#theres other team games theres other mmos

[himbopunk]

ngl if yall are like fuck jk but still post about & play ovw or wow or whatever else those fuckers make, you look like a massive hypocrite. idk how you can understand that giving rowling clout and putting money in her pocket furthers her active role in making things worse for trans people, then turn around and act like youre not actively putting money in the hands of people covering up sexual assault. you're saying to them, "well if you give me a character i think is cute then i'll look the other way while you shove these cases back under the rug until i don't have to think them anymore"

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Tell me about your aus please

Okay I have a lot of aus, most I haven't even talked about on this blog (always feel free to just ask me for a random au I haven't talked about I can absolutely supply) This will get long so UNDER THE CUT

Harbinger Naegi/Harbinger Disciple Nagito/Harbinger Apostate Ryoma

This is my main swapped mastermind au, with Makoto being THH Nagito being GBD and Ryoma being NDRV3, the au starts with first off Izuru starts the tragedy by himself, Junko had plans for it but he did it first, so the timeline is a bit faster so the school has less chance to prepare, which leads to Makoto being sent outside into the tragedy for like 20 minutes to go grab something that got left behind, during this time he sees multiple deaths and locks eyes with Izuru, this spreads a seed of despair into Makoto.

That leads to him getting more and more upset about how they're locked inside with all this food and water and clean air but no one else gets this, so when he gets lucky and overhears Junko's plans, he usurps the killing game, thanos snaps her memory instead of kirigiri's. Desperate to prove himself and his friends of DESERVING of the gifts they were got by proving themselves able to not kill each other and thus good people, this immediately plunges into utter chaos when the first murder happens as Makoto is torn between his bitter despair and anger at injustice and his love and care for his friends. Chihiro must embrace the hope within themselves if they want a chance for this to end in any way that isnt pure tragedy.

Nagito watches this on tv and becomes OBSESSED with Makoto as Makoto has very much become the embodiment of how Nagito views the world, so they end up teaming up when Makoto does not in fact do the Junko suicide play and instead escapes, upon learning about the jabberwock island recovery plan, sabotages it by giving makoto a back door in, seeing the thing as pointless as it doesnt create hope or despair, what hope is there in just having your past mistakes and actions erased? what hope is it to just give a small apology and never have to think about what you did? theres no growth here! only ugly stagnation unworthy of hope and despair! Peko needs to fight for her right to simply exist.

Ryoma was a surprise for me but he made the most sense in this set up, he gets saved from suicide by Makoto and Nagito and borderline adopted, when makoto and nagito usurp tsumugis' killing game (long story and this is already so long) ryoma volunteers to be the next mastermind, unbeknownst to makoto and nagito, he has plans of his own, which should hopefully end all of these killing games for good. Kirumi however, wonders if good intentions can really make up for cruel actions.

SCP Au

SCP au has very little so far, but it's the idea of DICE as a faction of gamers against weed or AWCY from the SCP universe

Log Horizon AU

This is one I am desperate to work on, basically it's the world of the anime Log Horizon (which is the best mmo isekai anime) and how through being a cheater in the game irl has resulted in upon getting isekai'd kokichi having powers that no one else has, and just generally about how I think the cast would change and adapt to this world

My DR Lore

This is my 2 million page extended worldbuilding of the danganronpa universe, which is basically my pet project and where most of my headcanons come from,

Serial Shuichi Au

Oooo this is a fun one, it's designed to be a dark twist on the traditional phantom thief detective au with kokichi and shuichi by having shuichi be a serial killer that targets criminals and kokichi who is just trying to keep DICE safe and is heavily suspect of that blue haired detective that seems certain that he's connected to the murders

Eldritch Makoto Au

This is a crack au about Makoto being an eldritch being who forgor they weren't actually human.

Frozen Egg Au

This is another crack au about Makoto being sent like a hundred years in the future via cryogenic frozen

Slay The Majesty Au

Slay the Princess but its Oumota

Fae Ultimates Au

Fun playing with how Hajime is the only normal person around, by making the ultimates all fae

Robo Dictator Au

I just think Kiibo should get to do the robot apocalypse and be gay about it, as a treat

Schrodinger’s Kichi Au

Is a fucked up au that I adore where Kokichi possesses his own dead body and no one is comfortable about that, except for korekiyo, he thinks its sick as hell

Shuichi Enoshima Au

Funny bait and switch au about Shuichi being the son of Junko she threw into a dumpster but then got rescued and never learned that hes adopted

Remnant Impact

This is a joke about the Remnants on social media, and eventually they made a genshin impact knock off and it got named after that because that was HYSTERICAL

Kokichi Stans Au

This one's a commentary on stan culture, and how BATSHIT it must be in the danganronpa world by having Kokichi have to deal with his most dangerous and erratic fans

Closet Stocks Au

I genuinely don't know what's going on here either, I sure get anons sometimes

Danganronpa/b/o'

Omegaverse go brrrr

You Destroy My World Au

World Destroyer Shuichi that's a twist on the tired pregame stalker shuichi by having kokichi misunderstand the situation and try to understand what's going on as the world destroyer tries to wake him up

Chiaki Isekai Au

We need to put Chiaki in more video games, put her in portal, put her in animal crossing, let her be in game

Obligatory Homestuck Au

You can't fight the homestuck

Hope’s Peak Destruction Au

My ishiouma au where Kokichi and Ishimaru team up to take down hope's peak and kiss about it

Obligatory Pokemon Au

Gotta catch em all

Dice Hax Au

DICE hacks into Kiibo's inner voice and chaos ensues

Full Talent Swap Au

I took every talent in the series outside of a few from the other more niche books and reassigned EVERYONE

Obligatory Warriors Au

Meow

Obligatory Minecraft Au

Don't mine at night

The Pony Au

Can you tell I like putting characters into other universes?

