#well that's understandable

[theographos]

Baldur's Gate 3 deserved to win.

If you're a stranger to the video game community, let me give you the context of this post :

The Game Awards of 2023 happened this thursday. And for the nomines of Best Game of 2023 we had Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Marvel's Spider-man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the kingdom. And the winner happened to be Baldur's Gate 3.

And ever since then we can see the salty reactions of fans of Spiderman 2, who were baffled at the results. Some argue that Baldur's Gate 3 has nothing more to offer than Spiderman 2, and there are even people who claim that they never heard of Baldur's Gate 3. A statement that I find odd, because even if I'm only briefly present amongst the video game community, even I was perfectly aware of how successful Baldur's Gate 3 has been since its release in August 2023.

Before I dive into another rant of mine, I would like to say that if you never heard of Baldur's Gate 3, it's a video game based on Dungeons and Dragons (with some minor worldbuilding differences apparently) and who work just like a D&D campaign : you role dices to know if your attack landed or not, it's a turn-based game, roleplay is encouraged. It's playable on PC and on Playstation and it offers a multiplayer gamemode.

Now let's dive into the rant shall we ?

Disclaimer

I do not consider Marvel's Spiderman 2 bad, and i'm no video game expert either. So don't expect some deep dive into both of the game's gameplay or graphism. It's just not what i'm good at. What I'm good at however is to pinpoint the content present in those games, and that's what i'm going to do.

Baldur's Gate or not, Spiderman had no chance to win.

I mean have you seen the nomines ? First of all there is a Zelda. It would be unwise to pretend like Tears of the Kingdom has not been a major hit ever since it came out. It doesn't matter if you like Zelda or not, the facts are here : Tears of the Kingdom is really good. Yes it has its bad sides, just like every game really, but it's still good ! But seeing the results of the different categories they were nominated, I would say that they had equal chances. Because for the Player's Voice Award and the Best-Game Direction they were both nominated, but none of them win. It shows that in 2 of their shared best aspects, there was still better than them, and a 50/50 is not a guaranted win.

Next we have Alan Wake 2, who also won the Best Game Direction Award, the Best Narrative Award and the Best Art Direction Award. Spiderman 2 was nominated for Best Game Direction and Best Game Narrative but didn't win. Again, if we take a look at the facts, Spiderman had no chance to win ! Again it's not because it's not a good game, it's because another game did even better. I mean Alan Wake 2 has a level of storytelling close to Inception, visuals that mix real-life footage and game footage and fans of the Remedy Connected Universe (the sort of game franchise that Alan Wake 2 is part of) have been waiting for this game ever since 2013. (the creator said at that time that because of the lack of success of the first Alan Wake, the studios weren't interested in a sequel at that time.) Meanwhile, Spiderman 2 has been teased ever since 2020. This time Spiderman 2 had a severe disadvantage compared to Alan Wake.

I will not pronounce myself about Resident Evil 4 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, since I don't have enough knowledge about theses games. All I can say is that those two games also come from a successful franchise just like Zelda and just like Spiderman.

But why did Baldur's Gate 3 won then ?

If we look at the results of the award, it was no surprise. They won the Player's Voice award, Best RPG Award, Best Multiplayer Game Award, Best Community Support Award and Best Performance Award (Neil Newborn's performance with the character Astarion. If you never saw it, just go ahead, your ears will thank me. He can go from cocky to sassy to evil to dominant to soft without a difficulty) and were nominated in 4 other categories. Meanwhile Spiderman 2 was nominated in 8 categories and won none of them. So from a factual point of view, it means that Spiderman 2 is good, but not the best.

Now if we look at the game itself, it's absurd to even believe that Spider-man 2 would ever win. Let me list you a bunch of contents that are available in Baldur's Gate 3 :

First of all you have tons of option to customize your character. Not just from an aesthetic point of view, but also a gameplay point of view. First of all you have 11 races available for your character, with 40 sub-races, all giving you different stats and different ways to play and/or build your character. Then you have the classes, with 12 main classes and 46 sub-classes, and again they all give different stats and different ways to play your character. So with that you can play the game 5 times and will not have the same combat experience each time.

