#someone make me a writing mod stat i would fix this

[gothamcityneedsme]

was going to submit myself for a zine but the application process is asking for unclear things and the blog has anon asks off so.  i guess im not fucking applying.

[siofra-river]

Ive been trying to play morrowind. But unfortunetly I grew up with Skyrim and I can tell it's effecting my gameplay descisions. (Just picking something up, but I couldnt see any indication that I was stealing) Any begginer tips?

I almost deleted this ask by accident gave myself a heart attack 😭 but um ok I’ve got a few tips.

So #1 would honestly be. Get openmw. It’s not hard to figure out how to download but it’s basically a new engine for the game and it’s super easy to mod for things like bug fixes(which you really want), new textures, better texture mapping etc. really useful stuff. You also need morrowind on steam to run it iirc so maybe snag it when it’s on sale. It might be on sale rn I think the winter sale on steam just started …

2. Find some kind of character making guide. Unlike Skyrim and a lesser extent oblivion. How you make your character like really really actually matters. You choose your race, your class, and a star to be born under. All of these have different stats that mesh w eachother differently . Like each race has stats they’re better in and so you want to choose a starting class that can actually mesh with those skills. Skills are separated into major,minor, and misc skills which determines your proficiency in them. The game is very very reliant on your skills and like th other games the more you do it the better you are but if your short or long blade skill is like 5, you’re not going to hit someone very often. ALSO, there’s a lot more skills than Skyrim, armor is divided into 3 class skills, heavy medium and light, swords are separated by long sword and short sword. There’s skills like armorer which will determine how much you can fix your own armor, and some skills will level up just as you run around like acrobatics. Also, just bcuz your skill levels up does not mean you leveled up, you have to level up a bunch of skills before you get a whole level up.

Which also gets me into 3. Which is like. Combat and dying. Combat is weird and a little clunky, you’re not guaranteed a hit every swing but neither is your enemy (again, dependent on skills) ,stamina really matters, and if you choose magic (which iirc is like one of the more first time player friendly paths) than you regain magic by resting, not passively overtime . Which is smth I wish I knew first time I got into a fight I was so confused 😭. And uh, you’re going to die a lot at first? It’s frustrating but like it’s part of the growing pains imo. If you can stick with it you’ll get a lot a lot better.

4. Would be , get used to a different way of questing. In morrowind you don’t have a quest marker, you don’t have a quest list, and you can’t fast travel outside a few select ways but even then not to everywhere. If you join the mages guild they can teleport you to a few other mages guilds, for a small fee, or you can ride a silt strider for a much bigger fee, but again they don’t take you everywhere. You may also run into a spell or scroll that can teleport you. It may sound intimidating but I swear it gets better, it’s not as bad after running around for a couple hours. You do get a map, but like it only fills out where you go, which I honestly really like, gives a good sense of your progression. But most importantly, you store all your quest info in a little booklet, which will automatically update as you progress thru a quest, so it’s important to remember and check it when you need directions .

5. A little cheesy but . Have fun? It’s a different style of game and can get a lot of getting used to, if it’s really frustrating, not fun at all. Don’t be afraid to step back and look at what might be frustrating you. If you don’t like one style of combat don’t be afraid to start another character and try another kind.

I know I have a few friends who know a lot more abt morrowind so if they wanna add on to this I don’t mind. But yeah, morrowind is a good game! With good(and crazy) writing!

[autumnbrambleagain]

Vampiric Hunger is the most fascinating thing to me, and the quintessence of early Morrowind Modding.

With just janky MWScript, the author was able to make a hunger system where you need to feed on blood, and often early on, petering out as you go longer. It adds sun damage based on a percentage of health and ways to deactivate it with items. It gives you new vampire powers the longer you're a vampire. As far as coding goes, it's arguably not the most impressive vanilla Morrowind mod to exist, but it is certainly up there in the top few pushing the vanilla engine as far as it could go without MWSE.

In terms of writing you have lines like "Please Noooo." in response to you harvesting someone's blood. It's... bad.

And in terms of actual design... they changed the bonuses Vampirism gives you from Attributes to Curses. Which is an actual, in-engine mechanic! And for all the incredible scripting work, lovingly commentated and clear and coherent, I can only imagine this:

They changed it to Curse because uhm vampires are cursed right that's way cooler.

And as a result, the stats and skills you get for being a vampire are temporary and if anything drains or damages them you can never get them back ever because curses are an in-engine function that was never finished being implemented and you set it to curses without it being a function that works and now your mod doesn't fucking work.

There are mods that fix this, allegedly, but the one I'm using doesn't seem to be working for me, which is just. Just fantastic really because it's going to be a huge fucking deal to reset my stats to where they're supposed to be, and then even more testing to see if I can get the "fixed" version to actually work right before I just scrap the mod alltogether.

Because the version I'm using helpfully put half the fixes in a DIFFERENT .esp that adds a bunch of shit I don't want and wasn't using and didn'' realize until later the fixes were in THERE for some reason, you know, because who would put the fixes in the bonus extra optional fucking esp lol? And switching to a fixed .esp doesn't seem to be working and worse, seems to prevent stat restore on drinking blood, which, I don't even know why that's fucking up now did you HOOK the stat restore into it being a curse somehow??? The fuck did you do.

But it's the utter living SYMBOL of early Morrowind modding. You accomplished something far beyond the expectations of what the game could do... and then fucked it up, entirely, made your mod actively deleterious and broken, because you went "haha isn't vampirism a curse? there's an option for curses here that sounds way cooler I"m gonna make them a curse instead"

And to this day no one's done a better vampire mod. There's Devilish Vampires now, but Vampire Embrace has a complex dialogue system that allows people to talk to you if they like you enough, and has a pre-greeting system that allows you to convince them to talk to you even if they normally wouldn't, and... Devilish Vampires has it so you can do it if you wear a closed helmet and only if you do that. If you're a beast race there's One Hat that works and that's it. And instead of allowing you to feed on people repeatedly, and collect thralls and make new vampires, it... makes you feed on corpses, forcing you to kill someone every time ? ? ? I guess? ? ? You're basically exchanging like two dozen awesome systems for a fifth of the content like no offense very impressive mod also but VE/VH just remains completely unmatched

Vampyr looked cool but that project hasn't gotten an update in over a year so rip.

