Tag Gaming

Bang Dream! Girls Band Party! The Review!

TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

This will be the general review of the game Bang Dream! Girls Band Party! (Yes, the exclamation marks are part of the title; it’s all very exciting, after all). I’m going to be doing a summary of the different bands in separate posts, because I think that’s worthwhile. But this is the sort of thing where I tell you stuff, so you can see if you want to try it out.

First thing you should know, this is a rhythm game. If that turns you off, don’t even bother. In terms of gameplay, it’s essentially the same as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, just with a touch screen: notes fall from the top of the screen, and when they hit the target area, you touch them. Or hold, or slide, whatever. You get a score for each note, depending on your difficulty and accuracy, and your combo count. You also have a life meter, which depletes if you mess up. For the most part, points doesn’t matter a whole lot.

Those pink diamonds are the bane of my life.

I wonder if the obvious similarities to Guitar Hero aren’t deliberate. Because, unlike a lot of mobile rhythm games, the music is mostly rock music. There are some different genres represented, depending on the band – I’ll get into that more when I talk about each band later. The different tracks are all free – you start with a large supply, and augment these through events, completing the stories, or using in-game currency. You don’t have to have the song yourself to play them in multiplayer, just to choose them yourself. In multiplayer each player chooses whatever they want, and then it’s decided randomly.

The second thing to know, is that this is a gacha game. The gacha consists of the various characters, each having several variants. I said above that the score mostly doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, except in multiplayer events. Score is dependent on the stats of your band. And of course, higher-rarity units have better stats. While there are in-game items that boost stats, boosts are naturally higher when the stats are higher to begin with. Also, different units have different abilities that are activated at certain times in a song (indicated by a yellow note), and higher-rarity units tend to have better abilities. But, most importantly to most players, each new unit comes with two mini stories, and often a new costume for the song background. The game is pretty generous with gacha currency, so one could easily save a bunch (especially when you’re new) and roll quite a bit. I personally got about 140 rolls in the first 2.5 months of playing – and I’m not good.

As a big part of the draw to the gacha is the appeal of the characters, it’s important to make them appealing. All events and story things are fully-voiced, at least for the main characters. (There are a few characters besides them that are also voiced, but most npc’s aren’t – this isn’t really a problem, since they aren’t a big part of the story, typically.) All of the character portraits are also animated using Live2D, which works really well for the most part. The voice acting is high-quality, and brings a lot of life and emotion to the characters – which is important, because the stories themselves are generally pretty simple.

Technically, I think this is a pretty demanding game. I have a top-tier Chromebook (at least for last year), and there is stuttering and desynching. However, I always have a large amount of Chrome tabs in the background, which probably doesn’t help things. My tablet, which is also pretty good, has no trouble with those sorts of issues. I think it’s probably more designed to play on phones, though – all the good video of people playing are doing it on phones, and it’s certainly easier to hit all the notes with one hand that way. A garbage phone like mine isn’t going to cut it, for sure, but I’m not sure how good your phone will need to be to play this well.

There are several servers to choose from, though you’ll almost certainly want to stay in your region: Japan, Korea, China (HK), Taiwan, and Worldwide. Your region determines the language of the game, and probably also ping, servers, etc. Thus, I figure anyone reading this will probably want to play on the World server, because that’s the English version. Japan was the original version, and it’s exactly one year ahead of the World version, in terms of events, songs, and gacha. I think the other servers are ahead of the World version, if you can do those languages, and care about that. (I don’t know about the Korean version, but the Taiwan version looks to be only five months behind Japan). The English translation sticks pretty close to the Japanese original, but some of the translation choices are odd, considering that. But it’s not nearly as bad as many other games I play, so I can deal with it.

All that being said, what’s most important: Is this game fun? I have to say it is. I quite like the story and characters, and the gameplay is fun as well. I also quite like most of the music, which is good considering that’s part of the gameplay. (I even bought the Rosellia album that came out a few weeks ago.) I don’t regret the little money I’ve put into it, for sure. I do play it quite a lot, and have improved a ton since I started. However, this game is very skill-based, and you need good reaction times and hand-eye coordination, areas in which I am quite lacking. Hard difficulty is actually hard, which is a little embarrassing to admit when I see most other players in my stats range doing Master no problem. But regardless, I do really like this game, which is why I’m going to be talking about it a lot more in the near future.

