#not as good as the original pace but the original work was of dogshit quality lmaoooo

[breitzbachbea]

And most importantly, I get to now fantasize about Harry and Michele cuddling to fall asleep as I keep trucking on to make that imagery in my head a beautiful, beautiful reality.

[mogsk]

The only notable developer I’ve seen reacting to BG3 this way is Xalavier Nelson (though some devs in AAA cosigned his statements) who is very much not AAA and is in fact a very positive and influential voice in the indie games scene, and his argument is that BG3 was a perfect storm of complex factors which lead to its successful release and expecting that to be the new standard for RPGs is just not plausible in the industry as it is now, and then IGN made a video in response saying “Why are AAA developers so scared of Baldur’s Gate 3′s success?” because it’s IGN and their journalistic integrity is utter dogshit.

And the thing is, Nelson is right. In his original thread that sparked IGN’s response, he talks about the rise of the “megagame” and how it becoming a new standard has caused the scope of what games get invested in by AAA studios to narrow, allowing only these huge, ambitious, expensive, time-consuming games to have any chance of seeing funding from major investors. BG3 is a megagame, its production costs have been claimed to have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars, used to pay legions of industry veterans to work for over half a decade, and what Nelson points out is that, in a world where AAA isn’t likely to invest all of that into what is still considered a niche genre like crpgs, BG3 had to rely on the strength of its brand recognition to have such immense resources put behind it, something which other hypothetical future games in the genre are not likely to be able to marshal anything close to, and they could end up burying themselves if they try.

The thing is, the problem with AAA isn’t devs who need to “learn” anything about how to release a “good” game, it’s the people who fund game development trying to simultaneously mitigate risk, maximize profit, and limit development time. This leads to underfunded, understaffed dev teams being put through crunch in order to churn out games at a pace that will make the most money in the shortest amount of time so that the cycle can begin again. Meanwhile, braindead commentators like IGN or moistCr1tikal boil it down to devs just being too lazy to make good games anymore. This IS bad for the industry because it signals to investors that this should be the new normal, and by “new normal” they don’t mean “AAA games that are actually good” because ah yes, wouldn’t it be nice if the problem was simply that AAA developers were just not putting effort and love and quality into their games and if only they’d let Baldur’s Gate into their hearts, they’d make GOOD games again!

But that’s not the new normal this would represent. What investors see is the need for increased scope, longer dev cycles, more work, more crunch, more of what is destroying the games industry at every level (funnily “redoubling their efforts” is exactly the problem here), not just AAA. It has nothing to do with “quality” or “love” (I guarantee you some of the people who design even some of the shittiest AAA tripe have a comparable amount of love for the projects they work on as anyone working on BG3) and literally nothing about microtransactions? I don’t know of a single dev at any level who would insist on the inclusion of microtransactions? I feel like a lot of this is just projecting other (tbf legitimate) issues with AAA game development, but again, the issue isn’t lazy, creatively bankrupt developers turning their noses up at “proof” they can do better, it’s the very real concern that this being seen as a new standard could deepen the issues which harm the medium of video games as a whole as well as the people who work on them.

As Nelson puts it,

The way Triple A game developers are reacting to Baldur's Gate 3 being seemingly an amazing game with no microtransactions reminds me of the reaction Triple A game developers reacted to Elden Ring being an amazing game with no microtransactions, which to me, is hilarious, because you'd think the reaction to seeing something groundbreaking and that's clearly beloved by the people who love and are immersed in the artform would be "Wow, incredible... Maybe we can learn from this and make a breakthrough, maybe we can redouble our efforts and take this as reference to make something fantastic ourselves!" and not "Well, You See, this game is bad for the industry because it's TOO good and it creates an expectation of quality and love (and no microtransactions), do not, my friends, become addicted to good video games. It will take hold of you, and you will resent their absence!"

[henpendrips]

2021 Retrospective

Thought that 2021 was as bad as 2020, if not more so? Don't worry, things WILL continue to get worse. Predicting 2028 will be peak Clown World Decade, starting out seemingly okay but going max bonkers past half-time. Precedent's been set, after all.

Now that the doom and gloom's out of the way: without repeating anything I said in previous yearly retrospectives, 2021 wasn't that eventful for me. Probably the biggest blunder might've been not using the Huion Kamvas that I got last year, even though I got it working properly in January. Not a single drawing was done with it, so a waste of money; and I had no excuse, I was locked in the house for the first half of the year, I had plenty of time. Also, my movie list being empty for the first time in over ten years was quite the bummer.

Instead of more demoralizing drivel, figured I'd just recommend some of the cartoon shows that I've (re)watched in recent years which I find to be worth a damn. Maybe if more people watch decent shows from yesteryear, they'll realize why all the horseshit 'content' that's been coming out is fucking atrocious. Not all of them are good, and they're not properly ranked in terms of quality or preference, but here they are:

.Spectacular Spider-Man - One of the best iterations of this IP, and a wonderful example of writing doing proper set-ups. Yes, I'm sad it didn't get its full run. No, I don't want it to continue, even if everyone involved were to come back;

.Futurama - Latter seasons are a bit poopy and less imaginative, but everything pre-movies is top notch comedy and sci-fi storytelling;

.The Batman - The first three seasons are fantastic in establishing Bats and how he handles the job and the Rogues Gallery. Has a weird thing where either character designs or their personalities don't work too well, and the quality drops hard in the last two seasons.