Pararonpasight Au

Okay now you can definitely tell I like putting characters into other universes

Oumelette Au

Sometimes you are trans, and due to funny shared terminology confusion, also a system but youre in a killing game so you don't got time for that right now

[smoqueen]

well thats the thing. your reply is a little vitriolic so i feel obligated to reply.

i havent played wow since two expansions ago, but i can tell you that i was enjoying it while i played, and i stopped when i stopped. i enjoyed playing PvP because it was skill- and communication-intensive; I enjoyed playing high-level PvE content (pushing M+ and mythic raiding) for the same reasons. I enjoyed collecting gear to play dressup, and when I was younger and didnt have a real job, I enjoyed 'playing' the economy and making gold.

i liked the battlepets pokemon minigame but it is so poorly implemented that you need to have specific farming teams just to be able to ACCESS the MAJORITY of the battlepets content afforded to you (outside of just rightclicking random critters in the wild, which isnt fun at all).

the amount of time that is requested of you to be able to do any of these things is, frankly, obscene, which is a big reason for me not attempting to 'wring' fun out of modern wow.

but for a lot of people, the things i mentioned arent something they care to do. MOST players dont pvp at ALL beyond battlegrounds for events, let alone trying to push 1800+ rating in arena. that is simply not something that a lot of WoW players CAN do, and even if they could, it would be extremely hard and fatiguing for them. the same goes for PvE -- theres a reason MOST players don't really try to push the highest keys possible, it's not fun trying to do that, and,

what's the reward? obviously the problem with skinner boxes mmo, number go up, damage go up, gearscore go up, whatever- but skinnerboxing the actual gameplay numbers only matters if you're trying to 'climb' in any sort of content, and most players aren't.

so, social aspects, fun aspects right? but when it comes to that wow doesnt provide me with anything. the community isnt good, 'guild chat' and mumble/ventrilo isnt even a thing anymore. you just join a guild and hop on their discord server - to wit, whats the point of the guild function anymore.

i could go on and on (and probably will when someone else responds to this) but you can just get more fun for less input from basically any other game

i think people who still play world of warcraft are being severely manipulated. to people that still play: what brings you joy from this experience

[manishfiend]

I'm really glad I chose to play tank because my God people are so fucking clueless 😭

[myrfing]

Yeah! In the end WoLs are very personal to the players so I try to remember and not to be too judgey about it! And yeah there are some WoLs I really love as well! And my own was originally just a vague self insert with the name of an old OC and then they took a life of their own so I renamed them .. xD

Regarding wishing there was more freedom in choices in 14: I think that as an MMO there are just some limitations people just have to accept. The msq is linear for sure though I don't know if that's just because 1) it's Final Fantasy first and foremost, 2) it's a jrpg first and foremost (different game design philosophy between JP and US?) You certainly can't have multiple outcomes, I think, especially not with 14's infamous spaghetti coding. And the team already have so many tasks... (reason why I'm just rolling with the gender unlocking of certain glams being slow)

Though, I've never played an MMO prior to this, and most western RPGs don't interest me. So my lack of frame of reference is probably another reason why I can't really fathom choice freedom similar to, say, Dragon Age, in an MMO in general, esp not one as linear as 14 ... poyo.

(I could do with more fiddling around with GW2 tho, I do enjoy it whenever I boot it up for fun)

HAHAHA YOU AND I BOTH if it's. not obvious that "gourd appraiser" wasnt meant to be. well. youre so right suddenly theyre alive what can we do but give them the reins.

and for sure. I'm really mostly okay with xiv's linearity and rigidity; I think they wanted to tell a certain story and told it. I actually dunno if that's a western/eastern design philosophy and don't think choice/branching narratives is necessarily not a jrpg element but the concept of it with games like for sure DA or UT or even older text rpgs whatever have really popularized it here yeah. in xiv theres obviously some parts where im like He would naht do/say that. or some parts I wish weren't in the msq at all. but for the most part I'm glad things turned out the way they did and I've never struggled too hard to work with it. i think it'd sit wrong with me if the story went another way, if the wol like, just said I don't owe anyone anything and everyone shouldnt ask a thing of me and ran forever.

but that's mostly because I fell hook line and sinker for the world so when anyone in the story is like do you want to keep going and keep this world alive I'm like of fucking course AND it's going to be fun you don't even need to ASK bro. while for others I do understand the sort of disappointment that comes with thinking this could have gone another way that they would have liked better, but the devs chose this way, so they feel like they were robbed of that different outcome. and to me they chose this one because they wanted to tell a story about caring about others and finding hope in others and struggling together towards a better future in a world that is largely hostile to that, that constantly gravitates towards its doom, and I really like that. I like how it reflects in their own dev experience having to reboot the game too! but some people feels like it rings hollow, or they don't really care for that sort of thing, or this spirit just doesnt reach them, and well...wat can you do.

and you're definitely right in that mmos simply cant handle diversity of choice in a game meant to support..well..massively multiplayer online play. at most you get factions which are notoriously clunky and seem to only function in games without a strong central narrative. if 50% of the playerbase said fuck off to minfilia, fuck off hydaelyn, you can't tell me what to do, and went to live a low-stakes life then. that's 50% of the playerbase that needs something other than all the dungeons, trials, deliveries, sidequests, raids, pretty much fucking everything to do, that aren't gonna be a part of the roulette. and they wouldn't have been able to pull off the concept of azem's magic either, the weird living idea that as players of the same character you all walk the same path and thus are always at each other's side. or the funnier route would be well everyone who wanted to play gets the kino ass "shepherd to the stars in the dark" shit and everyone who didnt to play can just sit on their hands I guess.

but i dont think people actually expect it to have branching paths, they just wanted the devs to choose a different one. but there's so many good and fun things throughout the entirety of the game that it'd honestly feel pretty lonely to lose all of this over a nebulous refusal to owe anyone anything and be owed anything, because the wol does go through some painful stuff and has some high expectations placed on them...AS IFFFF everyone in the story doesnt suffer and struggle against the same things while the wol has the privilege of controlling more of their luck, AS IFFFFFFFFFF choosing a path where you say fuck everyone else wouldn't have been empty and boring. as if the antagonists that apparently care about us more don't have wishes and goals and duties and lives of their own and are only made to love you in some made up but easier, purer, assured way.

and oh hee hee gw2...I saw a golden chicken in that game and logged off forever I was like this is it. but I'm playing gw1 (slowly) with friends and while it's still campaigns it definitely does excel in that look at this big ass world go do what you want thing. and yeah mmos are fucking...expensive and terribly difficult to make and keep alive. there's a reason they're just dying out

[pluviophile-imagines]

Fic Reflection: Rule of Three

↳ This fic was one of the fastest I’ve ever written. From concept inception to post-ready it took days, though I’ve been wanting to write a poly getting-together fic since like the very start of this blog I just hadn’t found a ship that spoke to me enough (almost happened with Dabihawks but I didn’t get my shit together in time)

↳ The first line written was “‘Sei’s being impatient.’”

