#neither has tf2 at that point its getting bad

[eld-red]

i am hearing you out about the spy bojack thing… tell us ALL ABOUT IT

THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. anyways its a bit of a like batshit really out there kind of one its like the charlie day conspiracy board from it’s always sunny like that.

where this comparison first came from was me, partially in a dream, getting an idea to write a fic using the framing of the penultimate episode of the entire show (bojack. horseman obviously) “the view from halfway down” for the fic. so obviously after that, i was trying to figure out who was going to get quote unquote “bojack’d” (i have my drafting document! if anyone wants to see this)

(and if anyone reading this doesnt know what this means, in that episode a character experiences a near death hallucination based on a recurring dream he has. said dream is him being the guest of honor at a dinner party where all those in attendance are people whose deaths had a lot of impact on him.)

and it was between scout and spy to be the one having the near death experience, and although scout’s version of jt would be horrific and interesting in its own regard, i decided spy’s would be. also interesting to explore. the mercs (pauling and the administrator included in this fic) with all their absolutely vibrant personalities have very different perspectives on death. and already just off my memory and what spy became in my head the two had the most similar views on death.

so i decided to do another rewatch of the show in anticipation to write and plot this. and with spy in the shoes of bojack (though not committing the horrific actions bojack has done) (ok murder is bad but i think murky lines of consent, providing minors with alcohol, taking advantage of a vulnerable friend, selfishly letting one of his own friends die is like arguably worse! in my opinion!), i started to see some similarities. at least with my own characterization of spy.

standoffish and closed off to almost everyone around him, to an unhealthy degree. creating this very very convincing façade where they know deep down what they really are but is in denial of that. the people around them knowing that. strange and strained relationships with their friends. a heart of gold being there, underneath it all, fucking somehow. everyone eventually getting sick and tired of being sympathetic and nice. bojack internalized the words he heard from secretariat so deeply as a kid, he doesn’t take responsibility for his actions by running away. from everything. spy has some HEAVILY (not so)implied strong feelings of guilt regarding the whole “oh hey that’s my son. hm” of it all, and is running from that and has been running from that for 27 fucking years.

the two do have very different experiences with love. like every single one of bojack’s romantic relationships have failed, and i mean technically spy also does but im not fully counting it. he was in love with her, but he was scared of like. becoming a father. i admittedly havent done much of my own like. interpretation of the relationship with spy and scout’s mom (i named her marilyn. she grew up in the south but moved up north), and i have been meaning to. as well as my own like FULL deep dive into spy’s psychology. i have done this with sniper and scout. i need to do it with the rest of the mercs.

ok i dont know if thag made a lot of sense i am a but tired while writing this theres probably more in me but i am tired. hope this helps. anon who sent it i hope you have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night

[mk-wizard]

Top 10 Video Games that DON’T Need a Remake/Reboot EVER

Note that this list is subjective, but I felt I had to make it because we are living in the age of remakes and reboots. And just like some movies don’t need a remake, neither do timeless video games.

1- Chrono Trigger - It’s not for nothing this game not only aged well, but also stands as one of the best plot driven games with time travel as its theme. It also introduced the concept of the same game having multiple endings and the “NewGame+” mode. While remastering it would be fine, the game is already emotive, fun and advanced as it is and doesn’t need a remake or to be turned 3D (shudder). Let’s not try to improve upon perfection.

2- Mother (1, 2 and 3) - Considering the themes these games have are really from their time which was the 90s (especially the alien invasion concept), you really can’t remake them or make them like new without changing everything to the point where it just isn’t the same game anymore. You might as well just make a sequel rather than attempt to remake an existing instalment and pretend it is the same when it isn’t. Plus, the pixelated and 2D look ADDS to the charm of the game. When you take it away, it just isn’t the same.

3- Sonic the Hedgehog (1, 2, 3, CD and Sonic & Knuckles) - Like Mother, these games are games of their times which would translate very poorly in 3D and everything that makes them fun to watch and play would be lost. While remasters and fixing the bugs in these games would be fine, we don’t need to give it the 3D treatment. There are enough 3D Sonic games as is.

