#the Witcher fans based in London might like this
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Hampstead Theatre just announced the cast for Lauren Gunderson’s anthropology (7th September until 14th October) directed by Anna Ledwich and there’s a very familiar face among the leading women.
#hampstead theatre#myanna buring#london theatre#also starring:#abigail thaw#dakota blue richards#yolanda kettle#anthropology play#lauren gunderson#anna ledwich#the Witcher fans based in London might like this
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the fantasy books i havent read in this poll
basically any work i havent read or read part of
good omens (i have seen the tv show) (tbh im not a gaiman fan, i dont vibe with most of his work)
cosmere (ive read 60 pages of mistborn) (i really have no interest tbh)
wheel of time (dont ask me how long i owned the first one lol)
the all souls trilogy (my mom wants me to read this)
house of the cerulean sea (my mom really REALLY wants me to read this) (i like his book how to be a normal person btw)
discworld (i have owned wee free men since i was in middle school RIP)
the witcher (my friend lent this to me. i never made it past the first page)
tawney man (i read robin hobbs first assassin book when i was like 14 and i think i liked it. her other books are on my tbr)
gentlemen bastards (i am not the intended audience for this series)
the broken earth (on my tbr!! and i own the fifth season!!)
the first law (i cant even remember the name of this series)
mercy thomas (on my tbr cause i need more urban fantasy)
the bear and the nightingale (dnf for me, which i found surprising)
lightbringer (ive heard good things but its never caught my attention)
dragonriders (my mom owns them all)
the rivers of london (i have no idea about this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
prince of thorns (i think i used to have a mutual with this url .. . )
the daevabad trilogy (on my tbr!!)
the green bone saga (dnf cause im not the target audience)
the goblin emperor (apparently this is good enough to challenge piranesi soooo i might add it to my tbr)
chronicle of unhewn throne (again, no idea)
valdemar (mercedes lackey has been on my list forever. another author my mom wants me to read)
between earth and sky (on my tbr!!)
criers war ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
among others (on my tbr!!)
dead jinn universe (on my tbr!!)
the jasmine throne (i have this on hold!!)
the traitor of baru cormorant (i have to do more research before i decide if it goes on my tbr)
the raven tower (on my tbr!!! my friend highly recommends it!!)
the grace of kings (i am intrigued by this one)
shades of milk and honey (newly on my radar)
a land fit for heroes (no interest)
witchmark (on my tbr!! ive heard many many good things!!)
tailchasers song (no interest)
the queen of tearling (i got this as a gift as a teen . . . i think i read part of it??? i don't remember it at all tho)
miss peregrines home for peculiar children (i started this twice as a kid when it was super popular. never kept my attention)
children of blood and bone (another dnf for me, rather recently actually!)
sabriel (i started this when i was younger but never finished)
three dark crowns (i like blakes books annadressed in blood and antigoddess!)
seraphina (i don't have any desire to read this)
mirror visitor (on my tbr!!)
we hunt the flames (on my tbr!!)
six crimson cranes (on my tbr!!)
the gilded ones (on my tbr!!)
akata witch (on my tbr!! i liked her novella, binti!!)
the naming (a friend i had growing up loved this book)
iskari (i have no feelings on this)
kaikeyi (this was a new book to me, so i need to look into it more but im intrigued!!)
a song of wraiths and ruin (newly added to my tbr)
book of tea (on my tbr!!)
blood heir (based on the comments about this on the poll, i am no longer very interested)
labyrinth lost (this looks cool!)
the reader (another book i own i havent read)
#im so not tagging this with book names#in a tournament with over 90 entries#ive read close to half#not bad#mod speaks
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If you liked Dragon Age Masterlist
If you’re anything like me, you’re into niche market, high fantasy, single player RPGs, preferably with a historical setting and romance options. So if you’re looking for a new game, here I am with some suggestions!
Sorted by studio:
Bethesda:
Oblivion (2006)
“In the shadow of evil, a hero will rise from the ashes of a fallen empire. The gates have been opened, and the battle has begun. Only one thing can save the world from Mehrunes Dagon and the demonic hordes of Oblivion. The true heir of the Septim line must be found and restored to the Imperial throne. The fate of the world rests in the hands of one. Find him, and shut the jaws of Oblivion.”
The Elder Scrolls series were my gateway into RPGs and hold a special place in my heart. Oblivion features a wide open world, immersive combat, and the ability to customize race, class, and gender.
Skyrim (2011)
“The Empire of Tamriel is on the edge. The High King of Skyrim has been murdered. Alliances form as claims to the throne are made. In the midst of this conflict, a far more dangerous, ancient evil is awakened. Dragons, long lost to the passages of the Elder Scrolls, have returned to Tamriel. The future of Skyrim, even the Empire itself, hangs in the balance as they wait for the prophesized Dragonborn to come; a hero born with the power of The Voice, and the only one who can stand amongst the dragons.”
I have sunk so many hours into this game and still have not experienced all there is to experience. Just like Oblivion, Skyrim offers the ability to customize your character and find a play style that suits you. A huge open world offers tons of opportunity for exploration and questing. You could play this game many, many hours and not even touch the main quest if you wanted to.
BioWare:
Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021)
Just do it. Just fucking do it I’m still sobbing I’ve never had a game wreck me in this way. I might possibly like it more than Dragon Age which feels sacrilegious to say but it was so good. You follow Commander Shepard (customizable) for three whole games and the choices have serious consequences. Also, romance. Truthfully this might be the most well written storyline I’ve ever seen in a video game. Also, same studio as Dragon Age.
CD Projekt:
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (2015)
I’ll let the website description speak for itself, but Witcher III was good enough that I didn’t mind being forced to play as a man (those who know me know that I exclusively prefer to play women and often dislike games where I can’t do so)! The characters that make up this story are captivating and suck you into their world, leaving you with some tough choices to make. Also, bonus points for romance! (Yen is one of my all time favorite characters, Triss never stood a chance for me. Sorry Triss fans 😂)
Larian:
Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017)
“The Divine is dead. The Void approaches. And the powers lying dormant within you are soon to awaken. Choose your role in a BAFTA-winning story, and explore a world that reacts to who you are, and the choices you make. With five races to choose from, and an adventure playable solo or as a party of up to four, lay waste to an oppressive order in a world afraid of magic. Become the God the world so desperately needs.”
Full disclosure, I have not finished playing this one yet and will update when I do, but what I’ve played so far has been great! A classic, turn-based RPG that allows you a wide range of character customization. I find this game incredibly satisfying to be a rogue (my preferred class) because it lets me live my dream of throwing knives at people. Also, romance!
Baldur’s Gate III beta (2020)
“An ancient evil has returned to Baldur's Gate, intent on devouring it from the inside out. The fate of Faerûn lies in your hands. Alone, you may resist. But together, you can overcome. Gather your party.”
Fair warning, as of my most recent update to this post (March 30th, 2021) this game is still in a beta phase, which means it is NOT complete and has aspects that are missing, glitchy, or subject to change. With that being said, I’m so obsessed. It’s so, so good already and is only getting better. Another wide open world to explore with a group of companions with strong and sometimes clashing personalities, choices are abundant in this game and will affect how your party members think of you. This game so far gives me the feeling that choices are complicated and aren’t always easy to tell which is morally right, which I personally love. Also, I can be a sarcastic ass with a good heart, which is always fun. Astarion basically owns me now, but if you can resist him there are plentiful other romance choices as well! Customization is already a wider range than I’ve seen in most RPGs and they haven’t even finished the character creator yet, which has me SO excited for the finished product. Also - good hair?!??!! I love it!
Lionhead:
Fable III (2010)
“Lead a revolution to take control of Albion, fight alongside your people, and experience love and loss while preparing to defend the kingdom against a looming threat. Your choices as ruler will lead to consequences felt across the entire land.”
I’ll be honest, this one isn’t my favorite on the list, but was good enough to still make it! This game allows you to choose between playing as the prince or the princess on a quest to save your kingdom from itself, and then a greater threat as well. The game takes place in a kingdom loosely modeled after industrial England, and what did score it some major points were (SPOILER WARNING - skip the purple if you don’t want to know!) that the last act of the game lets you play as the monarch, where you are forced to make some tough decisions in order to save your kingdom. It is very easy to back yourself into a corner, pinch pennies in order to fund the army and save the kingdom, but make your citizens hate you because of it. You’re gonna have to be very, very careful, which is something I did really enjoy about this game. (I’ve heard Fable II was better, and that’s also on my list to try, will update in the future!)
Nintendo:
Fire Emblem Three Houses (2019)
“War is coming to the continent of Fódlan. Here, order is maintained by the Church of Seiros, which hosts the prestigious Officer’s Academy within its headquarters. You are invited to teach one of its three mighty houses, each comprised of students brimming with personality and represented by a royal from one of three territories. As their professor, you must lead your students in their academic lives and in turn-based, tactical RPG battles wrought with strategic, new twists to overcome. Which house, and which path, will you choose?”
Currently playing this one and I’m so addicted! This one is slightly outside of my usual taste but it has made me interested in playing more games like it. The player controls Byleth (you can rename them if you wish), who becomes a professor of combat and battle tactics despite their young age at a monastery and finds themself in charge of a house of students. Battles are tactics and strategy based and classes are highly customizable. I sunk like 30 hours into this game in the last three days. I won’t say more about the plot to avoid spoilers, but it’s been a ton of fun and also has slow burn romance
Spiders:
Greedfall (2019)
This game destroyed my soul in the best way and when I finished it I immediately started a new game to play it again. You play as Lady or Lord De Sardet, Legate of the Congregation of Merchants and effectively the right hand of your cousin, who has been appointed governor of your new colony on the island. While I enjoy the combat in this game, which allows you the choice between one handed, two handed, magic, and pistols or rifles (save that ammo for when you really need it!), this game focuses heavily on diplomacy and relations. Be careful what information you give to whom and how you treat every decision. The enemies you make early on might be people you need on your side later. I also love that choices aren’t always clearly right or wrong, and often are more complicated than they first appear. Even the best intentions can sometimes go awry.
Ubisoft:
Assassin’s Creed, Syndicate (2015)
“London, 1868. In the heart of the Industrial Revolution, lead your underworld organization and grow your influence to fight those who exploit the less privileged in the name of progress”
Another one that I’ll admit, I haven’t finished, and is definitely the odd one out on the list because it’s set in Victorian England, but I was having fun with what I had played so far before Greedfall distracted me. In this game, you alternate between controlling twins Jacob and Evie Frye as you explore and liberate London while meeting famous historical figures and running a gang on the side.
Assassin’s Creed, Origins (2017)
“Ancient Egypt, a land of majesty and intrigue, is disappearing in a ruthless fight for power. Unveil dark secrets and forgotten myths as you go back to the one founding moment: The Origins of the Assassin’s Brotherhood.”