↳ The last line written was “In fact, he’d come to genuinely enjoy spending time with you, both when Nagi was around and otherwise.”

↳ Reonagi as a ship holds a v special place in my heart bc it’s probably the only thing I really ship in Blue Lock. It’s also a ship where i can definitely say id be interested in dating both parties, and i think they would work well in a triad like depicted

↳ Big fat shoutout to mr @venexus​ who somehow shot me with a reonagi raygun when they wrote their reonagi fic; i blacked out for 12 hours and when i woke up I’d written like 80% of the fic. Also shoutout to them for beta-ing and listening to me scream about the reader getting a mind of their own and becoming a dom

↳ It’s not openly stated in the fic but nagi and reader met through online gaming! Reader’s a bit of an e-thot; when they got together with nagi they weren’t quite popular enough but by the time of the fic they’d quit their job to do it full-time. nagi didn’t meet them through a stream tho they just met on an mmo and hit it off. They got together literally the first time they met irl; they realized they lived rlly close to each other so reader stopped by to meet nagi & hang out one day and he just. Impulsively kissed them while they were gaming together lmfao

↳ In case u couldn’t tell from his narration at the beginning, Reo fell for the reader almost immediately upon meeting them, he just didn’t realize it. The reader knew about it the whole time, both his feelings for them and his feelings for nagi and nagi’s feelings for him. The only reason it took so long for the poly thing to happen was bc reader thought Nagi and Reo were oblivious to the whole situation and it took Nagi broaching the subject for it all to click (if anyone’s interested in how that convo went,,,,,, send in an ask)

↳ Reo definitely tries to sneak away in the morning but reader catches him in the kitchen and they finally have like. A real conversation explaining that yes they rlly do wanna bring him into the relationship and no it’s not just bc they want a third they specifically want him while nagi is asleep in bed and Not trying to make out with the two of them. Hes a fucking menace (I might write this scene too if theres any interest tbh shoot me an ask im truly a sucker for morning after scenes)

↳ Deadass considered learning how to color just for this fic’s banner ngl….. I had a rlly great mental image of the two hapibas i chose with watercolor-type coloring, rlly simple with just their hair and eyes colored, but that didn’t happen. Would’ve ended up spending more time on the banner than the fic LMFAO

↳ I do imagine this in a universe where the bllk team is a professional team and i think the whole thing is…. Not exactly hush-hush (bc dear god nagi would never be able to keep something like that a secret hes way too impulsive in a “i dont fucking care who sees im tired and i want a kiss right now reo” way) but deffo low-key they dont go announcing it so it just kinda…. Comes out slowly n naturally and the reactions are either “oh thank god we were about to lock all three of you in a closet” (isagi, chigiri, bachira, etc. basically the ones who r closer to nagi n reo) or “ur saying reo wasnt dating them this whole time????” (gagamaru, karasu, eita, etc, basically Everyone else) bc tbh he like. Basically fucking was

↳ In that vein their relationship genuinely doesnt change all that much once reo starts dating them tbh the main difference is that now he can kiss them and spoil tf out of them (bc why does reo have money if not to spend it on me 🙄)

↳ First thing he does is buy a bigger bed and a bigger couch cause it gets cramped with the three of them on either….. And then reader complains enough about them being too big for their apartment and reo buys them a new apartment obvi (“no this isnt an excuse to move in. stop laughing reader im being nice bc you keep saying the couch is too big- no you will not be paying for it at all stop trying to”)

↳ Nagi doesn’t like dates that involve going out and doing things so more often than not reo takes reader out to mikage corporation dinners etc while nagi stays home. He pretends to be exasperated when they do their spitfire routine but tbh he brings them on purpose so theyll make the geriatric executives and bad-touch-happy daddy’s boys uncomfortable…… and when the two of them come back home at like 2 in the morning nagi is always up pouting on the couch cause he couldnt sleep without them and they promised theyd be home three hours ago

[juni-ravenhall]

yeah, but when anyone criticises the same type of stuff about sse, ppl on here who criticise or make fun of astride dont react the same way. if u say those things about sso its too harsh, if its astride - which are still in the early stages of development for reasonable reasons - then its seen as fine and good vibes. (i dont mind ppl comparing to rivershine, but the fact is that each dev is different. astride team are still ok to be early in the dev process at this timeframe, regardless of how fast rivershine dev works alone. rivershine is also way more efficient than sse and worth its cost than sso in some ways, but again, criticism of sse is seen as worse than criticism of any other horse game / devs.)

sse have broken many promises, theyve suggested things that then never happened (they are getting a lot better the past 1-2 years but thats been a LONG ass wait, they had lots of time to change but didnt for years, and the game was still expensive)

they chose to use a bad spaghetti engine to make their mmo and dont seem to have had many programmers or game designers hired who actually can work with the engine properly - by which i mean, they constantly resorted to very simple mechanics to avoid having to make complex new changes to the code, and updates are frequently very buggy compared to other games partially bc of this

- and partially bc they are unable to properly test and QA their game, most likely due to bad management, which is also worth criticising in its own point

they released way more cosmetic stuff (similar to astride) than actual meaningful gameplay/storyline updates for a long time, and again only starting to change recently

the quality of sso wouldnt be considered worth its cost to most ppl outside the sso bubble, until *maybe* now recently with the new features, improved graphics, storyline actually going somewhere, etc. to pay that much for all those crappy fetch quests and very basic game mechanics and long-term unfixed bugs is weird compared to what actual fun gameplay you can get for the same money - and the only reason they get away with that is bc they didnt have competition (there werent any other more fun horse games). a lot of ppl wouldnt have paid for this if they had other choices to get the right horse game fix.

