]

Sun: Aww, little one! Did you invite your friends to see me? Burrower!Star: No, these are my 4 children. Sun:... I'm sorry, what?

borrower kids are 1 sauce tall. can you imagine

[thefirstknife]

Is the Witness cutscene viewable to people who did not pay for access to the season (or will it be post-year)? Like people who only bought the expansion and not the season pass? I know they shove important story and lore info behind timegated paywalls constantly (reason I hate the season model), but that seems like a really especially vital scene I would hope would be viewable in-game by everyone

Right now, it's only a part of the season. Obviously it's available for free online on their official and non-official channels, but in-game it's only for those that have Season of the Deep, for now, since it's a part of this season.

As for the future, honestly no clue. I will assume yes because of one simple fact: you will no longer be able to buy the past seasons when Lightfall year ends. That would mean that only people who bought the season during this year would continue to have access to the cutscene going forward, but no new players would have the same access, which kinda defeats the purpose of having it accessible in the game later.

So I can assume that they might be working on some universally accessible cutscene viewer that will allow all players to see cutscenes from content no longer in the game, regardless of whether they've previously purchased it or not. That's the best scenario because it would mean we'd get all other cutscenes in the game too. The middle scenario is that only the Witness cutscene will be viewable somewhere as part of another mission or some quest, also without having to have purchased Season of the Deep (since you won't be able to once TFS starts: technically you'll be able to purchase Lightfall so maybe it will require you to at least have purchased that, but the season itself will no longer exist).

We'll have to wait for more info on that. As of now, I would assume that once this year is done and the season is no longer purchasable, the cutscene will be a part of content that is available to everyone. While it's still purchasable, it's only in-game for those that bought it, but can be viewed with no problem on their official channel (and elsewhere).

[gemharvest]

Want to draw but I've been frustrated with drawing all day. Maybe I'll finally go and try to finish HL1

[dailyzedaphfacts]

Who IS Dot??

I saw some people surprised about the engagement and I love any opportunity to talk about Dot! Let's meet the newest soon-to-be Hermit spouse!

Dot, AKA Dot_Dot_Dash, is a Minecrafter, editor, and the long term girlfriend, now fiancée, of ZedaphPlays! She uses she/her pronouns and is originally from the Netherlands, but has lived with Zed in England for a while now! She's bilingual and is trying to teach Zed Dutch! They originally met online and have been together for fourish years.

Dot loves chickens, puns, and her dog Danny, who she often posts cute pictures of. She's a friend and fan of the Hermits and an absolute fiend at Mario Kart, even enjoying the driving minigames in other games. They don't call her Dash for nothing! Some of the designs in Zed's merch shop were designed by her and she's even tried her hand at animation! Dot is most noted for supplying the captions for Zed's videos, recently extending to Gem as well. Accessibility!

She has her own YouTube channel with a short singleplayer series and a small bounty of Hermitcraft edits! My personal favorite is the Impulse and Tango version of the Drake and Josh theme. While her series was short, she used to livestream gameplay as well and is quite the talented builder, particularly liking to build castles! You can also find her on several Zedaph streams and his Patreon server.

Dot was even at the 2024 Gamers Outreach Charity Event! She can be spotted looking fashionable and enabling Zed's poor ideas, even supplying one of her own! Turns out Zed's hips are too wide to use a party hat as a jock strap.

Dot is fun, cheeky, talented, cute, and I look forward to seeing more of her! She and Kris are a great pair and we here at zedfacts wish them the best on this new step! <3

[princecharmingtobe]

I recently picked up a new (to me) game, called Vintage Story, and it's been kind of insightful.

If you've not heard of it, it's similar to minecraft in many ways. It's basically the Terrafirmacraft mod made into its own game with some of its own new mechanics, and interesting world lore.

The main premise is you start with nothing in a wild world and have to survive and progress through levels of technology.

The insightful part for me is really understanding why and how humans evolved to be such a social species. I played for a few days in singleplayer and only just entered the copper age, living in a little log shack, with a small garden I was trying to maintain. I'd never hunted anything bigger than a boar (and the boars in this game are rather small, not the huge ones).

Then I started multiplayer with ONE other person... and the difference is insane. We have a two-story brick and cobblestone house with a cellar, a garden at least twice the size, we're got lots of copper stuff, we've already started making winter clothes and we're still in May, and we've hunted down wolves and deer (cut to me chasing a deer with a knife after running out of arrows and breaking all my spears while yakety sax plays).

The inclusion of just ONE person made SUCH a difference.

Ok technically there's three of us but one guy joined late and wasn't on very long. This was us discovering that if you sit on the edge of a block your legs will hang over it instead of being crossed.