Meanwhile Vampiric Hunger would have worked great if the author hadn't gone "wow... vampirism is a curse and there's a curse option here... neat!"

And that's. That's So <s>Raven</s> Morrowind.

well i guess my next morrowind time is going to be spent fixing someone else's mod. again. because that's what morrowind is BAYBEY

[scruffyssketchbook]

I've been really inactive lately, so I'll try to get this posted.

I noticed something that might classify as a plot hole. The PC system add-on that allows pokemon to get injured.

For starters, we never get an explanation for why this add-on was added in the first place. Supposedly, Vay was loopy from his "karp krakers", and put the add-on into the PC without thinking.

Also, we never get an explanation as to how this add-on works. Or, more accurately, how the PC works. Does the PC normally prevent the eevees from feeling pain and being injured at all? For example, even if Blizz tried his hardest, punching someone would be like punching a brick wall for an average person. Or, does the PC simply heal any major injuries the eevees take on? Or is it somewhere in between?

I know that, from the perspective that this is a comic that needs drama, having the add-on allows characters to hurt each other. (See Jed and Shane.) But, from an in comic perspective, this makes no sense.

Secondly, even if we did have a good explanation for how the add-on came to be, why didn't the trainer just get rid of it. And I don't want the explanation that she's stupid. She is 16, she knows how to work a computer. Even if she didn't, she could force Vay to do it, or get Bede (The person who runs the PC system in Sinho) to do it. I also don't want the explanation that she is negligent. She is, but she took the time to look into it after Harmony got hurt. I doubt she would just turn around and do nothing after learning about the add-on.

I may be missing context here, as there is one comic page that I can't access, the page 100 variation on patreon. Maybe there's an explanation in there, but I wouldn't know.

Thirdly, even if we ignore the trainer, what about Dusk? We already know that he has tried to get Blizz to work with him in stopping Icedrop and Greenpaw from fighting. Not to beat around the bush, Greenpaw does bully Icedrop, they just do it in a more covert, mental, and emotional way than Icedrop bullies Greenpaw.

However, Blizz refuses to help, partially because both Dusk and Blizz are petty. If Dusk genuinely wants to stop Icedrop, why not just get rid of the add-on? We know Dusk can manipulate electronics, so why not just delete the add-on, either from within the PC, or sneakily from outside it? Furthermore, Dusk is not stupid. He knows that Vay added the add-on, or at least could figure that out. He and Vay are also in good relations, so why doesn't he, or hasn't he, asked Vay to get rid of the add-on?

The explanation of "Dusk is just a jerk" does not work. Dusk can be a jerk, but everything he does he does for a reason. Most of him being a jerk comes from him being egotistical, narcissistic, and thinking he knows what's best for everyone even when he doesn't.

The only explanation that works is that he doesn't get rid of the add-on due to the fact it would put Daisy and the other hospital vees out of a job.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that pokemon other than eevee exist in the trainer's PC. We even get to see one of the other boxes. My point here is that the other pokemon would notice something wrong eventually. Best case senario, they notice due to realizing they can feel pain. Worst, they notice due to a major injury not being healed by the PC.

Those pokemon would want to know what happened. Amusing they either are told the truth or find out on their own, why wouldn't they ask Vay to take off the add-on. If Dusk (since he is the only one I can think of who would try to spin a story) told them a lie, then would every pokemon in the entire PC believe him. Charm and smooth words can only go so far.

___________________________________________________

I have two extra questions I thought up while writing this.

Bonus question 1: How did the trainer know that Harmony was injured? Did vay tell her? She check the pokemon's health in the PC often (both stat, and convential health)?

Bonus 2: If we know pokemon can learn to read and write, then why have none of the pokemon other than Vay tried to communicate with their trainer. What is the point of using Vay as a translator, when the pokemon could just write to the trianer? Do they just want to hide how much they know?

On top of that, if pokemon can learn to use computers, what's stooping them from just using text to speech, completely circumventing Vay all together.

bonus 3: Do the pokemon age in the PC? We know Eve is around two years old, so is she physically still a newborn, or has she physically grown?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summary/tl;dr

q1: What are the specifics of how the damage allowing add-on was put into the PC?

q2: How does this add-on, and the PC system's healing ability, work?

q3: Why didn't their trainer take the add-on off the PC?

q4: Why didn't Dusk take the add-on off the PC?

q5: Why didn't any of the other pokemon in the PC take off the add-on?

bq1: How did the trainer know that Harmony was injured?

bq2: Why don't we ever see pokemon that know how to write communicate with the trainer?

bq3: Do the pokemon physically age in the PC?

Author chan: Over here asking the important questions! Alright! I can explain!

The mod basically prevents pokemon from healing without outside means like things that can heal a pokemon, Potions, full heals, antidotes, etc etc. This is why it's called the Damage keeper mod.

Normally in the PC, pokemon can feel pain, but they will quickly heal overtime, but with the mod, it just stops this function all together. Usually in the world, it's used with the "No heal on Entrance" mod for trainers who participate in Nuzlocke challenges.

Vay inputted the Damage keeper mod into the PC for one reason, and one reason only. No, he wasn't loopy, He knew what he was doing, and added it on purpose. It was a pretty selfish decision all in all, but I can't say the reason why. It's vaguely hinted to tho. Yes! It makes no sense to have a mod like that inputted in universe. Literally no other character would ever put in this mod into the if given the chance! But, Vay put it in for a specific purpose. Said purpose was actually shown in "Battle scars". Now. Why would Vay do this? Why would he input a mod that makes all pokemon to keep the damage they receive in the box?

Well. He simply only thinks of himself. He didn't think or care about the effect the mod would have on the other pokemon in the PC, just how he could use it to do what he wanted to do. And yes. Vay is a jerk. He's my least favorite main for a reason, you know.

Next up!