4- Super Mario World - Like the classic Sonic games, there are enough 3D Mario Bros games. Let’s keep the classic ones as is with just a remaster at best. Plus, side scrollers are such a lost art now. Do we really want to erase the last of them?

5- Tetris - It’s bad enough we tried to make a sequel that no one asked for when it comes to this game. Does it really need a remake? The thing that makes Tetris iconic is its simplicity. There’s nothing to remake because there’s nothing to add. It has everything it needs. Period.

6- Street Fighter 2 - If there is one game that should finally stay retired and be remembered as is, it’s this one simply because it literally died of over-rebooting. There’s Street Fighter 2 Alpha, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Street Fighter 2 Arcade Edition, Super Street Fighter 2, etc. Yeah. While doing that helped flesh out the iconic characters, let’s stick to just making sequels. We exhausted the remaking and rebooting process enough with this instalment. Let it rest in peace.

7- Team Fortress 2 - This is online player game meaning it evolves and expands on its own. There is no need to reboot it because game like this simply don’t work out with being rebooted. By the time the game is not popular anymore, it is because the craze has passed and even if does get rebooted, no one will buy it. The smarter thing to do is to wait a while and then just make a sequel just like how TF2 is in fact just a sequel. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great game, but rebooting just isn’t its style.

8- Any video game based on a celebrity - I think it is obvious why we shouldn’t waste our time rebooting video games like this. Unless it was an exceptionally amazing game and the celebrity is STILL popular, nobody of newer generation will play it simply because they won’t know who these people are. Plus, these games were not a hit even when they were new simply because people would rather play fantastical fiction characters than grounded real people even if they are celebrities. So, just don’t, folks.

9- Any video game that is based on a movie, show or product - Just as movies based on video usually fail, so does the reverse. Plus, as with most of these entries, these video games were games of their time based on stuff that was popular at the time. When the newer generation sees these games, they’re going to much prefer watching the movie, watching the show or using the actual product. The only case of which the game will be worth their time is if it based on the movie or show while expanding on it by adding to the lore, filling in gaps and being its own story while still being a great game like Alien Isolation. Other than that, it’s not worth it.

10- Any game that was best left forgotten - Sadly, some video game are just bad not because they were too ambitious, too ahead of their time or had too many bugs. They were just lackluster and didn’t leave an impression. They were bad ideas and rebooting them with better graphics and fancier features won’t suddenly make them good. Sometimes, it just makes it worse. If you’re going to use time, energy and money to reboot something, do so on something people want to see a comeback of. Otherwise, just make a new game.

Bonus - Other honourable mentions here I will add are every Legend of Zelda (just make a sequel), every classic Mario Bros game, Final Fantasy 1 to 6, every Pokemon game since every new game is technically just a reboot of the first two (Red and Blue) that started it all, Word of Warcraft, Starcraft, the Sims, the Phantasy Star series, Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana which technically did get a reboot and it stank, every Mortal Kombat since it always gets a sequel anyway, and every Simulation, Hidden Object and Tycoon game.

[palliddata]

Design Theory: Gachapon

Good evening everyone. Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Tiger Louck, and I’ll be covering videogame industry and design related topics during my time here. I should have some pretty interesting stuff lined up here, so let’s begin.

What’s the point of the majority of games? Fun. What’s the other point of games? To make a developer money. You wanna know what’s Fun and Makes People Money? Gambling. But of course, in a similar fashion to cigarettes and alcohol, the dangers of gambling are well-documented and the industry is heavily regulated. But gambling is only considered gambling if you put real money in and get real money out, at least legally speaking. But speaking in terms of actual design, the Gachapon system, which recently appeared in a litany of high-profile games accross the industry, is absolutely gambling. If you’re not familiar with the system, or haven’t given it much thought when you’ve encountered it, this will come as a surprise, so allow me clue you in on this dumpster fire of an industry trend.