[ayeforscotland]

just pitching my fork in the pile here: so far i've found the best live-service games i've ever played that actually seem to be working are Mabinogi, which is an mmorpg and therefor makes perfect sense to have lasted as long as it did.... and genshin impact, which is still pretty new and a bit controversial, and frankly works best as singleplayer game (and thus doesn't really NEED to be live service). i think the model works well with some games and just fails spectacularly with others.

True, MMOs clean house when it comes to live-service and I adored Runescape growing up! Haven't played much Genshin myself.

I think the issue is that Execs and venture capitalists see things like Genshin and go 'Wow we can cash in big time'

Someone should maybe show them this:

[a-thread-of-green]

A Review of the Nintendo Switch Remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

I'm sorry to say it, but the remaster has a far inferior playing experience to the 2004 original. While the graphics are certainly more polished, there was a simple charm to the flatter, plainer designs, as well as their fuzzy quality when played on the boxy TV in the living room. Similarly, the more elaborate music loses something in the switch to the new console and the loss of the background-buzz of an air-conditioner overworking itself to make summer in central Texas livable. The game's transition to singleplayer is another downgrade: I, for one, enjoyed the "little sibling" mode of the original where you could just watch your big sister play and ask her to read out the long words for you. On the whole, the new version would be a far superior product if it had kept the core feature of the player being seven years old. That said, Nintendo got one thing right by making two of the central characters canonically transgender women: Vivian and me.

[gaming-artificer]

I'd like to get this blog started by sharing an aesthetic that I absolutely love, especially in the setting of a game, and one of my favorite games, My Time at Sandrock, which follows it. It's a "post-post-apocalyptic" setting, in which the apocalypse has happened, the world was destroyed or became uninhabitable, but by the time the game (or other media) takes place, people are beginning to get on their feet again. I don't know if there's a specific name for this. I've seen "reclaimed by nature", but while that's often a part of these settings, that the ruins of the world before the apocalypse have been filled with plant and animal life over time, it's not always the case. "Hope punk" is probably the closest.

I'll probably come back to this idea a few times, but for now I'd like to talk about how well I think My Time at Sandrock embodies this aesthetic.

For anyone who hasn't played or heard about the My Time series, they're super chill singleplayer (for now) RPGs where you play as the "builder" for one of the "Alliance of Free Cities" (Portia and Sandrock, in their respective games). They have a vibe very similar to Stardew Valley, where the game is based around days in the calendar year, but you can work at your own pace, build your workshop as you like, complete quests to improve the town, and socialize and form relationships with the NPCs. My Time at Sandrock is one of my favorite games of all time. It's currently my banner image, and I met one of my now best friends during the multiplayer closed beta.

My Time at Sandrock takes place in a frontier town in the Eufala Desert. It's this world's equivalent of a gold rush town, where people flocked to dig up relics and technology from the Old World (the game's term for the civilization who lived before, and caused, the apocalypse). However, most of the town's already scarce natural resources were squandered during this time, and it fell on hard times. Your job as the new Builder is to help the town get back on its feet by helping to build buildings, explore the ruins, defend from monsters alongside the Civil Corps, with the end goal of achieving prosperity for the town, sustainably this time.

The town of Sandrock is built nearby a massive ancient ruin, resembling a shopping mall, called Paradise Lost (a name which I think is referencing the "Paradise Lost" step of the Hero's Journey). This ruin is presumably what a lot of the Ruin Divers were interested in. The game has a cute, cartoony style and I love wandering through the hazardous ruins, fighting cleaning and construction robots, and wondering what they were building before the world was shrouded in darkness.

So, how did that happen?

300ish years before the game takes place, was an era described as the Age of Corruption, when technology had peaked, humans lived the high life, and robots did most physical labor. However, before long was the Day of Calamity, when the technology that the humans had built for war caused chaos and darkness across the world.

For 200 years, humans lived in darkness, mainly underground, under nuclear winter conditions while monsters owned the land above. Finally, a man named Peach built a machine to blow through the clouds, allow sunlight to reach the land, and allow humans to come out from underground and begin to rebuild civilization. This event is commemorated as the Day of the Bright Sun.

The series doesn't give much detail beyond this, but I don't think it should, unless it's the focus of a future game. It's just enough to give context to the settings, as most of their worldbuilding happens in the present, not in the past. Both games take place in a world 100 years and two or three generations after the Day of the Bright Sun. Civilization is being rebuilt, people are prospering, and there is even a religion called the Church of the Light formed around non-violence, cooperation, and opposing the use of Old World technology, as they believe it's dangerous and fear the same end as the Old World had.