sse still seems to be lacking in direction and understanding of good game design, priorities, etc to some degree even despite all the improvements we've seen in the past 1-2 years. (but maybe most of all, even when they do improvements its hard for them to not be able to properly test and QA with the structure they chose to have, plus delivering on time with the schedule they chose to have)

my point here is that sse has done so much stuff worth criticising and many of the things are even similar to astride's or the anime horse game's problems. after i paid for lifetime, immediately sse went and broke promises and lacked in meaningful updates, so what i paid for *for years* wasnt really what i was expecting to get for my money.

but if we talk about that, a lot of the time theres backlash on ssoblr (or from defenders elsewhere) and judgmental behaviour towards sharing these criticisms and opinions, and again, it seems way more acceptable to write harsh criticism about small and new games/studios than sso/sse, who had so much time to improve and make the game more objectively worth its costs but they chose not to (until now, bc they are doing that!)

so did astride team do anything actually wrong or is it just more okay to shit on a tiny indie team that havent been developing their game for very long compared to shitting on sso?

(afaik they were clear in the kickstarter that the game would take years to develop and were also clear on social media that the EA release was basically just going to be a horse maker, and if they set the price they feel is necessary [for reasons you dont know since you dont work there] then i dont see how that should be different than saying that sso's costs are valid. aka why complain about sso cost critics while simultaneously calling astride's EA release overpriced)

[floralb0t]

don’t @ me about how im not working on my actual fics but had a fun idea for a new apex au

The Frontier Planets is a MMO with a healthy pve and pvp balance, lategame focusing on raid team vs raid team (eg. Control Mode) and and some pve (eg like current mmo raids idk i haven’t play wow or destiny in many years)

Apex Legends is one of, if not the top guild at the moment in terms of raid prowess, but it’s a pretty casual place in practice. it’s just that everyone in it is so fucking stupid broken/overpowered using weird exploits and strange mechanics that nobody can surpass them.

and all the guild members are our current legends! Not everyone gets along, and not everyone has the same level of interaction, but they’re all members. Revanent has never actually given even a name to other guild members (on the very odd occasion they’re talking outside an event) but the real world address of Mirage, Elliott Witt’s family bar is pinned in the guild forum chat. 

it’s an international guild so it can be hard to schedule big events and its much more likely that people will only interact in groups of 5-9 at most. Some have real world ties to each other, others only in game. Everyone is chill tho, generally, and theres usually enough comradery that people wouldn’t consider it a bad place to be.

I think that Wattson’s family were part of the dev team and she would have interned at the company for a while. She gleefully would point out any part of the game that she helped code, test, or was otherwise involved in. Maybe Octane’s dad is planning / has just bought out the development company

[itoshibaby]

I have a headcanon that Kenma is a lot more confident with people interaction over online games. I feel like theres this certain disconnection and anonymity that makes him feel more comfortable and secure with interacting with others. And in MMOs like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Final Fantasy XIV, there are times where player interaction is kinda necessary.

So i believe he'd be in guilds/free companies and stuff and help lead noobs to victory.

I can see that as well- he be really carrying the whole team to victory ngl this man hates losing 🤩 but get this, imagine being really bad and he screams into the mic 😩 (I’m really bad at video games I only play The Sims 4 😔) idk for some reason getting screamed by Kenma is hot \\\><\\\

[magical-agatha]

i like sword art online fatal bullet somehow despite it doing so many things wrong and even more things that make me personally annoyed. mainly just like. kirito. and like. the inscrutable unbalanced gameplay. and the terrible menus and general failure at telling you what you need to do and where to do it. but the bits i like i guess i really really like. like, if u can ignore the terrible qualities, its a game that rly wants to let you like, put yourself in the world, it has a lot of escapist qualities and i guess its rly like, an isekai game? it lets u have an isekai adventure without getting hit by a truck. i made a self insert whos an idealised version of myself (tho shes missing the muscles and fat), and im using her to have adventures and flirt with girls and make friends. its not a good game but i guess ive figured out how to make it fun for myself by investing in the characters i like and rewriting context. like, kirito is annoying and sucky but he also just feels like someone ud meet in an mmo. every character feels like that actually. kirito sucks but he's also like, 'that guy i met in an mmo who doesn't realise he's made a polycule and also he adopted an ai and treats his mmo marriage to his mmo wife as tho its a real marriage and she does too and they seem genuinely happy and loving to each other?' like hes annoying but he doesnt seem like a bad person or even an asshole. i havent seen the anime. but he just seems like a str*ight person who loves his wife and wants to be friends with you. i dont want to be his friend but i also dont totally hate him. idk, i think im rewriting him a bit in my head so i like him more but even so.

i think i also like it bc im an mmo playing dweeb who is kinda lonely and met her girlfriend thru an mmo which we play together a lot. so im enjoying this story about reuniting with an old friend in an mmo and spending time with her bc its relateable?? also it helps that im 90% sure u can actually romance her over the course of the game and develop a relationahip. and so far most of the characters have felt rly fleshed out and real. so like. im expecting that to be done well?? im not playing this for the gameplay but for the story i guess? but the gameplay is still cool and fun even if its deeply flawed. its. third person shoot the gun but you have a grappling hook, dark souls roll, and mmo abilities. you explore dungeons and fight robots and other 'players' (pve disguised as pvp') and you do it with your fake mmo friends and your fake mmo child and its like. fun and terrible at the same time. like its so easy to get stuck in a death spiral and run out of ammo but it's also like. pretty fun. the companion ai is pretty solid. not gonna astound or win awards but like. its decent. itll get you through things. they hold their own and feel like team mates. you get annoyed when they make mistakes and excited when they do well and worried when they go down. its a decent simulation of what an mmo actually feels like. i like it.

i think im just good at seeing nuance in game design/quality. a bad game can have rly good qualities that still make it enjoyable. and maybe also its like. something i like bc i went into it expecting a shitfest and was pleasantly surprised to find a game with a relateable story, characters who feel real, and like, innovative gameplay. i try rly hard to approach games as a game designer and examine them and try to understand why the designers made them the way they did. i want to learn from every game i play and i like seeing how different games approach similar things and take inspiration from each other.

the other thing too is. it plays really weird like, its stepped pretty far outside the shooter box. and theres clearly a lot of thought put into making it fun and interesting and finding the balance between like, skill based gameplay and a power fantasy. despite that it still has some rly glaring flaws but you can still see that the ppl who made this were sincerely trying to make a good game and genuinely cared about what they were making. the story is rly unique for a game to. its a game about playing a different kind of game. its a singleplayer rpg about playing an mmorpg. its neat. they rly tried and i appreciate it.

