#tourism being an enemy of conservation and actually a huge problem with polluting these landscapes for the people who live there?

[motheatenscarf]

And since I'm here and thinking about them, might as well make a post about Dawntrail society quests.

We only have the pelupelu so far, but I'll update and reblog this over the course of the next uh.... *checks notes* two... years... woof.

Well, they didn't start out strong. The Pelupelu are... fine, I guess. Very forgettable NPCs, I don't care about this tourism board project, and the quest-givers themselves admit that it's actually a problem that the fucking WoL is here because you skew the data on whatever they test since you won't be around forever. You're actively making things worse by being here. Cool. What a great use of my time.

For a fucking mercy at least, Kozama'uka is one of the most beautiful zones in the game and there are like 4 aetherytes that are equidistant from each other and the corners, meaning you're never more than like 30 seconds of flight away from a given objective. The quests themselves are usually charming and cute, things like feeding alpacas, riding around on flying manatees. It has the makings of something charming but everything about it is so bland and low-stakes, and not in a cute or relaxing way, but in a boring way. The quests are at least insanely easy, I don't think it ever took me longer than 5 minutes to do all my dailies here. Does not overstay its welcome in the least.

I could say some shit about how tourism is inherently a colonialist and loaded topic to get into, especially in regard to the Americas, but like. Dawntrail doesn't care. Dawntrail isn't smart enough to have anything to say about its nods toward colonialism, exploitation, cultural erasure, fucking EUGENICS, or anything it brings up. It makes vague gestures towards them and if you're half awake you'll notice the ideas, but they stop right there and just hope you'll think it's smart because it used the Big Topics for set dressing but never incorproated them thematically. It's another lazy bullshit nothingburger of a story that goes nowhere, takes no risks, and is completely forgettable, just like everything else in Dawntrail.