Sandrock, though, has gone through this pattern again, in its own way. In their rush to strike it rich on Old World technology, the ruin divers and the city used up all of their natural resources, resulting in the trees all being chopped down, the town's oasis drying up, and the only thing left being the ruins themselves. You, as the town's new builder, are put in the empowering position of lifting up Sandrock from this situation and restoring it to its former glory.

This is the part that I love so much about My Time at Sandrock. The prospect of rebuilding an entire civilization is difficult to achieve as one character. Games like Civilization, RimWorld, and Terra Nil tackle this by making the player essentially omnipotent, giving them control over the whole developing civilization at once (or in Terra Nil's case, with wildly advanced technology). But Sandrock does this differently: By re-creating the reconstruction effort on a smaller scale, with just one town, and placing the player not at the top, in charge of everything, but as the one doing the grunt work to build bridges, buildings, lifts, farms, train tracks, and much more (though some of this has been in the pre-release multiplayer story mode). You slowly get to see this charming frontier town rise back up from the desert. Over the course of the game, you even get things like tourists appearing once you repair the train tracks. It's an absolute joy to watch your hard work come to fruition, and see the town overcome its own mini-apocalypse.

Thanks for reading! This is a topic I've wanted to share for a long time, and I'm glad I finally had the time to do it. I'd highly recommend My Time at Sandrock, especially if you're a fan of games like Stardew Valley, or aesthetics like the one I talked about here It's a super chill game, and I love playing it to relax after a long day of work or college lectures. And, if you want someone to play multiplayer Sandrock with, feel free to message me!

[ideas-on-paper]

Monster Hunter Tri Diary, Part 1: Intro, Arrival in Moga, First trip to Moga Woods

So, inspired by @dragonflight203's Mass Effect replay posts (hope you don't mind me adapting the idea!), I've decided to do a "gaming diary" for my first playthrough of Monster Hunter Tri.

Thanks to the dedicated endeavor of fans from the MH community, the servers of Tri are finally accessible again, so I'm very excited to check this one out. The 3rd Gen is my favorite overall, and I've been yearning to see Loc Lac with my own eyes for years now.

But first, I'll have to spend some time in singleplayer to farm some equipment and re-familiarize myself with the game. Wouldn't want to do the hub quests ill-prepared! So, for now, we're starting slow.

Disclaimer: Text is paraphrased from my localization and might slightly deviate from the English version.

Intro

This is the first time I've seen the intro of MH Tri in person - and it’s such an amazing one, too! I love the correlation between the sea and land environments depicted here: The Jaggi pack is hunting the Aptonoths at the coast (great way to introduce the new small bird wyverns!), while the Ludroths are picking up the scraps that fell into the water.

That Great Jaggi was about to have the feast of his life on that Aptonoth, only to be bowled out by that Rathalos. xD Dude wanted his lunch back so badly that he was even willing to make a stand against the Rathalos. Probably wouldn't have held out for long, though, with Jaggis being weak to fire. (If Tri had turf wars, that Great Jaggi would've been totally obliterated.)

And when the Lagiacrus shows up, the Jaggis are just like: "Okay, this one’s way out of our league. Let’s get the hell out of here." xD

One thing I love about the Lagiacrus is that he's designed like an antithesis to Rathalos: Rathalos wields fire, which is the Lagi's primary weakness. Meanwhile, Rathalos himself is weak against lightning, which makes him vulnerable to Lagiacrus’s attacks. Both are the kings of their respective element, but when encroaching on Rathalos' territory, the Lagiacrus is like a literal fish out of the water.

I wonder what would happen if there was a turf war between them, though. Would there be a 50:50 chance of either one winning? Would the Lagi try to pull Rahtalos into the water? Would he even get out of there by himself? (I imagine it would look like a bird of prey that crashed in the water, but much bigger. Poor Rathalos might need a hand. xD)

I love how Lagiacrus turns away in an "Eh, I didn't mean to hunt this anyway" manner; like having his snack snatched away from under his nose hurt his pride, but he tries to act unbothered by it. xD

Ah, guys... I always get a little teary-eyed when the MH Tri main theme comes up. The Rathalos flying over the vast plains, the music picking up, and then the view with the hunters standing at the cliff... It really doesn't get better than this. :,)

Arrival in Moga

Ah, it's been ages since I saw that cutscene... It's technically the same as in MH3U, but still it feels so good to be back. I love how you see the villagers just going about their daily lives, the children being excited about the trinkets the Chief's Son brought back from his trip and all that... It evokes such a homey feeling right from the start, and it makes the village community feel that much more like family.

