#the spirit of mmos everyone

[eorzeashan]

had 2 tanks leave after the same boss in a row in lapis manalis -_- don't queue as a tank if you're gonna have the impatience of a fruit fly and the commitment of a dad who doesn't pay child support

[wantonlywindswept]

C&C fox ficbit

how would a desperate, chronically underfunded and undersupplied Guard get what they need?

be gay do crime!

set like 6 months?? after that other ficbit where Rex and Fox are Alpha’s favorite chaos gremlins, now with additional SADS.

also now under the tag ‘cunning and courage’ for reasons that will hopefully?? be revealed later. i make no guarantees.

---

His men were looking at him with guilty, hesitant hope, and Fox was well beyond fatigued and 10 hours deep into 'fuck it' territory.

"Take whatever you think won't be noticed," he said tiredly. "Thire will take it down to the lower levels tomorrow to sell or trade."

It had been a couple weeks since he last authorized a sweep. They tried not to do it too regularly to keep the CSF--or, Force for-fucking-bid, the Chancellor--from noticing a pattern, but they were in desperate need of supplies. Patches had nearly cleaned out their bacta reserves after Stone's disastrous security detail on Florrum.

Fox still couldn't quite remember what happened during that mission report. 

(Stone remembered. 

Stone remembered, and wouldn't tell him a thing about it, and sometimes looked at Fox like his guilt was about to swallow him whole. He stuck to Fox's side like a Felucian leech for weeks afterward, and became even more like his silent, immovable namesake. 

But Stone also came out of that debrief entirely unscathed, so Fox counted his fucking blessings and took the unexpected boon without a single damned complaint.)

Thorn shooed him out of the office, both to keep watch and for the flimsi-thin excuse of plausible deniability. Fox leaned against the wall beside the door, a hundred aches and pains asserting their presence as he listened to his men scrounge for scraps from dead Republic civilians. 

He closed his eyes, breathed in as deep as his broken ribs allowed, and tried to counter the sticky lingering guilt with the justification of his Guards' untreated injuries and exhausted spirits.

It didn't really work. It never really worked.

Rex and Alpha would be so fucking ashamed of him.

[scorchedthesnake]

May 15, 2012

It’s hard to describe the frenzy we experienced from April to June of 2012. It seemed like shortly after Remixed there was an unceasing parade of events at the McKittrick and it was truly the center of the universe. The show was the talk of the town, and at the time, regulars and fans enjoyed a level of access and proximity to the show that simply doesn’t exist anymore. We were very much a part of the family and no one in that family really knew how to process being at the center of a cultural phenomenon, so we were all along for the ride and there were astonishingly few boundaries. 

Mayfair was coming and the promise of a heathen bacchanal (“Come Let Me Clutch Thee”) had everyone in a tizzy. In the lead up, there was also a steady trickle of promotional events and brand partnerships. Bowmore Spirits was hosting a whisky party at the Hotel, and was offering a chance at free tickets in exchange for retweets. Team Hard RT aggressively participated, and when the drawing came, the tickets went to a dummy account the brand clearly owned. We called them out on it. Then came the DMs saying if any of us could make it to the Hotel in time, the tickets were ours. Alas, they went unclaimed.

In the meantime, I was suddenly under an NDA.

The reason for this was that I had been invited to test the MIT Media Lab extension to the show, and while I was told I would be allowed to write about it on Scorched, they had offered the story as an exclusive to the New York Times, so I had to wait for that to go out before I could say anything (the post eventually went up here, and was sparse on specifics because for all we knew, this was going to end up live in the show someday soon).

I arrived as normal at the Hotel - and proceeded to Manderley, where this little bit that I wrote in a teaser actually happened:  

Amidst the tables and chairs, Calloway stands alone, basked in a spotlight. He appears to be singing to himself softly, slowly turning his hands around, as though weaving his quiet song (in that is-he-touched-in-the-head way that Calloway has). He looks at me and beckons me toward him. I approach, and he bends down to kiss me on the cheek. When he rises, I look up at him, as he towers over me, and I can see that he’s been crying. My face turns sad. I reach up my hand and cradle his face, wiping away a tear with a sweep of my thumb. He exhales, deliberately, and stares back at me with a look of grief and loss. I know that somewhere, something dreadful has happened.

Then I was taken in to meet Felix Barrett and Peter Higgin, who fitted me with the enhanced mask. It had antennae sticking out of it and was extremely heavy and uncomfortable – a discomfort that only grew as the night went on. But they didn’t tell me much else and I was brought up to the fifth floor, where the autopsy room had been closed off from the regular show. Inside, I found Alba Albanese, who introduced me to the story of Grace Naismith’s disappearance - and to a ouija board. The board started to move: “G…. E…. T…. O…. U….T…,” and I heard a scraping at the door. I fled out into the corridor.

Regular attendees had noticed strange things were happening. There were signs posted around the show with Grace’s photo, and there were markers to show points of interest (like signs for quest interaction in an MMO). But the very first thing I noticed was that the padded cell was closed off - and occupied. This has long been my favorite unused room in the hotel so I was thrilled. Inside was Ben Thys. The stewards sighted my tech mask and admitted me to the room.

From the 2nd teaser:

We are standing together in the center of the room. He looks deep into my eyes, smiles, and then… he smells me. He draws his face close to mine and moves, slowly and cautiously, in a circle around my face, sniffing at it, clearly seeking some trademark scent. Then he stops sniffing. He smiles, and pulls me close again. This time he drops his head back and opens his mouth wide, as though to allow me a chance to inspect his teeth. I look and find nothing out of the ordinary. When he finally raises his head again and closes his mouth, his grin has changed into a look of grief. “You.” There is a long, painful silence. “You never came."  It is as though the very life drains out of his face. And with that, he drifts back to where I found him when I entered, slumped in the corner, and buries his face in his hands.