Gambling is, as I mentioned, supposedly fun. Fun as a concept is more nuanced than most people will ever think about, which in most cases is fine, there’s better things to waste your time on, but there’s a good number of cases where uncertainty in the one’s personal understanding of fun can be exploited. Gambling is one of these, because gambling isn’t actually that fun. How interesting is it, really, to determine success or failure using a device which gives you a random, evenly distributed number between one and six? What about using the contents of a deck? The fall of a ball into a spinning wheel? Exempting sleight of hand and card counting (which casinos will throw you out for, anyway) there is literally no way to control these outcomes. Success or failure does not reflect upon the player in any way: failure is not your fault, but neither is victory, so both feel hollow.

And yet people play.

Part of the reason why is pretty reasonable stuff: casinos have atmosphere, and people, and lots of fun entertainers and alcohol. All perfectly reasonable things to find fun. Gambling always tries to be a party, or, in less commercial contexts, a hangout at bare minimum. But there’s other psychological phenomena at work here; have you ever been asked to kiss or blow on a pair of dice? Why is it traditional to shake them around in your cupped hands before throwing them on the table? Humans are aggressive pattern finders, and it is at this juncture that this finally bites us in the ass. Victory is not expected in gambling, but it is possible, so when it happens, the player becomes very happy, and tries to find out what caused the victory in the first place. If this were spear hunting, there’d be enough information in the course of the event that the hunter would be able to construct an accurate-enough picture of why the hunt was successful, and that picture would be mostly truthful to the reality of the situation. But that information was never present in gambling, since the bare act of throwing dice is simply not complicated enough to have things with understandable cause and effect. Because the player can’t reliably attain success, the natural instinct is to experiment, and the moment a thing you do coincides with a successful outcome of the dice (or cards, or marble on that stupid spinning thing) the player latches onto that event. A man at a craps table asks the woman at his left to kiss the dice, like he sees people do in the movies all the time, and it just so happens that the cascade of unknown variables says “YOU WIN” this time, and so he does it again and again and again, every loss ignored because he only cares about the victories, and the victories say the kiss works.

“Yeah, I had some losses this time, but there’s hope, because I know my method works, so I’m gonna come back.” He says, walking out of the casino with empty pockets

Then the operant conditioning starts to kick in. He keeps going to the casino because going to the casino is where the success, and the rewards, and the happiness is. His bank account says one thing but he’s more inclined to trust his brain, which is saying another, and by god he swears by his methods. They call this fun, but I have my doubts

So what, then, is Gachapon, and why is it gambling?

The roots of the phenomenon are old, at least compared to most videogame trends. It started in japan, in the 90s at the latest, and rapidly spread throughout the world. It’s those small vending machines that you put quarters into and get a small capsule with a toy or figurine in it. The name is also spelled Gashapon, and it’s actually a romanization of a japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of the crank and plop of the mechanism and capsule. The idea was that players would try to collect every figurine in the collection, and as they neared a complete collection, they’d get duplicates instead of what they wanted, prompting them to purchase again, or resort to trading if they could.

The gambling psychology at play here has to do with the unexpected victory when the player is at the point where they get lots of duplicates. Players don’t remember getting duplicates, but they do expect them, so when they do get a capsule that they actually wanted, they get just enough motivation to continue, and forget the fact that they’re getting duplicates. The naive user feels justified in their purchase, as they’re basing their judgement on how they feel, as opposed to the math of the situation, which says they just spent ten dollars to get a small plastic figurine.

It turns out this system works really well in videogame monetization. It’s already been present for years in games like World of Warcraft and rogue/roguelike RPGs in the way the loot that drops from enemies is randomized, forcing players to redo boss fights to get the gear they want, but it was unexamined as a mechanic; accepted, but not scrutinized. Until recently, the most effective use of this system was by the very same World of Warcraft, which had a business model based around getting a player invested and then stretching the amount of time it takes them to do things (thus standardizing the exponential experience curve in RPGs in favor of a linear one).