The chief actually mentions the sea people having crests on their skin and looking a little different from normal humans. I remember this from the MH artbook, where it's stated they gave them a different skin tone/markings as well as webbed hands to distinguish them from normal humans. I thought this was just a scrapped concept (since you don't see much of a visual difference in-game), but I had no idea there was in-game dialogue about it. Cool!

"Diversity means prosperity!" That's actually a really wise quote right there. Both the sea people and wyverians are knowledgeable in their own right, but each have different skills. If they unite them, everyone profits. (I think we could learn something from this for our own society.)

I love the Guild Sweetheart from MH Tri/3U. She's legitimately my favorite of all the Guild receptionists in Monster Hunter (at least those I’m familiar with). And she's trying so hard - she's really upset the Guild apparently forgot about them in this backwater village. Hang in there, sweetie!

"The Guild has permission to hunt and do research in the Moga Woods, and in exchange, we help the village with its problems." A fair trade, but I wonder if the Guild might have ulterior motives. Like, what are they doing with the research results? And do they really only permit just as much hunting as the monster population will allow, or is that just a farce? (I always trusted the Guild was true to their word, but after watching a few Monster Hunter lore videos, I'm not so sure. Ah, I was so gullible back then... xD)

The gossipy lady really loves her silly word games. (And so do I. xD)

"The Chief must have really good relationships with the Guild if he got a hunter like you to come to such a small village in the middle of nowhere." Not an unreasonable thought, actually... How did he convince the Guild to send a hunter to Moga if they otherwise completely ignore it? Is he friends with some of the higher-ups?

"For safety reasons, we’ve collected all information about monsters in a so-called "monster list"." Uh-huh... "Safety reasons"... I'm telling you, the Guild is definitely keeping secrets.

Okay, so the item seller really likes hunters. This reminds me, I think there's one single NPC in the entire series who couldn't stand hunters. (I believe it was some guy in Minegarde, though I can't say for sure since I've never been in that city myself.) Is this dude the only one or are there any others who actually dislike hunters?

I love the Outfitter with her "very important" virtual tests. Like yeah, I'm sure that fantasizing about slaying monsters with no first-hand experience will bring you that much closer to finding the "ideal weapon". (I gotta say, I love this kind of humor that Monster Hunter has - it's so dumb, but in a hilarious kind of way. The game knows it's dumb and doesn't take it too seriously, so it almost feels a bit like satire.)

I'm also quite fond of the Fishmongeress. She is warm-hearted and helpful, but also very assertive and knows what she wants. My kind of woman!

I love the dynamic between the two kids; like one is constantly bragging about how smart he is (while actually being really dumb), while the other, shy one is the actual smart one (can confirm this from personal experience xD).

Our local "whizz kid" tells us that the villagers are threshing rice at the windmills in Moga Village. (The ones you can see in the background near the armory and if you walk across the leftmost pier.) That’s probably what the farm is for, though I haven’t seen any paddy fields there.

You know what I find absolutely hilarious? The way the game incorporates gameplay tips. The villagers say stuff like "Okay, so try imagining a "screen", alright?" and "Try imagining a thing called "Wiimote". No kidding, just try it!". They talk about a yellow cursor ("I know: a what?!") like it's the weirdest thing ever, and "saving the game" is treated like some outlandish slang word. Like, the developers were probably aware that to the people in-universe, these explanations would sound entirely nonsensical, and they put in the extra effort to make it funny - I love it.

Also, the UI design in Tri is absolutely gorgeous. I love the "tribal" style the old games had going on. MH World can't hold a candle to this!

I remember there was an old post on the MH Lore Tumblr blog (sadly, it's been defunct for a while now) that in the MH universe, the Felynes are treated like cheap laborers who are always given the shit jobs nobody else wants to do. Considering how they're constantly seen in positions like chamberlain, farm worker etc., I believe there might actually be something to this. It's kind of sad, but these kitties really don't seem to have the best standing in MH society... :(

I love the Felyne-specific language, though. (Like hairstyling being "grooming", "child's play" is "kitten's play" and so on.) It's so endearing.

So, the shy kid tells me there's a cave at the farm, but I shouldn't go inside because the Chief is gonna get really mad if I do. The Head Farmer tells me it contains some kind of ancient weapon. From what I remember from 3U, that "weapon" is a mask for the Shakalaka. (It's funny how every Monster Hunter used to have this "special", sword-in-the-stone kind of weapon.)

Moga Woods (day)

I gotta say, from a gameplay perspective, I think the tutorial for Tri is really well done. It doesn't immediately throw you into a timed quest so you don't feel pressured from the get-go, and it introduces you to all core mechanics bit by bit.

Village Chief: "Can you hear me?" Yes, I can hear you. I'm not sure how you can speak to me since you technically should be back at the village, but I hear you. (Do these villagers have mastered the art of telepathy somehow?)