In the spirit of honesty, I haven’t started this one yet, but I am so confident that I’m gonna love it when I do that it’s here anyway. I’ve purchased it, and will get to it soon, I swear! In the meantime, I wanted to put it here because I’m confident some of you will enjoy it. Will come back with a review once I know more.
Assassin’s Creed, Odyssey (2018)
“Write your own epic odyssey and become a legendary Spartan hero in Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey, an inspiring adventure where you must forge your destiny and define your own path in a world on the brink of tearing itself apart. Influence how history unfolds as you experience a rich and ever-changing world shaped by your decisions.”
Y’all this game owned my soul for a while. I’ve sunk so many hours into it. You have a choice to play as either Kassandra or Alexios and navigate the wonders of Ancient Greece. The world is stunning, the choices are important, and this game took a big step for the assassins creed series in becoming a true RPG. I can’t recommend this one enough, you should absolutely go for it!
Assassin’s Creed, Valhalla (2020)
“Become Eivor, a legendary Viking warrior. Explore England's Dark Ages as you raid your enemies, grow your settlement, and build your political power in the quest to earn a place among the gods in Valhalla.”
This game is brand new, hot off the press, and has already been a massive hit. I have only JUST started playing it and am about an hour in, but so far so good! It’s here on my recommendations list because of its wild popularity and because I’ve already enjoyed other games in this series, so I feel confident that some of my fellow dragon age fans will enjoy it. Will update again once I get further in.
Other games on my To Be Played list (otherwise known as things I don’t want to recommend because I know almost nothing about them but will update here after I know more)
-Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2
-Horizon Zero Dawn
-Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag
-Fable 1 and 2
-Kingdoms of Amalur
-Breath of the Wild
-Crimson Desert (not out yet but I’m intrigued)
#will update as I find more#if you liked dragon age#dragon age#video games#video game recommendations#op#rpgs#masterlist
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2019 In TV - My Top 10 Shows
This past year may have sucked balls in a lot of ways, but we certainly never got short-changed when it came to our TV. There was an absolute WEALTH of truly cracking TV around, both on regular networks and on the various on-demand platforms, and so here is my pick of the best, my absolute favourites of 2019.
10. WATCHMEN
Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof brings us a blinding sequel to comic book legend Alan Moore’s legendary graphic novel with a delightfully trippy, ruthlessly efficient rug-puller that seems pretty tailor-made for HBO. Old faces return in interesting ways, while there are some cracking new “masks” on offer, particularly Regina King’s Sister Night and the always-brilliant Tim Blake Nelson as morally complex antihero Looking Glass (in some ways very much the show’s own answer to Rorschach). It never goes where you expect it to go, and refuses to give easy answers to the questions it raises, effortlessly paving the way for more next year ...
9. THE BOYS
Amazon offers up its own edgy, thoroughly adult superhero property with this darkly funny antiheroic gem based on the cult Garth Ennis comic, expertly adapted by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. Karl Urban dominates as Billy Butcher, the foul-mouthed, morally bankrupt “leader” of a makeshift crew of mercenaries, hitmen and psycho killers devoted to “taking care of” superheroes when they inevitably go bad. Season 1 ultimately serves as an origin story, showing how the team come together, laying quality groundwork for the incoming sophomore tour that promises to open the already fascinating world out significantly.
8. PREACHER (SEASON 4)
More Garth Ennis, namely this blinder of a closing season for AMC’s consistently impressive adaptation of his best known series for Vertigo comics. Surprisingly epic, deliciously subversive and constantly, darkly hilarious, this thoroughly non-PC series from showrunners Sam Catlin, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (yes! I Know!) certainly went out on a high note, providing its loyal followers with perfectly-pitched bow-outs and sometimes heartbreaking goodbyes for all its players, especially its dynamite leads, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga and, in particular, Joe Gilgun as unapologetic bad boy vampire Cassidy. A worthy end to one of my all-time favourite TV shows.
7. THE WITCHER
While it’s clearly taken its look from the wildly successful video games, Netflix’s second most ambitious long-form offering of the year takes its lead from the fantasy book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski that started it all. With its somewhat episodic set-up and decidedly twisted narrative timelines, it take a few chapters to get the hang of it, but there’s plenty to draw you in, from the exotic world-building to the frenetic action and compelling collection of richly crafted characters. Henry Cavill is the titular hero, lovably grouchy mutant monster-hunter Geralt of Rivia, but the real scene-stealer is co-star Anya Chalotra as roguishly self-serving mage Yennefer of Vengenberg.
6. CARNIVAL ROW
One of the year’s two big sleeper hit TV surprises for me was this inventively offbeat allegorical Amazon fantasy series from The 4400 creator René Echevarria and screenwriter Travis Beacham. Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevigne are the star-crossed lovers at the heart of this intriguingly dark and dirty murder mystery thriller set in Victorian London-esque city-state the Burgue, in which humans struggle to co-exist alongside a struggling disenfranchised underclass of fae (fairies, fawns, centaurs and the like). The racial turmoil undertones are writ large throughout, but this is far more well-written and lavishly appointed than you might expect on first glance, and almost ridiculously addictive viewing.
5. LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS
My other big TV surprise was this wonderfully bizarre sci-fi anthology series of animated shorts from Netflix, mostly adapted from an eclectic selection of short stories from a wide range of top-notch literary talent including Peter F. Hamilton, John Scalzi, Marko Kloos and Alastair Reynolds (a particular favourite of mine). As you’d expect from the brainchild of Deadpool director Tim Miller and producer David Fincher, this is edgy, leftfield stuff, frequently ultra-violent and decidedly adult, and the wildly varied nature of the material on offer makes for a decidedly uneven tone, but there are some absolute gems on offer here, my favourite being Suits, an enjoyably simple tale of salt-of-the-earth farmers on an alien world utilising clunky mech suits to protect their settlement from rampaging giant xeno-bugs.
4. THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE
The show with the biggest cinematic wow factor in 2019 had to be this long-awaited prequel series to Jim Henson’s classic fantasy movie masterpiece, created for Netflix by, of all people, Louis Leterrier (yes, the director of The Transporter, Now You See Me and Clash of the Titans, if you can believe it). The technology may have evolved in leaps and bounds, but there’s a wonderfully old school vibe in the delightfully physical puppet effects used to bring the fantastical world of Thra and its denizens to life, so that it truly does feel like it’s based in the same world as the film. This was EASILY the most visually arresting show of 2019, packed with exquisite character, creature and set design that perfectly complements the awesome work done by Henson and Brian Froud on the original, while the writers have created a darkly rich narrative tapestry that makes Thra seem a more dangerous place than ever.
3. THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY
I was a HUGE fan of My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way’s magnificently oddball alternative superhero comic, so when I learned that Netflix were adapting it I was a little wary because I knew how spectacularly hard it would be for ANY showrunners to get right. Thankfully Steve Blackman (Fargo season 2) and Jeremy Slater (The Exorcist TV series) were the right choice, because this perfectly captured the outsider nature of the characters and their endearingly dysfunctional family dynamic. Ellen Page, Tom Hopper (Black Sails, Merlin), David Castañeda and Emmy Raver-Lampman are all excellent as the more “functional” Hargreeves siblings, but the show is roundly stolen by Misfits star Robert Sheehan and Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn’s Aidan Gallagher as nihilistic clairvoyant Klaus and the old-man-in-a-child’s-body sociopath known only as Number Five. Consistently surprising and brilliantly bonkers, this was definitely the year’s most wonderfully WEIRD show.
2. STRANGER THINGS (SEASON 3)
Writer-director duo the Duffer Brothers’ ultra-nostalgic 80s-set coming-of-age sci-fi horror series remains the undisputed jewel in Netflix’s long-form crown with this consistently top-drawer third season expertly maintaining the blockbuster-level standards we’ve come to expect. This year the cross-dimensional shenanigans have largely been jettisoned, replaced by a gleefully nasty through-line of icky body horror that would make major influences like David Cronenberg and Stuart Gordon proud, as perennial teenage bad boy Billy Hargrove (the fantastically menacing Dacre Montgomery) becomes the leader of an army of psychic slaves under the control of the Upside Down’s monstrous Mind Flayer. The kids are all brilliant as always, Winona Ryder and David Harbour really get to build on their strong-yet-spiky chemistry, and the show is almost effortlessly stolen by Joe Keery as one-time golden boy Steve Harrington and series-newcomer Maya Hawke as his nerdy new foil Robin Buckley, who were very nearly the cutest couple on TV in 2019. Another gold standard season for a true gold standard show.
1. GOOD OMENS
Sadly, legendary author Terry Pratchett died before he could see the adaptation of one of his most beloved novels (and one of my all-time literary favourites too) see the light of day, but at least his co-author Neil Gaiman was around to bring it to fruition with the aid of seasoned TV director David Mckinnon (Jekyll, Doctor Who, Sherlock), and the end result sure did him proud, perfectly capturing the deeply satirical voice and winningly anarchic, gleefully offbeat and gently subversive humour of the original novel. David Tennant and Michael Sheen could both have been born to play Crowley and Aziraphale, the angel and demon nominally charged with watching over the young Antichrist in preparation for his role in the End Times, even though they would both much rather the world just went on quite happily the way it is, thanks very much. This is about as perfect an adaptation as you can get, the six hour-long episodes giving the surprisingly complex story time to breathe and grow organically, and the result is the most fun I spent in front of my TV this year.
#best TV 2019#watchmen#the boys#preacher#the witcher#carnival row#love death + robots#love death & robots#the dark crystal age of resistance#The Umbrella Academy#stranger things 3#good omens
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Pokémon Go tips, tricks and cheats guide to help you catch 'em all
on this web page are a series of recommendations and hints for Pokémon move that can help you make the most out of locating and catching Pokémon, hatching eggs, leveling up creatures and extra.
Age Of Empires 3 Cheats.
Gen three has arrived!
In December 2017, an update providing the second wave of Heonn region creatures went underway. As with the Gen 2 update in advance inside the 12 months, it also gives a few major new capabilities - along with climate results that trade the manner Pokemon seem and behave.
Gyms have visible a big revamp
As of summer season 2017, a massive multiplayer replace has taken vicinity, changing the manner Gyms paintings and introduce the concept of Raids.
The gym transform has dropped stages and prestige, and now facilities round Motivation. Gyms now also act as PokeStops, which additionally deliver out collectable and upgradable gymnasium Badges. The way you earn and accumulate PokeCoins has modified. Raid battles allow you to take on more-effective creatures for unique rewards, which include rare candy and Golden Razz Berries. Play enough Raids, and you will finally be capable of catch Legendaries. There are numerous new fitness center-associated Medals to liberate. New Pokémon are right here!