[unknownlinguist]

yeah 2nding this. Albion is great, the faction stuff is awesome, it seems like it keeps the game really active. I've never stuck with any mmo long enough to reach a point where pvp stuff is even feasible for me.

But in AO, thanks to big scraps happening at the faction forts, even in blue and yellow zones(i believe blue zone pvp has same low risk level as yellow and is only for people who have their faction flag on?) Faction war incentivizes you to at least go collect resources in enemy faction territory, (you can stay in yellow zones if u want!). and even tho i was semi-low level gear, i was actually able to knock out guys who bumped into me from the other team, as long as they didn't have backup! vs my experience in TESO, when i reached the entry level for faction warfare, even tho they boost your levels to compete with any level player, i would get wiped tf out by solo, experienced players, with not a lot of warning or ability to run away. Seems like AO, by contrast, just incentivizes lower gear players to monkey around (even solo! bc resources are not all the same across the map)in enemy territory, and since gear DOES drop on red territories, u DO run into people of all dif gear levels to fight, probably bc sometimes people are trying to risk less expensive gear on the way to enemy red regions. Plus, theres like 4 fortresses per region, and regions arent that huge, so if you get pvp KO'd and respawn at the nearest fortress (YOUR team's. And in regions that are being fought over, yes, there can be multiple dif teams able to respawn in the same region.) it doesn't take that long to get back to where you were (unless u infiltrated really far behind the front lines.)

Also, you can participate in big group fights pretty early too. The game is SUPER active, so even if you are kinda low level, theres a decent chance you can wander around until you find a large enough faction group running from fort->fortress, trying to conquer regions, and you can get some fortress stealing credit, even if you woulda gotten killed for sure in a smaller group. + in battles where 2 dif factions are fighting over same fortress (pvp), they last long enough that you can often respawn and run back over to keep helping, if you want!

i couls go on...

Respect the Subgame

I have a lot of respect for Albion Online’s developers.

Like, they have produced games within their game that fulfill a lot of design requirements at once:

Unobtrusive to uninterested players

Ties into other systems

Not mandatory

Let me give some examples. Risk-averse? Blue zones don’t allow evil players to attack you. In fact if they’re below a certain infamy threshold they’re not even allowed to enter a blue zone, let alone do stuff there. NPC enemies have fairly small/avoidable aggro radiuses, and if you stick near your mount you can jump onto your mount if a battle goes sour. Want a little more challenge? The yellow zones allow people to attack you but doesn’t give them any incentive because you don’t drop anything.

What if you want to fight other players? Well, you can flag yourself as a member of a faction and get bonus combat xp. This renders you immune to attacks from generalized jerks (I assume this is so players can’t get into shenanigans where they’re designating non-flagged ambushers to unfairly surround foes?) but also renders you hostile to everyone flagged as a member of a different faction.

Faction events also include fortresses, which dot the map and are easily ignored by those not doing faction stuff.

Players interested in solo content can enter The Mists, which takes you to a zone separate from the regular space with its own rules. NPCs are a little thicker on the ground, but so are resources and all 5 resources are present. If you enter from a Tier 5 zone, you go to Tier 5 mists, which means enemy players can knock you out (kicking you back to the regular zones) but you don’t lose any gear or items.

Players who just want to run PvP all the time quickly end up in Red and Black zones, where everything’s full loot combat. If you kill someone, roughly half their stuff turns into Trash and the other half you get to take and either wear or sell. And like I said, if they’re notorious enough in PvP they physically can’t go bother the other players.

Each of these systems physically subdivides the players by what they want to be doing during play, and largely keeps them out of the way of players who aren’t interested in the same.

[thicceon]

My Final Views on Pokémon Sword & Shield

There’s my Trainer! Isn’t she lovely? Anyways, this is a game I had so many strong feelings about, so I feel like jotting this down so I can give it a lil’ bit of closure.

The National Dex

This was perhaps the game’s greatest controversy leading up to release, so I want to give my thoughts on this first. I don’t mind the absence of the National Dex as long as it improves the game all around. I think it’s an okay decision moving forward. However, in these games you can tell half the existing Pokémon were cut just to save time in order to meet a holiday release, not to actually improve the game.

Presentation

The game makes a powerful first impression. The campaign’s strongest moments are probably the first couple hours. The narrative really caught my attention in the beginning and I felt SUPER hyped for my first few gym battles. The story’s climax is also pretty exciting. Game Freak did step up to the plate where it counted most, fortunately. 

Gameplay

The game is bare, short, and vapid. Halfway through it’s REALLY apparent how rushed the game is. You end up zooming through tiny routes that feel more like hallways than anything, and only have a couple Trainers in them. Most “cities” are smaller than the ones in Red & Blue. There is a town that’s literally just a corridor with a Pokémon Center and outdoor gym. This is also one of the coolest cities in the game, so seeing that wasted potential is very frustrating. 

The NPCs feel lifeless and have nothing interesting to say. I don’t see anyone else talking about this! The NPCs in BW, XY, and SM actually had some very entertaining dialogue once the tutorial stuff was out of the way, whether it was hilarious, straight-up weird, or genuinely thought-provoking and insightful. Everyone feels so...boring.