"My ancestors had a saying: "Wherever you go, there you are."" Wow - I never could've figured this out on my own. Truly, the wisdom of ages.

It's easy to forget, but MH Tri is actually the first Monster Hunter where gathering points are displayed. I remember how distressed I was when playing MH1 and realizing there were no pop-ups to mark gathering spots. (And now that I’m used MH1 and Freedom Unite, I have to get out of my habit of pressing the gathering button at suspicious looking places. xD)

"That's an Aptonoth: a herbivore. Eats... herbs." You don't say, Chief. You don't say.

I remember when I first played Monster Hunter, I felt so bad for killing an Aptonoth. Now, I’ve kinda gotten used to it - still wouldn’t say I feel good about it, though. ^^’

"You're just like me when I was your age! Of course, my stamina bar was way longer." Yeah, sure - just don't forget to toot your own horn.

When finding the Chief's Son: "Sorry we couldn't talk yesterday, though natural disasters are a great conversational topic!" I've said it once, I will say it again: I love Monster Hunter’s humor.

"I'm Juni-- Er, I'm the Chief’s Son." Ohh, do I hear someone having daddy issues?

"Our tent and bocce set were in that destroyed camp." Oh, no - due to the earthquake, the villagers can't play bocce anymore. What a tragedy.

”I’m so hungry, I could eat an Aptonoth.” Well, friend, you’re in luck - I’ve just slaughtered one of these beasties.

Aaand he snatches the meat right up. Okay, dude - have fun grilling. I’ll just go back to the village all on my lonesome, I guess…

And thus, after finding the lost son and completing our first job for McDelivery, we return to the village...

To be continued

[purpleender29]

So I recently started a minecraft world, normal right? However, there are 2 main things about this:

1. I have never done a survival minecraft world before

2. its modded, specifically with the broken script mod, because why the hell not.

This series is just for me to talk about it, cause idk how to edit, and replay mod keeps breaking, and my obs hates me

So, 2 thing I notice at first, I have spawned in a Mesa(great start) and there is a sketchy camera filter, which is just giving gtfo vibes.

Bit of context on the mod, it’s supposed to turn ur world into a minecraft horror arg(and according to the description could delete it i think???), like the ones on yt, the good ones I mean.

So anyway, I walked about for a while, the mesa was VERY big, and found some cows, I punched a couple, but they sounded weird. Less like cows and more like people making cow noises, so I decided I was never gonna hurt a cow again.

More walking and flower collecting later and I find a village at the bottom of a large chasm, mostly flooded. There were 3 houses, one had a potion stand, one a bed, and the last had a chest with a leather helmet and some coal. I guessed this was a shit village so I set my spawn and slept to skip the night, stole haybales and melons, and left.

I walked for a long time, and collected a bunch of peonies for my own sanity, as well as killed a bunch of chickens and pigs with my stone sword. Doesn’t help that every noice scared the crap out of me, but what can u do, im a wimp after all.

It starts getting dark again, and I heavily regret not taking the bed from the rubbish valley village. So I did what anyone would do, found the tallest tree in a jungle biome, climb it, makes a box of random shit, torch inside and furnace so i could cook the meat, and set to stay there until day.

Then Null joined the game.

For the record, im in a singleplayer world. And the ominous music that started playing didnt help my over excitable nerves. I start typing to the entity, no response.

For some ungodly reason, i decide to leave my safe box and look around, its nearly day anyway. But then I notice some green eyes in the distance, between the vines and leaves, looking at me. Thinking this was Null, I looked at them.

It wasn’t Null

It was an enderman

I should have mentioned early that many textures and sounds were vintage minecraft looking, like beta cobblestone textures and the oof sound playing whenever I took damage(which got very, VERY, annoying very very fast.) So im guessing that endermen used tk have green eyes before the iconic purple, or it was the mod fucking with me.

Could be both.

So I fled back to the box as soon as I saw it and managed to get a few hits until it teleported somewhere I could see it, but could HEAR it.

I knew I had to leave or I would starve, but I wasnt physically or mentally equipped to deal with an endermen(they always scared me) So as soon as I could see the sun, I booked it.

The thing was in fact, underneath the tree, and began its chase. I hit it a couple of time with my crappy stone sword but endermen hit HARD, and I was on 2 hearts.

I only noticed this until after I jumped down a large cliff, plummeting to my death, at that split second I was thinking “why why why oh god im gonna loose everything and end up at the village with nothing left oh crap oh crap”

And somehow, by miracle or insane luck or general plot armour, I manage to do a vine clutch and just barely avoid the fatal fall. Barely registering this, I ran directly into a small river of water, where the enderman followed me, plunged in, and promptly died.