Bewildered, I set out to figure out what was going on. The 4th Floor had various clues - Grace had loved a man named George. I found another previously inaccessible space at the end of the hall to the Rep Bar - the Law Office. Inside was a typewriter (another portal device) that wrote out a message: “SUITCASE” - and there was indeed a suitcase in the room. I took the suitcase and went exploring – I think I may have been under the impression the Porter would help me. I recall making it as far as the lobby when a Steward approached and reclaimed the suitcase, noting to me that I wasn’t supposed to be carrying the props. Oops. Somewhere - and honestly 12 years later I don’t recall where - I found a note detailing Grace’s contract with Hecate, and how she was supposed to make George fall in love with Grace.

From the 3rd teaser: 

When I finally return to him I am sweating and shaking.  I have been running and searching for nearly an hour, with hardly anything to show for it. But I know that he must have the answer, if only somehow I can get it out of him. By now it’s become a ritual, how he greets me. He holds my shoulders and pushes me against each of the walls, laughing, smiling like a young child. Then he smells me and his proximity makes me anxious. He can be gentle one moment and ferocious the next. I hope that maybe this is how he shows me his trust. And then we sit down and I show him what I’ve brought. He looks at the paper then up at me. I point at him intently. “Yes,” he says, “that’s me. I’m George.” My heart skips a beat. Now I feel like I’m getting somewhere. “…I do not know why I’m in here.”

Poor Ben. He told me later he was ad libbing all of it, they hadn’t really anticipated that I’d keep going back to him with pretty much any prop I found trying to get him to explain any of it. I obviously went to Hecate (Careena), who presented me with a vial of salt, but I wasn’t getting it yet. I wandered the 5th floor, hearing voices through my mask in the bathroom hall. I found the closet in the forest maze, and groped for a light switch - in the process, pulling the microphone off the wall. Oops again.

I was feeling fairly exasperated as I’d figured out who was who, but it wasn’t clear if I was supposed to try to find Grace or what. Also, the mask was absolute murder so I went back to Manderley to see Pete and see if he could adjust it. I told him what I’d seen, showed him the vial of salt, and he said, “I don’t know what that’s about, that’s Careena doing her own thing I guess.” It was chaos and I kind of loved every second of it. Matt Downs, my dear friend who I had only really met shortly before all of this, watched all of the mask drama unfolding with keen interest, knowing full well something insane was happening.

I had sort of run out of ideas and the third loop was well underway, so Pete said they’d try to get me up to 4 to see the big showpiece that had been set up to conclude the experience. To do this, it needed to be made plain to Careena to depart from her regular Hecate track. So Calloway was asked to escort me from Manderley up to the Rep Bar. It was a crowded night at the show, and William patiently but urgently pushed me through the crowd, taking me to the front so Careena would see me and understand. Then he took me to Agnes’ apartment and I waited.

Eventually - the show was very near its end at this point - Hecate emerged from the bedroom. I don’t remember any of the text, but this led to the reveal of the salt hands, the evidence of Grace’s fate. This 1:1 is depicted in the photo the New York Times ran with their coverage.

After all of this, we all gathered in the ballroom for a debrief. Only one other test participant had remained. They had brought me, a frequent visitor; this other fellow, who had been once before; and a walk-in who had no idea what the show even was - and that person had bolted almost immediately. Over beers, we had a great conversation for the next hour or so with the graduate students who had been working on the project. I told them how envious I was – they were doing more interesting work with narrative than I ever had in my own literature Ph.D. program. I got to see the ballroom with all the lights up - gross, honestly, and far more colorful a space than I had ever realized. Afterwards, as we walked back up to a nearly empty Manderley, Felix Barrett asked if I could answer something for him. Sure, I said. “Why is your Tumblr avatar a picture of Gabe Forestieri?” Definitely not what I thought he might ask. “Well, have you seen him? He’s gorgeous.”

The teaser posts were the best I could do in the run-up to Mayfair. Questions poured in and utter silence would have added fuel to the fire. The trolls came out and attacked me for teasing a recap (which, truthfully, was a ridiculous thing to do). So it led to the creation of what I think is one of the most absurd examples of fan art in the long run of the show, the Recap Teaser Trailer:

For some backstory on this: we did it in just about 3 hours of effort. I wrote some of the gags at my office on 7th Ave before heading to my apartment to do the video editing. Kevin Cafferty asked his friend Liam to film his daughter eager for a recap. My sister in law sent a clip, Frances Koncan sent her clip. Jordan Morley asked to help and offered the clip in the original goat mask. Matt went to the McKittrick and asked random audience in line to play along. The result is... a real time capsule from a very different era of the fandom.

[enchantrum]

the only extra little thing I wish GW2 would do is give the commander some optional love interests as a possibility even though that's so not in the spirit of an mmo and everyone but me would hate it :)

but especially for a Sylvari Commander, I just want so badly for them to have a comfort from somewhere T_T they lost Trahearne, they basically lost the Pale Tree, they at least still have Caithe and got to co-parent a dragon together but bro my man desperately needs an emotional safety net for when everything goes to shit again

all his emotional safety nets are dead or unresponsive rgsiuepghy

tho I have been lowkey shipping my Sylvari with Braham ever since -

what did he mean by this...

for the unintiated: he says this drunk and unprompted. you are having a conversation and there's a pause and he just says this. you don't even respond that's just the end of the conversation!!