Rewriting Lanius: Fixing Fallout: New Vegas’ Ending

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

A couple of days ago Jon of Many A True Nerd uploaded a video on the trouble with the Speech skill in Fallout. There’s a lot to get into with that, and you should really watch that video, but the gist of it is: it’s either OP, or practically useless. The major illustration is what I’m going to talk about today: the final boss fight in New Vegas, against Legate Lanius. If you have Speech maxed out – and only Speech – you win the fight without even fighting (and thus the game). That’s pretty crazy – again, watch the video – and so Jon puts forth a few ideas that might fix this one particular issue, without going against the point of “winning without combat”:

  • be a sufficiently good warrior that Lanius runs away (especially if you’ve already cleared out the Legion Camp) – this also involves revamping the rep system.
  • have the previous fight for the Hoover Dam go so well for the NCR that Lanius doesn’t see the point of continuing a lost battle, and retreats – this again involves a rework of the rep system.
  • be able to convince the Kahns to attack the Legion interior, which would force Lanius to retreat to take care of that threat – if you choose to tell him.

I thought that’s a pretty fun idea, so I’m going to propose some ideas of my own. As it stands presently in the game, you basically just say that continuing on is pointless, as the Legion can’t handle the logistics of holding the Dam and New Vegas. As pointed out, this is just a Speech check in the game (technically two, but if you can do one you can do the other, and it’s the only option for a peaceful ending here).

  • The easiest option is just to have other checks available. New Vegas already does this a lot – persuasion events are skill checks for all sorts of skills. And not just skill checks, but SPECIAL checks as well. For example, if you had 10 STR you could try to intimidate Lanius with your physical prowess, or perhaps a PER check to let him know you see his limp. It would be best to have to chain these checks, and/or only have certain combinations work. So for the previous example, Lanius wouldn’t be impressed with your 10 STR by itself, but if you point out his limp with the PER check too, he might be convinced that fighting to his own inevitable death isn’t the best option at the present.
  • Perhaps if Lanius could be convinced Caesar isn’t really serious about conquest or the Legion, he might quit the attack in disgust. Maybe you tell him about Caesar’s brain cancer – that Caesar isn’t fit to lead, and this whole action has been the farce of a fool. Or, if you’ve saved Caesar (and yet still fought against him at the end), you could say that Caesar plans to end the conquest here, with Vegas, which would of course annoy a conquerer like Lanius to no end (and what is a warrior without a war?).
  • During the game you learn that the bulk of NCR forces are actually in the south (Baja), especially the Rangers. Perhaps this could be actual intel you could pick up, and you can show Lanius that continuing past the Colorado would be foolishness. Lanius comes of as a musclehead, but he’s actually pretty smart, and he could realize the implications. Especially if Caesar is dead.
  • Actually that brings up a good point: during the whole game Lanius is portrayed as a brutal barbarian. His brains should be brought up too. After all, Caesar effectively made him his heir after getting rid of Joshua Graham), and Caesar wouldn’t give an idiot that position.
  • If you have the DLC’s, any of them, it’d be nice if you could use that knowledge to convince Lanius that going back east would be the better part of valor:
    • Say that Graham is leading a legion of tribals back against the Legion (after giving proof that Graham is still alive), and Lanius would definitely turn back – Graham is the only person that scares Lanius, and removing that ghost would be top priority.
    • Reveal that the Cloud is spilling forth from the Sierra Madre into Legion territory at home, and that you’ll give Lanius a way to combat it (or at least prepare for it) if he leaves.
    • Dazzle him with SCIENCE! from Big MT.
    • Hold that nuke from the Divide over his head (that you totally didn’t launch already, right?).

I’m sure there’s a lot more that can be done here.

By @HellOnEarthIII

Badfan Bad

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Back on Friday Belghast posted the first of the Blaugust prompts:

If you could change anything about one of your core fandoms, what would it be?