It was an effective way of forcing the reuse of content. Then Team Fortress 2 went free to play.

If I remember correctly, the game’s revenue something like quadrupled near-instantly. The core of the monetisation wasn’t something anyone else was considering monetizable: appearances. Turns out people will pay real money to look good in a virtual environ, who knew? In terms of gachapon systems, TF2 is actually the least straightforward and, frankly, a bad example of the system when you compare it to something like Overwatch, because while TF2 introduced the system, Overwatch didn’t so much perfect it as they did corporatize it (see the next article for more on that).

Overwatch has a wide variety of ways to customize the look of its many heros. All told, there are skins, emotes, voice lines, sprays, victory poses, and highlight intros, plus player icons independant of the character being played. Putting aside the issues i have with not letting players make their own player icon and spray, the system has a large possibility space for personal expression. All of these cosmetics are acquired through a randomized “loot box” system. Instead of creating duplicates when trying to fill a set, the overwatch gachapon system floods the pool of available items with items the player is likely to not want, like boring sprays and generic voice lines. The “bad outcome” is different than normal Gachapon, but the effect and principle is the same. The only thing it’s possible to buy on the Overwatch store is the lootboxes. While the boxes do give players in-game currency which can be used to buy skins, this money is doled out in very small amounts, and so if a player wants a lot of items, or a very valuable one, the best they can expect is to get it via the boxes. This, combined with the usual sales and events, means that a player attempting to get an item worth a dollar or so on its own may spend $40 on loot boxes attempting to improve their chance of getting it, and then rationalize the expenditure through all the other items they got (which even discounting the truly undesired items will be a fair few). In this way a player will spend more money attempting to get an item than they would have if the item was simply available to purchase directly.

The moment players realize what’s happening, the system becomes deeply depressing, and pretty soon most players are gonna realize they aren’t gambling men, and don’t enjoy the sensation of a tidal wave of crapulent cosmetics and unpredictable barriers between them and looking good.

[mercenarypark]

medic hcs

Em made a big hc post for heavy a few days ago [here] and ive been meaning 2 finally do the same w/ medic bcause im gay

note: while i try to be brief about the details, this post is about a gay jewish man in Germany during wwii. to set aside any initial worries, no, he is never kept in the camps- as a jewish person myself it sickens me deep in my stomach to even think of that possibility. but there’s still mentions of n/zism and antisemitism, as one would expect.

also, a fair amount of the details of my medic hcs for his childhood are based on the german side of my family, primarily my grandfather and his father. while i still only know a little about my family history[tm], details like medic’s last name, how his family were able to lay low, etc, are based on the little bits and pieces ive heard from my grandmother #antisemitism #nazism #homophobia #transphobia #satanism #long post #text heavy #tf2 #gore text #medical abuse #malpractice #experimentation mention 

-Medic was born roughly around 1925- he’s in his early 40s around when the game takes place- to the name [redacted] Reichstein. the Reichsteins were reviled in their little town as mad doctors, which was at least somewhat true- they certainly weren’t shy to experimentation on body parts and [willing] subjects. but a good part of the hatred for them stemmed from Good Old Antisemitism, focusing their hate on the fact that they were an openly jewish family and saying that that must be influencing their occasionally morally dubious behavior

-for the longest time, though, people tolerated them- they were the only doctors around, after all. but as time went on, the disgusted glances turned to hate speech, turned to violent threats, and eventually, to violent actions.

-medic’s father, who had long since been debating on moving, finally packed the family up[against his wife’s wishes], and within a night, their home and lab were deserted.

-his father could tell that something terrible was coming. he brought down an ultimatum- they would have to abandon everything jewish about themselves in order to survive. medic was young, still, and didn’t fully understand the severity of why his father seemed so adamant that they never mention holidays they once celebrated, why their old family photos were torn and burned, why his mother was constantly reprimanded when her Yiddish roots showed through her accent

-medic’s father pulled a few favors, and before they moved into a new city, the family name was changed to Reich- a more acceptable, more German name. Reichstein could raise eyebrows, lead to questioning about jewish roots, but there have always been many Reichs in Germany.