[handsmotif]

What kinda video games do you think mob psycho characters play? Also I hope things get better for you, I'm sorry shit's rough

OH BOY HMMM

i’m starting with shou bc he’s the easiest one. we already know he likes horror games so i think he’s a BIG fnaf fan. also minecraft. there IS a minecraft server that the extended spirits and such family is on (it consists of shou, mob, ritsu, teru, tome, serizawa, the awakening lab kids, and the telepathy club. i wanted to say reigen too but i think reigen stopped playing on it because ritsu kept griefing him LOL) anyway shou and ritsu go fucking bonkers making weird redstone contraptions.

shou ritsu teru and tome also play super smash bros a lot. mob doesn’t like playing this one but he likes watching. also all 4 of those kids get EXTREMELY competitive about it and they DO swear at each other so so much.

mob and ritsu share an animal crossing island. mob loves this game and finds it relaxing. ritsu wants to explode every time teru comes over and plays on their switch because he always helps mob find the ugliest (best) custom designs and clothing and then ritsu has to deal with seeing the aftermath of it next time he logs on.

tome is very much into indie games. i think her and shou exchange horror game recs a lot. except shou actually does get very scared by them while tome just thinks they’re funny

serizawa can’t play call of duty or league of legends with the kids because he gets too heated and he doesn’t want them to hear him raging LOL he will play overwatch and fortnite with them though.

reigen likes jrpgs and certain mmos i think. i don’t think he games as much as everyone else does but he will indulge a good few hours every once in a while. teru is also in this boat i feel. i think teru would be a nintendo kid too though

[novelmonger]

I played Death Stranding and I have...questions.

I considered posting about these things as they came up while playing, but figured that as soon as I started talking about it, Tumblr would start throwing spoilers in my face. So instead of having to tiptoe through that minefield, I've been saving it up until I beat the game and could talk about it freely.

Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!

Why the heck are the cities all named "____ Knot City"? Why would they not use the names of old cities or even towns that used to be roughly in the same location?

Why does no one use ordinary surnames anymore? There's literally no reason for people not to use them a mere generation (if that) since the apocalypse.

WHAT THE HECK KIND OF NAME IS DIE-HARDMAN THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD

For that matter, why has so much changed in such a short time? The last president was still around in living memory, so the Death Stranding just happened a few decades ago at most. And I don't think this is set super far into the future - not like Horizon: Zero Dawn, for example, where it makes sense that no one remembers what life was like in 21st-century America, because it's set a thousand years in the future. Everyone over a certain age in Death Stranding can remember what it was like before, so why is everyone acting like they're unearthing some incredible archeological find when they discover that people used to...I don't know...play video games?

Carrying unborn babies around in a tank because their mothers are braindead and thus connected to the world of the dead and so the babies can detect the presence of the dead...may be one of the creepiest things I've ever done in a game before. And I can't decide if this is a pro-life thing or not, because there are soooooo many mixed messages of some characters insisting that BBs are just tools, and others who treat them like actual babies.... I mean, I saw Lou as a person from day one, and clearly, Sam came to the same conclusion since he named Lou...but I just wonder what the creators of the game were thinking when they implemented that.

Okay, I get that not everybody knows that BBs even exist, but of those who do...why are more people apparently not bothered by carrying around what is apparently a human child in a little tank??? Wouldn't it take an awful lot to convince people that the thing that looks and acts like a human child is in fact not a human being - when you can literally see everything they do, you can hear them crying, they are fully formed, so it's not like they're weird-looking little fetuses? Do I just have too high a view of humanity?!

WHO THE HECK DECIDED THAT THE OMINOUS GHOSTLY SPIRIT THINGS THAT CHASE YOU DOWN TO PULL YOU CLOSER TO DEATH SHOULD BE CALLED "BEACHED THINGS"??? WHY DID THEY GO WITH THE STUPIDEST-SOUNDING, LEAST INTIMIDATING NAME THEY COULD POSSIBLY THINK OF?! I was creeped out when they were just BTs, because that sounds kind of ominous, but as soon as I found out what that stands for, I burst out laughing. They'll never be truly intimidating again.

Why is there an online option at all in this game? Does anybody actually play with it turned on? I immediately went, "lol, nope" as soon as it was explained to me. If I wanted to play an MMO, I'd go play World of Warcraft (or whatever the kids are playing these days).

Why. On Earth. Are bodily fluids used to make grenades. Were they trying to make you feel like a monkey throwing feces around? Why is showering and using the freaking toilet an actual gameplay element? (What is this, The Sims?) Why is there a button you can press to pee on the ground while on the road? WHY DOES A HOLOGRAM OF A MUSHROOM APPEAR TO MARK THE PLACE YOU JUST WATERED THE GRASS???

Why is the tonal shift so severe when you're in a private room? Sam goes from being a stoic grumpypants who just kind of grunts at people, to making faces and breaking the fourth wall. Is this...supposed to be funny? Is what happens in private rooms outside of canon? No, that doesn't work, because there are quite a few plot-advancing cutscenes that happen in private rooms....

Why does Fragile chew so weirdly?

WHY ARE THERE ACTUAL LITERAL MONSTER ENERGY DRINKS IN THIS GAME AAAUUUUGH THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT IS SERIOUSLY MESSING WITH MY SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF DX

Why on earth is there a random hologram of Aloy and a Watcher from Horizon: Zero Dawn? All it does is serve to yank me out of my suspension of disbelief and remind me of a game that does a much more convincing job with the post-apocalyptic future of North America.

Why bother with the whole repatriation thing? Did we really need an in-universe explanation for why you can come back to life if you get a game over? Like...it's not going to make anyone forget they're playing a game. And they didn't do a great job of establishing right away whether or not Sam retained his memories after that scripted repatriation at the beginning. Left me very confused for a long while. If they wanted him to survive his wife's voidout, he could have just...not been there when it happened, you know? (Upon reaching the end of the game, I understand a little better why they did it this way, but I still think it's a bit clunky.)

Why the heck is Conan O'Brien in this game? Like, I can sort of understand Guillermo del Toro, I guess, but....

What's the point of making the MULEs addicted to oxytocin or whatever, so far gone that they're compelled to steal people's packages for the high of it? That's...really stupid and unnecessary. Seriously, you could just have them be bandits. People who are hostile to Bridges to such an extent that they attack porters on sight, or who have broken away from others and created their own little communities, and they have no qualms about stealing packages from people, in case they might contain valuable resources.

Why does nobody in this world know how to use emojis? Were all the mail messages written by boomers?

Who on earth hired the actress who played the Chiral Artist, and why didn't they get someone to play that role who could actually act?