(I’m going to be a bit late with some of these, since I have my own things to post too.) Now, like lots of people, I have to wonder just what exactly my core fandoms are. First, to determine what exactly I might qualify as a “core fan” of; and second, to determine where in that fandom I lie.

But let’s skip all that. Because no matter the answer(s) to that question, my problems with fandom are the same. Now, since the prompt implies only one change, but I have a few problem areas, I’ll use this space to perhaps work out which is the worst, that I would change. I mostly participate with fandom on 4chan, which exacerbates the problems, but they are universal.

First, there are the doomers. For them, no matter what happens, the thing in question is always dying. Doesn’t matter how actually successful it is, it’s ending soon, just you wait. This wouldn’t be so bad, if these people weren’t so persistent. They doompost constantly, everywhere. If the thing isn’t the top of the charts, it’s a failure. If sales were low, the game is dying next month. Even if they get BTFO constantly, they just come back again in an hour with something else. My ‘favorites’ are the people that say ESO, one of the big three top MMO’s currently, is in a death spiral because, just for example, a single streamer stops covering the game. Point out that this is nonsense, and they’ll be on to some other thing. Then when that is shot down, they’ll bring up the streamer again. If this was mere trolling, it’d be understandable, but the obsession puts lie to that.

Next, there are the people that say everything about [thing] is crap. It’s not that they dislike [thing], but that it’s bad. You know, they put hundreds of hours into [thing], and continue to engage in [thing], which makes them experts into everything that’s bad about [thing]. And [thing] should change. Somehow. They very rarely give any actual criticism, let alone potential improvements. Again, this would be bearable if it was mere trolling, but the persistence of these folks shows that these aren’t trolls. They’re just unhappy with whatever, and letting you know it. Always, constantly. They aren’t doomers though, because they don’t think [thing] is dying. Not yet, anyways – but it will if it doesn’t improve.

The third problem group is the opposite of the above. They are the type that say [thing] is great how it is; sure, there can always be improvements, but [thing] is just fine now. No matter how low-quality [thing] is, they’ll praise it. They’re even worse than shills, because they aren’t even being paid to promote [thing]. But worst of all, these are who creators listen to the most. These people are happy, which means there are probably many more like them, so whatever! Forget the complainers! Ignore the valid criticism! Everything is fine with [thing]! And of course these types are the ones who get the most angry at people that don’t have a similar level of enthusiasm for [thing]. Unlike the types above, they actively try to drive people out of the fandom. All the while they’ll eat any slop that the creatives behind [thing] put out. They’re especially bad when [thing] has changed from something to another quite different [thing], and get quite upset that others don’t support the change.

In the end, I guess I have to say that the last type are the worst, to me. The former two are annoying as hell, but that’s all – they’re merely annoying. They don’t try to reform fandom into something it’s not, or it wasn’t. So yah, if I had to change something about my fandoms, I’d get rid of the slop-eaters.

July and August

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

July was pretty simple. Pretty much did the same thing as usual: ESO, Dragalia Lost, a bit of STO, Granblue Fantasy, Pokemon Masters, and so on. That’s the thing: when you have so many games that are every-day-games, you don’t get much chance to play other games. But, I did manage to fit a couple more in.

First, V4. It’s Nexon’s new (to the West anyways) mobile MMO. Yes, you can play on PC, but it’s obviously built for mobile. I won’t be giving a whole review in a post, because it doesn’t deserve one. It’s terribly boring, especially on mobile. Basically just auto and press buttons when they show up. Not terribly deep, nor engaging. I dropped it after three days. The story is nothing at all. Extremely generic. And the mobile aspect limits one of the few good things these Korean grinders have: character customization. It’s relatively limited here, though compared to some other games it’s still decent enough. But you still end up with some soulless character, no matter what you do. Oh well, it’s free to try out if you want.

Next, I got Destroy All Humans. I loved this game on PS2, and was quite excited for the remake. And the excitement actually was justified. I am going to do a full post review, once I finish it. It’s not a perfect remake, but nothing ever is, and the good well outweighs the disappointments. From the sales figures we can estimate, it looks like this sold even better than originally, so there’s a decent chance the superior sequel will also get a remake (and I’ll finally be able to finish it – a game-breaking bug/scratch prevented finishing the PS2 game).