As of the February 2017 update, Pokémon from Gen 2's Johto place - otherwise known as the Pokémon from Gold, Silver and Crystal - are available.
alongside new creatures, there are also new features - which includes extra Berries - and lots of minor tweaks and additions to the sport's numerous structures. This includes:
80+ new creatures from the Johto place The addition of Shinies, specifically shiny Pokémon like Magikarp and red Gyarados numerous new Pokémon move Berries - Nanab Berry, Pinap Berry and Razz Berry Tweaks to the distances to hatch Pokémon move toddler Pokémon Togepi, Pichu, Magby, Elekid, Igglybuff, Smoochum and Cleffa, as well as the addition of Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan and Hitmontop's Tyrogue new Eevee evolutions Umbreon, Espeon New creatures manner a new list of first-rate Pokémon and new Egg distances 2d and 1/3 tier evolutions within the wild give out greater sweet and Stardust new Medals for darkish kind creatures and Johto vicinity Pokémon a further XP bonus for catching Pokémon on the first try Ditto will now remodel from numerous common Gen 2 creatures two new area distinctive Pokémon - Heracross and Corsola you may get Unown - but it is quite uncommon submit-Gen 2 replace, we've got also seen the advent of promo codes, no longer not like Niantic's different recreation, Ingress.
if you want to play nicely, then be prepared to journey around
instead of exploring at random, there are ways to track precise creatures in Pokémon go along with close by and Sighting radars thanks to an in-game radar in the bottom proper nook of the display, which allows you to hone in on what creatures are close by and with the aid of PokeStops. you can additionally track creatures via their kind in real-lifestyles locations - such as water Pokémon being close to rivers, canals and lakes - as nicely worrying gamers tour to totally distinctive continents to get location-different creatures.
Pokémon pass - discover Pokémon the use of new close by and Sighting trackersLearn the great approaches to discover creatures close by.
Pokémon pass nests - wherein to discover nests in London, the UK and different areasFind clusters of precise Pokémon fast with those maps and lists, up to date till past due August.
check in frequently to get the most from your each day bonuses
each day Bonuses are actually to be had, and provide you with a few first rate sized rewards virtually for checking in once a day to play the sport, and finishing a couple of minor responsibilities. check out our manual to the each day bonuses under for a few more details on how the work:
Pokémon pass every day Bonus - Rewards for streaks and first catch and Pokestop of every dayHere's how lots XP and Stardust you get for gambling Pokémon pass each day.
growth your egg hatching productiveness by means of playing smart
eggs1 as soon as you have got gathered an egg, go to your Pokémon then swipe proper to get right of entry to them.
For hatching eggs, you start the sport with an incubator that you may use as normally as you like, and also discover or purchase additional one-time-use incubators so you could have a couple of eggs brewing right now.
if you have a couple of to be had, it will pay to be smart about in which you positioned your eggs; placing longer-lasting 10km eggs inside the finite supply will make them last longer, considering that they're based totally at the wide variety of makes use of, not distance used.
Pokémon move - Egg chart and hatching 2km, 5km and 10km EggsWhat to expect to hatch after putting in those miles.
increase your egg hatching productiveness with the aid of no longer shifting at all
every other trick that players have determined that in case you go away the game open whilst you're no longer moving - such as in your desk at paintings - your teacher can from time to time step barely from aspect-to-aspect because the phone maintains to narrow down your GPS role. these little actions count as taking walks closer to hatching, so it is probably really worth maintaining the app open to slowly chip away when you may - assuming you may accept as true with co-people not to mess along with your phone far from your table, of course!
but you can not hatch eggs faster by the usage of public delivery
The Witcher sport that never was Made in Poland but not via CD Projekt pink. The Witcher game that in no way was due to the fact the game uses the quantity of distance you have travelled to hatch eggs and unencumber positive medals, you would possibly assume that catching a bus or train is a brief manner of travelling huge distances. but, the sport will understand that you are visiting too fast, and might not sign in the motion in any respect - or even offers you a warning whilst it occurs. as if things have been that smooth!
That said, if you're no longer needing to music specific Pokémon, then using public transport is a first rate way to boom your chances of encountering them out inside the wild, specifically in busier city areas.don't forget you can entire a seize without having to live in a fixed function, so do not worry if the bus or train speeds away.
while public delivery also isn't always a notable manner to interact with Gyms, considering they require you to be of their radius for the duration of their use, can 'queue up' a Pokéforestall interaction up beforehand before you bypass through it, and then spin the screen on the proper time.
Pokémon go capture Bonus explained - a way to increase your probabilities of catching elemental Pokémon with MedalsEvery Medal indexed in order to increase your seize quotes.
there's a way to see which Pokémon you stuck these days
whilst surfing your Pokémon, you would possibly have observed some have a blue glow to them - this means they were stuck inside the past 24 hours.
whilst you can already clear out your roster by way of current, it permits you to distinguish at a look if you are browsing by way of Pokédex variety, CP and call, too.
Out of Revives? Then have sweet on the equipped...
this is a short however candy tip; in case you're out of Revives and need to resurrect a creature, then spend sweet thru a power Up or Evolve and it's going to come lower back to life with HP. on hand if you're in a pinch!
Pokémon go sweet - the way to get candy, how uncommon candy worksHow to get candy as without problems as feasible, and how much you'll want to spend.
Pokémon go friend machine - Distances for while each pal Pokémon drop rewardsWhich buddy Pokémon are faster to supply sweet than others in Pokémon go?
Pokémon go is simply as complex as the main games, way to a hidden layer of stats
CP is one of the maximum essential values for a Pokémon, but it hides a number of hidden stats that determine how effective a Pokémon can truly be. much like the primary video games, fans have observed there are a series of individual Stats - or IVs - that act as an individual Pokémon's genes, dictating whether and what kind of a selected Pokémon's stats deviate from the norm of their Base values.
A mixture of a Pokémon's hidden Base Stats, IVs, and stage (the white bar above the Pokémon) are what dictate its CP. whilst the higher the better, keep in mind that your to begin with extremely good Vaporeon would possibly simplest be robust as it's a high degree, and could get swept apart through extra certainly robust, excessive-IV alternatives later on.
Our devoted web page explains more on how this works in extra element, and a way to discover and exploit these hidden values:
Pokémon go moves - movesets, pass listing, and maximum DPS attacks.how to find out the pleasant, most effective moveset to your Pokémon.
Pokémon move CP that means defined: a way to get the very best CP values and create the most powerful teamHow to reveal hidden stats to make Pokémon as powerful as they can be.
Pokémon pass - the way to get Stardust easily to strengthen your PokémonThe first-class approaches to collect Stardust, from Eggs to Gyms.
You don't should faucet each item at a Pokéstop
A rather useful time saver is understanding that you don't need to tap every unmarried object that floats up the display screen when you spin a Pokéstop. if you tap the pass at the lowest of the display screen, you'll be given each object mechanically, that is specially useful in case you need to get again to the map to show your attention to any other Poképrevent or Pokémon out within the global.
Use the 'L Throw' approach for perfect Curveballs
in addition to throwing balls inside a shrinking circle to get excellent, incredible and awesome catches - increasing your possibilities of fulfillment - you could also get a bit rapid XP on top with Curveballs, a form of trick shot that sees balls curl towards their target.
To throw a Curveball, start through keeping the Pokéball and rotating it round. when you throw, it's going to then curve within the rotation you spun the ball - if it's clockwise, then it's going to go to the proper, and if anti-clockwise, to the left.
they're tough to tug off, but luckily players recently discovered a method that lets in you to without difficulty throw them with splendid achievement. After a spin, flow the ball up the left-most aspect of the display screen, and launch at the equal top because the Pokémon. Assuming the Pokéemon didn't move or attack, it have to land and start the capture procedure. you can study more on the technique and see it in action inside the following guide:
Pokémon go Curveballs - Throw ideal curveballs and get quality, fantastic, awesome bonusesHow to entice Pokémon correctly internal those treasured Pokéballs.
There are extra Easter eggs and secrets and techniques to find in Pokémon move
in addition to masses of shortcuts, guidelines and tricks that the sport doesn't let you know about, there may be additionally a few secrets hidden away by using the developers for gamers to find, from finding a fourth starter Pokémon at the begin of the sport to the use of guidelines from the television display to conform Eevee the manner you want - hyperlinks to those articles beneath!
And seemingly there is greater - at Pokémon pass's San Diego comic Con panel, developer Niantic revealed that there are numerous Easter Eggs in the game that fans had not discovered but, so expect extra secrets to emerge in the coming weeks and months as gamers pick out the sport apart.
Pokémon move secrets and Easter EggsLooks like the developers are huge fans of Pikachu...
Pokémon move Ditto - where to locate and how to catch Ditto in the wild and the whole thing else you need to knowThe elusive Pokémon finally indicates up - but it's not so smooth to catch.
Pokémon move Pikachu: the way to get Pikachu as your starter and out within the wildHow first of all Ash's preferred Pokémon over Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle.
Pokémon cross Eevee evolution: a way to evolve Eevee into Vaporeon, Jolteon and Flareon with new nameA hidden connection with the tv show permits you select the manner Eevee evolves.
you can forestall yourself from by chance shifting Pokémon
Niantic have added a function which prevents you from by chance moving those treasured Pokémon to the professor, way to a post-release transforming of the sport's Favouriting device.
In brief, Pokémon favourited via the participant - which can be achieved by using tapping the megastar inside the pinnacle-proper of the Pokémon's screen - are now not able to be transferred in any respect, till you unfavourite them again. As part of the July 31 update, the switch button has now also been moved to a sub-menu on the Pokémon's display, under a button with three horizontal bars within the bottom-proper, rather than certainly being left on its personal down the lowest of the page.
it is a short, simple approach of stopping yourself from doing something particularly frustrating with the aid of twist of fate, while additionally making the on the spot transferring of a Pokémon a long way less difficult. you can now mulch down the ones pesky Zubats into sweet as fast as your heart dreams, without the threat of chucking an accidental Dragonite into the mixture. now not that we've got ever performed that, of course...
there is a battery saver mode which could help keep you gambling for longer
each game coming to Nintendo switch From the next Mario to fan-favored indies, a listing of every confirmed sport and launch date. each recreation coming to Nintendo switch Pokémon go has validated to drain smartphone batteries rather quickly, but fortuitously there is an in-recreation choice to help combat this hassle.