Why is it that all the significant NPCs in the game are so...unique? You've got Mama and her BT baby, not to mention that she doesn't decay after she dies and is somehow alive in Lockne's body. You've got Deadman, who is a literal Frankenstein's monster of corpses stitched together. You've got Heartman, who undergoes cardiac arrest and gets revived every 20 minutes.... I mean, none of the characters important to the story are just normal people dealing with the Death Stranding. They're all one of a kind. Which isn't bad, per se, but it sort of stretches my suspension of disbelief. It would be one thing if it was a deliberate gathering of exceptional minds or something, but it feels like they all just "happened" to be working for Bridges or something. Am I being too picky here?

Why is Higgs that creepy? I mean, I totally dig how hard Troy Baker leaned into the craziness of the role, all slick and sinister, wearing a chiralium mask shaped like a skull, blipping in and out instead of walking two paces just because he can...but why have him smear tar around and lick it off his thumb? Why have him lick Sam's face? It just seems...rather excessive to me <_<

Who on earth came up with having Sam compare himself and Amelie to Mario and Princess Peach? Or for that matter, who had the atrociously lame idea of "Mario and Princess Beach" being an actual line of dialogue we had to hear with our own eardrums? Because I think they need to be fired. Kojima-san, if that was your idea of 'humor' or something, please fire yourself. You're not allowed to string words together anymore.

So...wait. Is it supposed to be a surprise that Clifford Unger is Lou's father? I mean, if it was believable for Sam to not have figured it out a long time ago, that would be fine even if I was pretty sure - that's just dramatic irony. But, like...Sam has been seeing visions of Lou's memories pretty much every time he hooks them up. That's canonically backed up in-story. I find it really hard to believe that Sam wouldn't have pieced it together in all that time.

When Die-Hardman finally takes off his mask...there's nothing unusual about his face? I was expecting some kind of disfigurement from timefall or something, but he looks completely normal, and yet everyone starts muttering in shock?? Is the surprise supposed to be that he's actually completely normal???

WHY ARE THERE TWO CREDIT ROLLS?!?!?!?! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ This game take so long just to get through the ending....

Why is this game so fun and addictive despite being so wonky and weird? I loved it. Couldn't stop playing ^_^

Now that I've finished, I am so confused by the timeline and who Sam actually is, so I'm headed off to go research what the heck is up with this game @_@

[myrfing]

TO MEEEE its so weird that ppl hold venat against ""choosing" us when to me its like. its thanks to her blessing that we can explore and fight and thrive to our hearts content. she blessed us with echo so we can enjoy this game, this journey. whatever venat GET BEHIND MEEE

EXACTLYYYY AND IM GONNA GET WEIRD AND I KNOWWWW this is depending on how you want to read the story, but so much of what the “warrior of light” is to me from the beginning, far before I knew venat or knew of the ancients was that: we asked first. the hero walked into the light first and asked if they were needed. and I came and downloaded and opened this game and played it because I asked for something to do; so much of this story revolves around answering the PLAYER, it is wish fulfillment, it is a fantasy. from the beginning it has been reciprocal, and this is winked and nudged at by the very fact that the wol could literally be anybody. this story could not exist without the players; the wol could not exist without the story. they did not reject this idea and opt play the fantasy completely straightforwardedly, they embraced the double meaning—they wanted to utilize their medium of being an mmo in how they tell the story itself. I don’t think it’s “wrong” to view the story as a single layer thing with arrangable and discardable blocks, as its standalone reality WHICH IT IS, but it doesn’t change what was given to us. they translated this spirit into a fantasy tale where there is a hero who is only a hero because they appeared and said there’s things I want to experience here and there’s something worth saving here; I want to be here. keep telling the story. it is FOR THIS that the wol is given the mantle. not the inverse. not because the wol has to be whoever this specific person you made them up to be is; obviously not, we all have a different one. I know the story crosses twice in things like a whole plot where another timeline sacrifices everything To Save The WoL So They Can Save The World, and wholeheartedly embraces its immersion by trying to write a hero who has natural doubts and deconstructs heroism when embodied by a regular person with a human heart (BEFORE RECONSTRUCTING IT) but I do genuinely believe this was written in full faith that the player winks and nudges back about WHAT the WoL is. i think this is literally the integeral core of the concept of Azem also and their power and how it’s integrated into the game.

I would like to emphasize though that this is even reflected in the fact she doesnt even actually give us the echo; what it is is the power to communicate and see the story from a sort of omnipotent perspective of the reader that “we” and “the wol” always had and was awakened when we chose to press start. The ability to see the greater tapestry from observing its individual parts. Of course, in the game, it’s a magic ability to astral project into people’s pasts and futures LOL but like. YOU KNOW? WINK AND NUDGE?

Also, I just don’t think the wol suffers uniquely or more than anyone else. I know the game kind of hypes up particulars of the journey for them (of course; just because there’s a double meaning doesn’t mean we dont love the tale for what it is in all its drama) but it also says this…”heroism” it defines is a choice that literally everyone makes because everyone faces the core of what the wol faces. a farmer getting up to till the fields, an office worker clocking into another day, a child struggling in school, an old guy getting out of bed. which is the central theme we arrive at in ew: how do you choose to continue to exist in the face of the truth that there was no actual, magic, predestined meaning? What keeps you here, playing the game?

of course theres tons of people who, because they love the story too, don’t want this other meta layer; they want it to be a classical story where the reader is not a part of it. and i dont think there’s anything wrong then with saying alright then my WoL loathes being the WoL, it is an obligation they were thrust into in a fully literal sense, the world of hydaelyn is Just hydaelyn, and in this closed circle universe, they reject the themes of the story and go their own way. But i also kind of think this requires a total rewrite from like, heavensward onward. I don’t think there’s any reason for the wol to remain in the narrative that brings them to stormblood or shadowbringers or endwalker in the way they did if they decided this story wasn’t for them. because it’s only ever been there because we asked first for them to continue

[raviosprovidence]

Ocean Game: Plot and More.