For the next month, I’ll continue on my present course. I have a new character in ESO that I’m leveling, a High Elf healer, so that will take some effort. I’m getting better at Bang Dream, though I might have hit a skill plateau. Granblue Fantasy has daily missions for the next little bit, as part of their summer celebration. STO will have its summer Risa event starting next week, so I’ll be participating in that (the ship isn’t the one I wanted, but what’re you gonna do?). I of course need to finish Destroy All Humans. Pokemon Masters got a major update, which actually significantly changes how you interact with the game, so I’ll be keeping up with that too.

I think I’ll also make a list of the games I’m keeping up with for the near future, what I’m planning on playing, what I’ve dropped, and so on. That seems like something that might help me keep focused.

Daily Games:

  • ESO
  • Dragalia Lost
  • Granblue Fantasy
  • STO
  • Pokemon Masters
  • Bang Dream

Games playing until finished:

  • Destroy All Humans

Games to play when I feel like it:

  • Cities Skylines
  • Stellaris

Dropped games this month:

  • V4

Games I should look at again:

  • Blue Reflection
  • Atelier Ayesha
  • Splatoon
  • FF12
  • Tales of Zestiria

Spending, with Games-As-Service

TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

Today over at Massively there’s an article regarding MMO end-of-service issues, as regards to player spending for virtual items. It’s particularly about STO, which got my attention, with the person who wrote in talking about how they’ve spent a lot of money for a rare ship, which ship will of course go away once the game shuts down.

This is of course a thorny issue. All games will eventually end. But, traditionally, you buy the game itself. In a lot of MMO’s, among other games, you can buy in-game items for real money. Sometimes a lot of money. But still, the game will go away someday. In a game you actually own, you can at least look at the item in your inventory, or on your character. But if a MMO, or gacha game, or any other sort of game where those items are stored on an exterior server, dies, that’s it, poof goes the item.

The article was more talking about emulators and stuff, so the person who bought whatever could potentially continue enjoying their purchase. That’s not what I’m going to go on about, though. I’m more talking about the very idea of in-game purchases, and my philosophy on these.

The way I see it, it’s not “is this item worth the money?”. It’s not. It’s just a part of a game. It’s not real. No, the real question is “will I enjoy the game enough in the future to justify spending the money?”. Of course, I take the actual whatever into consideration when making that purchase, since being without can potentially change the answer. But I look at the game itself as the product. Will I get $X of enjoyment in the future from this game? Does the publisher deserve $Y for providing this game for however many hours I’ve played it? Will I play for Z hours in the future?

Let’s look at a couple examples. First, ESO. That is a buy-to-play game. However, there are also in-game purchases, as well as a subscription. I have no problem buying games themselves – I do it all the time (even ones I have no intention of playing any time in the near future!). But paying extra, when I can play just fine for free? This, however, is one of those times where not making the purchase would have made me not have nearly the enjoyment I’ve had otherwise. I got a sub, which includes an infinite craft bag among other perks. But without this craft bag doubt I’d still be playing the game – crafting and gathering is a big part of how I play. It’d be a serious pain without it. In fact, even at the beginning it was, which is why I subbed very soon after I started. I haven’t bought any in-game items otherwise, though. (I did buy both expansions, but that’s different.)

For a negative example, let’s look at STO again. At the anniversary this year, there was a big ship pack being sold. Very big. All the hero ships from the shows, with new end-game versions. Some of these were lock-box-only before. But being such a big ship pack, it was expensive. Years ago, I would have bought it, no question. But this year? I decided against it. I didn’t think that I would enjoy the game in the future to the tune of $150+. Or maybe not even $30. With the way the game’s going, I thought it’d be best to stick to f2p for now.

Purchasing in-game items as in-game items is a losing move, I think. You absolutely will lose them. I guess it’s alright if you think of said items as perishables, like food: the food will go away, but the immediate benefits are worth the cash. I mix this approach with what I said above when it comes to gacha. No, buying these rolls isn’t worth it, in-and-of-themselves, even if I get exactly what I want the first time. But the act of rolling is fun, in a sense (I imagine it’s kinda like what gambling feels like, though I’ve never done that), and I do generally figure that I’ll get further enjoyment of the game worth that amount, even if I don’t.