-that’s also when Medic got his birthname changed to Ludwig, and he and his mother had to fight like hell for that. his father argued that the last thing they needed was another target on their back- if anyone found out that his son “wasn’t really a boy”, then that would bring the entire family under scrutiny and into danger.

-ludwig refused to take no for an answer. ludwig had always been someone who would rather die than pretend that he’s something he’s not, and this was one of the first signs of that. while he didnt fully understand his connection to judaism, yet, and thus didnt fight to keep it at the time; he DID understand that he wasn’t a girl, and by God did he refuse to pretend otherwise.

-eventually his father relented, though he never once forgot and throughout medic’s childhood, he would bring up how risky it was, how medic was potentially endangering them all.

-to clarify: his father DID technically accept his son being transgender, but he wanted him to repress it, ignore it, force it down and never bring it up, much like their jewish heritage. ludwig refused, and his father never liked that. [when ludwig grew older and became both openly gay AND became a practicing jew again, his father nearly had a fucking heart attack]

-ludwig was heavily isolated for most of his childhood after they moved, partially due to the war’s beginning, partially because his father was afraid of his son giving something away. he was homeschooled by his mother, and rarely left the house, instead spending most of his time playing with the family’s cockatoo, or in his father’s operating room, learning human anatomy

-this isolation[alongside his autism, and veritable cocktail of mental illnesses] helped contribute to medic’s general inability to understand how to interact with people- he is oblivious at the best of times, has no concept of personal space, rarely catches social cues, and has Awful attachment issues. he is overly affectionate with anyone he is even vaguely friendly with, he tends to ramble and talk about uncomfortably personal things without realizing its a bad thing, etc, etc, he is a mess and a half

-he does understand bits and pieces- for example, if he’s physically affectionate with someone, they tend to tense up, and try to get away from him, which means he’s doing something wrong. the problem is that he doesnt understand WHAT he’s doing wrong, or why it’s wrong[answer: he’s covered in blood and bird shit and holding at least one[1] human liver]

-speaking of physical affection, the first time engineer affectionately puts a hand on medic’s shoulder medic fucking freaks out because aside from his parents, NO ONE. no one has ever initiated Friendly Physical Contact with him. usually because theyre freaked out by him in some way. he has no idea how to cope with the fact that someone might actually think of him in a friendly manner to the point of expressing that physically [aside from sexually, which is a whole other story and a half]

-but im getting ahead of myself. the first time ludwig killed a man was when he was 17. a nazi soldier paid an unexpected visit to the Reichs. ludwig, scared for his family’s sake and overwhelmed with a boiling hatred for nazis that had simmered for all of his childhood, killed the man

-his father reacted violently, ranting that now they were doomed, but his mother helped ludwig destroy the body and evidence. by the grace of God, no other nazi followed up that visit- the soldier hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and there had been no witnesses to his visit. and germany was so chaotic at the time, that eventually the man's death was attributed to a previously unnoticed casualty in battle

-that was the first man ludwig killed, and also the first of many, many nazis. he spent a good stretch of his adult life hunting down nazis who had gone under the radar, trying to hide their past ties while still keeping the same disgusting views.

-as ive mentioned, in medical school, ludwig not only became openly gay, but returned to his jewish roots. no longer under his father's roof, and now that the war was over, medic saw no reason to hide aspects of himself any longer. and God help everyone who felt otherwise. especially once the most violently hateful dissenters, began to mysteriously disappear.

-throughout his adult life medic has had Multiple short term, non-serious relationships [including more than his fair share of one night stands], and maybe two serious relationships prior to heavy. neither of those ended well, citing ludwigs mental Fuckery as a big issue. speaking of, his mental fuckery has helped him get into at least a couple abusive relationships, which i wont detail beyond "he survived and healed".

-while he is Jewish, he is the kind of jew who criticizes god every step of the way. at least part of this is due to having to survive during the Shoah.