As said in comic 200c, Mods are very hard to take off. Why? Well. We are dealing with actual creatures. One wrong move and hundreds of them will get corrupted and essentially die. This isn't like Minecraft, despite me comparing the PC to a minecraft server for explaining how it works to others. Since this mod affects the pokemon directly, its harder to remove because it’s just a big risk for the pokemon. This is also why Dusk cant just remove it. It is too big of a risk to all the pokemon in the PC, which there are over 1000 of at this point. Healing items and free hospitals are a temporary fix.

Also! Blizz does try to help with the bullying, as seen with comic #302, where he states "It's a misunderstanding" followed by text covered by Bolt talking/ignoring him saying "I saw a greenpaw eevee being bullied by Mike and Tike and-" Which, we see on page #298 Tike was the eevee he was punishing.

Lastly! Why don't the other pokemon notice. Well, The few who have been in a PC before do, but most of the pokemon were wild pokemon before they appeared in the PC, so they don’t know how a normal PC feels like. And ofc, how would a pokemon know who to ask about why the PC works the way it does? Mods are common in the world, cause trainers like to give PC pokemon things to do while rotting away. This is actually going to be talked about with Eevui, the new Eevee the trainer obtained via wondertrading. He was in a normal PC before he was traded, so he'd notice the difference, and will comment on it. Funny thing, I have a comic about him trying to describe the PC to pokemon who never been in one before before he goes in the trainer's pc, and it looks completely different from OUR PC box.

Bonus Questions!!

Harmony was brought out of the PC, to the pokemon center, and a nurse Joy informed her that her pokemon was badly injured.

Bro, you so right. I realized this last year and was like "omg" until I remembered that- Pokemon language is different from human language. Ofc, there are pokemon who can read human language in the world, but pokemon and human stuff are different. And in the PC, things are translated into pokemon if not already in pokemon. This does mean pokemon can write to the trainer and it can get translated, but Vay is just an easier method of translation, especially for pokemon who have a harder time reading, writing, and typing (also there are different pokemon languages as well so oof) then like. Not every pokemon knows how to read and write. It’s a privlage usually given only to few captive pokemon. Wild pokemon learning how to read/write in their own language is VERY RARE, especially due to the lack of materials. And the only civilized boxes in the PC are box 1, 2, and 3, so only pokemon living in those boxes have a reason to learn how to read, and resources to learn.

Pokemon are born the height that they stay at all their life, unless they evolve. (Or are Nego. The little weirdo) This is to mimic how it is in pokemon games. So, no. Pokemon don't physically grow. They DO mentally age however. Pokemon tend to age mentally at different rates, so for example, a newborn who is immediately thrusted into situations not meant for a baby (ie, breeding, battling, contests) will mentally age faster than someone (like Eve) Who has stayed in the PC all their life. Nego and Eve are about the same age (Nego being 6 months older) Yet, Nego acts like an infant while Eve does not. This is because Nego ages physically and mentally like a human, while Eve ages quicker mentally, like pokemon do. This also tends to mean that when a pokemon is born doesn't matter much, as they can mentally be ahead or behind.

I hope these answered your questions!! I like talking about SSEC world building! (Its just that I never have the chance to talk about it in detail QuQ)

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Who is the best Dead Island character?