Needless to say, I was shooketh, yet proud of myself for somehow living besides the world saying “fuck u” to me multiple times in that 2 min chase. At that moment, I was Minecrafting!

I carried on my pillgrimage until I came across a mesa. I was thinking “Hey that looks like the place I spawned.” I look to my left, and saw the crappy village right next to me in the same damn ravine.

I had made a giant circle.

So, I went into the house with the bed, took it (there were no villagers there anyway) and set of north, i think, on my way to survival.

I found a broken portal I think? idk what its called, but there was a chest with 4 golden carrots, 2 obsidian and an unbreaking 1 gold chestplate. I also tried to talk to Null again, no response.

On that very lucky note, That was when I logged off of that nightmare world as my first day.

Hope y’all liked my horror filled tale

I’ll try to take screenshots my next play session :)

[thefirstknife]

D3 anon here! I was back around for both D1 and D2 launches, but wasn't really in the community so I didn't see people complaining about D2 resetting stuff. I honestly liked it, myself. I suspect my lack of issue with re-earning or even just starting everything fresh no old stuff comes from playing a wide variety of games including sequels that start you back at nothing and from replaying games from scratch over and over. I enjoy re-grinding for things as long as the gameplay is fun and am quite used to games starting you at 0 again, so it wasn't a shock or a huge negative for me. That probably colors my views on the negatives not being such a negative thing--people who don't play games like that probably have much less tolerance for those aspects. Good point about the hitboxes, though. It could be gotten around in PvP by making you have a PvP "avatar" of sorts that basically forces everyone into one shape (though allows you the perks of all your gear and such, and I imagine you'd be able to customize it to some degree since cosmetics are such a big deal to many players--actually, scratch that, realized they'd just turn it into microtransaction hell of "buy these unique cosmetics for your PvP avatar" on top of the existing Eververse stuff), but that doesn't help with the PvE balancing aspects.

Oh yeah, it definitely makes a lot of sense if you weren't around in the community and also if you're used to restarting!

The community was... fairly bad. Worse in D2 because a lot of people felt incredibly betrayed. In their eyes, a perfectly good game (D1) ceased support and they had to abandon all of their stuff to come to D2 with big promises and then it was nothing. Or rather, it takes a few years to build the content up for games like this.

It's one of the more baffling reasons when people treat Destiny this way because they essentially want the game to have a release cycle of a live service, but the content of a singleplayer RPG.

I was only vaguely aware of the community during D2 vanilla; I was mostly exposed to people bitching. Me and my friends had fun because we were very casual so everything in the game was super new and exciting (and we just played strikes and nightfalls lol), but I would always see complete meltdowns on youtube. And a lot of the complaints were warranted of course, but I always felt like people were exaggerating as if the game killed their dog.

But yeah, for a lot of people the most common complaints aren't really negatives. It would be interesting to see what the game could be like if people were willing to either wait years for expansions or if they were willing to start from scratch every few years. Maybe in a world where devs had the time and space to actually do this properly.

[nonsubstantial]

MARCH 2024 DIARY POST

I'm keeping up the habit of writing a monthly post to catalogue all the things I've been obsessed with in 2024. At the end of the year, I want to be able to look back and remember what was making me happy all year long! If you are reading this, I hope you will enjoy hearing about these things or checking them out too! First, a chaotic collage of those things!

VIDEO GAME: As you may already know, Splatoon is probably my favorite video game franchise of all time. I really cannot overstate how important it is to me. Naturally, I was highly anticipating its new singleplayer DLC, titled Side Order, but when it finally came out at the end of February, my elbow was fractured in a way that made it painful for me to play. So, I had to wait until about a week into March for my elbow to heal a little. Then, I spent about 10 hours obsessively playing it, and I loved pretty much every second of it. It featured by far the most difficult levels ever seen in a Splatoon game, which was a treat to me as a player who was disappointed by the rather simplistic story mode of the base game. Splatoon 3: Side Order took the form of a roguelite battle tower, similar to Salmon Run but with new enemies, unique (and sometimes puzzling) stages, and customizable weapon builds. Even players who find it a bit too challenging at first can eventually mod the difficulty to an extent that (hopefully) makes it doable. The story was nothing crazy, but the gameplay and visuals were so unbelievably good that I honestly wished I could erase it all from my mind and play it again from the start. Just yay 💕, I love Splatoon so much.

