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silver-wield · 4 years

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FF7R: The Cloud Narrative

While in the middle of one of my replays that involved making different choices for Cloud to get other stuff, I started thinking, “What would Cloud choose?”

And that got me thinking some more about the fact we say it's all what Cloud would choose, but really, it's what we pick to get the best story that suits our preferences.

And since I'm that kind of dork, I decided to replay and let Cloud's personality and development lead me to make the choices so I could try and see what Cloud would've chosen if he had autonomy. It makes for a slightly different game than the one I usually play, but it was fun really thinking over the options and deciding how Cloud would react to every situation and whether he'd choose to engage with it or not.

I didn't actually remember to grab every screenshot of my playthrough, so some of these are from Youtube, but the decisions I say I made are the ones I made because why would I lie?

Ok, let's mosey...

Spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be long.

The opening decision is in Chapter 2 when we first meet Aerith. None of these decisions affect anything within the game to do with the resolution, it just makes either girl react differently to Cloud.

I'm sure some people would argue he'd buy it because Aerith, but he doesn't know her, has no obligation to be nice to her – especially compared to the Avalanche crew who he needed to rely on back in the reactor and he was a dick to them – he's in a rush and has no reason to buy flowers unless people want to assume he already had Tifa in mind the moment Aerith mentioned it. If we do choose the option to buy it right away, Aerith flirts a little and slots the flower into Cloud's shoulder strap over his heart. We get none of the extended dialogue if we choose this option. For those people who say the more someone talks is a sign of canon, this would make the “how much” option the non-canon choice because it contains the least amount of dialogue and time they spend together.

If we choose “I'm good,” then we hear Aerith insisting he takes it by saying, “When was the last time you saw a real one,” and adding that “it'll make your girlfriend's day.”

Then we get the automatic line from Cloud that happened when we originally chose “how much.”

After some more dialogue from Aerith another choice occurs, one which can make Cloud sound like a royal shitbag or not.

I think everyone would agree that Cloud purposely pissing off a total stranger is out of character, and if you choose the second option he doesn't actually speak and Aerith goes straight into her line about how “lovers used to give these when they were reunited.”

For my choices as Cloud I said, “I'm good,” and then when she insisted, I agreed to take it because to me – and this is how I always answer – it feels the most Cloud kind of answer.

Chapter 3

The next choice Cloud's presented with is during chapter 3 when Tifa offers him a drink. No matter which choice you make he calls Tifa beautiful as the outcome.

By answering “something hard” Tifa goes into her cocktail making routine before pouring Cloud a drink that looks suspiciously like piss, but is actually meant to represent the colour of his hair. Hard and bitter. Like him. He doesn't like it. Colour me shocked. She then goes on to make the red drink that's a representation of her eye colour. This is when Cloud raises the glass and makes the “beautiful” comment.

If you choose the refuse option, Tifa replies that “if you were in the mood” and then goes into the same drinks making routine as the first option, with the exact same dialogue and outcome between them. (And now I know it's almost identical I wonder why the devs did it? It seems like a straw man option tbf. There's no real choice or changes to the dialogue and it's like it's been put there to give the illusion of it being optional).

Since Cloud is secretly into Tifa I figured he'd choose “something hard and bitter” as a way to try and show off how tough he is. However, it’s worth noting that Cloud isn’t a big drinker and only drinks when he’s in a low mood. He’s pretty happy here, so I’d say in general he wouldn’t drink, but because he’s only recently reunited with Tifa he still wants to impress her. So yeah, to drink.

The next chance for Cloud to have a choice concerns the chapter 3 side quests that open up the alone at last which goes towards choosing a dress for Tifa later in chapter 9. If you don't finish the quests or miss alone at last you always get Tifa's blue dress and moon charm earring. That is her canon outfit.

The quests for chapter 3 are all monster related apart from one – which I'll get to in a minute.

Chadley's report involves scanning monsters for data and killing them. Rat problem comes from the item vendor and involves killing doomrats.

Nuisance in the factory involves killing drakes.

On the prowl involves going after a shinra dog thing

Just flew in from the graveyard involves a larger drake.

These are all the type of job that Cloud would accept without thinking about it too much. He's a merc, he's getting paid to kill monsters. It'll show off his skills and build his rep and as Tifa says, the better his rep the more he gets paid. These five quests are ones Cloud would take because that's the type of person he thinks he should be. The monster slayer.

As for quest 4, lost friends, I initially said that Cloud would avoid this because it involves two things he isn't good with: kids and animals. Now, I've heard from people that by AC Cloud is actually pretty good around kids, and I agree, he's got a lot of love from them by this point. But that's at least two years away from now and he's not even slightly good around kids and actively avoids them. Cats seem to have a grudge against him, too, at this point in the game – though Wedge's cat mellows towards him after he helps out. These were my reasons for deciding to avoid this quest because Cloud just wouldn't do it. Then, once I got to it, I realised the reason why Cloud would do it.