I know the game has been out for god knows how long now (9 years) but oddly enough there is no real place to find out who the best dead island character is. So as a person who has played the game to death on 3 different consoles as well as riptide, getting every character up to max level using both fury and not fury I’m going to throw my hat into this non existent argument and finally say who is the best character in dead island. Firstly I am NOT a fan of the fury system. I never used it in the first game and only used it in the second one because I ran out of things to get on the combat and survival trees. Even now, I would much rather actually just use those trees because in the end, fury is fine, but just not my thing. So let’s make this argument based on specifically the combat and survival trees and how each character is meant to be built. However, I know people actually would be “outraged” to not hear me put my idea on who has the best rage ability so I’ll at least delve into who has the best and the worst. So for me the best is Logan and the worst is everyone else for different reasons. So the reason why Logan is the best is he can do ranged attacks and hit 2 people at one time and deal a shit ton of damage to any style of enemy. It’s just an overloaded ability. The reason why the other 3 are about even is this, Sam has to get into really close range which is fine, he will heal. Purna gets a gun which in this game, guns are actually not that great. Lastly Xian Mei is pretty frail and her weapon in general has no distance to allow you to attack the zombies. Now in certain circumstances sure, they are fine and Purna does really well against humans but your rage should probably be used on something like a hoard and hoards of humans is a little lacking and when they show up they are spaced a little bit apart and that just makes it not worth the effort when you can just aim and shoot them in the head EZPZ. Now on to who the best characters are and why. I’m going to write these in the order who I think is worst to best. A  lot of people would disagree with me on this but again, we’re not talking about anything other than combat and survival. The game isn’t hard enough on any character to really need fury and again, I personally do not like the feel of it. So with that in mind, here is the first character on our list. Purna - I can hear that anger and hate and backlash from the non existent group of people not reading this. You see many people think Purna is this amazing character because she uses guns and also deals more damage with her survival tree. I’m not so sure on that one. Yeah she does boost peoples numbers but half of that is taken away if you don’t play with people and the other part is for a gun character she kind of gets shafted. Lets compare her to the others in a sort of way. See logan, He’s kind of the person she has more power than. Logan in his normal build without taking into account his main style of play deals less damage than Purna because she has 2 upgrades total that power her main weapon. Guns. The second is she has knives which allows her to deal more damage with a rarer weapon type in the beginning of the game. Knives are in general not easy to come around at first and even then they are in general lacking in the whole “being useful after one strike” department. Sure I’m being hyperbolic on that part but still, Knives and blades kinda die easily. Yes she does have an ability to raise the endurance on her melee weapons but let’s face it. It’s all about guns. So what’s wrong with that? Well, Let’s be honest. Guns kinda suck dick in this game and to top it off they’re rare in the first act and only really show up in the second act on. Now the second part of that is ammunition is also kind of even more rare. You can make ammo in some cases but you need the items, and be later in a play through and by then, well, you should have enough chances to get ammo that you don’t need to craft it and with the dlc you can just go buy it when you need it at the “arena”. So what else does she have in her offensive skill tree? Well she has the ability to gain stamina when she kills someone, oh be still my beating heart. A gun user who can replenish stamina. What a great combo. Gets real tiring to pull that trigger I am so out of breath thinking about it. Don’t get me started on the stamina lowered when you fight a horde of enemies ability since we all know how much those guns need stamina. Next is the fact that in general she will deal overall less boosted damage from her abilities that she uses to upgrade her primary form of combat. Yes, I know she has a skill that boosts her boosts but let me get to that in a moment. She has several things like increased elemental effects on attacks, critical hit chance, decreased reload time and bullet penetration boosts. Those are ok, but are we really not using the shot gun to fight hordes of zombies or using a single bullet from a gun who just shocks people or lights them on fire? Her offensive skills lack in areas where they should be focused on guns. Yes she does have a skill that deals more damage with modified weapons but to be fair everyone does. Her survival tree is lacking as well in that she doesn’t have the ability to survive like everyone else. Everyone in the game has the ability to augment their healing. Purna? She can instant revive sometimes after death. What does this do? It cuts 7 seconds off of your wait time in death. How cool is that? It’s not. Just wait 7 seconds. The rest of the kit? Let’s take a look. Repair cost and durability is up on weapons. After I get to max level on Purna I generally stop using melee on weapons. I generally just shoot everything since I can always get ammo no problem. I will either make it with my excess stuff or I’ll but it outright. So fixing things is never a thought. All increase XP abilities are worthless and should never be taken ever. This is again one of the reasons I don’t like fury. I can get XP from missions and playing. I don’t need your dumb weapon for 10 seconds and an XP boost. She has a chance to not stop attacking but if you are ranged like a gun user would be than you don’t need it. Then you have a better chance to find rare loot and lastly, you have make, find and carry more bullets. These are her main things to use. As I said, there just isn’t enough here. (one important note to put is that she also has an ability to deal more damage to men, and as great as that is, it’s not going to win any favors. It’s great because all the special zombies are all men and half the enemies in the game are all men, and all the humans you fight, are all men. Xian Mei - Xian is a fun character to some degree and as much as I like the idea of her being an assassin/doctor I find that she still somewhat lacks. See like Sam she wants to wield 2 handed weapons because there is enough force for her to actually chop limbs off which is her main thing but we all know there are enough mods to give B the ability to also do that. So her biggest boon is actually no longer there. Her combat tree is pretty good in that it actually has things to use for Damage, Damage, and more damage. You can deal straight up damage. You can do Dots AKA damage over time with bleeding and in general poison which is what most blades do. Lastly besides her bad skills that aren’t even worth looking at she can insta kill sometimes but very rarely and she can also deal more damage to people who are almost dead. On the opposite side of the coin she heals for a massive amount of health with med kits. Almost 2X the amount when you use one. However, she does lack in this department for a reason. In general she can be harder to kill with her spectre ability but in general Med kit’s are hella expensive and a little rare sometimes. Yes you will get enough but let’s face it. You are frail with Xian and getting in super close with early game knives is not always the best. Later in the game she’s fine but her lack of defensive skill tree abilities is the main problem for her.  Logan - Logan is usually seen as the best besides Purna for his damage, But his utility is actually where it is at. As the jack of all trades he can do everything and the most important part in this game that is passed over is survivability. Yes I know Sam and Logan are kinda “easy” but here is the thing. Survival in this game is what it is about. Dealing more damage? Survive easier. Healing more damage? Survive easier. Buying and selling and getting more money? Survive easier. All skill trees are to make you better. Some just are better at it. Logan can just do all of this but not as well as Sam. But what can Logan do is the real question. Firstly he has the range down of Purna. The thing is, that I’m pretty sure he can throw farther than she can shoot. Mostly because he has a farther distance than others with his throws. Sure he can use guns, but let’s face it. Throwing is what he is meant to do and guns are better on people than zombies. His weapons are also meant to be bladed so they have a chance of in general doing a shit ton of damage as well as cutting limbs off. Sometimes you can cut a head off and insta kill a zombie. Next, he deals more damage with knives when he throws them and in general because he does one handed weapons better than anyone else. Also he can crit pretty much half the time with each throw. Now for survival he’s got it all. A chance to get back his weapons half the time and lastly he heals from one of the easiest items to find in the game. Alcohol. Now in general the being drunk part isn’t all that bad. Just stand still and you’ll be fine, and even fighting when drunk isn’t the worst. Lastly he also can have one of the highest or the highest health and stamina in the game with his ability to just outright get stats from abilities. This is why he is in second place. Sam B - Why is Sam best? Besides his killer music he has the best kit in the game. When you start out you will be finding blunt weapons easier than anything else. Sam uses those and boosts his damage for them. He already increases his weapons already high endurance. He also has one of the best and most important stats on his side. Force. Force breaks bones, and cuts off limbs, With a bladed weapon on a heavy force stat you will be shredding limbs like no other. Almost all of your important abilities are going to boost damage and endurance with your weapon making you a force to be reckoned with. However his main appeal is in his survival tree. You have built in healing. Every minute you are just doing nothing or out of combat you heal 20% of your health. It’s not a high number but it’s pretty damn good since it’s always on. What’s better is that you also soak damage up with abilities. At most you can stop a total of 75% melee damage and guns deal 78% less. That with your ability to heal will keep you going for a while. Sure it can be a little “boring” to some who in general don’t want easy mode. But we are talking about the best kit here. That’s also the main thing people would argue against this. Liking a certain kit and finding the difficulty of the game with certain characters to be what they desire. It’s fine to like the guns of Purna or the ease of play with Sam. Either way in the end all that really is important is that we love this game even through all of its faults.

[vixlenxe]

Since I saw someone else talk about it briefly, I’m also going to talk about it. So kids, let’s talk about op(overpowered) characters. As someone who plays video games a lot, balance is important to me, so keep in mind this is coming from someone who often sees rping literally an MMO RPG just without a controller, set game mechanics or active stats.

My own character, Violent Violet, would be classed as an overpowered character, so don’t worry, I know I’m totally guilty of having one.