So something I noticed in sky is that other than wandering around and getting wax, there's no real incentive for you to explore the world. And in an MMO-like game where combat is non existent, you really do need something else to keep the player entertained, because cosmetics and collecting them is all fun, but for a lot of players, it gets old fast, they drop out, and there goes your revenue.

The solution to this is easy: Lore. And since there's gonna be some dark lore, this game's going to deal with stuff heavier than sky

With Current, I want to make the player feel excited about the world. They should want to discover what happened to it and why it is the way it is. Upgrades will mean more chances to study the lore and how characters interact. So there's gonna be a lot of information in this one.

Let's start with the overall lore. Huge shoutout to @hallofharmony for talking this out with me and heavily influencing where the lore goes.

You are a Nymph, a fresh adult emerging from the underground caves where you've been all your life and are starting their own journey to help restore Neptune. Because what was once multiple little cities of vibrant culture and commerce are now gray, barren wastes filled with ruins and maybe a few fish and crabs. But as you explore, you see a weirdly shaped stone with light emitting from the cracks. You go over, and Boom! It's a siren, or a fully adult Nymph. It is unknown how long they've been stuck like that, but they explain that there are others like them, trapped and waiting to be freed. The sirens will be like the spirits, where you can go to them and get cosmetics, but more importantly, bits about their lore/relationships with other sirens.

So, what did happen all those years ago?

There was a powerful magic siren who's name i'll get to later. If anyone has ideas for placeholder names i'd love to hear them, but they found the realms of Neptune...divided. No one really interacted with each other other then some trading or traveling. One day, there were attacks from outside sirens that devastated all the realms, but many still survived. This angered the Siren. How could his people not see the obvious? So, he and a small group of his followers set out to unite the realms, either by force or by choice. And in his mind, if all the realms were to be united, they needed to look, act, and be alike. He and his crew set out to the realms taking down anyone that got in their way. They captured larger fish to use for mounts and other purposes and over hunted the natural fish populations. Corals reefs were destroyed to make room for more buildings to house weapons and more prisoners than needed. After years of this, and rebel forces getting almost nowhere, people cried out to the conclave of gods: giant beasts that were treated as myths, but many knew they existed.

The conclave heard the people's cries, and answered. Being giant beasts, they destroyed everything and everyone in their path. Not even the magic siren could stand against them as life was wiped out. Many innocent sirens perished, though some were turned to stone by one of the one of the conclave gods as an act of mercy. Some sirens fled to other realms, but many who rescued the eggs, hid in underground caves to raise the new generation (aka: the players)

I can write more about characters you'll find throughout the realms and the types of realms there'll be. I was actually thinking instead of more seasons, it's gonna be split. During one "era", there will be a rotation of traveling sirens that come to visit, and you can find them in different areas, befriend them, and get cosmetics/lore from them. Once they leave, there will be an era where a whole new realm is introduced with permanent spirits, new areas to discover, and lore.

I think next post im gonna go into more the currency and how that is gonna work, as well as other items you'll use to purchase stuff. If anyone has any suggestions/comments please leave them down below.

[trialbystory]

Hey everyone, Morpheus is fightin' Neo! This would've been up an hour ago but my fancy 20-button MMO-style gaming mouse unbound all it's functions including basic ass leftclick and I had to find another mouse so I could reset them. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy the donnybrook.

[dubiousduskwight]

A Bright and Beautiful Moon - OOC Masterpost

There’s a rumor in the Enclave, spread from traders and travelers between the outlying villages of Yanxia. They say that if you need justice and all else has failed, that if you’ve endured and suffered at the expense of another and the world is set against righting that wrong, and if you’re willing to cut off three fingers to make another lose four, then the Witch of the Moon might answer your prayer.

It’s a poor euphemism. Everyone who hears it knows who is meant: Yotsuyu Goe Brutus, the Witch of Doma. She’s dead, of course, rightly slain by the Warrior of Light, and her spirit is in the hell it deserves. After she inflicted such cruelties on the people of Doma in so short a time, torturing and killing whomever struck her fancy, who would call to her for aid? That anyone might is an outrage, an embarrassment to the kingdom as it recovers from war and the narrowly-averted Final Days. It’s not something to be spoken of in polite company, or even spoken of at all.

Yet the rumor persists, surviving in carefully worded hints and knowing glances. For all the brutality of Yotsuyu’s regime, the memories of the years before survive. For a few, they are not fond memories, full of suffering that now goes ignored. For that same few, what’s the harm of a little more suffering to attract the judgment of the moon?

OOC

A Bright and Beautiful Moon is a storyline to be run primarily within the FF14 MMO with scenes in Discord for supplementary material. It’s not tied to a specific FC, and will accept any player who wishes to sign up for events. 

The scenarios for this storyline are small, meant to hold 4-6 participants at a time. They will be scheduled in advance for sign-up for all available members, and will usually occur on weekday evenings.

Events are scheduled in the Roll Eorzea Discord server, and IC posts and events taking place outside of the game can occur there in a separate IC channel. Events will primarily take place on Balmung server, but Travelers and Wanderers with an interest are welcome.

Content Warning

This is a storyline about war crimes and collaboration with an occupying regime. While they won’t always be at the forefront of each event, you should expect those themes to inform much of the plot. As such, you should expect reference to a large variety of potentially triggering content, including but not limited to: Self-harm, suicide, drug use, violence (both graphic and not), systemic and individual forms of abuse, and implied sexual assault. While the storyline won’t be entirely bleak, you should consider if engaging with such content would be more harm to you than not, and plan accordingly.

Rules

This is a dice-based storyline, and uses the ED10 system linked below. It’s a system designed to be used in-game with /random read as 3d10 instead of a d1000, and should be accessible to all players. If you need assistance with building a character sheet or understanding the rules, members of the Discord are happy to assist.