To get right of entry to the Battery Saver, tap the Pokéball at the bottom of the display at some point of map view to deliver up a menu of alternatives, then faucet the cog inside the top proper corner. after you allow it, the phone's screen will routinely dim whilst it's down by means of your aspect in a horizontal position, but still maintains running, notifying you of any nearby Pokémon, PokéStops and counting steps toward hatching eggs.
there's a few different ways to store battery that the game would not let you know approximately:
Pokémon cross - Battery saver mode explained, other methods to keep batteryThere's various ways to help your Poké adventure ultimate longer to your cellphone.
digital Foundry's first-rate reasonably-priced cellphone for Pokémon cross in 2016Meet the £60/$ninety nine cellphone that truely performs the game rather well.
access the game's many sub-menus quicker
as opposed to tapping the Pokéball at the bottom of the display screen to convey up every menu object, you could swipe it in one of a kind directions to take you to corresponding sub-menus alternatively:
Swipe Left for Pokémon and Eggs Swipe proper for items Swipe Up briefly for store Swipe Up greater for Pokédex excessive HP Pokémon make for better fitness center defenders
when it comes to finding out which Pokémon to leave at a health club for fighting in Pokémon cross, at the same time as you may mechanically suppose offense is the high-quality defence, Pokémon who're protecting a health club get a double HP bonus. It way that creatures with the highest HP (or Stamina) in the sport - along with Lapras and Snorlax - are then lots tougher to take down, and make for the correct defenders.
gamers have found out which those Pokémon are - in addition to people with the best attack, Defence and normal stats:
Pokémon go first-rate Pokémon tier listing - excellent Attackers, exceptional Defenders and maximum HP, Stamina and ordinary stats rankedWhere does Charizard stack up in opposition to Dragonite, Lapras and the Legendaries?
Pokémon move - how to evolve, use special items, when to evolve or energy Up your PokémonEvolution and strength Up mechanics defined with a flowchart.
The higher your instructor level, the better (and rarer) Pokémon can be
trainer degree is probable the single maximum critical stat in the game; the higher it is, the stronger CP the Pokémon you stumble upon could have, and the higher your chances might be for discovering rare Pokémon. each new stage additionally gives you items, including extra effective Pokéballs and Potions, so it is worth seeking to advantage XP whenever you may.
Pokémon pass: stage rewards list, degree up objects and max level cap in fullHere's what you items and rewards you unlock as you acquire XP, and while.
find out whether you genuinely stuck that Pokémon earlier than the sport crashed
because of its huge reputation and a rollout that has seen new areas introduce waves of gamers each few days, Pokémon go has had an unsteady release, with regular bouts of downtime and connection issues. one of the extra frustrating incidents is while the sport stops responding as you capture a Pokémon.
If this takes place, deliver it a moment to respond, then close and re-open the app and check your journal (you can try this by tapping the lower right menu bottom for your instructor display) to show a listing of recent sports. arms crossed your prize seize made it to the servers in any case!
there is different server-associated problems to be aware of too, which we give an explanation for in this page:
Pokémon go server status - check Pokémon go servers are down in uk, US, Europe and morePokémon go isn't the maximum dependable recreation proper now, so right here's now to navigate its various mistakes.
there may be a easy method to get a whopping 60,000 XP in 30 minutes
gamers have worked out a way to get big XP profits in a short space of time, and interestingly, it includes the usage of the sport's weakest and most Pokémon - Pidgey, Weedle and Caterpie - with masses and masses of candy, netting you tens of hundreds of revel in in a single sitting:
Pokémon pass XP - sources listing and the way to get XP rapid with Pidgey farmingA easy way to earn a whopping 60,000 XP in 30 minutes.
Pokémon cross - the way to evolve, while to evolve or electricity Up your PokémonEvolution and strength Up mechanics explained with a flowchart.
Pokémon go is getting seasonal updates
Like most 'live' video games, Pokémon move will get hold of everyday seasonal updates. beginning in October, the sport received per week-long Pokémon go's Halloween event that expanded the advent charge of pick out 'spooky' creatures and additionally accelerated candy drop charges.
It become then followed via a Double XP and Stardust Thanksgiving event in November, with more over Christmas and Easter.
You handiest have one shot at deciding on a fitness center group, so select wisely
the person with 1200 Platinum trophies Hakooma matata. the person with 1200 Platinum trophies once you hit degree 5, you're invited to enroll in considered one of 3 groups - team intuition, team Mystic, or group Valor. The point of teams is to divide the users into competing camps that manipulate gyms, with the concept for players to are seeking out gyms owned by way of rival businesses, take manipulate of them, and hold to guard them through the years, with the game rewarding players for doing so.
even as the differences among them are minimal, because you can't exchange your group once they've been selected, it is a selection that truely matters, specifically due to the fact that there are so many rivalries rising among players around the world. make certain you are taking your time and select wisely!
Pokemon cross crew - Valor Mystic and instinct, which crew is the quality and which group to sign up for?Is there a advantage to deciding on one crew over the others?
Pokémon go username: how to exchange username, exchange appearanceHow you may swap the look and nickname of your trainer.
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5 best TV shows and movies to watch with family
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Christmas is here, and if you celebrate, that probably means presents, honey-glazed ham and a lot of time spent with your family.
And while it’s always good to see your loved ones, you might be in search of something to entertain a crowd and, perhaps, keep the peace as winter storms rage outside and the kiddies play with their new toys. So we rounded up the the best TV shows and films to watch this year with your family, whether the group is into sweet reality TV, the best bad TV show of the year, Tim Burton animation, adorable bears or whether the adults in the room want something R-rated and hilarious.
Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler are back for a second season of “Making It” on NBC. (Photo: Chris Haston, NBC)
If you already have watched ‘The Great British Baking Show’: ‘Making It’
If you are a TV fan, you’ve probably either been told how wonderful “The Great British Baking Show” is or experienced the delightful British baking competition yourself. But if you’re looking for reality TV that champions hard work, good-natured competition and offers plenty of silly puns from beloved comedians, look no further than Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler’s “Making It.”
Two seasons of NBC’s crafting competition feature “makers” from all over the country who try their hand at twee challenges such as 3D party invites or making a piggy bank in the shape of what you’re saving for. The series borrows some of the best parts of “Baking,” including an outdoor setting (a rural barn), a low-stakes competition (challenge winners get patches) and hosts that are established comedians, not just pretty people (Poehler and Offerman are, as usual, a delight). It might just inspire you to DIY next year’s Christmas gifts.
Stream it on Hulu.
If you like a so-bad-it’s-good TV show: ‘The Witcher’
Before we get any further, it’s important to emphasize this point: “Witcher” is not a good TV show. The Netflix series, starring Henry Cavill and based on a video game, is hacky, full of confusing timelines, bizarre monsters, unnecessary nudity and terrible dialogue. But “Witcher” is the rare series that transcends its badness to become addictively watchable. Maybe’s its Cavill’s gruff, monotone delivery of every line (Witchers don’t have many emotions, you see) or complicated plots around the dumb-sounding “Law of Surprise” or the silly-looking special effects. But all of the ridiculous elements of “Witcher” add up to a series perfect for your end-of-the-year soupy brain. The eight-episode season even gets a little interesting, ending on a surprisingly effective cliffhanger.
Now streaming on Netflix.
If you’re almost (but not quite) finished with Christmas movies: ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’
If you’ve already watched “Love, Actually” and every cheesy Hallmark, Lifetime and Netflix Christmas movie, you might turn to Tim Burton’s notoriously dark children’s film. A 1993 musical about what happens if the scary creatures who make Halloween were in charge of Christmas, the film will thrill and scare the little ones and make the adults remember what it was like being a kid. Bonus: A refreshingly brief 76-minute running time, considering how bloated modern children’s movies are.
Stream it on Disney+.
More to watch: The 25 best TV shows of the decade, from ‘The Americans’ to ‘Game of Thrones’
The beloved Peruvian bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) goes on a new adventure in London in “Paddington 2.” (Photo: WARNER BROS.)
If you want to feel unvarnished joy: ‘Paddington 2’
The two live-action Paddington Bear movies hold a unique place in cinema for touching the hearts of a group of extremely cynical adults (read: movie critics). What these unbelievably sweet films have on other children’s movies is a certain CGI bear (voiced with softness and naïveté by Ben Whishaw) who champions kindness above all, floods bathrooms and accidentally gets locked up in prison, but is still the most lovable creature around. The first film was a revelation in 2015, and the second, released in 2017, cemented Paddington’s place as a classic.
Stream it on HBO Go/HBO Now.
Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in “Booksmart.” (Photo: Annapurna Pictures)
If you’re OK watching an R-rated movie with your family: ‘Booksmart’
If you are ready to cackle your way through some truly awkward (but hilarious) gags and teenage buffoonery, it’s worth watching this gem, from first-time director Olivia Wilde. One of the best films of this year according to USA TODAY’s film critic Brian Truitt, “Booksmart” joins the ranks of great high school comedies with the story of Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), two overachieving girls who try to party as hard as their peers on the night before graduation. Their pitch-perfect comic timing and palpable chemistry bring the electric script to life. A group of quirky supporting teen characters rounds out the film, which is so funny its pornography-related jokes are worth seeing, even with your parents nearby.
Stream it on Hulu.
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Morning Mist #94
Announcements, Releases, Trailers
Riot's card game Legends of Runeterra is out on April 30
Cyberpunk 2077 will have as much DLC as The Witcher 3
Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailer hints at PC version
Fan-favourite visual novel Clannad to get physical release on Switch
Songs of Syx is a base building game with massive scale battles
Utopias pictures an optimistic future via nine acidic dreamscapes
Nuclear farmer Atomicrops leaves early access next month
A Fold Apart, a Game Based on Folding Paper, is Coming April 17
Dordogne is a promising watercolour adventure game with a stunning trailer
Gunbrick: Reloaded - an ingenious platformer gets a new dimension
Card-battling RPG Ancient Enemy available now
It looks like dystopian sci-fi horror Observer could be getting a next-gen makeover
Vampire: The Masquerade: Shadows of New York coming to PC and consoles later this year
Infamous 80s exploitation movie Cannibal Holocaust is getting a video game sequel
Milestones, Industry
Valve patent suggests they're giving Steam Controllers another shot
Discord's noise filtration beta wants to silence noisy keyboards
Square Enix warns coronavirus will "significantly impact" Final Fantasy 14's development schedule
Blizzard warns that BlizzCon 2020 'might not be feasible' due to coronavirus
EGX confirmed for September 17-20th in London
E3 2020 won't hold an "online experience" after all
Microsoft clarifies report all its events will be digital until July 2021
Twitch updates its nudity and attire policy with some very specific new guidelines
Game composers and YouTubers are in a murky battle for copyright control
Deals, Freeware
Here's a treasure hoard of free digital D&D resources
Epic has Close to the Sun and Sherlock Holmes for free this week
Free game Happy’s Humble Burger Barn is really freaking me out
Sizeable is a free collection of delightful puzzle-box dioramas
Final Fantasy VII Remake theme available to PlayStation Plus subscribers
Total War: Shogun 2 is going to be free to keep on Steam for a limited time
Just Cause 4 will be free on Epic Games Store later this week
Try Google Stadia for free with nine games in a new trial
Levi’s x Super Mario Collection Available Now
Uniqlo Announces Super Mario UT Line
Lego Super Mario pre-orders will receive bonus 'Super Mushroom' set
Fallout and DOOM gaming chairs set for summer release
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is getting a fancy art book and poster collection
You can BabyBabyBabyBabyBaby to the Persona Dancing soundtracks this June
This no-frills 4K display is on sale for under $300
Information
Sony unveils PlayStation 5's wireless DualSense game controller
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Personality Guide
Final Fantasy VII Remake Guide Hub
Ranked play may hit Valorant's closed beta “in a couple weeks”
Overwatch's new hero Echo officially joins the game on April 14
Game Freak will start banning players who abuse Pokemon Sword and Shield's disconnect rank glitch
As Fallout 76's big new Wastelanders update moves in, some player camps will have to move on
Rocket League's next temporary mode makes it more like Pong
Sea of Thieves 'Ships of Fortune' update sails into harbour this month
New Minecraft Nether Music Arrives From Celeste Composer
Stardew Valley democratically decides to add banana “trees” next update
Danganronpa to begin series of monthly news broadcasts
Etc
Inside Final Fantasy VII Remake documentary reflects on the adventure's enduring sound
Meet the Final Fantasy 14 players who marry in the game - and in real life
Here's a shirtless Carlos mod for Resident Evil 3—you're welcome
Of course people are drawing the PS5 controller as an anime girl
Overwatch pros fined $1,000 for talking about 'big dick' in chat
This Earthbound recreation in Animal Crossing: New Horizons looks incredible
People on eBay are asking insane prices for these Animal Crossing amiibo cards
China bans sale of Animal Crossing: New Horizons after it becomes a haven for Hong Kong protesters
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Dragon Age 4: everything we know so far about the open secret of a sequel
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Dragon Age 4: everything we know so far about the open secret of a sequel
It’s now been more than three years since the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition and although we’re still squeezing fun out of the game, we think it’s pretty understandable that fans are getting somewhat inquisitive (sorry) with regards to when we’ll hear about the next game in the franchise.