For me personally, I don’t hate op characters, as long as they’re not completely god-mode-ed. There ARE ways to have these stupidly strong characters, & still balance them out for interactions for other people. EX: using a D&D based system to determine if your character’s action is a success or fail. People who have seen my rp often see stuff like this show up:

(Rolled a 1 out of 3 = fail)

Or something to that effect. This is based off the D&D system with the use of a Random Number Generator. For those who don’t know, basically a high number roll usually means success & a low number roll means fail, if the roll ends up being on a number that perfectly in between a success or fail, means that nothing particularly good happens to anyone, but also nothing particularly bad happens; like someone getting their shoulder lightly nicked or something. I really like this system for fighting situations if they are not plotted out beforehand, & I really encourage others to use it to make things a bit more fair, since no one can claim god-modding based on a random number generator's randomly generator-ed choice. Even the most skilled warriors aren’t going to make the prefect move every single time anyway!

But moving on from the balancing bit-

I’ll say it straight, obviously, if you have an op character just for the sake of having one, I probably aren’t going to be interacting with them. Having a character like that for not reason other then waving them around like your ‘fix all button’ is like trying to write on a piece of paper with no pen or pencil; it’s pointless & you get bored just sitting then waiting for words to magically appear on that paper on their own.

That being said, I actually really like stories that have an op character going through tons of emotional development. Seeing a character go through something that breaks whatever their current mindset is, seeing them breakdown, fall in love, or dealing with the side effects of their crazy powers, is a fucking experience that I love.

So, putting it simply, having a physically or magically op character is fine, but having them emotionally or mentally struggling is much more okay!

This is something I am doing with Violent Violet. She is obviously classed as overpowered by loads of people, even me, & she’s technically not even in her ‘final form’ yet. Violet’s story is meant to be that of a human woman who struggles with her humanity. She’s able to throw punches with some of the strongest beings in the multiverse, surely then, even though she puts on a confident face, that would make her question if she’s really human at all? The more & more she kills off beings naturally stronger then humans, & the more of this god killing power she's forced to use, the more that’s gonna effect her mental state. I guess it’s why I find her having a lover really important to her character & vouch really hard for getting her ships, because that person would be the one thing that makes her feel the most human of all. And ‘feeling human’ is something that keeps her from going completely fucking bonkers.

I’ve been trying to show more of this side of her story, showing just how much she needs other people & how much her mental state has been silently crumbling. To show that, not matter how strong someone like her is, there’s always going to be someone that makes her weak, & someone like her needs to feel weak in the right moments. Although success of that varies, since activity with my partners has been pretty low, & one of them seems to dodge any sort of emotional development.

But anyway, my point is-

Op characters aren’t bad as long as they’re not some prefect being on all levels. Op characters can still have emotional development, mental development, relationship development, & plenty of others things that they... well... should have. And when these things are pulled off really well, they tend to end up as some of the most beloved characters. Don’t make an op character so they can be your ‘fix all button’, it’s just so boring.

[someblackgamerguy]

Rimworld: My New Addiction

It's not so often that you hear a game on steam going out of early access hell. Personally, I browse steam and see some games that are wonderful and still in early access, sometimes I tend to wonder what the full product becomes. I've tried out My time at Portia as well as Oxygen not included! Both amazing games in their own right and obviously a tad bit rough around the edges, which is to be expected in an early access game. I sometimes get worried though. If you were to browse steam's early access and greenlit games you might need to shuffle through a good bit of less-than-savory products such as Hentai Legends. But once in a while, you get an amazing game that just breaks out of its early access stages and gets a full release, and this game is Rimworld.

At first glance, I thought this game would seem to be a simple colony building survival game, a standard, collect the wood, build a house, hunt for food type of game. I was proven wrong almost instantly when I first started to see the world the crew that was randomly selected for me was being dropped in, After that, I knew that I was in for an interesting ride.

The game begins with you choosing a Storyteller and a difficulty, Each storyteller has their own way of handling events throughout the game. There are different types of encounters, like foreign settlers running away from another faction, traders selling weapons and sometimes slaves. You can choose to open your border and let them pass or attack them and become a raider camp. But when you land (depending on the scenario you choose) You have randomly selected individuals with different stats pertaining to, construction, crafting, medical and shooting. You work to create a safe camp for your settlers to live peacefully and survive.

This game is very slow and akin to tower defense game when you raise the difficulties. Waves of enemies coming into your base while you defend with the turrets and gunners. The difficulty doesn't stop there though, Your settlers can start social fights, threatening to kill each other, or have mental breakdowns. There's so much flavor text in this game it's going to be near impossible to read all of it in one solid playthrough. After a week with this game, I am still learning new things. New ways to handle temperature, different biomes, and savage creatures.

The fun didn't stop there for me, as someone who enjoys a lot of Bethesda games like Skyrim, Oblivion, and the Fallout series I am pretty fond of the modding community. Rimworld has so many mods that will vary your gameplay cycle leading you to more than just a couple of hours of digging, mining, and building. Some of my favorite mods added more biomes, dinosaurs, androids, and the ability to create scientific abominations! The games art style aren't really too much to write home about, but it really grows on you after an hour or so in. and well when you start building your bases, that sense of pride you feel after you make your first village or camp will make you forget all about that.

Now this game isn't perfect, there's quite a few that I feel its lacking when it comes to its boring yet complicated UI. The point where its harder to keep track of some areas and maybe a way to create more squads of units in an easier manner. Rather than memorizing some names. I would enjoy it more if I can sort my colonists based off their skills. Where instead of looking in the work menu and marking checkboxes I can have a whole window dedicated to a Logger, a Hunter or a builder. In the base game its really easy to keep track of 3-5 people but when your colony grows it grows difficult, and it's not because of lack of resources. It just gets harder to keep track of everyone's health. There's a point where the game isn't difficult because of the hard encounters, but difficult because you can't keep track with its UI.

There's another issue i feel that this game needs to improve on and that's the AI, There are so many times I want to point and click to what I want my settlers to do like a standard RTS, even though I know it isn't that way, the AI of some characters are so slow or dumb they can just stand and get shot at without even bothering to do a melee attack.  The melee attack options feel almost pointless as well when there are guns that not only damage people so much,  it leads fewer other options when it comes to weaponry of more in-your-face variety.  My complaints can be fixed with mods but I feel that when there's a mod that fixes a problem in your game when it comes to balancing I feel it becomes more of a necessity than a modded addition.