TWITCH STREAM FAN EDIT: If you don't already know who Jerma is, he is a prolific video game streamer that I became a big fan of a few years ago. His unique humor has consistently impressed and appealed to me, and his fan community has proven itself to be both creative enough and motivated enough to persistently churn out edited “best of” versions of his streams. For better or for worse, Jerma announced his retirement from streaming last year, leaving his eager fans with nothing but his earlier content to dredge for, well… content. One such fan edit that was released this year, post-retirement, was a massive compilation of all his Nancy Drew playthroughs (save for one). This edit in particular was one that I found overwhelmingly funny and good, and it inspired an ongoing fanfic that I’m still currently working on writing. Oddly enough, watching this caused a domino effect that got me back into writing in general and has given me the surge of confidence and inspiration that I needed to keep working on creating the fiction that has lived inside in my head for years. I really hope this feeling never dies. You can watch the stream that inspired me, linked here!

MUSICAL ARTIST: Peach Kelli Pop is probably tied (with a few other artists) for the title of my favorite band of all time. Their entire discography is only about 2 hours long, but they were still my most listened to artist for several years in a row. It’s due to the consistency of the vibe across all of her work: upbeat and positive while still delivering a profound emotional impact. I've been able to just listen her entire catalog of music over and over and over again on shuffle. I might describe it as DIY rock, or feminist punk, and if you haven't heard it before, Gentle Leader is probably the best album to start with. Listen here!

MUSICAL ARTIST: After listening to nothing except Peach Kelli Pop for about a week straight, I started to look into similar bands that I hadn't already checked out and found one that really caught my interest. That's how I was introduced to Tacocat! Their band name is both a palindrome and euphemism, and their album Lost Time was love at first listen. They have cozy lyrics about aliens, birth control, and creating your own values, and their music has left me in a good mood every time I've thrown it on. You can listen to the first song that I heard, linked here!

SONG: It's Don’t Rain On My Parade, by Barbra Streisand!! I still haven't watched the musical that this song is from, but the drag queen Plasma mentioned it on RuPaul Season 16, which is how I ended up hearing it. This song gets an individual mention because I was absolutely blown away by this one individual track! It's brilliant and catchy right out of the gate, "Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter! Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!" It's from 1964, but its recording sounds crystal clear and it channels its intended emotions perfectly. I felt compelled to listen to it over and over again, because it really is just so cheerful and artistically inspiring. I feel like it's a perfect piece of music. Listen here!

SONG: I have to give another song an individual mention! It's Mood Indigo, by Nina Simone!! I’ve been a big fan of Nina Simone for years now, but more often than not, I've stuck to my favorite album, Pastel Blues. I did branch out and listen to this song a few times in the past, but it only recently dawned on me just how perfect it is. Wikipedia says that it was recorded in 1964, about the same time as Don’t Rain On My Parade, and while it's technically a cover of an old Duke Ellington song, Nina Simone’s version has a totally unique vibe, evident from the first few bars. Its lyrics are meant to be cathartic, as they discuss suicidal ideation, while the drums, bass, and piano create a beautiful and upbeat swing melody that perfectly juxtaposes and rebuts the content of Nina’s vocals. It's menacing, catchy, uplifting, and truly perfect! I now believe it to be a landmark in Nina Simone’s career, and the whole of music history in general. Listen here!

MUSICAL ARTIST: Okay, one last music rec, I swear!! I was really feeling the vibes this month (but mostly just listening to bands that I already know and love). Along with Peach Kelli Pop, another one of my favorite bands is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Ever since 2017 (aka, the year of the gizz) they have probably reigned supreme as my #1 most listened to band. They just have so much music, with so much variation, that I can usually find at least one of their songs that appeals to me. Since the start of this year, I've been collecting and organizing a playlist of my favorite songs by them, titled 31 Days Of Gizz. Not for any particular reason, but just because I find it fun to make lists! At the last minute, I decided that I would organize the songs, specifically in the way that I would play them if I were introducing someone new to the band. So, if you haven’t heard their music before, maybe it’s time I introduced you? But no pressure, I just like their songs and I made my playlist just for me! I'm linking to it on spotify, HERE, if you’re interested! (forgot to put this one on the collage, lol)

VIDEO GAME: Right before the month ended, I bought the new fantasy tactics game, Unicorn Overlord, and I am fucking in love. I’ve been a longtime fan of the fantasy tactics genre, so as soon as this game started making waves, I begrudgingly accepted that I HAD to play it. I really don’t have a lot of time in between trying to take care of things at home and working on my writing, as I mentioned before, but I briefly dropped all my other hobbies and managed to fit about 10 hours of gameplay in before the month ended. I really wish I had time to obsess over it, because I feel like it is a masterpiece, even if the rumors about there being gay content ended up being a disappointing exaggeration (the game was developed by Vanillaware, but was published by homophobic giants ATLUS and SEGA, so I’m not surprised). Despite the story being pretty much dog shit though, I believe the gameplay is damn near perfect, and even revolutionary within its genre. I’ll probably be sinking all my game time into it until the new Elden Ring DLC drops. If you’re a person who also likes fantasy tactics, then I highly recommend playing it (I got it for the Nintendo Switch, where it seems to run perfectly).