Even though we all knew, on some level, that there would definitely be another Dragon Age game, it was nice to have a confirmation from executive producer Mark Darrah. Whether it will actually be called Dragon Age 4 is up for debate –historical naming patterns in the series meaning it could really go either way – but we can still get excited.
Named or not, now that we know Dragon Age 4 is in the works we think it’s time to start keeping an eye on the latest news, and start building a picture of what the game might eventually look like. So we’ve put together this hub of news and rumors to keep you up to date on the latest news from Thedas.
[Update: In a recent interview with Eurogamer, former Dragon Age boss Mike Laidlaw discussed the franchise and what he may have done differently with the last title: Dragon Age Inquisition. According to Laidlaw, when it was released, The Witcher 3 highlighted weaknesses in Inquisition and made him feel that his games was “a little hollow”. With the benefit of hindsight, Laidlaw has said that he’d “look closer to The Witcher 3” with relation to the game’s open world and story-heavy quests.
With Laidlaw having moved on we can’t be sure these feelings will be carried over to the development of Dragon Age 4. However, it seems likely that Dragon Age fans would appreciate more depth in the game world they love.]
Cut to the chase
What is it? The fourth installment in the popular RPG franchise, Dragon Age
What can I play it on? Not confirmed but it’s likely to be Xbox One, PS4 and PC
When can I play it? It’s likely to be a couple of years away
Release date
Despite the fact that the game’s development is currently a very open secret, Dragon Age 4 hasn’t actually been officially announced by BioWare. It’s hard, then, to say how far along the game’s development might be, and how close we might be to seeing it released.
Back in May 2017, writer Alexis Kennedy revealed that he was working on a part of the game’s story in an interview with Eurogamer. This part of the story, he revealed, is “well-segregated from other parts of the game”. At this point in time, the game was still clearly in the very early stages of development.
However, with a recent report from Kotaku suggesting that some of the Dragon Age development team has been pulled off the title to focus on creating Anthem, we think it’s likely to be a while before we hear anything concrete about Dragon Age 4’s release date.
News and rumors
Roundabout confirmations
Regardless of whether or not BioWare had confirmed it, Dragon Age fans were pretty certain that another game was going to be in the works. Partly because they had faith in the power of their sheer force of will and partly because over the last couple of years there have been hints from BioWare that something would indeed be happening. It’s the secret that was never really a secret.
The most recent non-official confirmation has come from executive producer Mark Darrah, who tweeted in January 2018 that he’s working on both Dragon Age as well as BioWare’s next big IP, Anthem.
Halfway through my trip to Barcelona!I’m here showing Anthem internally to EA. I am EP of BOTH DA and Anthem working with @Bio_Warner as Game DirectorAnthem’s up next but there are people hard at work on both franchises and I look forward to sharing more in the futureJanuary 24, 2018
Though he’s now left the company, BioWare veteran Mike Laidlaw was tweeting that there was still another couple of games in Dragon Age series yet back in mid-2017. Even before that, Alexis Kennedy became the writer that launched a thousand headlines after comments he made in an interview with Eurogamer were taken as a semi-official confirmation of the game’s existence and his place in it.
There is no planned ending for DA. There is an evolving plan that tends to look 2 games ahead or so. https://t.co/6Tp1lP6d5GAugust 8, 2017
In the interview Kennedy teased that he’s been “given considerable autonomy to work on a storyline bit of lore which is well-segregated from other parts of the game.“
”I don’t want to exaggerate the degree of the chunk [I’m writing],“ Kennedy he was at pains to add. ”It’s nothing that grandiose, but it is distinct. It’s a bit of lore which has not been addressed much to date in Dragon Age.“
Story and character
Every game in the Dragon Age franchise has had a heavy emphasis on story and character and fans will be glad to know that Dragon Age 4 isn’t likely to be any different.
After Mark Darrah tweeted that he was working on the game, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson chipped in with his own elaborative tweet. In this tweet he said it was “too early to talk details” but the game would be “story & character focused.”
Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused.Too early to talk details, but when we talk about “live” it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.January 25, 2018
It’s not clear whether this will be a brand new standalone game or whether it’ll continue on directly from Inquisition. Certainly, the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC suggests there is a story thread to follow with Solas, which would see the Inquisitor chase the elf down to stop his plans.
We already know there are writers working on lore and side quests, following Alexis Kennedy’s interview with Eurogamer in 2017 in which he confirmed he was working on a part of the game that’s “well-segregated” from the rest and focuses on some lore that’s not been widely addressed.
Kennedy, who has worked on titles such as Sunless Sea and Fallen London, said the subject matter would not be surprising to those familiar with his work. To us this implies that his quest (or quests) will include thoughtful choices, themes of tragic love and desire and an underlying sense of unease.
New live elements
In the January 2018 Kotaku report on Anthem and Dragon Age, it was mentioned that sources had informed Kotaku that Dragon Age had been “rebooted” in order to implement more “live elements” into the game.
Naturally, there was some fan panic in response to this given EA’s increasing penchant for service-based games. Fans expressed concern that BioWare was going to take the Dragon Age series down a Destiny 2, always-online multiplayer route.
That doesn’t appear to be the case, however. In his tweet, Casey Hudson also stated that the “live” elements being considered are actually ways of continuing the game’s story after the main story has been completed. This is something we’ve already seen in games such as Assassin’s Creed Origins.
Things we’d like to see
A world like Dragon Age: Inquisition
We hope that the next Dragon Age game has a map similar to the one in Dragon Age: Inquisition, by which we mean we hope it’s big and open without being overwhelming. It was the perfect follow-up to the closed and repetitive maps of Dragon Age 2 and we’d like this approach to continue.
Explore more of Thedas
There’s one very notable part of Thedas that players have yet to be allowed to explore and that’s the Tevinter Imperium. Once the most powerful nation in Thedas, the Imperium is a shadow of its former self. Its history, stratified social structure and maintenance of a magocracy would make it an immensely interesting and different part of Thedas to allow players to explore, while allowing the franchise to continue to explore themes of social injustice, power and prejudice.
The fact that the area is references throughout other Dragon Age games is enough to make us think it’s a viable setting for Dragon Age 4. However, the ending of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC makes us think it even more likely, as it sees the Inquisitor stab a dagger into a map of the Imperium with a vow to track down Solas.
Solve that cliffhanger
Our previous point brings us to this one – we’d really like that Solas storyline to continue to be explored. He’s the perfect focus for the next game and the player’s approach to him is the perfect narrative crux.
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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things.
In particular, I was taken by that piece on the success of Lineage 2: Revolution for mobile - $176 million in a month in South Korea alone? Wow. It's a good reminder that when franchises have fans - and Lineage is gaming royalty in Korea - then startling things can happen.
Oh, and FYI - we opened up registration for our standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference this week - happening this September in San Francisco. We've added board members from ILMxLAB and HTC to a stellar set of advisors from Valve, Oculus, Sony, Magic Leap, Microsoft & more. Lots going on in the VR, AR, and mixed reality space, and it's good to have a truly platform-independent show to explore it...
- Simon, curator.]
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Highlighting History's First Female Game Designers (Manon Hume / Game Informer) "Though it might be difficult today to imagine Uncharted without Amy Hennig or Journey without Robin Hunicke, women in the early days of video games rarely had their time in the limelight. Carol Shaw and Dona Bailey, creators of River Raid and Centipede respectively, were two of the first female game designers in video game history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked… Until now."
Building Worlds in No Man's Sky Using Math(s) (Sean Murray / GDC / YouTube) "No Man's Sky is a science fiction game set in a near infinite procedurally generated universe. In this 2017 GDC talk, Hello Games' Sean Murray describes some of the most important technologies and interesting challenges behind generating both realistic and alien terrains without artistic input, using mathematics."
College Esports Programs Are Growing, But Can They Field a Winning Team? (Will Partin / Glixel) "The doors to University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Cox Arena and Pavilion open at 12, and every seat inside is filled by 12:30. If it weren't for the occasional StarCraft cosplayer or the elaborate apparatus of club lighting enveloping the stage, you could be forgiven for mistaking Heroes of the Dorm for a division one basketball game."
Making Horizon Zero Dawn's Machines feel like living creatures (Willie Clark / Gamasutra) "One of the most memorable features of the recent PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn are the sophisticated robots, known as Machines, that wander the game world like a natural part of the landscape. How were these distinctive robot/creatures conceived of and designed? We talked with several devs from Guerrilla Games, the studio behind HZD, to see just what went into the making of the Machines."
Persona 5 deserved better: a translator's take on a subpar script (Molly Lee / Polygon) "I found myself mentally rewriting A LOT of Persona 5. What should be a gripping tale of outcast kids became an outright chore to parse … and I was barely a few hours in. The start of every game is the part that's meant to hook you."
The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Luke Winkie / PC Gamer) "It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date."
A No Bullshit Conversation With The Authors Behind The Witcher and Metro 2033 (Piotr Bajda / Waypoint) "Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski says he doesn't owe games anything, but Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky thinks games made them both."
Unleashing the Benefits of Coviewing With Minecraft Videos (Matthew Farber / Joan Ganz Cooney Center) "Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later."
SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, By Holly Nielsen (Holly Nielsen / Shut Up & Sit Down) "Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games."
Steam games in China: Making the most of a lucrative opportunity (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "There are now over 15 million Steam users based in China (according to SteamSpy). That makes it the country with the third largest number of Steam account holders, behind only Russia and the USA. Numbers like that should be enough to convince any game developer to make efforts to appeal to the Chinese audience. Yet many don’t."