The Wild Area is...rough. It looks horrid. However, it’s still where I had the most fun in the game. It’s a great concept and I think Game Freak had a decent first go at creating an open world Pokémon experience. It wasn’t a particularly fun place to explore per se, but it was enthralling just to be able to control the camera and go where I please. Being able to see glimpses of other players here is also a wonderful addition, and something I’ve wanted from the series for a while. All in all, this area has a delightful MMO feel to it. Raids are also very fun! It’s great to have a co-op feature to play with friends, and the rewards and rarity of Gigantamax forms gives you a good reason to do them!

There are many wonderful QoL features in this game. Pokémon’s UI experience has never been smoother. There's one rather large caveat though, which is the online experience. It’s nonsensical not to include a friends list for easy trading and battling with your pals, and most of the time the stamp system just doesn’t work. It’s extremely frustrating, but sigh it’s workable.

I also must say that I hate the Exp. All being baked into the game. The feature itself is not the problem, it’s the fact that I have literally no way of turning it off, despite previous games allowing you to. This was borderline game ruining for me, as it killed any sense of satisfaction I felt leveling my Pokémon. It genuinely felt like the game was raising my Pokémon for me. Yeah, not for me.

The post-game is practically non-existent. There’s a lifeless husk that qualifies as a Battle Tower of sorts, but that’s all you’ll find, Champ. But of course, this has become standard for modern Pokémon games.

Graphics 

The Wild Area looks very shoddy, however, the rest of the game looks genuinely beautiful! The overworld textures are poor, and this is not a high-fidelity game by any means, but the general art direction and colors are gorgeous. The new Pokémon have nice models, and the older ones have greatly improved textures. The cities all look distinct and lovely. However, the pop-in of NPCs is very apparent and feels jarring. I can tolerate a little pop-in, but this draw distance is short enough where I will just about hit NPCs that appear before my eyes while biking.

Pokémon still lack battle animations that are even comparable to the Stadium games. _That’s _the type of stuff that should be improved by cutting Pokémon.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is decent and has its own flare. There are a few standout tracks, my favorite being the Slumbering Weald at the beginning. Gym battles have a great chanting effect that really adds to the atmosphere. My biggest complaints are that a few of the city themes are weak, and theres a real lack of route themes. 

Story

It feels rushed and empty, like everything else in the game. Conceptually I think it’s pretty strong, and as I said before, the climax is great. However, the story beats leading up to the climax are hilariously rushed and character’s actions begin to make zero sense. You also visit areas that were so obviously meant to be dungeons, but were condensed into single rooms. One significant scene didn’t even get a proper cutscene and was instead told via a slideshow that looked like screenshots of the models painted over. 

As for the characters, I’m extremely disappointed with how underdeveloped the main villain was, despite him having an intriguing, and surprisingly contemporary motive. I was also bummed out that Marnie, a rival advertised as being significant, had practically no story relevance whatsoever. Team Yell also was very underutilized. 

Hop was okay; decently developed. Bede is probably my favorite rival in the series since Cheren. I’m one of those people that’s been complaining for a decade about how we haven’t had a jerkass rival since Johto, and I’m very pleased to finally have one again. His arc is also solid, though a bit under-explored.

Leon was good. It’s rare for the series to tell us who the Champion we’re fighting is before it’s time to tango with them. It was nice to see him have a presence throughout the entire game, and it was interesting to see the types of responsibilities a Champion has, such as protecting the region and...signing endorsement deals.

Closing

Yeah, the game is okay. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not a train wreck. Just okay. It’s very apparent that it was meant to be so much more though, and that’s frustrating. It feels like even 6 more months could’ve made a world of a difference. I don’t believe Game Freak is lazy. I don’t believe they’re incompetent. However, I do think the yearly release schedule of Pokémon games really hampers the potential of not only the games, but the developers.

But perhaps that’s just what we have to accept from such a juggernaut IP. Sword & Shield is about the quality you’d expect from most MCU movies, or those live-action Disney remakes. It’s solid, and it’s the standard fun you’d expect from the property, but it lacks any depth. 

But I can’t really bring myself to call it a step back for the series. It does its fair share of things better than XY and SM, even if if those two games are much fuller experiences. Right, this is a decent first real entry for the main series into the home console market. However, it’s still nothing compared to the sheer breadth of content available in the GBA or DS games.

But this game signified to me that the “golden age” of Pokémon is really gone for good. Sword & Shield was never concerned about living up to those titles though. Gaming has changed. Gamers have changed. And thus, Pokémon has changed. Most games aren’t intended to last you the better part of a year now, unless they’re a live multiplayer service with consistent updates.

As a veteran superfan that's been absolutely enamored by the franchise since before I could even read, I’ll admit that I find it a bit of a challenge to judge Pokémon games on their own individual merit, rather than against the now substantial catalogue that makes up the legacy of the series. Sword & Shield isn’t worried about living up to the past, it’s a step towards the future, clumsy as it may be. However, that future is still going to need some more substance to it before I can consider it a bright one.

[namespara]

Masterpost LGBT+ Rep in Guild wars 2

The gw2 team is so underappreciated with their amazing representation in their game (The game itself is underappreciated, one of the few excellent ftp mmos that doesnt hide every decision behind a paywall) I wanted to compile all screenshots I’ve made in this game that show excellent queer representation. The main representation is obviously the canon couple of two of the main chars, Marjory and Kasmeer. 

There have been discourses going on about this being a "hypersexualised" ship for the male audience, yet in light of this not being the only rep this game presents, these claims can be disputed. Marjory and Kas are main characters whose relationship has not been a focus, but definitly a part of their development.  Another queer rep in the main cast is Caithe and Faolain, although their history is complicated and their relationship has turned foul, it displays a realistic view on queer couples and how not every queer pair is sunshine and rainbows.

Note, Sylvari, a playable race in this game, is technically genderless.  Other queer background characters give a nice insight in every-day, normal queer couples. For instance, the two male-appearing sylvari Dagdar and Eladus from the green knight personal story, a customisable part of the sylvari story. 

In short, theyre a couple who is in danger, and the player has to save them.  Then theres Sya, a transgender woman who used to be known as Symon. 

<3

Other background chars include a spunky little asura:

TWO spunky little asuras:

And a matchmaking quest that doesnt constrict gender. 