.Johnny Bravo S2 & 3 - Still fucking hilarious, every single episode. S4 was dogshit, so don't watch it, but S1 might be okay, I didn't bother;

.Wakfu - Watch the french dub. Transitions between each season is a bit lacking, I bet they tried to tie the show to the game. Characters are loveable, animation is great, story beats a bit 'ehn' when it comes to powers and reveals;

.Samurai Jack S1-4 - A lot of leniency has to be given to style, but most episodes work really well. One of those shows where it felt like it told every story it could, but hadn't outstayed its welcome (pre-S5);

.Ben 10 (2005) - Fuck everything besides the original series. Has a great blend of all things paranormal, and a kid hero who's properly characterized as a little shit with a heart of gold, learning and training to be a hero;

.Kim Possible - Surprised how decent the characters are, for teen caricatures. Not all episodes work, and some villain confrontations become slightly repetitive;

.Codename: Kids Next Door - Very absurd, especially watching it now, but the world is consistent for the most part. Worst episode is unquestionably the mini-golf one;

.Megas XLR - Pure satire of mech/kaiju/sentai media through an all-american lense. A good enough serving of what we get;

.The Mummy Animated Series - Alternate reality version of 'The Mummy Returns'. Less funny than the film, but the first season's pretty decent;

.Jackie Chan Adventures - Outside of its finale, S4 is the best, S2 is horrible. The show itself is not good, but entertaining. Shame its namesake is no longer with us, RIP;

What I DON'T recommend at ALL: The Mask Animated Series... it's so fucking bad. Not just from the writing, but also from the horrendous pacing and low quality animation in a lot of instances. Don't suffer like I did, just stick with the Jim Carrey movie, because the show isn't worth it. And Freakazoid, to its credit, gets better as it goes on, but not enough to recommend. Sucks that both of these toon-type hero shows don't work out.

Lastly, there's one more thing. One that I probably would consider one the best shows of the previous decade, in spite of its flaws. However, out of principle and spite (30/70 split), I'll never mention or acknowledge which show it is.

1And that's about it for my once-a-year vent session. See you in 2022, only 200 years for the roulette to pay off.

[henlp]

2017-2021 Show Round-up

.Spectacular Spider-Man - One of the best iterations of this IP, and a wonderful example of writing doing proper set-ups. Yes, I’m sad it didn’t get its full run. No, I don’t want it to continue, even if everyone involved were to come back;

.Futurama - Latter seasons are a bit poopy and less imaginative, but everything pre-movies is top notch comedy and sci-fi storytelling;

.The Batman - The first three seasons are fantastic in establishing Bats and how he handles the job and the Rogues Gallery. Has a weird thing where either character designs or their personalities don’t work too well, and the quality drops hard in the last two seasons.

.Johnny Bravo S2 & 3 - Still fucking hilarious, every single episode. S4 was dogshit, so don’t watch it, but S1 might be okay, I didn’t bother;

.Wakfu - Watch the french dub. Transitions between each season is a bit lacking, I bet they tried to tie the show to the game. Characters are loveable, animation is great, story beats a bit 'ehn’ when it comes to powers and reveals;

.Samurai Jack S1-4 - A lot of leniency has to be given to style, but most episodes work really well. One of those shows where it felt like it told every story it could, but hadn’t outstayed its welcome (pre-S5);

.Ben 10 (2005) - Fuck everything besides the original series. Has a great blend of all things paranormal, and a kid hero who’s properly characterized as a little shit with a heart of gold, learning and training to be a hero;

.Kim Possible - Surprised how decent the characters are, for teen caricatures. Not all episodes work, and some villain confrontations become slightly repetitive;

.Codename: Kids Next Door - Very absurd, especially watching it now, but the world is consistent for the most part. Worst episode is unquestionably the mini-golf one;

.Megas XLR - Pure satire of mech/kaiju/sentai media through an all-american lense. A good enough serving of what we get;

.The Mummy Animated Series - Alternate reality version of 'The Mummy Returns’. Less funny than the film, but the first season’s pretty decent;

.Jackie Chan Adventures - Outside of its finale, S4 is the best, S2 is horrible. The show itself is not good, but entertaining. Shame its namesake is no longer with us, RIP;

.The Mask Animated Series - … it’s so fucking bad. Not just from the writing, but also from the horrendous pacing and low quality animation in a lot of instances. Don’t suffer like I did, just stick with the Jim Carrey movie, because the show isn’t worth it;

.Freakazoid - The gags and the actual plot for each episode are erratic at best, and perpetually clashing at worst. Furthermore, it does NOT do a good job with presenting the titular character as an over-charged loon, both from an animation perspective and character writing. To its credit, gets better as it goes on, but not enough to recommend;

.There’s one more thing, which I’d consider one the best shows of the previous decade, in spite of its flaws. However, out of principle and spite (30/70 split), I’ll never mention or acknowledge which show it is.