How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure (Anthony John Agnello / AV Club) "Most games tried to lighten up your failure to soothe the loss. Pac-Man touches a ghost, the music stops, and the game bloops as the little semicircle winks out of existence, vanishing with the last of your extra lives. The sounds are disappointing in tone but fun in execution, enough to make another quarter seem worth it. And in 1985, Ghosts ’N Goblins made failure infuriating but also hilarious, giving video games their very own comedic language."
"Creating an MMORPG that anyone can play": The making of Lineage 2 Revolution (Matt Suckley / PocketGamer.biz) "It's safe to say that Lineage 2 Revolution has been a huge success for Netmarble. On the face of it, this hardcore MMORPG based on a PC title is one that caters to a relatively niche audience. But despite only being available in South Korea, the game hit $100 million in revenues within 18 days - $176 million in a month - powering its developer to an 81% leap in profits."
Clark Tank: Steam user review changes and SimAirport! (Ryan Clark / YouTube) "I'm veteran indie game developer Ryan Clark, and this is the Clark Tank! Every second Friday at 1pm Pacific time we stay on top of the latest game industry trends by examining the Steam top 50, scrutinizing the latest Kickstarted games, and by playing the most prominent recent releases. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is the second YouTube stream compilation, and is still catching up, but the commentary and analysis in here is still super helpful for devs & interesting to others!]"
From Squadron To Ringleader (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian) "European developers remained European, American developers remained American, and the days of a truly globalized games industry remained far in the future. The exceptions to these rules stand out all the more thanks to their rarity. And one of these notable exceptions was Chris Roberts, the young man who would change Origin Systems forever."
The Virtual Life – The Unsettling Humanity Of Nina Freeman's Kimmy (Javy Gwaltney / Game Informer) "Kimmy is a different kind of game from the rest of developer Nina Freeman’s works. Freeman, who now works at Fullbright as a designer on Tacoma, has released a number of personal vignette-like games throughout her career."
The Metal World: Horizon Zero Dawn (Matt Margini / Heterotopias) "In the sleepy suburb of Sydenham, south-east of London, the statues of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park stand watch over nothing in particular. By today’s standards they look hilariously inaccurate: the Iguanodon is little more than a fat alligator, while the Megalosaurus looks like one of No Man’s Sky’s misshapen dog-like quadrupeds. [SIMON'S NOTE: watch out for Heterotopias, it's a super-promising new outlet about game worlds - its first zine was in my recent Storybundle, and more zines & more web-exclusive articles are coming!]"
Classic Game Postmortem: Deus Ex (Warren Spector / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC postmortem, acclaimed game designer Warren Spector walks through the development of the 2000 hit game Deus Ex and reflects on some of the key lessons from launching the critically-acclaimed immersive sim."
The Field of Dreams Approach: On Writing About Video Games (Graham Oliver / Electric Lit) "Every year, more and more great essays are published on literary sites concerning video games. In the past year I’ve especially loved entries like Janet Frishberg’s “On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood,”Joseph Spece’s “A Harvest of Ice,” and Adam Fleming Petty’s “The Spatial Poetics of Nintendo: Architecture, Dennis Cooper, and Video Games.” But for each great essay there are a handful of others written like apologies, seemingly perennial pleas to take video games seriously as a form of meaningful narrative."
Meet the most honest man in EVE Online (Steven Messner / PC Gamer) "When you're the most trusted person in EVE Online, your reputation has a way of preceding you. For years, the name 'Chribba' felt like an urban legend to me—a man you can trust in a galaxy where the first rule is to trust no one. Inside the Harpa convention center in downtown Reykjavik, I meet Chribba amid the bustle of players gathering for EVE Online's annual Fanfest."
How An Offbeat Video Game Got 100 Japanese Bands To Write Its Soundtrack (Jared Newman / Fast Company) "Let It Die is a game about a mysterious tower in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where players control an emotionless, reanimated corpse, and are guided by a cheery, skateboard-riding grim reaper named Uncle Death. Strange as that sounds, the story behind Let It Die‘s soundtrack is even more unusual."
-------------------
[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
0 notes
Link
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things.
In particular, I was taken by that piece on the success of Lineage 2: Revolution for mobile - $176 million in a month in South Korea alone? Wow. It's a good reminder that when franchises have fans - and Lineage is gaming royalty in Korea - then startling things can happen.
Oh, and FYI - we opened up registration for our standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference this week - happening this September in San Francisco. We've added board members from ILMxLAB and HTC to a stellar set of advisors from Valve, Oculus, Sony, Magic Leap, Microsoft & more. Lots going on in the VR, AR, and mixed reality space, and it's good to have a truly platform-independent show to explore it...
- Simon, curator.]
-------------------
Highlighting History's First Female Game Designers (Manon Hume / Game Informer) "Though it might be difficult today to imagine Uncharted without Amy Hennig or Journey without Robin Hunicke, women in the early days of video games rarely had their time in the limelight. Carol Shaw and Dona Bailey, creators of River Raid and Centipede respectively, were two of the first female game designers in video game history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked… Until now."
Building Worlds in No Man's Sky Using Math(s) (Sean Murray / GDC / YouTube) "No Man's Sky is a science fiction game set in a near infinite procedurally generated universe. In this 2017 GDC talk, Hello Games' Sean Murray describes some of the most important technologies and interesting challenges behind generating both realistic and alien terrains without artistic input, using mathematics."
College Esports Programs Are Growing, But Can They Field a Winning Team? (Will Partin / Glixel) "The doors to University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Cox Arena and Pavilion open at 12, and every seat inside is filled by 12:30. If it weren't for the occasional StarCraft cosplayer or the elaborate apparatus of club lighting enveloping the stage, you could be forgiven for mistaking Heroes of the Dorm for a division one basketball game."
Making Horizon Zero Dawn's Machines feel like living creatures (Willie Clark / Gamasutra) "One of the most memorable features of the recent PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn are the sophisticated robots, known as Machines, that wander the game world like a natural part of the landscape. How were these distinctive robot/creatures conceived of and designed? We talked with several devs from Guerrilla Games, the studio behind HZD, to see just what went into the making of the Machines."
Persona 5 deserved better: a translator's take on a subpar script (Molly Lee / Polygon) "I found myself mentally rewriting A LOT of Persona 5. What should be a gripping tale of outcast kids became an outright chore to parse … and I was barely a few hours in. The start of every game is the part that's meant to hook you."
The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Luke Winkie / PC Gamer) "It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date."
A No Bullshit Conversation With The Authors Behind The Witcher and Metro 2033 (Piotr Bajda / Waypoint) "Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski says he doesn't owe games anything, but Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky thinks games made them both."
Unleashing the Benefits of Coviewing With Minecraft Videos (Matthew Farber / Joan Ganz Cooney Center) "Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later."
SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, By Holly Nielsen (Holly Nielsen / Shut Up & Sit Down) "Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games."
Steam games in China: Making the most of a lucrative opportunity (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "There are now over 15 million Steam users based in China (according to SteamSpy). That makes it the country with the third largest number of Steam account holders, behind only Russia and the USA. Numbers like that should be enough to convince any game developer to make efforts to appeal to the Chinese audience. Yet many don’t."
How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure (Anthony John Agnello / AV Club) "Most games tried to lighten up your failure to soothe the loss. Pac-Man touches a ghost, the music stops, and the game bloops as the little semicircle winks out of existence, vanishing with the last of your extra lives. The sounds are disappointing in tone but fun in execution, enough to make another quarter seem worth it. And in 1985, Ghosts ’N Goblins made failure infuriating but also hilarious, giving video games their very own comedic language."
"Creating an MMORPG that anyone can play": The making of Lineage 2 Revolution (Matt Suckley / PocketGamer.biz) "It's safe to say that Lineage 2 Revolution has been a huge success for Netmarble. On the face of it, this hardcore MMORPG based on a PC title is one that caters to a relatively niche audience. But despite only being available in South Korea, the game hit $100 million in revenues within 18 days - $176 million in a month - powering its developer to an 81% leap in profits."
Clark Tank: Steam user review changes and SimAirport! (Ryan Clark / YouTube) "I'm veteran indie game developer Ryan Clark, and this is the Clark Tank! Every second Friday at 1pm Pacific time we stay on top of the latest game industry trends by examining the Steam top 50, scrutinizing the latest Kickstarted games, and by playing the most prominent recent releases. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is the second YouTube stream compilation, and is still catching up, but the commentary and analysis in here is still super helpful for devs & interesting to others!]"
From Squadron To Ringleader (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian) "European developers remained European, American developers remained American, and the days of a truly globalized games industry remained far in the future. The exceptions to these rules stand out all the more thanks to their rarity. And one of these notable exceptions was Chris Roberts, the young man who would change Origin Systems forever."
The Virtual Life – The Unsettling Humanity Of Nina Freeman's Kimmy (Javy Gwaltney / Game Informer) "Kimmy is a different kind of game from the rest of developer Nina Freeman’s works. Freeman, who now works at Fullbright as a designer on Tacoma, has released a number of personal vignette-like games throughout her career."
The Metal World: Horizon Zero Dawn (Matt Margini / Heterotopias) "In the sleepy suburb of Sydenham, south-east of London, the statues of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park stand watch over nothing in particular. By today’s standards they look hilariously inaccurate: the Iguanodon is little more than a fat alligator, while the Megalosaurus looks like one of No Man’s Sky’s misshapen dog-like quadrupeds. [SIMON'S NOTE: watch out for Heterotopias, it's a super-promising new outlet about game worlds - its first zine was in my recent Storybundle, and more zines & more web-exclusive articles are coming!]"
Classic Game Postmortem: Deus Ex (Warren Spector / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC postmortem, acclaimed game designer Warren Spector walks through the development of the 2000 hit game Deus Ex and reflects on some of the key lessons from launching the critically-acclaimed immersive sim."
The Field of Dreams Approach: On Writing About Video Games (Graham Oliver / Electric Lit) "Every year, more and more great essays are published on literary sites concerning video games. In the past year I’ve especially loved entries like Janet Frishberg’s “On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood,”Joseph Spece’s “A Harvest of Ice,” and Adam Fleming Petty’s “The Spatial Poetics of Nintendo: Architecture, Dennis Cooper, and Video Games.” But for each great essay there are a handful of others written like apologies, seemingly perennial pleas to take video games seriously as a form of meaningful narrative."
Meet the most honest man in EVE Online (Steven Messner / PC Gamer) "When you're the most trusted person in EVE Online, your reputation has a way of preceding you. For years, the name 'Chribba' felt like an urban legend to me—a man you can trust in a galaxy where the first rule is to trust no one. Inside the Harpa convention center in downtown Reykjavik, I meet Chribba amid the bustle of players gathering for EVE Online's annual Fanfest."