ED10: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WGQ8lEFzF1qEGZR1nlbD0ERlSU5jwKneie-9vS123J8/edit?usp=sharing

Storyline-Specific Character Creation Rules: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hStY30aSPU1LeuuUuKNvAcItMKlliygFeEiZ65Ha-V8/edit?usp=sharing

Storyline Structure

The storyline takes place in chapters, in which one or more (usually more) events are posted for players to sign up for as they see fit. Scheduling for the event is posted with the sign-up list, but if players are having difficulty attending to the extent an event can’t happen, then they can be rescheduled.

It’s considered polite to only sign up for one event in a chapter, even if there are multiple events you think your character would want to attend, unless it’s only a couple of days before an event starts, it has very few attendees and nobody has yet taken an interest. 

Turns

Most of the storyline will be event-based, whether that’s in a Discord channel or in-game. Sometimes you may want to do things on your own, or you decide your character is going to be proactive and do something for which there is no event. That’s what Turns are for.

Every chapter you’ll get two Turns. You can use them between events like so: 

Background actions, doing things like research, spying, gathering information, shuffling money around, and recuperating from past events. If the DM decides you’d have to roll for it and success or failure could be significant, this costs one Turn.

You can also do an IC writeup of the results of your action. This is optional, but if you do, you get a free reroll on your next event.

Schedule a group event. You want to take the fight to the enemy, confront someone unexpectedly, or break into someplace risky, and bring along some friends. This costs at least four Turns among everybody attending, and everybody attending has to spend at least one Turn.

Conclusion

If all of the above is of interest to you, message me here on Tumblr, at Verad Bellveil ingame, Crandlefist#1516 on Discord or on Twitter at VBellveil for a Discord invite. We look forward to seeing you!

[alsgrid]

The internet is so much bigger these days, and so much emptier. I'm sorry if this comes across as a somewhat boomer sentiment in spirit, but I can't help but feel like back when I was a kid, connecting with people felt so much easier. Online communities were smaller, and way more active. A lot of frequent posters knew each other. I'm not going to say that there wasn't any racism or prejudice, because that would be an obvious lie, but people had to be more polite, and those that weren't very quickly made a bad name for themselves.

These days, online communities are either so big that everyone is virtually anonymous, or if they're small, people barely interact with each other. Every space is astroturfed beyond belief, and everyone is always suspicious of everyone else. Growing up with the changing internet felt like moving from a small town to a big, rude city.

I really believe that the death of more niche internet forums in favor of places like Reddit and Twitter(and yes, even Tumblr) was one of the worst things to happen to the internet. The big promise of online spaces used to be bringing people from all over the world together, and for a while there, that really did happen. Two people from different corners of the world, who had nothing in common except some random hobby could get to know each other and become friends. I used to know people from all over the world, through forums, chat groups, MMOs. I don't even remember the last time I made a friend online.

[thedigitalvalkerie]

What would be your dream Digimon fan project?

I got this ask during work, so I couldn't answer it yet, but I have been thinking about this non-stop!

Dream Digimon fan project... Now whether you mean for me to do or for some other fan to do and me to enjoy kind of affects the answer, as I am lazy lol

I think... I would like a comic/manga/anime/novel involving a story about adult digidestined. None of that "You're an adult now so your digimon has to die." crap that Kizuna pulled. Cause growing up has nothing to do with giving up what you love.

The people would be handling real life adult problems, with the added bonus of having to save the day from an evil force (which never fully goes away, as Light cannot exist with out Darkness). I want to see scenes with adults who still havent found their calling, trying everything to see what clicks, while their partnermon cheers them on from the sidelines. I want Digimon finding romances of their own with their best human buddy going all Hiccup from how to train your dragon on how to woo them.

Digimon are like they are with Digimon Survive, not simply data created by humans, but spirits living on a parallel plane of existence, bound to their partner no matter what.

V-pets are simply windows into that world that change view everytime a digimon leaves (when the v-pet "dies")

The world is still getting used to digimon, no governments trying to steal them, but everyone uneasy about monsters roaming about, especially around young children.

Going between the Analog world and the Digital world with ease, never being torn between the two, and able to access two homes when ever. Maybe even something like a netherportal system, where you can go in starting in japan, go to another monitor, and pop in your friend's living room in Iceland?

I could go on and on and on with ideas and dream tidbits about this dream project lol But I should probably stop there.

Alternatively, I'd love to see an Open world style Digimon survival game, where you can connect with friends, but not necessarily like an MMO like Digimon Masters. I'm talking gathering building materials, finding food, building structures, while still bonding with your digimon partner and helping them grow into stronger and stronger beings.

[hectab]

Dragon Raja and why everyone and everything always has a different name.

If you ever tried to read the manhua, play the game or watch the animated show and got confused by the constant changing of the names of the characters and the lore, I think you'd like to read this little essay.

Hi, I'm hectab, and for some reason I decided to translate Dragon Raja from Chinese to english a couple years ago, which has been strangely enjoyable, but also annoying in some ways.

You see, this is not unique to this franchise, I am aware, but when your Chinese property has a ton of international characters and keeps including real-world mythology from other cultures, you need to start making decisions, because things have different names in different cultures.

So, is your name Johann or...?

For starters, the name of the series is Long Zu (龙族) and it means something like "Dragonkind".

The editorial initially called it "Longzu: Eragon" and then they changed it to "Longzu: Dragon Raja"

Maybe they mixed "D" with "E"? Maybe they liked how it sounds, maybe they read the western Eragon books, who knows.

You see, Long Zu was never translated, it basically doesn't exist in the west, but it was huge in China, so much that they decided to make an expensive MMO based on the franchise, the results were so flashy that they went global and by 2020 it was nearly everywhere.

Now... Americans are used to a few Japanese words, but are they open to Chinese ones?

What about people that aren't familiar with anime and manga?

How do we market a guy called Chu Tianjiao? Screw it, we'll call him John.

So yeah, they localized a lot of it:

Funny thing, Luminous already has an American name in the books but there was no way they were going to call him Ricardo.

Then the devs decided to change how they call the characters and everything in the middle of the story, which made it even more confusing.