Pokemon Masters: Just What Does This Game Want to Be?

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Pokemon Masters is a game with an identity problem. Is it for kids? But how can you justify a gacha game for children? Is it for adults (like all gachas)? Then why is it so basic and childish? Does it want to welcome lots of new players? Then why is the difficulty curve so steep? Is it appealing to veterans? Then why is the difficulty cap so low? Let’s explore some of this.

Pokemon Masters should be a no-brainer game. Pokemon has long had appealing human characters; while the game obviously focuses on the monsters, they didn’t skimp on the npc’s, either. Why not make a game where the focus is more on said npc’s? In the age of gacha mobile games, this makes even more sense, as gambling addicts and horndogs flock to pretty ladies (and men), basically printing money. Pokemon is already a franchise about collecting all the things, so why not add the npc’s to the list? Pair a trainer with a pokemon, and you can basically print money.

Somehow the oldest protagonist is also the shortest.

At least, you’d think so. Trouble with gacha is that it’s aimed at adults, by design. Even disregarding the gambling part of it, gacha is designed for people with money. Lots more money than you’d expect a young kid to have access to. There’s an image out there, describing the different levels of paying customers in mobile games. They classify people that pay about $75/mo as “killer whales”; in gacha land, that’s minnow money. So, you need a game here that would appeal to working adults. (In Japan, the typical gacha-game player is a man in his 30’s or 40’s – the stereotypical Salary Man.)

Thing is, Pokemon Masters doesn’t do that. The gacha focuses exclusively on the gym leaders and protagonists/rivals. This means that all the characters the older playerbase might be nostalgic for (since the early games’ non-gymleader npc’s are quite basic, compared to those of later games) are likely low-rarity – meaning they’re easy to acquire. Some are of course top-rarity (particularly the protagonists and rivals), but many aren’t, at least of the ones included at the start of the game (gachas rarely add much to the lower-rarity pools – the gacha filler – after the first few months of the game).

That’s why they wait until you’re in their line of sight.

Another factor complicating this is how safe and simple everything is kept. That Elesa up there is the sexiest outfit in the game (besides the Swimmer npc, who is not in the gacha, ever). This is an age where bikini alts and all sorts of other sexy outfits are standard for gacha games; say what you will about how appropriate that is, but that’s where the money is. Then add on the simple and short plots in the game, which make the anime seem Shakespere in comparison. And the simple combat system, even compared to the main games, is almost insulting to the intellect. So it’s hard to tell if this is for adults or kids.

Next, we look at how this handles newbs vs. veteran players. As mentioned at the start, the difficulty curve is rather steep. Even old main story fights can become real slogs for a newer player, or one who doesn’t focus on building up just a few pokemon. Even story events – which are typically how games entice new players – can have steep performance requirements for advancing their story (good thing there isn’t much there to miss…) A lot of resources for improving performance are held behind the harder missions, so giting gud requires being good to begin with. It’s very frustrating until you’ve been playing for a while – not at all friendly to new players, or retaining them…

Until you do finally git gud, at which point you’re set. Just max out your best monsters, and do what you want. Stick with the meta, and you’re even better. Lately they’ve been working on this, where you need to have a modicum of strategy besides “hit it with your biggest stat stick,” But it’s still quite easy for those already on the top – just look up the meta strategy and plug it in. It’s not like there’s any pvp at all (or even guilds) to apply your brain power – or your money.

So, there’s a problem with identity with this game. I don’t know who it’s for, or what it’s aiming to do. I don’t know if the devs do, either. It was clearly originally intended to be a low-effort cash-grab, but that didn’t work out. So there is some effort put in, now. But to what end?

June/July Update

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Whelp, things didn’t go as planned.

Didn’t even touch my Switch after I put it back. Haven’t gotten any new games in the past month, or played any of the ol’ backlog. Just kinda coasting on what I have.