Oh you don't want to spend too much time on character creation ? It's fine because they give you 7 pre-defined characters with their own identity and their own stories, that you can even personnalize on top of it. So again, you can play this game entirely 7 times and you will have a different experience each time.

Like D&D you will have a party accompany you, a group of people with whom you travel. These characters are romanceable and also have their own quest on the side, quest that have at least two different outcomes with major changes for the character in question. So here you have at least two reasons to replay the game, like that you can experience both ends of your favorite character's quest.

Baldur's gate 3 is a game based on choices. I am a big fan of visual novels, in which your choices matters a lot, so i'm fully aware of what it means to have choices with almost every dialogue of the game. But if you're not, just you know that you cannot experience the entire game in a row. You have to do at least twice each dialogue to fully experience it.

Baldur's Gate is also a game based on a roll of dice. You can look at a painting, roll a perception check, fail and find nothing, but if you replay the game or retry, you could win it and discover that actually that painting is a map towards a treasure. So you could have missed a ton of hidden quest without even knowing it, just because you didn't talk to the right pnj or won a particular roll of dice.

Last but not least, there is three different difficulties for the game. So three reasons to replay the game if you want to enjoy it to its fullest.

And like I said, Spiderman 2 is really good, I mean it wasn't nominated as Game of the Year for nothing, but it is not able to keep up with a game like Baldur's Gate 3, which proposes hundreds of hours of new content.

Conclusion

I think I have talked enough about how much Baldur's Gate 3 deserved to win, and why it's so popular. But Spiderman 2 isn't a total failure you know ?

Even if it didn't win, it was still nominated in 8 different categories, which is really good ! Out of all the games who were out in 2023, Spiderman 2 has been nominated for the award, he's still in the top 5 of the bestest games of the year for The Game Awards !

A nomination is not something to overlook, because it still means that you won in some kind. Sure it's not as great as an award, but it's still something to brag about !

If we look at last year's numbers, there was around 10 000 games who released in 2022, and we can only guess that we got to 11 000 games in 2023. Again, in 11 000 games, Marvel's Spider-man 2 was chosen in the top 5 of the best games for this year, 5 out of 11 000 is roughly 0.45%, so really it's a great victory !

Spider-man 2 still won something, it's still considered as a good game if we follow the Award's opinion. Not the bestest, but still good enough to be part of the 0.45% of games chosen for the award of the Best Game of 2023.

[theboxfort]

Peace and love

[dramatic-dolphin]

when we were studying the bible in literature class (so we have the context necessary for later works that reference the bible), i think we were at the book of jonah, and one of my classmates was studying the text very intently, and then looked up and earnestly said "professor, i don't understand the will of god"

the teacher was just like. well sadly i am a literature teacher and not a priest so i can't help you there. but if it helps, many people throughout history had the same problem.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

(Editing to add: see this post for details on the Mel's armor/shield theory)

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, in Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[noodles-and-tea]

Last part whoo!!!

PART 1 / PART 2 / PART 3 / PART 4

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[arr-jim-lad]

i cant even properly explain how it emotionally affects me when my cat comes up to me for cuddles. small creature walks up to me, a giant, in search of a gentle touch, because he trusts me completely. that is what love is. that is what the universe is built for. i want to cry

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[hotdogmchiggin]

Company Mandated Fancy Fits on the Tulpar 😏

Also had to include the REAL star of the show (and a bonus)

Based off of this and this. Thank you very much joetastic for being inspirational 👍

The REAL reason this is late

[dollopole]

“Do I know you?”

“I’m Merlin.”

“So I don’t know you.”

“Who do you think you are, the king?!”

“No, I’m his son, Arthur.”

Greatest characters’ introduction of all time, in the entire cinematic industry.

And the gayest.

[milkamel]

I don't think this guy is good at handling any kind of affection let's be real 🙏

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

not "i ship these characters" or "i want them to bond platonically" but a secret 3rd thing (I want them to be forced to interact by the Narrative bc they would HATE that)

[brainrotcharacters]

the easy grip on the knife. the leg over the seat. the hand over the other seat. the sassy "come get it" move. you know the bitch is smiling behind that mask even as he said the line.

[bunnieswithknives]

As much as I love angst I think it would be funny if he just didnt give af

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[teethburied]

Matthew McConaughey on Rust in 'Making True Detective'