So why is this a problem? Just show people the graph, right? Yeah I guess, but for me the problem was...

The Manhua

First let's address the fan translation:

When I was translating the manhua, in order to avoid making decisions and offering explanations, I just kept the game names, but then I realized that by doing that, I shot myself in the foot, I'll give you an example:

You see, let's mention three not-so-random things from these books:

Caesar's skill: Lian You

A creature: The Kamaitachi

A clan of Japanese mobsters: The Oni

They called each of those things "Devils" (They technically are though).

So now we have three different things with the same name in english, and at some point I had to write stuff like:

"Caesar had to unleash his devils against the devils in the streets while running away from the devils."

Give me a break...

Caesar's name is its own mess, no one can decide how to spell it, even official sources from China contradict themselves, is it Caesar or Cesare?

The official translation of the manhua came out later, but even they decided to change how they call some things in the middle of the story...

Here are the manhua terms that I can recall at the moment:

Yanling

Ah... Yanling, the superpowers of the series.

I'll explain why Yanling, Ex.Skill, Soul Skill, Sacred Words and Kotodama are exactly the same thing and how the hell that happened:

Yan Ling means something like "the spirits of words" or "sacred words" and it is an ancient Chinese belief in words and names that withhold spiritual power.

You could also call them "magic words", "spells" or "sacred sounds" in western cultures and most importantly: Kotodama in Japanese culture.

That word, "Kotodama"...

Japanese arc, Japanese words!

You see, Jiang Nan is kind of a weeb, he's not hiding it, the franchise is heavily influenced by Anime and Manga, so he tends to take Japanese elements and translate them to their Chinese equivalent, be it culturally or merely linguistically.

For example: Caesar Gattuso's Yanling is called: "Lián yòu".

Lián yòu is the Chinese word for "Kamaitachi" which is a creature from Japanese folklore, three wind-devils with sickle claws that cut people.

In the original Chinese version they're called "Sickle Ferrets" but if you're translating it to english, should we call them that or do what the game did? "Wind devils".

But wait, since it's directly mentioned that they're from Japanese folklore, maybe we should translate it to Japanese as Kamaitachi.

Or maybe just leave it in Chinese as Lian You?

Now let's say you picked Japanese and called them Kamaitachi, should Yanling be changed to Kotodama then? Should I change Jiude Ya Ji to Sakatoku Aki? Should I change every name to their original culture's equivalent?

In that case the Sheqi Bajia should be changed to the Japanese Yamata no orochi instead of Eight-headed snake in english, but can you see? Right there you have three different ways to translate the exact same thing and they're all correct in their own way.

Other examples of this include:

I could go on for centuries, those were three books of Japanese stuff.

And then it came out, the...

Donghua / Anime

I don't know why, but the studio refuses to type the names of actual places. I'm not even talking about a translation, this is the original script in Chinese.

The characters clearly talking about China and America, but they never seem to type the actual names of those countries, just very similar-sounding ones... Why is that?

Anyway... That's the end of it.

Writing a wiki about this stuff sure must be fun, huh?

[calder]

I know nothing about 76 so what are some extraordinary feats you've accomplished?

i have seldom done anything interesting because it's a theme park mmo. it's more about what i've built and collected. i appreciate the prompt tho, i'll list tangible things i'm proud of off the top of my head, i hope that's in the spirit of what you asked

my main base clearly reads as a buried church and mostly exists under the map. the main chamber extends as far vertically as the engine allows

i have camps set up to view the tanagra roots and the van buren wreck under the map, and one that spawns you on pylon v-13

i used to have the recipe for jet but it either got patched out or jacked from my inventory with the vendor exploit

a bunch of useless illegal alien blasters and energy weapons

cut 'animatronic' alien weapon

my character know & can execute the recipe for Laser Muskets and preview the model, but the item can no longer exist in the game world

decidedly not-useless illegal satellite cannon, plus the perks and buffs to make the empirically largest explosion possible

do i have a bow that fires bullets yes i do

several glitch display weapons, missing pieces or hybridized shit

my character unnaturally does not take fall damage & i can use a glitch to jango jet jump so high i can't be seen from the ground

i have enough resources that with preptime i could wield any weapon at nearly optimal damage potential

can phase through any door, or use camp equipment to break through any thin boundary of any kind

sometimes i steal from everyone on the server just to rack up a huge bounty and get actual mobs of people tossing my home or combing the wilderness trying to kill me

i've been able to silently catch people's attention and lead them to all the secret locations before disappearing through greebly's portal

if you meet me by grupp's tavern i can show you where the treasure is hidden

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: On "too easy"

I keep seeing posts elsewhere from "serious gamers" saying "waaah, they nerfed the game, IT'S TOO EASY NOW." I keep seeing posts from people who seem to think the only way to "save" SWTOR is to make it really difficult. And posts that cast judgment on those who prefer a more laid-back approach. 

I can't stand that. Truly, one of the worst things about gaming is some of the playerbase. 

I fully believe that where possible, content should have story/veteran/NiM modes available, the way KOTFE, KOTET and the non-story flashpoints do. If someone's idea of fun is to run every single thing with extreme difficulty, and that's what they get a charge from, let them at it...as long as it doesn't mean everyone else has to play that way too. That's where these discussions usually go off the rails, since these folks seem to think that everyone should play at an arbitrary high standard they deem acceptable. 

A lot of different types of players love SWTOR. Some really do want NiM all the time. Others want to decorate strongholds or dress their characters. Some are all about story. Some love the group aspect and always want to play with guildies or friends; others steer clear of all interaction with other players. Some do a mix of all of the above. Some avoid certain activities at all costs. 

I'm a solo story player. For me, extreme challenge isn't fun. It's usually enough to get me to quit. It's not fun for me to die over and over in a game or to struggle with complicated mechanics where one misstep means death. I hate things like the Onderon datacrons. I felt that Spirit of Vengeance was originally tuned way too high and had way too many mobs, even though I was fully able to finish it. 