Did get some of the DLC for Stellaris when it was on sale. These are things that really change the base game. Actually take it from boring nothing to something almost good. Almost, not quite there – that’s just a flaw in the basic game, I think. Even ran a game as techno hivemind zombies. Didn’t turn out well for me – turns out zombies don’t need to trade, which really kills the energy production for some reason. No energy means no research, which means no good ships, which means enemies have an easy time beating you up. And techno zombies don’t do diplomacy either, so you just take, or give up, territory. And wars last until one side or another is destroyed. Whoops. And building tall still isn’t fun, either, since AI’s always spread like a plague, which takes the fun out of exploring, or doing anything really. Like I said, just short of being a good game. Still compelling for a run or two, though.

Spent a lot of time on my mobile games. Bandori scratches the “anime game” itch quite well by itself. I’m still not good at it, but I’m almost good enough, and am getting better. Dragalia Lost is still going, and enjoyable for now (no June Bride banner…I’m not mad, I swear). Pokemon Masters…well, it’s compelling, if nothing else. There’s a post in that, which I might actually get around to writing.

I did do one thing that I am sort of proud of (in a game). One of my Cities Skylines games from like a year ago went kinda poorly. I had tried to be clever, but that didn’t turn out well – I had done basically the worst things possible. Some months ago I tried various tricks I’d learned to try to fix the situation (I find fixing problems in this game is almost the most fun to be had). They worked, a bit, but ultimately weren’t enough. The other night I was looking at it again, and decided that, as sometimes happens, I just needed to rip off the bandage and have a fresh go at the main issue. Fortunately that didn’t involve too much destruction, but it was a more involved than I anticipated. But it worked! (I’d go into more detail, but without screenshots, there’s not much point.)

As for the current Steam Sale…I don’t think I’ll get anything. Like the past several big sales, there aren’t any great sales, compared to the random normal sales throughout the rest of the year. Why buy now? Especially since I’ve bought some more expensive Japanese shelf plastic…being a weeb can get expensive.

I played a bit of ESO this month. The Greymore expansion came out in May, but I didn’t get much time to play then. The main draw for me was the Antiquities system. It took quite a while for me to really get how that worked – while the systems themselves are pretty easy to understand, accessing said systems is unclear. The big breakthrough for me was finally grocking that I could do the same antiquity multiple times – and indeed have to, for it’s a grind in itself. It’s a compelling loop, and mostly enjoyable (it takes a bit too long to find the dig spots once you’ve narrowed down the general area, as the glow effect isn’t obvious until you’re almost on top of it).

For the next month? I’m sure things will continue on as they have been. I don’t see gaming things going much differently. My patience with Pokemon Masters is wearing thin, though. I’ll stick it out until the anniversary in August, though, as if there’s any improvements coming, that’s the time. Summer events in various games are starting, which is exciting.

New Vegas Blues

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Fallout: New Vegas is one of my favorite games ever. But I didn’t have it installed on this computer, as I found the idea of reinstalling all the mods daunting. And I had other games to play, besides: what’s more important, playing FNV for the tenth time, or my entire backlog at least once?

Well, that came to an end last week. I just couldn’t stand not playing any longer, and rolled up a new character, with the idea of going straight into one of the DLC, Old World Blues. That’s kinda crazy, as it’s meant for higher-level characters. But I was going to do it any ways. Rolled up a high luck energy weapons user, and off I went.

And this was fun. I got all the mods going, and had a relatively stable time! (Usually only had one crash per night! Basically a miracle.) But this game isn’t perfect, as no game is. And I have to make some observations/complaints/questions:

  • Why is the character creator so off from what actually comes out? I mean how does this

become this?

  • Invisible walls are crap. It’s one thing to put them in places where you normally couldn’t get to anyways, but to block perfectly normal paths, just to not let players get a good look at the world, or take a shortcut.
  • The game world is kinda small. I know this is just a game thing, especially when it had to take consoles into consideration, but when you’re doing a real-world location, the lack of scale is a little off-putting. I mean, I’m pretty sure you can walk (not run) from Sloan to the Strip faster in-game than doing the same drive (at desert freeway speeds) in real life.
  • I wish there were more places to use the more flavorful perks. And more stat dialog checks. Those are fun.
  • Everybody says the one good thing about FO4/F76 is that the gunplay is better than NV. I don’t get this. Gunplay seems great to me, and what I’ve seen of the Bethesda games looks positively unfun, like Bioshock Infinite.