How An Offbeat Video Game Got 100 Japanese Bands To Write Its Soundtrack (Jared Newman / Fast Company) "Let It Die is a game about a mysterious tower in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where players control an emotionless, reanimated corpse, and are guided by a cheery, skateboard-riding grim reaper named Uncle Death. Strange as that sounds, the story behind Let It Die‘s soundtrack is even more unusual."
-------------------
[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
0 notes
Link
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things.
In particular, I was taken by that piece on the success of Lineage 2: Revolution for mobile - $176 million in a month in South Korea alone? Wow. It's a good reminder that when franchises have fans - and Lineage is gaming royalty in Korea - then startling things can happen.
Oh, and FYI - we opened up registration for our standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference this week - happening this September in San Francisco. We've added board members from ILMxLAB and HTC to a stellar set of advisors from Valve, Oculus, Sony, Magic Leap, Microsoft & more. Lots going on in the VR, AR, and mixed reality space, and it's good to have a truly platform-independent show to explore it...
- Simon, curator.]
-------------------
Highlighting History's First Female Game Designers (Manon Hume / Game Informer) "Though it might be difficult today to imagine Uncharted without Amy Hennig or Journey without Robin Hunicke, women in the early days of video games rarely had their time in the limelight. Carol Shaw and Dona Bailey, creators of River Raid and Centipede respectively, were two of the first female game designers in video game history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked… Until now."
Building Worlds in No Man's Sky Using Math(s) (Sean Murray / GDC / YouTube) "No Man's Sky is a science fiction game set in a near infinite procedurally generated universe. In this 2017 GDC talk, Hello Games' Sean Murray describes some of the most important technologies and interesting challenges behind generating both realistic and alien terrains without artistic input, using mathematics."
College Esports Programs Are Growing, But Can They Field a Winning Team? (Will Partin / Glixel) "The doors to University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Cox Arena and Pavilion open at 12, and every seat inside is filled by 12:30. If it weren't for the occasional StarCraft cosplayer or the elaborate apparatus of club lighting enveloping the stage, you could be forgiven for mistaking Heroes of the Dorm for a division one basketball game."
Making Horizon Zero Dawn's Machines feel like living creatures (Willie Clark / Gamasutra) "One of the most memorable features of the recent PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn are the sophisticated robots, known as Machines, that wander the game world like a natural part of the landscape. How were these distinctive robot/creatures conceived of and designed? We talked with several devs from Guerrilla Games, the studio behind HZD, to see just what went into the making of the Machines."
Persona 5 deserved better: a translator's take on a subpar script (Molly Lee / Polygon) "I found myself mentally rewriting A LOT of Persona 5. What should be a gripping tale of outcast kids became an outright chore to parse … and I was barely a few hours in. The start of every game is the part that's meant to hook you."
The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Luke Winkie / PC Gamer) "It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date."
A No Bullshit Conversation With The Authors Behind The Witcher and Metro 2033 (Piotr Bajda / Waypoint) "Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski says he doesn't owe games anything, but Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky thinks games made them both."
Unleashing the Benefits of Coviewing With Minecraft Videos (Matthew Farber / Joan Ganz Cooney Center) "Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later."
SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, By Holly Nielsen (Holly Nielsen / Shut Up & Sit Down) "Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games."
Steam games in China: Making the most of a lucrative opportunity (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "There are now over 15 million Steam users based in China (according to SteamSpy). That makes it the country with the third largest number of Steam account holders, behind only Russia and the USA. Numbers like that should be enough to convince any game developer to make efforts to appeal to the Chinese audience. Yet many don’t."
How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure (Anthony John Agnello / AV Club) "Most games tried to lighten up your failure to soothe the loss. Pac-Man touches a ghost, the music stops, and the game bloops as the little semicircle winks out of existence, vanishing with the last of your extra lives. The sounds are disappointing in tone but fun in execution, enough to make another quarter seem worth it. And in 1985, Ghosts ’N Goblins made failure infuriating but also hilarious, giving video games their very own comedic language."
"Creating an MMORPG that anyone can play": The making of Lineage 2 Revolution (Matt Suckley / PocketGamer.biz) "It's safe to say that Lineage 2 Revolution has been a huge success for Netmarble. On the face of it, this hardcore MMORPG based on a PC title is one that caters to a relatively niche audience. But despite only being available in South Korea, the game hit $100 million in revenues within 18 days - $176 million in a month - powering its developer to an 81% leap in profits."
Clark Tank: Steam user review changes and SimAirport! (Ryan Clark / YouTube) "I'm veteran indie game developer Ryan Clark, and this is the Clark Tank! Every second Friday at 1pm Pacific time we stay on top of the latest game industry trends by examining the Steam top 50, scrutinizing the latest Kickstarted games, and by playing the most prominent recent releases. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is the second YouTube stream compilation, and is still catching up, but the commentary and analysis in here is still super helpful for devs & interesting to others!]"
From Squadron To Ringleader (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian) "European developers remained European, American developers remained American, and the days of a truly globalized games industry remained far in the future. The exceptions to these rules stand out all the more thanks to their rarity. And one of these notable exceptions was Chris Roberts, the young man who would change Origin Systems forever."
The Virtual Life – The Unsettling Humanity Of Nina Freeman's Kimmy (Javy Gwaltney / Game Informer) "Kimmy is a different kind of game from the rest of developer Nina Freeman’s works. Freeman, who now works at Fullbright as a designer on Tacoma, has released a number of personal vignette-like games throughout her career."
The Metal World: Horizon Zero Dawn (Matt Margini / Heterotopias) "In the sleepy suburb of Sydenham, south-east of London, the statues of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park stand watch over nothing in particular. By today’s standards they look hilariously inaccurate: the Iguanodon is little more than a fat alligator, while the Megalosaurus looks like one of No Man’s Sky’s misshapen dog-like quadrupeds. [SIMON'S NOTE: watch out for Heterotopias, it's a super-promising new outlet about game worlds - its first zine was in my recent Storybundle, and more zines & more web-exclusive articles are coming!]"
Classic Game Postmortem: Deus Ex (Warren Spector / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC postmortem, acclaimed game designer Warren Spector walks through the development of the 2000 hit game Deus Ex and reflects on some of the key lessons from launching the critically-acclaimed immersive sim."
The Field of Dreams Approach: On Writing About Video Games (Graham Oliver / Electric Lit) "Every year, more and more great essays are published on literary sites concerning video games. In the past year I’ve especially loved entries like Janet Frishberg’s “On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood,”Joseph Spece’s “A Harvest of Ice,” and Adam Fleming Petty’s “The Spatial Poetics of Nintendo: Architecture, Dennis Cooper, and Video Games.” But for each great essay there are a handful of others written like apologies, seemingly perennial pleas to take video games seriously as a form of meaningful narrative."
Meet the most honest man in EVE Online (Steven Messner / PC Gamer) "When you're the most trusted person in EVE Online, your reputation has a way of preceding you. For years, the name 'Chribba' felt like an urban legend to me—a man you can trust in a galaxy where the first rule is to trust no one. Inside the Harpa convention center in downtown Reykjavik, I meet Chribba amid the bustle of players gathering for EVE Online's annual Fanfest."
How An Offbeat Video Game Got 100 Japanese Bands To Write Its Soundtrack (Jared Newman / Fast Company) "Let It Die is a game about a mysterious tower in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where players control an emotionless, reanimated corpse, and are guided by a cheery, skateboard-riding grim reaper named Uncle Death. Strange as that sounds, the story behind Let It Die‘s soundtrack is even more unusual."
-------------------
[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
0 notes
Link
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things.
In particular, I was taken by that piece on the success of Lineage 2: Revolution for mobile - $176 million in a month in South Korea alone? Wow. It's a good reminder that when franchises have fans - and Lineage is gaming royalty in Korea - then startling things can happen.
Oh, and FYI - we opened up registration for our standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference this week - happening this September in San Francisco. We've added board members from ILMxLAB and HTC to a stellar set of advisors from Valve, Oculus, Sony, Magic Leap, Microsoft & more. Lots going on in the VR, AR, and mixed reality space, and it's good to have a truly platform-independent show to explore it...
- Simon, curator.]
-------------------
Highlighting History's First Female Game Designers (Manon Hume / Game Informer) "Though it might be difficult today to imagine Uncharted without Amy Hennig or Journey without Robin Hunicke, women in the early days of video games rarely had their time in the limelight. Carol Shaw and Dona Bailey, creators of River Raid and Centipede respectively, were two of the first female game designers in video game history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked… Until now."
Building Worlds in No Man's Sky Using Math(s) (Sean Murray / GDC / YouTube) "No Man's Sky is a science fiction game set in a near infinite procedurally generated universe. In this 2017 GDC talk, Hello Games' Sean Murray describes some of the most important technologies and interesting challenges behind generating both realistic and alien terrains without artistic input, using mathematics."
College Esports Programs Are Growing, But Can They Field a Winning Team? (Will Partin / Glixel) "The doors to University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Cox Arena and Pavilion open at 12, and every seat inside is filled by 12:30. If it weren't for the occasional StarCraft cosplayer or the elaborate apparatus of club lighting enveloping the stage, you could be forgiven for mistaking Heroes of the Dorm for a division one basketball game."
Making Horizon Zero Dawn's Machines feel like living creatures (Willie Clark / Gamasutra) "One of the most memorable features of the recent PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn are the sophisticated robots, known as Machines, that wander the game world like a natural part of the landscape. How were these distinctive robot/creatures conceived of and designed? We talked with several devs from Guerrilla Games, the studio behind HZD, to see just what went into the making of the Machines."
Persona 5 deserved better: a translator's take on a subpar script (Molly Lee / Polygon) "I found myself mentally rewriting A LOT of Persona 5. What should be a gripping tale of outcast kids became an outright chore to parse … and I was barely a few hours in. The start of every game is the part that's meant to hook you."
The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Luke Winkie / PC Gamer) "It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date."
A No Bullshit Conversation With The Authors Behind The Witcher and Metro 2033 (Piotr Bajda / Waypoint) "Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski says he doesn't owe games anything, but Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky thinks games made them both."
Unleashing the Benefits of Coviewing With Minecraft Videos (Matthew Farber / Joan Ganz Cooney Center) "Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later."
SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, By Holly Nielsen (Holly Nielsen / Shut Up & Sit Down) "Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games."
Steam games in China: Making the most of a lucrative opportunity (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "There are now over 15 million Steam users based in China (according to SteamSpy). That makes it the country with the third largest number of Steam account holders, behind only Russia and the USA. Numbers like that should be enough to convince any game developer to make efforts to appeal to the Chinese audience. Yet many don’t."
How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure (Anthony John Agnello / AV Club) "Most games tried to lighten up your failure to soothe the loss. Pac-Man touches a ghost, the music stops, and the game bloops as the little semicircle winks out of existence, vanishing with the last of your extra lives. The sounds are disappointing in tone but fun in execution, enough to make another quarter seem worth it. And in 1985, Ghosts ’N Goblins made failure infuriating but also hilarious, giving video games their very own comedic language."