I've gone in and done some more difficult things like Dread Seeds and veteran flashpoints solo because I wanted to see the content and complete those missions. If the entire game was tuned like the last Dread Seeds mission or those veteran flashpoints, I'd likely leave in about two seconds. In the longterm, it's not pleasant for me. It's physically painful, it's boring and I don't find it relaxing or fun.

No one playstyle is "correct" or "normal." They all are. What's abnormal is when someone insists everyone has to play a certain way. What would I say to those gatekeepers whining about content being too easy? 

The story content isn't getting people ready for endgame. 

So? 

You're assuming everyone wants to play endgame content. They don't. There's nothing Bioware could do, say or bribe me with that would get me into things like Ops, ranked PvP, PvP at all, PUGs or Master Mode flashpoints. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I am here for the story. Period. 

A training ground for endgame content exists in the form of flashpoints. The flashpoints in the game do get progressively tougher. If someone's truly interested in getting raid-worthy skills they're likely going to be doing solo flashpoints. And using groupfinder or joining a guild that works to help players progress. There are options, and those who are interested in raids will seek them out. 

But the story is so easy. It's a faceroll. Games are about challenge.  

Challenge means different things to different people.

Everyone has different abilities. You might roll through every flashpoint. The next player might die seven times just getting through the first tomb on Korriban. By the way, I'm "next player." I think my first toon may have kicked the bucket before even getting into Ajunta Pall's tomb. The word "easy" is very, very relative. 

Also, for some of us, easier content is relaxing and fun. The same way some people like a leisurely bicycle ride along the bike path and others train for the Tour de France. 

If challenge for you involves very difficult gameplay, it does exist. Go join a NiM guild for raids. Go play ranked PvP. Play another game. Why does everyone else need to play the way you play? 

People aren't grouping. They should be forced to group. 

Because you think they should? What gives you any right to dictate how other people play or who they play the game with? Are you the National Gaming Czar and nobody told us? 

This "grouping should be compulsory!" belief is bullshit. People who want to group WILL group. That's always been the case. Hell, I remember being a kid and playing single player console games with friends. We'd take turns, cheer each other on, and yell out advice to the person playing. We found a way to play in a group because we wanted to. 

Right now, the people in SWTOR there are guilds and healthy incentives to join them. Right now, the people in SWTOR who want to play with a friend or friends can do that. Even in things like class stories or KOTFE where it only progresses for one person, they can still come along and help. There are multiple opportunities in the game for players to meet each other. There are social media sites where they can do the same. There's group finder. There are people who look for groups on the fleet. There are PvP and GSF where they can play against others. 

Bottom line? Anyone who wants to group has multiple ways to accomplish that at this very moment. 

Those who aren't grouping likely do not want to group. They don't have to explain why. If you force them to group one of two things will probably happen: they will do it and hate every second of it and not want to be there, or they will stop playing. Which is more likely? Well, I'm sure we've all finished Oricon, Iokath and Macrobinoculars, right? Oh wait...

This is a game. It's not supposed to be like a job where you have coworkers you detest and still have to interact with them. It's not some life skill. It's. A. Game. Get over it if people don't want to play with you.   There should always be open world PvP. Sure, if you want a mass exodus from the game in about a day. The minute they make open world PvP non-optional or make PvP content compulsory is the day I stop playing. And I don't think I'm alone there. I feel like this comment usually comes from people who are frustrated that others don't accept their duel requests and that there isn't a huge pool of players for PVP matches. They can't get people to play with them voluntarily so they want to force it. And you should be able to tag a mob someone else is working on. I keep seeing this brought up as an ideal in other games. It seems to be a way to force people to group with you even if they've said no to an invite. You know what will happen with this? You'll have players hitting the mob once and getting credit/loot without any effort. Or you will have players following around other players to "share mobs" with them even when that other player wants to be left alone. I'm of the opinion that any type of group play should be consensual in all cases, not forced on players because they happen to be in open world.

*sigh* It's an MMO. 

And? MMO doesn't mean "group all the time" or even some of the time. It means a lot of players are co-existing in a shared online world. It means the ability to group should exist - and it does. 

People come into group content and don't know what to do. 

#1: Everyone starts somewhere. We all know that you were so miraculously gifted that you came out of the womb knowing advanced mechanisms for every boss fight, but most of us didn't. 

#2. If you want to play strictly with a team of veteran players, join a guild, make some friends in the game and have fun. That's a lot more realistic than expecting random players in a PUG or groupfinder to meet whatever your exacting specifications are. 

#3. Blame the devs for forcing players into Groupfinder to complete Galactic Seasons and other objectives. There are plenty of people who wouldn't be there if that weren't the case. 

People come into flashpoints and want to watch the cut scenes. 

Hang on. Let me process this. In a story based game, players want to watch the cut scenes? For real? That's completely unreasonable! /sarcasm

In the latest flashpoints, they've more or less removed all the cut scenes. You have your wish granted. For the older flashpoints, there are still many that don't have solo/story mode. The only way people can see those cut scenes is in veteran or master. If you have an issue with this, start advocating to the devs to make solo story versions of those flashpoints.  I feel like the bottom line is that everyone has the right to ask for the type of gaming experience they want, but they don't have the right to insist everyone else should share that experience.

[morningangelspasture]

Hello everyone! I'm SUPER new to SSO and I'm really surprised I'd never heard of it sooner. It's like Barbie Riding Club the MMO and I ADORE that! As well as the fact that there's an option to Just Be A Horse. That's the good shit.

I gotta say the game is mcfrickin EXPENSIVE, for example compared to WoW (surprisingly), in terms of irl money payments but... Occasionally I'll indulge. So many pretty horses...

Right now my main girl is Morning Angel, whom I love with all my heart. She's actually the reason I joined.

Beautiful spirit of Christmas. Flawless. Pure in everyway.

I'll share my other equine children in a later post.

ANYWHO, I've played quite a bit these past three days but if anyone's got tips, tricks, or general advice I am VERY open to it!