I mentioned earlier that this game has a slow start, and to elaborate on it. I took almost 8 hours to get a pretty good colony of 10 (without prisoners) and feel extremely safe. The best part was that I wasn't burnt out afterward. I got some sleep just thinking of new ways to make my next start more efficient and ways to improve my current civilization, let alone start wars or be at peace with close factions. Though 8 hours is a long time, it felt really relaxing. I was able to watch my shows and listen to my podcasts while I play.  

In total this game has just got out of early access and I really would recommend it to anyone who likes town building games, and anyone who wants a game they can sink hundreds of hours into while still only covering the barebones surface of what the game has to offer you.

If I had to give it a score I guess I would give it an 8/10 Its really good but I still feel like the mods give the game that extra edge that makes a good game great.

[ilvatu]

Pokemon, What is Cheating? (Hacked vs. Cloned)

Been playing quite a bit of Pokemon Sword/Shield lately and they have just released the first content pack the Isle of Armour. It’s more of the same if you liked the core game, and adds not a huge amount of additional game, but a new “Wild Area” to explore, as well as a huge number of (new/old/additional) Pokemon to the game. I’ve enjoyed it, but I could see how some people could be disappointed with the additional content. 

ANYWAY, playing the games long enough to do more than simply beat them means you have higher goals in mind. Catch ‘em all? Sure, gotta complete that Pokedex. But also? Get a good team, or an ideal team. Which on some level or another will require you to breed for stats/abilities, feed them bottle caps, mints, and perfect IVs and EVs. Not  to mention shiny Pokemon, which are just extremely rare Pokemon with an alternative color palate. 

Naturally it would be easier to trade for some of these mons than acquire them yourself. How can you be sure the Pokemon you receive is legitimate? What is legitimate? 

Hacking mons into your game is a thing. Hilarious even, when you consider twitch.tv/oakslab is a thing. Oakslab will generate any mon you want and trade it to you, for free. So, this is clearly cheating. I don’t have a problem with it, if people want to use it. I have. Hold it against me if you want. It is what it is. 

The problem is when people who want to play the game “”legitimately”” want to acquire Pokemon from other people in a trade. The lengths they will go through to ensure the Pokemon is legit, and how other questionable methods are somehow ok is where I’m stumped. Because fabricating a mon into the game is wrong, but having someone clone one that they found legitimately and then give you the clone is morally superior to hacking. 

I’m going to take a step back for a minute and walk through the exposure I had to this issue. I’ll try to say what I know about the websites, streams, and/or communities involved. 

So, my goal was to have a perfect team. There may be no such thing, but I had a list of mons that I wanted and I wanted to see how good I could get it. I had the mons I wanted, but their stats and abilities were not ideal. There are two ways to get a Pokemon's stats perfect. You can improve an existing Pokemon or you can breed a better one. You can use a bottle cap on an existing Pokemon in order to “hyper train” that stat to be perfect. You can also use items like mints to get their nature adjusted. But the ability the Pokemon has is stuck. You need to have the ability you want as there is no way to change it.

The other way, through, breeding can be more time consuming but over the long term can result in consistently amazing Pokemon.  In order to fix this issue on my own I would need to repeatedly breed Pokemon together in order to get the result I need. I wanted to choose this path, mostly because I felt the long-term benefit would result in an easier or faster way to get new mons the way I wanted faster. 

Enter Ditto. The Pokemon that can breed with everything. Every Pokemon can breed with a Ditto, even Pokemon that can’t typically breed with each other, or gender-less Pokemon. I did have a Ditto, but its stats suffered from the same issue my other mons did. They were trash. Also, Ditto cannot breed with other Dittos. Apparently this would result in a gravy train so rich that even the developers thought it shouldn’t be possible. Also, if you breed a Pokemon that has been hyper trained, it’s hyper trained stats do not transfer. It will pass on its original shitty stats. The only way to get a perfect Ditto is to catch one or trade for one. Each Pokemon has six stats with 31 possibilities. Finding a Ditto in the wild with perfect stats would be (1/31)^6 or 1 in 887,503,681. Terrible fucking odds. 

Subnote: you can find Dittos with good stats yourself via max raid battles, but manipulating the spawns for them seems just as cheaty as any of the methods I am about to go over, but would likely result in still costing a greater amount of time. 

So at this point I was like “fuck it.” I’m going to try to find someone on the internet to trade me one. Just get one good Ditto from an outside source and then I can breed to my heart’s content. To Google. I found two sources of Pokemon at this point, which I will go over in turn. The first was a Subreddit which boiled down to “we’ll give you a Ditto of your choice, once every 48 hours.” I had to install Pokemon Home on my phone and Switch, but I did receive three perfect Dittos this way. I also learned about natures, which is why I got three Dittos. Op success.

I also discovered Oak’s lab, which I went over in some detail before. But through Oakslab I had my first exposure to Pokemon Showdown and the community there. Specifically the “Wifi” community, which is going to consist of the real meat of this post. In order to request a Pokemon from the Oakslab stream, you have to first export one you made using Showdown’s Teambuilder. I did this, got my mon, sweet. Also Showdown’s Teambuilder is a fun tool that lets me screw around with stats and stuff. Very useful as a tool for theory crafting. 

My other thought is that I could just be lazy. Get a Pokemon via Oakslab, breed it with a Ditto, and take the resulting Pokemon which would have all of my trainer info on it. Would that Pokemon be legal? Hell no, but there’s no way to prove otherwise, right? Oh how wrong I am. I have done this method of breeding what I want a few times. I don’t care, and nobody I ever play with will likely ever notice. But holy fuck is this community insane about what is and is not cheating. 

So the MOTD of the Wifi chat room for Pokemon Showdown is what sparked me to write this. Not just the dichotomy of writing in bold letters about how hacked Pokemon are the devil, while at the same time having an approved list of “cloners,” but for having one of the most through and detailed proof requirements that I have seen of any game. Even Goldeneye “Elite” mods like Goose don’t have proof requirements this detailed. And that dude is really fucking into busting the balls of proof requirements on a number of games, not just Goldeneye.