(that’s it. It is now APRIL!! There might be some repeats this next month, or I'll leave them out... we'll see. Hope you have a good day! ♡)

[motherfucker-unlimited]

Dear wizard with good taste in videogames. Im almost done with what I've been playing lately, do you have any recommendations?

GNOSIA is a very shrimpteresting game, it's a single player werewolf/mafia game set in a timeloop but unlike Raging Loop it is a fully realized social deduction game. It very effectively replaces the social part with various mechanics and the other characters having stats, behavioral patterns and randomized affections. This is also partially visual novel as your goal is going across loops where under specific scenarios events will play out that will lead to you uncovering the plot and lore. Around 20 hours full playtime

WOLFSTRIDE can either be described as "BrazilJank mecha game" or as "a narrative driven part visual novel part turn based mecha rpg with a plot and characters that have not left me after over a year after I played it". Whichever strikes your fancy more. I did almost all optional content and scoured every nook and cranny I reasonably could and I clocked in around 20 hours

Speaking of OTA IMON studios there's currently a steam next fest demo of their next game Zet Zillions. Please check them out do you how embarrassing it is to be one of 15 people to show up to a live event unveiling a new game?

As always I also gotta CrossCode, a singleplayer action rpg that has also been haunting me for years. A lot of things I want to gush about this game for I can't because of spoilers so just take my word for it. Besides the combat and story this game also has a noticeable stock in actual puzzles involving game mechanics which you don't see that often nowadays. How long to beat says about 35 hours, way more for total completion, but with me scouring the whole game, replays and new game plus attempts, leaving the game on while afk AND the excellent post game DLC I clocked in 110 hours

If you asked me this like a month ago I'd also hype up Palworld but history has vindicated me and I shall be heralded a prophet in PalHeaven already.

En Garde! Is a last year's charming game that knows exactly what it wants to be and executes it perfectly. It's a swashbuckling action fencing/slapstick game, highly recommended. After doing challenge runs and arena I ended up with 10 hours well spent.

And of course my 2023 GOTY: Octopath Traveller 2

[medakakurokami]

I don't get why people stuck with gacha games in general like I'm not trying to maliciously throw shade here but mobage always truly seemed to me to embody actually self-destructive game design making all their ideas worse by nature.

Like I may have always felt the odd man out that I never got hooked on them, but now I feel the odd man out that it's strange I think they're actively *bad* games compared to their full priced alternatives.

Maybe people are just settled in with their stories and characters in mobage they like and have long since stopped caring or maybe even acquired a taste for the infinite grind and generally heavily automated gameplay

Is it not the same problem as live service games? Like why do we give paid $60 live service singleplayer games shit, if that model can make genuinely good experiences then why is it an issue?

Like I know I come across as a contrarian sometimes but I just like what I like and I try to like all sorts of games even if I think I won't like them. I think the closest I've come to enjoying a mobage is Priconne and that was, like everyone else playing, just for the art and characters and storylines. I didn't play much more than a month though because the gameplay loop was a soul sucking tedium, and now it's been discontinued so even if I wanted to power through to go see more character stories, I can't!

Which is another huge problem with mobage! I can think of at least 3 mobage I got temporarily invested in and are now defunct. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think there's any way to play those? Talk about delisted, there's no way to pirate or emulate those games. Even in paid titles that can happen with multiplayer titles, MMO's, and the very rare single player game, but that's almost a certainty with every mobage. We've seen some developers move their mobage off platform like Rockman X Dive and Grisaia Chronos Trigger. We also see them making full price console games like Little Noah and Azur Lane. I honestly sincerely hope this becomes the norm so that more people can experience the art that actually goes into the mobage but without the inherently anti-player designs put in place.

I know a lot of people still complain about mobage so maybe I'm beating a dead horse or preaching to the choir. But it just felt like recently we have just lost all pushback. This might be coming from a place of privelege cause I got the cash to buy paid releases consistently as I see ones that interest me. But I feel like if I went broke and had to choose between mobage and just emulating GBA games on my phone, I'd still be on the latter 100%

Edit:

I guess my question to mobage fans is like. Do you just not care about the infinite grind, FOMO, inevitable closing of the game, limited game mechanics, gacha and paywalled content, etc etc etc

Or do you see it as an inevitability of mobage and a capitalistic genie that could never be put back into the bottle, and you enjoy the mobage for what good they do have despite these issues being unresolvable