BONUS, a girl chillin in the hotspring, dropping hints without the dude catching ANY of it.

This was largely fun for me to compile but if anyone finds any more, feel free to add. I find the community of this game sadly small on social media despite its numbers.

[baeddel]

There are a bunch of like... differnet directions that MMOs went in, in the early days, that each got dropped eventually. Ultima Online was of one type, and Clanlord was similar although kind of its own type too - but this kind of pure sandbox crpg with purely emergent content, nothing at all in the game is authored (ive never played uo so idk how true this was exactly but it was v true of clanlord). There were ones that were like... sort of pseudo-roguelikes, very very hardcore, PVP enabled everywhere, also totally open and sandbox, very very harsh penalties for dying - Tibia was like that, there were others but idr them. In Tibia, if someone was standing in a doorway, you couldn’t go through the doorway. It was a really hardcore game. Runescape was sort of in a continuity between those two but was most closesly based on MUDs, as I said, which had their own types, but it ended up going in this direction of being like... a very dynamic combinatorial type of game - where you like, can bake a pie, and you can bake like 100 different pies, and you have to go and get the ingredients from all over the world using the other skills to make the pie and you have to make the flour in a windmill by putting it in a hopper and physically pulling the levers and then going and collecting it after it goes through the grindstone, right, lmao, like its this very intense simulation of everyday activity. I think ultima online had a lot of that too - obviously it had this like, ecosystem thing that was taken out in the end, like that post going around talked about.

Anyway none of these exist anymore!!!!! What other games are like that today? Nothing man. You can still play all of those games but they’re like, legacy games, no one makes games like that anymore.

Then you had Neverwinter Nights which was a totally new thing. Like it wasn’t like any of those other games at all. It was Actually Dungeon’s & Dragons & people made their own campaign worlds and hosted their own servers and they had like actual DMs who used a separate client and set up adventures and stuff and you were kind of expected to roleplay (and the developer made dismissive comments about powergamers in the booklet, saying they ‘hadn’t learned to roleplay’) and stuff like that. And the ‘hack n slash’ focused worlds that got made were very different from anything else in any mmo whatsoever they’re like... playing a strategy rpg, like baldurs gate etc. but, honestly, a hell of a lot better designed lol, and just very very hardcore attrition-y resource-y strategic dungeon crawls where you have to like, bring ropes to get to the next floor & shit like that. You have to go and scout out a dungeon & make a few exploratory journeys into it to see what you’re up against and what you should bring, right. Thats not in any MMO whatsoever anymore, no MMO plays like that.

And then theres Everquest & WOW and so on and that contingency, where its this team game basically - that was really not taken for granted ever before in any MMO, there was no sense of being like, part of a team. In NWN you had a party but it was like playing d&d... you didn’t just go do a dungeon with your party, you went to the bar after & you had your dwarf talk about their views on elves & shit lol like if you were w/ a party it was your friends who you were playing with. But these games play out like team-based games where you’re taking on gameplay designed for a team and balanced in terms of gameplay, and where the world is very facile and gamelike and makes no effort at all at simulating a real enviornment, and also your journey through the game is very planned out & you’re supposed to do specific quests in order & do specific parts of team content tiered by difficulty etc. These MMOs were very designed & authored in a way that earlier games werent (these differing approaches would be known as being a 'sandbox’ or a ‘themepark’ mmo, respectively).

Then you have like, action mmorpgs, like tera and blade & soul and dragons nest & so on, mostly coming out of korea. Which could often actually be quite sandboxy and oldschool in more than a few instances but for the most part are WOW but its an action game, right. And thats kind of like the sort of ultimate other end of the spectrum, where the simulated enviornment & emergent play is almost totally abandoned in favour of excellent core gameplay, with the dungeon crawling team game really being like, an ‘excuse’ to play the core combat & a way to design combat scenarios. But then the sandbox side is rediscovered & reintegrated after its totally sloughed off... which is really interesting to me...

Anyway there are others I know but yeah I just think its a really cool interesting thing how they developed & how priorities change and stuff and I love every one of these types. Its just so funny how much this stuff shifted over the years... like back then grindy attrition-y simulationist games were like... normie gamer dude games. Remember when flight sims were something normie dudes played??? your school buddies dad had a flight stick & a gaming chair specifically to play his flight sims? do you remember that? Gaming used to be like that. Space trading simulators were the Fortnite of the early 90s.

[loftyloftyloftyloftylofty]

September/October Q&A

Taking a quick break from documentation to share some stuff that I’ve been talking with friends about and to answer some questions that have popped up in direct messages, Discord, social media, etc.

Topics include other projects, game project scope, and past things like the Kickstarter campaign.

Click the Keep reading button below if you’re interested!

Q: What’s the plan after Cat Story?

A: I honestly have no idea. I might try my hand at a 3D game project? Someday I want to run my own MMO project. Everything else up to that point is sort of just me preparing for that project.

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Q: Thoughts on mobile games?

A: Mixed. I would like to experiment with making mobile games, but I don’t know how to protect my projects from being disassembled and broken. My assumption is that you just build a client that shows the user information, and all the important stuff happens serverside. More on that when I start playing around with mobile projects I guess?

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Q: How many minigames are planned for Cat Story?

A: I think 14? Maybe more than that depending on feedback. I’m actually having a blast programming the minigames because they’re small, easy projects that take me a few hours to crank out the code for. From there, it’s all assets.

Side thought - I am pretty sure these minigames are the appropriate scope for a first project. Cat Story is very ambitious. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Q: Why so much focus on mod support?

A: I get this question a lot. Being able to mod a game properly makes it last a lot longer. I really want this game to be something that people are still playing several years from now.

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Q: Easter eggs?

A: I expect people to still be finding hidden things in this game several years from now. There’s a lot of stuff to find.

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Q: Do you have an actual plot or motif or central idea for the game yet?

A: Yes. Cat Story has several themes that I’ll be happy to go into more detail about after the game releases. 

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Q: Are you going to have achievements or Steam trading cards?

A: Yes and yes. Achievements are already working. Trading cards are planned.

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Q: How long have you been working on this project?