The proof requirements are insane, but they essentially want you to create a video that shows you catching the Pokemon, and then going and viewing its stats and other info. They also want you to use an out-of-game tool to publish your seed and time of day and stuff. Like, in order to prove that your Pokemon isn’t hacked you have to prove that you have the ability to hack Pokemon. 

BUT, clones are OK and christian. Here are a list of people who can do it for you.

Of course, any issue found with a mon you have here results in a ban. They have no other method of control and couldn’t possibly understand why people wouldn’t keep a cache videos of every mon they’ve ever caught ever. 

Its more of a whitelist thing, I’d guess. Like, your mon might not be illegal, but if you don’t have direct evidence of it’s legality then you can’t trade it. 

I suppose if you want to keep your game completely legitimate that is the same as me choosing to use hacked Pokemon. It wouldn’t be right for me to claim that I have a real one and then give them my genned Oakslab stuff. But at the same time having someone clone a shiny mon from someone else so you can both have one is ok. Everyone should be allowed to play the game how they see fit, I just think that it’s insanity that they think that this sort of proof is sufficient and yet easy for laypeople to compile. 

This all flies in the face of the existence of Oakslab, which churns out hacked Pokemon as fast as it can, and it has almost a thousand people waiting in line to get theirs during peak times for EU. 

It also flies in the face of Showdown in general. A website where you can just use a tool to make any team you want and battle with it in a simulator with other people as much as you want. A battle simulator for a game they have no affiliation with. 

Lastly, it flies in the face of the base game. There is specifically a rule in Wifi that says that if you received a Pokemon through GTS (Pokemon Home strangers donating mons to you) or if you received one through a “Surprise Trade” or through the game trading system, that they are likely hacked and prohibited from trade. In other words, they acknowledge that people in-game are handing out hacked mons willy-nilly and that if you participate in these systems you are likely acquiring hacked Pokemon. 

I did receive a shiny Magikarp in surprise trade recently which I suspect is legitimate. I will be using it as if it were. It has me thinking though, that it might be hacked. It doesn’t bother me so much, but I know that I could not trade this on their website because I cannot prove its legitimacy. 

I am trying to withhold judgement as much as I can here. My issue isn’t really with the people who want hacked Pokemon, or the people who want to only acquire legitimate mons. My real gripe is with the people who run Showdown seem to be determining morality for people. They are dominating the grey area between copying Pokemon games, and what is morally allowed to be traded. Why is a cloned Pokemon ok but a hacked one not? What difference is it if you used in-game mechanics to achieve the same result? 

As long as people are straight forward about how they acquired whatever they trade I wouldn’t have an issue with it. The Pokemon giveaways subreddit doesn’t have an issue with how you acquired it as long as you disclose it. They have tags for legit, cloned, and hacked. It should be up to the user to determine what is acceptable to them. 

I will end by saying that doing cheats or immoral things like duping Pokemon has been possible since Gen 1 Red/Blue days.Pulling the link cable before the trade was done, or abusing missingno for unlimited master balls or other items. I don’t really see this as any better than cloning or Oakslab. Back then we didn’t even have gamefaqs, or if we did we weren’t old enough to ask our parents to dial in to AOL. It was this underground thing. A friend of a friend showed you how to do it, and then you could show your friends. It was all fun and games until someone’s save got corrupted. 

Final thought is that it bothers me that people who operate a website that exists in a legal grey area are very quick to pass judgement on the way other people want to play their game. Maybe it makes the most sense, but maybe don’t throw stones in glass houses is all I’m saying. 

[maxwalkalot]

Novembrew 4: Cataphract of Dusk

As with all tales told around a campfire or in a stuffy tavern, one should not believe them fully. If a story is not half forgotten and reimagined or charged because of dogma or beliefs, it is often greatly exaggerated by someone at some point. The cataphract of dusk is one such tale.

Memories of betrayal. While the stories may differ in the details, some common truth falls through. They speak of a brave warrior who fought for an ancient king. The nation was at war, besieged by monsters foul and wicked from all sides. This cataphract led the king’s warriors into victory after victory, always leading from the front mounted on his loyal destrier. When each battle ended, they would move through the camp, ensuring that the wounded were treated and moral was kept up. Amongst the rank and file, the cataphract became a living legend. Upon their victory against impossible odds, they marched the victorious army to the king, expecting thanks and rewards for the men and women who had died to keep the king on their throne. However the king took all the glory for himself, and at the height of a religious festival, sacrificed the cataphract’s destrier to their gods as thanks for saving the kingdom from ruin, and built a new shrine to honour them and house the bones of the destrier, which was made into the protector spirit of the ruling house.

Pushed to the brink. The cataphract was appalled at the king’s behavior. While they cared little for personal rewards, the warriors who had formed the army had barely been recognised, instead the king had thanked the gods for delivering a victory. After a heated argument with the king over the treatment of the soldiers, the cataphract destroyed the shrine that had been built to thank the gods and took pack what rightfully belonged to him; the skull of his destrier. Calling upon their old friend, the cataphract set fire to the king’s palace, and left on the back of a spectral horse.

A bloody and dusty legacy. The cataphract disappeared. Many spoke of a new ruler, who had formed a nation from the ruins of an ancient keep, and many of the soldiers who had served under the cataphract flocked to their banner. Eventually this nation crumbled to dust, and the stories of the cataphract of dusk become ever different, convoluted or over blown. Some think that the cataphract is still alive as an undead being, while many have sought to replicate the cataphracts fighting style and magic, to varying degrees of success.

Shrouded orders. Though the tale is old and told in many different ways, some have managed to rediscover or develop the methods said to have been used by the first cataphract of dust. After a long period of meditation and study, a horse or other steed that is loyal to the cataphract is sacrificed. Its skull is then cleaned and engraved with various magical enchantments, binding the soul to it. The word to summon the steed’s spirit is known only to the cataphract who sacrificed the steed. The rituals required to make such steeds are closely guarded by the various orders that have sprung up over time, each one claiming a different link to the first cataphract of dusk.