-the Shoah definitely fucked his mind up. the constant fear for his parents and himself, and the burning hatred for the nazis and everyone who agreed with them or stood back and let them take over, and just overall a horrible sense of helplessness, definitely contributed to a lot of his future mental fuckery, and to his feelings about God. as an adult, and as a doctor, he took the feeling of helplessness he had as a teenager, and flipped it around dramatically- if god didnt help him then, he’d have to become better than god. he would bring retribution where others didnt, and bring power and life to those god would not help.

-he sold his soul to satan sometime around his mid-30s. [this is a sentence that sounds really fucking weird if u dont know much about tf2.] there are a few reasons behind that, but im only gonna talk about one:

-as i've said, medic spent a lot of time murdering nazis who had tried to go into hiding. that's difficult when theyre trying very, very hard to cover up their past. medic struck a deal with satan- in exchange for the names, aliases, and locations of ex-nazis in hiding, he would kill them and send them straight to hell. his soul was just to sweeten the deal.

-ludwig does a Lot of experiments on captured and dead nazis, especially the painful ones. the ol' "removing a patient's skeleton" story was of a nazi officer medic had caught, and medical licence or not, ludwig would do it again in an instant

-medic's flock of homing pigeons, stolen from a wedding van, are like family to him. the original, stolen generation had more pretentious names, as named by their previous owner- mostly well known scientists and philosophers[Archimedes, Newton, Nietzsche, etc]. most of the pigeons he named himself have biblical, jewish names [Mordecai, Elijah, Rebecca, etc]

-ludwig is absolutely never prim, proper, or orderly. if he is wearing a coat that DOESNT have blood and bird shit on it, wait 5 minutes and check again

-he has a tendency to hyperfocus on something and forget things like "humans need food and water to live". heavy usually helps him remember

-medic snores. loudly. and it sounds fucking awful. heavy is, sadly, a very light sleeper. it takes a loooong time for him to finally be able to sleep through medic's snoring, and it winds up being one of the only things he actually CAN sleep through. god help you if you step on a creaky board halfway down the hall, though, because heavy will wake up in an Instant

-if tf2 were in modern times, ludwig's music taste would include a Lot of kesha, klezmer music, black metal, and so on. its varied, is what im saying

-medic, pyro, and soldier all get along surprisingly well together, because they all have a case of "same brain? same brain!", all of them have issues dealing with other people and have problems with processing/understanding things, have trouble w/ psychotic episodes and the like, overall their minds are all wired oddly but somehow they can understand /each other/

-scout accidentally becomes medic's unofficial adopted daughter and thats a whole post and a half on its own. suffice to say medic would do anything for her

-engie, demo, and medic are all Science Gays

-medic also does his best to help demo with his Absolutely Massive Amounts of Trauma and Self Loathing, by at least being a supportive shoulder to lean on when demo tries to drink himself unconscious to forget it all. hes absolutely terrible most of the time at actually saying anything to help, but he can be a good presence, and he has birds. birds help anything

-he has a very casual fling going with spy, since early on in their time at the base. its usually in a state of "on-again off-again", with the latter usually having something to do with how spy acts with scout.

-obviously theres a lot i could say about heavy and medic's relationship, but to put it briefly- theres a loooong time where both of them are "i dont understand social interaction" gays.

-medic is the "i literally dont understand how to act around people im attracted to or that me being extremely overaffectionate around you is due to the fact that im falling in love with you, i dont catch your vague hints towards the fact that you feel the same about me because you literally need to hit me over the head with something in order to get me to catch onto it" gay

-heavy is the "i have spent so many years repressing so much of myself and keeping quiet and not drawing attention to myself, that i physically cannot bring myself to be up front about the fact that im attracted to you. im also afraid of misintepreting signals and i am instead going to assume your over-affectionate attitude is platonic and i am misreading things" gay

-eventually they figure things out and its good and soft and gay

ok its 3 AM and ive been writing on this for at least an hour and a half and i told Em i would go to bed by now dhgfkhhj