A: Specifically for Cat Story, it’ll be 3 years this month. Some of these SDL functions have dates from 2012, when I was working on other projects that I eventually scrapped, and have been ported from SDL 1.2.5 to SDL2. 

It’s sort of terrifying to admit that some of the recycled code in this project is 6 years old.

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Q: How do you measure your progress when compared to other games’ development schedules? 

A: I try not to do that. Since I’m doing most of this stuff by myself, it’s not really fair to compare how fast I’m going against how fast a team of people on some other project is going. I also feel that I fall into a weird boat with progress pacing because I’m specialized in programming and it takes me a long time to do simple art.

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Q: Why aren’t you streaming on Twitch anymore?

A: Partially because I’ve been getting settled in a new house, partially because I have a full-time job now, and partially because I want to redo the visual presentation of the stream with new art and popups and alert noises and etc. This visual overhaul is still a huge work in progress, but here’s what some of the new Twitch popups look like!

I expect the Twitch streaming schedule to get back into full swing mid-November or early December. 

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Q: “Some things catch on and get popular and are successful and some things don’t and theres not much in the way of being able to tell what those will be until you try them. Seems like you tried catplat and it had lukewarm success so probably wrap it up and think of something else. Tally it up to learning experience.”

A: I disagree with this and there are three points I want to bring up about it before moving on.

1. With an advertising budget of zero, Cat Story’s Kickstarter managed to grab $3285 in pledges. I think Cat Story’s Kickstarter could have been successful if I had committed harder to promoting it while the Kickstarter was active, but I prettymuch hit the launch button and went into a figurative coma instead because I had run myself ragged getting it ready. Definitely a learning experience - the hustle doesn’t even start until you launch. This is why I’m making sure I have an updated demo before launching my Patreon - I learned from the Kickstarter.

2. Overall, Cat Story had about a 56% yes rating for votes (1700ish votes) on Greenlight. If more than half of the people that look at a game project are willing to buy it (from a functionally random sampling of the Steam population with a small bias toward wanting to check out new projects, probably less than 6% bias though), I’d say that’s worth going for.

3. The feedback that I received from Kickstarter and Greenlight has allowed me to make a better game that’s more suited for my target audience, which means that if I went through the same processes again with what I have now, I’d probably get better results.

So, yeah. I’m sticking to this project until it is complete.

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Q: How has the scope of your project changed since it started?

A: I could (and probably eventually will) write a book about how this project has changed since I first started working on it. Cat Story was never intended to be as big as it has become. It was never intended to have weapons. It wasn’t even originally intended to take place underground!

I’ve rewritten the inventory system from scratch 4 times now. A crafting system has been added, finished, and removed from the game engine. Here are some ancient assets from when I was first designing the main menu:

Start speedrun button.

Inventory was available at all times, even from the start menu.

“Adventure Mode”

Crafting menu.

An entire (finished and working) system of using special moves and attacks as a combination of holding right mouse and inputting jumps, clicks, and arrow keys has been removed from the game engine. Some of you guys might remember this?

TL;DR - When this project started it was going to be a small cute story about helping some cats on a tiny island do some errands so they could all watch a meteor shower together. In the process of making the game, cool ideas kept happening so I kept changing things.

So, here we are, three years later. Entirely different setting. Entirely different gameplay. Entirely different cast of characters. Completely overhauled set of mechanics for interactions and puzzle solving. 

It’s been a ride.

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Q: Why isn’t the level editor part of the game engine?

A: I ask myself that a lot. At this point it’d be too much work to add it to the existing engine. I’m going to make a better standalone editor eventually, because I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the current one, which has become completely unmaintainable.

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Q: What was the most annoying bug in your project?

A: The one that taught me the importance of copy constructors.

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Q: Do you want your game on [insert platform here]?

A: Maybe? Cat Story was sort of intended for PC. If newer game consoles come out with keyboards designed to interact with games we’ll see. 

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I’ve still got a long list of questions that need answering, but this post is getting a little ridiculous, so I’m gonna get back to work! 

Send me questions! I like answering them! For those of you who didn’t get an answer this time around - I haven’t forgotten about you and I’ll get you in the next Q&A (probably).

Cheers everybody!

( Also here’s the link to the Discord again: https://discord.gg/kw8Jbax )

[limbomainprime]

Hi, sorry to add on, but I’ve played a few mmos and ESO does suffer mechanically. I suggest looking up guides and such if you are new to the mmo system and chances are you WILL be daunted at first. Theres so much to do and it can be confusing and overwhelming.

Most of Eso’s problems do seem to stem between the conflict of “We want to make an accurate Elder Scrolls games that fits in with the lore” and “We have to make this appeal to the mmo crowd and get those mmo bucks!!!!”. That aside, the dev team really does care about the elder scrolls lore, showing us stuff that we haven’t even seen in a main series game! Step up your game Todd!!!

You will get stuff like Sloads and the island of Arteum that people who have played the really old games or trawl the wikis looking for lore will know and have wanted to see in game, but theres also the usual mmo trappings of “sparkly mount” and “Ridiclous cute critter that desperately runs after your character” at all time, and of course, the monetization can get pretty ridiculous sometimes.

There will be times when you will be completely immersed in the story only to see some blue shiny guy with glowing eyes ride by wearing the most obnoxious armor you have ever seen, on a glowing red ghost horse, followed by a tiny dragon. But for actually getting Elder Scrolls content in a world where you can visit places like Elsweyr, Arteum, Summerset, Vallenwood, Orsinium, Hammerfall, high rock, and others, with decent writing and fun quests? It’s worth the immersion breaking and initial mmo struggle.

Would you recommend ESO to someone who hasn't really liked any MMOs in the past? I really don't enjoy them mechanically, but I'm honestly starved for Elder Scrolls content so I'll take anything at this point.

i can’t really compare it to other MMOs because ESO is the first MMO i ever played. it does very much play like an mmo rather than a TES game, but the single-player base game combat is so stupidly easy that you don’t have to put a lot of effort into it. it’s possible to do 95% of the game playing solo and some of the best TES content period is in this game so i’d strongly recommend at least trying it out