Today’s creation is inspired by a mod created for Darkest Dungeon (a lot of my creations at the moment seem to be game related). I began with writing the flavour text to get an idea what I wanted to do; first I thought of doing a fighter archetype (which I might still do), then as an undead hero, then I thought to create a whole array of cataphracts including soldiers (this one), captains, perhaps paladins and clerics, and finally do THE Cataphract of Dusk themselves.

Not going to lie, I’m happy with the idea of having calling the steed something like a shapeshifter transforming. I’m happy with how this one turned out, and I’m looking forward to continuing this order (either as part of novembrew, or afterwards, or even in addition, who knows??).

As always, this is a fan creation to a mod, no intentions to profit from etc etc. Here is a link to the wonderful mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1235319270

EDIT: It struck me that the cataphract, in their mounted form, would only really act like a faster version of themselves on foot. While mounted, the mount can still take actions, allowing for a ride by or hit and run type actions (by having the mount dodge). So if you add under Spectral Steed the ability to take the dash action as a bonus action, seems like a simple fix to allow for a pseudo mount feel. I’ll update the stat block at some point.

[gamesception]

New Vegas, Part 1: Ain’t That Just a Kick in the Head.

Whelp, that was a short game.  Roll credits!

Actually, no, let’s back up a bit.  Before I actually started playing, while I was getting everything set up to go, Lobac happened to notice me on steam and tossed a few mod suggestions my way.  I’m aiming for a mostly vanilla run in terms of gameplay, and I’m not especially concerned with graphics quality, so the list is pretty short, but a couple of the items on it, or, well, one really, will be very relevant to my first play session, so:

Ohp, I hear my kitchen timer beeping, gonna go grab dinner before coming back to finish the post.  Feel free to guess at which of these mods becomes the dominant theme of the next hour or two of my life.

alright, I’m back.

Rewinding a bit to the opening narration...

So, the NCR is the main power in the area at the moment, and generally consist of not entirely terrible people.  In contrast to...

Caesar's Legion, who are apparently the bad guys.  ‘Slave army’ doesn’t exactly seem to leave room to think of them, or at least their leaders, as anything else.

NCR has repelled the Legion before, but now they’re back, in larger numbers, preparing to start a war for control of the Hoover Damn and the city of New Vegas, relatively untouched by the war that destroyed everything else.

The city in turn is controlled by a ‘Mr. House’, though it’s also currently under NCR control?  Not sure exactly how that works.  ‘Spose I’ll find out if I ever get that far.

The setting is certainly interesting enough.  Some clear characterization & motivation for the main factions.  Some interesting & important places to check out.

Which brings us back to our protagonist, shot in the head.  Kind of hard to see how I survive that.  Like they dug a grave and everything.  They would have needed to leave right after shooting me, and someone would have to have been watching the whole time to grab me like immediately after to get me to a hospital.  But whatever, it’s a video game...

Ok, so here’s the Doctor who found and fixed us, I guess.  Not exactly a hospital.  And doesn’t really look sterile enough for brain surgery, but beggers can’t be choosers.  After hemming and hawing for a few minutes, I pick Bethany for a name.  Bethany was a character in a comic I used to do for my old school paper.  Not a good one, mind, plot was never good, art was inconsistent, writing sucked.  I liked the characters, even if I never had any idea what to do with them.

The comic was about a kid vampire who was supposed to simultaneously be Peter Pan and Dracula.  Bethany was supposed to take the part of the Mermaids / Vampire brides.

That was Bethany.  She lived in an abandoned McDonalds playground.

I’m getting side tracked again.  I’m not trying to recreate the character (again, the comic was terrible and I don’t remember it fondly - I’m not trying to fish for compliments here, it was also kind of gross and dumb).

Anyway, if I’m not making old comic Bethany, who am I making?

Ah, the same character I always make in Fallout 3.  Gotcha.  Well, not exactly, we’re in the Southwest, so this time she’s Hispanic.  Ok.  On to stats.

Well, since I’m making the same character I always make in this game, she’ll be low on the strength and endurance end, and high on perception, agility, and smarts.  Really the only question is to what extent I’m going to push those differences, and what I’m going to do with Charisma and Luck.

In Fallout 3 I typically put those pretty neutralish, maybe favoring luck slightly and playing something of a gruff loner, but with the way this game starts?  After getting shot in the head in the opening scene of the game, I see only two options.  Either this character is the single unluckiest girl in Nevada or the absolute luckiest, I cannot justify any score in between.

I waffled that a bit, but in the end...

Yeah, that looks about right to me.  Doc Mitchell disagrees, however, the way he sees it I’m ‘the luckiest son-of-a-gun in New Vegas,’ which is actually pretty funny, I wasn’t expecting him to comment on my stat selection.  Neat.

Anyway, I didn’t outright max any of my scores under the theory that there’d be bobble heads to raise each of them by one later.  Is that right?  I don’t know.  If not, there’s always perks.

Ok, on to a little personality test, with some fun inkblots:

Squid.

A fairy, casting a big old shadow.

Two monks giving each other a high five.

Of course, none of the things I saw were actually options for responses.  That’s the only reason I can think of that Doc Mitchell here thought my tagged skills were supposed to be Energy Weapons, Explosives, and Science, but I quickly set the record straight:

Sneak to avoid what conflicts I can, Speech to talk my way out of those I can’t, and Guns as the final fallback for when all else fails.

After that came picking traits, which was a neat fun feature, a bunch of different advantage/disadvantage bundle deals.  I waffled quite a bit here, but in the end went with:

Small frame for an agility boost at the cost of easily damaged limbs, which seemed in fitting with the characteristics I had already chosen, and Wild Wasteland, because, come on.  How could I not?

Well, Doc Mitchell was very nice in helping me free of charge, and even gave me a Pip boy and some clean clothes.  In fact, he was so nice that I was sure he wouldn’t mind me helping myself to some free medical supplies, a laser pistol, and this nice hat on the way out:

The DLC that came bundled with the version I bought had also dropped a number of mini equipment packages in my inventory, including a neat pair of binoculars and this suit of leather armor I thought looked pretty nice:

Yup, lookin good.

Time to step outside and embrace the beautiful, warm Nevada sunli...

I mean violent, pitch-dark, torrential thunderstorm.

WHELP, TODAY JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER.

Luck 1, indeed.