"Creating an MMORPG that anyone can play": The making of Lineage 2 Revolution (Matt Suckley / PocketGamer.biz) "It's safe to say that Lineage 2 Revolution has been a huge success for Netmarble. On the face of it, this hardcore MMORPG based on a PC title is one that caters to a relatively niche audience. But despite only being available in South Korea, the game hit $100 million in revenues within 18 days - $176 million in a month - powering its developer to an 81% leap in profits."
Clark Tank: Steam user review changes and SimAirport! (Ryan Clark / YouTube) "I'm veteran indie game developer Ryan Clark, and this is the Clark Tank! Every second Friday at 1pm Pacific time we stay on top of the latest game industry trends by examining the Steam top 50, scrutinizing the latest Kickstarted games, and by playing the most prominent recent releases. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is the second YouTube stream compilation, and is still catching up, but the commentary and analysis in here is still super helpful for devs & interesting to others!]"
From Squadron To Ringleader (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian) "European developers remained European, American developers remained American, and the days of a truly globalized games industry remained far in the future. The exceptions to these rules stand out all the more thanks to their rarity. And one of these notable exceptions was Chris Roberts, the young man who would change Origin Systems forever."
The Virtual Life – The Unsettling Humanity Of Nina Freeman's Kimmy (Javy Gwaltney / Game Informer) "Kimmy is a different kind of game from the rest of developer Nina Freeman’s works. Freeman, who now works at Fullbright as a designer on Tacoma, has released a number of personal vignette-like games throughout her career."
The Metal World: Horizon Zero Dawn (Matt Margini / Heterotopias) "In the sleepy suburb of Sydenham, south-east of London, the statues of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park stand watch over nothing in particular. By today’s standards they look hilariously inaccurate: the Iguanodon is little more than a fat alligator, while the Megalosaurus looks like one of No Man’s Sky’s misshapen dog-like quadrupeds. [SIMON'S NOTE: watch out for Heterotopias, it's a super-promising new outlet about game worlds - its first zine was in my recent Storybundle, and more zines & more web-exclusive articles are coming!]"
Classic Game Postmortem: Deus Ex (Warren Spector / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC postmortem, acclaimed game designer Warren Spector walks through the development of the 2000 hit game Deus Ex and reflects on some of the key lessons from launching the critically-acclaimed immersive sim."
The Field of Dreams Approach: On Writing About Video Games (Graham Oliver / Electric Lit) "Every year, more and more great essays are published on literary sites concerning video games. In the past year I’ve especially loved entries like Janet Frishberg’s “On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood,”Joseph Spece’s “A Harvest of Ice,” and Adam Fleming Petty’s “The Spatial Poetics of Nintendo: Architecture, Dennis Cooper, and Video Games.” But for each great essay there are a handful of others written like apologies, seemingly perennial pleas to take video games seriously as a form of meaningful narrative."
Meet the most honest man in EVE Online (Steven Messner / PC Gamer) "When you're the most trusted person in EVE Online, your reputation has a way of preceding you. For years, the name 'Chribba' felt like an urban legend to me—a man you can trust in a galaxy where the first rule is to trust no one. Inside the Harpa convention center in downtown Reykjavik, I meet Chribba amid the bustle of players gathering for EVE Online's annual Fanfest."
How An Offbeat Video Game Got 100 Japanese Bands To Write Its Soundtrack (Jared Newman / Fast Company) "Let It Die is a game about a mysterious tower in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where players control an emotionless, reanimated corpse, and are guided by a cheery, skateboard-riding grim reaper named Uncle Death. Strange as that sounds, the story behind Let It Die‘s soundtrack is even more unusual."
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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things.
In particular, I was taken by that piece on the success of Lineage 2: Revolution for mobile - $176 million in a month in South Korea alone? Wow. It's a good reminder that when franchises have fans - and Lineage is gaming royalty in Korea - then startling things can happen.
Oh, and FYI - we opened up registration for our standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference this week - happening this September in San Francisco. We've added board members from ILMxLAB and HTC to a stellar set of advisors from Valve, Oculus, Sony, Magic Leap, Microsoft & more. Lots going on in the VR, AR, and mixed reality space, and it's good to have a truly platform-independent show to explore it...
- Simon, curator.]
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Highlighting History's First Female Game Designers (Manon Hume / Game Informer) "Though it might be difficult today to imagine Uncharted without Amy Hennig or Journey without Robin Hunicke, women in the early days of video games rarely had their time in the limelight. Carol Shaw and Dona Bailey, creators of River Raid and Centipede respectively, were two of the first female game designers in video game history, yet their contributions have often been overlooked… Until now."
Building Worlds in No Man's Sky Using Math(s) (Sean Murray / GDC / YouTube) "No Man's Sky is a science fiction game set in a near infinite procedurally generated universe. In this 2017 GDC talk, Hello Games' Sean Murray describes some of the most important technologies and interesting challenges behind generating both realistic and alien terrains without artistic input, using mathematics."
College Esports Programs Are Growing, But Can They Field a Winning Team? (Will Partin / Glixel) "The doors to University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Cox Arena and Pavilion open at 12, and every seat inside is filled by 12:30. If it weren't for the occasional StarCraft cosplayer or the elaborate apparatus of club lighting enveloping the stage, you could be forgiven for mistaking Heroes of the Dorm for a division one basketball game."
Making Horizon Zero Dawn's Machines feel like living creatures (Willie Clark / Gamasutra) "One of the most memorable features of the recent PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn are the sophisticated robots, known as Machines, that wander the game world like a natural part of the landscape. How were these distinctive robot/creatures conceived of and designed? We talked with several devs from Guerrilla Games, the studio behind HZD, to see just what went into the making of the Machines."
Persona 5 deserved better: a translator's take on a subpar script (Molly Lee / Polygon) "I found myself mentally rewriting A LOT of Persona 5. What should be a gripping tale of outcast kids became an outright chore to parse … and I was barely a few hours in. The start of every game is the part that's meant to hook you."
The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Luke Winkie / PC Gamer) "It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date."
A No Bullshit Conversation With The Authors Behind The Witcher and Metro 2033 (Piotr Bajda / Waypoint) "Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski says he doesn't owe games anything, but Metro 2033 author Dmitry Glukhovsky thinks games made them both."
Unleashing the Benefits of Coviewing With Minecraft Videos (Matthew Farber / Joan Ganz Cooney Center) "Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later."
SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, By Holly Nielsen (Holly Nielsen / Shut Up & Sit Down) "Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games."
Steam games in China: Making the most of a lucrative opportunity (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "There are now over 15 million Steam users based in China (according to SteamSpy). That makes it the country with the third largest number of Steam account holders, behind only Russia and the USA. Numbers like that should be enough to convince any game developer to make efforts to appeal to the Chinese audience. Yet many don’t."
How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure (Anthony John Agnello / AV Club) "Most games tried to lighten up your failure to soothe the loss. Pac-Man touches a ghost, the music stops, and the game bloops as the little semicircle winks out of existence, vanishing with the last of your extra lives. The sounds are disappointing in tone but fun in execution, enough to make another quarter seem worth it. And in 1985, Ghosts ’N Goblins made failure infuriating but also hilarious, giving video games their very own comedic language."
"Creating an MMORPG that anyone can play": The making of Lineage 2 Revolution (Matt Suckley / PocketGamer.biz) "It's safe to say that Lineage 2 Revolution has been a huge success for Netmarble. On the face of it, this hardcore MMORPG based on a PC title is one that caters to a relatively niche audience. But despite only being available in South Korea, the game hit $100 million in revenues within 18 days - $176 million in a month - powering its developer to an 81% leap in profits."
Clark Tank: Steam user review changes and SimAirport! (Ryan Clark / YouTube) "I'm veteran indie game developer Ryan Clark, and this is the Clark Tank! Every second Friday at 1pm Pacific time we stay on top of the latest game industry trends by examining the Steam top 50, scrutinizing the latest Kickstarted games, and by playing the most prominent recent releases. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is the second YouTube stream compilation, and is still catching up, but the commentary and analysis in here is still super helpful for devs & interesting to others!]"
From Squadron To Ringleader (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian) "European developers remained European, American developers remained American, and the days of a truly globalized games industry remained far in the future. The exceptions to these rules stand out all the more thanks to their rarity. And one of these notable exceptions was Chris Roberts, the young man who would change Origin Systems forever."
The Virtual Life – The Unsettling Humanity Of Nina Freeman's Kimmy (Javy Gwaltney / Game Informer) "Kimmy is a different kind of game from the rest of developer Nina Freeman’s works. Freeman, who now works at Fullbright as a designer on Tacoma, has released a number of personal vignette-like games throughout her career."
The Metal World: Horizon Zero Dawn (Matt Margini / Heterotopias) "In the sleepy suburb of Sydenham, south-east of London, the statues of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park stand watch over nothing in particular. By today’s standards they look hilariously inaccurate: the Iguanodon is little more than a fat alligator, while the Megalosaurus looks like one of No Man’s Sky’s misshapen dog-like quadrupeds. [SIMON'S NOTE: watch out for Heterotopias, it's a super-promising new outlet about game worlds - its first zine was in my recent Storybundle, and more zines & more web-exclusive articles are coming!]"
Classic Game Postmortem: Deus Ex (Warren Spector / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC postmortem, acclaimed game designer Warren Spector walks through the development of the 2000 hit game Deus Ex and reflects on some of the key lessons from launching the critically-acclaimed immersive sim."
The Field of Dreams Approach: On Writing About Video Games (Graham Oliver / Electric Lit) "Every year, more and more great essays are published on literary sites concerning video games. In the past year I’ve especially loved entries like Janet Frishberg’s “On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood,”Joseph Spece’s “A Harvest of Ice,” and Adam Fleming Petty’s “The Spatial Poetics of Nintendo: Architecture, Dennis Cooper, and Video Games.” But for each great essay there are a handful of others written like apologies, seemingly perennial pleas to take video games seriously as a form of meaningful narrative."
Meet the most honest man in EVE Online (Steven Messner / PC Gamer) "When you're the most trusted person in EVE Online, your reputation has a way of preceding you. For years, the name 'Chribba' felt like an urban legend to me—a man you can trust in a galaxy where the first rule is to trust no one. Inside the Harpa convention center in downtown Reykjavik, I meet Chribba amid the bustle of players gathering for EVE Online's annual Fanfest."
How An Offbeat Video Game Got 100 Japanese Bands To Write Its Soundtrack (Jared Newman / Fast Company) "Let It Die is a game about a mysterious tower in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where players control an emotionless, reanimated corpse, and are guided by a cheery, skateboard-riding grim reaper named Uncle Death. Strange as that sounds, the story behind Let It Die‘s soundtrack is even more unusual."
-------------------
[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
0 notes