What Do I Want In a Game’s Story?

TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

Yesterday ESO made a news post that deals with how they came up with the story for the new expansion. One bit really got my gears moving (highlighting the part that stuck out to me):

“It all starts with the Creative Director, Lead Designer, and myself. They provide guidance as to the type of story they want to see (political, Daedric, Dragons) and the kinds of places they want to go in the world (Elsweyr, Western Skyrim, whatever). Then, I start creating short pitches, exploring the kinds of themes and plots that might be fun and exciting and could only take place at the intersection of those initial ideas.”

-Bill Slavicsek, ESO’s Lead Writer

As you can tell from the top picture, I have my preferences.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I tend to like smaller-scale stories in my RPG’s (much like Syp). Sure, there’s room for the big, world-saving stuff. But in general, I like to focus on the more local problems in games. This is why I love side-quests so much: the quests are almost always about whatever is bothering the local npc’s at the time. Sure, the world might be ending, but what about the dingos after my baby?

Politics is usually bigger-scale than that, but not necessarily by a whole lot, in RPG terms at least. But those are the stories that I want, myself. I look at my favorite games, and my favorite parts of other games. Deus Ex? That’s all about politics (and even throwing some real-world stuff in there, too). Fallout: New Vegas? You’re just voting for who’s going to run Hoover Dam, in essence. Witcher 3‘s best parts were about all the political infighting (and outfighting); I really wish the world-hopping and -saving were entirely excised. And the second game didn’t have any of that mumbo-jumbo. Heck, I thought the politics parts of the Star Wars prequels were the good parts, not boring at all.

Basically, I don’t like existential threats. I’ve long been of the opinion that, if a fictional antagonist is an existential threat to the protagonist (or their goals), then an equally weighty solution is necessary. Basically, a BS villain requires BS to take care of them.

My favorite (most hated) example is Eureka Seven AO, the sequel to 2005’s Eureka Seven. It’s a mecha anime that starts out as a monster-of-the-week show: nothing special, but I still liked it. But at one point a new villain comes in. This villain just shreks everything; not a step above the previous monsters, but a skyscraper. This continues for several episodes, until the show basically gives the protagonist a literal Plot Gun: the only way to resolve the threat is to erase it from the story entirely (and I’m not talking about a self-aware Deadpool way).

Now, obviously not all bbeg’s in fiction are this extreme. But I am constantly being asked to believe the people that started out pretty normal are supposed to be fighting entire armies, empires, or gods, by the end of the story. Even in sci-fi. This just strains my suspension of disbelief. Such stories can still be entertaining in themselves (being awesome is awesome!), but they have a harder hill to climb in terms of story, for me.

Now, what would I want, if I were one of the bigwigs at Zenimax, choosing the story for a new expansion? I’d just focus on what the preview quest hinted at. Not the stuff with the witches and vampires (that could still be a part), but on the political enmity between western and eastern Skyrim. Why doesn’t the Jarl of Solitude recognize the Skald-King as legitimate? What would it take to get him on-side? Or is he a jerk who’s planning on taking over the whole place (Skyrim, not Tamriel)? What about the civilians: what are their attitudes toward the whole situation? That’s what I want to see.

My Bartle Test

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Always one to feed the data collecting monsters, I decided to take a little test. This is the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, which makes an attempt to categorize gamers according to the picture above. It’s an old test, designed to classify MUD gamers. But it still holds up, as it’s so basic. It’s also short, which is nice.

And I think it’s pretty accurate. I’m always one who takes it easy, trying to go at my own pace. I don’t care about competitive parts of multiplayer games at all. If I ever even bother with pvp, it’s usually to get some reward (or do some exploration – like Cyrodil in ESO) that can only be done in pvp modes. But I don’t really care so much if I don’t get some shiny if it will be a pain to get. Just walking around, that’s good stuff though. Especially if it uncovers some lore or other cool thing.