Tifa.

Tifa likes kids and animals. Now, as a respectful type of girl, she doesn't usually push Cloud to do things he doesn't want to. She's always considerate to his feelings and to others too. In this case, though, she's not focused on Cloud and if he'd want to do this job, but on helping out a little girl. Cloud's been running around doing jobs all morning, so Tifa's related him to the task of finding the cats.

Usually Cloud would refuse to something that's so obviously beneath his skills, but because it's Tifa who's asking, he agrees.

Alone at last triggers and we get to view a moment between Cloud and Tifa that ends in him choosing a dress for her. Alone as last is narrative canon whether we choose to see it or not because of other hints in the game that refer back to the conversation they had. While they talk about the past we get an above view of the rug that has a reunion flower pattern on it. Tifa and Cloud both take steps towards each other during this scene, which symbolises their closing the emotional distance that's between them.

This choice changes nothing about the game and only matters if you want to go for the dressed to the nines achievement.

If you choose the top option – for her canon outfit, Tifa replies “Yeah, I guess we aren't kids anymore.” If you choose the second option she says, “That's not much different to my regular style.”

If you choose the exotic outfit she says, “really?” and acts a little awkward about it.

She then asks Cloud to dress to match her. The dresses he wears during wall market all have a similar style to Tifa's options, showing he did dress to match her. The narrative canon choice for which dress Cloud eventually went with is something I'll be bringing up later.

By choosing the canon outfit option and getting Tifa's canon dialogue we get a reference to the fact they've known each other for a long time. This ties into the conversation they had which also touched on their shared history. This is a background development scene between them, but isn't necessary to know because we get other info about them over the rest of the game. This extra bit of dialogue is to increase our knowledge of Cloud and Tifa, both separately and together.

Chapter Four

Jessie’s bike ride, which isn’t optional in the sense you can choose how it goes. The result depends on how good you are at the minigame. However, since there’s three endings, this is a choice based result.

Are you, Cloud? Really? When did you get that SOLDIER mandatory training? Of the three optional endings, the narrative canon that makes the most sense is Cloud being really bad at it. This is his first time doing any of that, but it gives him the crash course he needs for later in the Shinra building when he does all those fancy moves. Cloud owes Roche some props for observational bike stunting.

Chapter Five

And our next canon narrative choice is between making Cloud look incompetent at his job or choosing to have an intimate moment with his one true love. Well, seeing how the cloti roll is in the ultimania we know this is the correct narrative choice.

Chapter 8

There's a long gap between chapter 5 and the next option we get for Cloud. Once we meet Aerith again and get her back to Sector 5, we go into her side quests and optional discovery. Aerith's side quests are tied to what dress she later wears during chapter 9.

The side quests for Aerith's chapter are split into groups of 3. This means that by unlocking one, you get the further quests on that branch. One branch is more of a Cloud oriented style set of quests, while the other involves the thing he doesn't do well around: kids.

Kids on patrol → A verified hero + Angel of the slums

Weapons on a rampage → Paying respects + moogle merchant.

If you don't complete kids on patrol first then the other two don't unlock. One of these further quests involves more kids and playing with them. Not really Cloud type activities and unlike with chapter 3 where he'd do something because Tifa asked, he's not got that type of relationship with Aerith that he'd be willing to do stuff that he doesn't want to just to impress her.

Breakdown of sidequests in sector 5 and NPC background dialogues.

Weapons on a rampage is more his style of quest, which leads to the NPC who set it to ask a further favour. This links to the next quest where you have to pay respects for the old man. The thing is, he doesn't have the graveyard key, which leads to the next quest where we have to go buy it off Moggie. This is the only kid related quest on this branch and it's over in moments. Cloud has the minimum amount of contact with Moggie and doesn't show any kind of tolerance towards her while he's talking. There's also no apology for his behaviour – unlike when he said to Tifa he was doing his best when she scolded him for being rude.

The way these quests are set out in blocks of three and the fact one half is heavily reliant on child interaction – which Cloud wouldn't do at this point in his development or association with Aerith – leads me to believe he wouldn't agree to these quests. This means the language of flowers discovery doesn't trigger and Aerith ends up in her second option dress – which I've theorised is her canon outfit because of its design similarity to the OG version, her reaction to the dress, the fact that in OG, Aerith chose her own dress, the hairstyle and accessory match the OG style and Cloud's reaction is a very Cloud reaction to have, compared to the other two outfits – the bad dress has dogs and rats following her and the red dress is so ott she's swarmed by fans, a red carpet and so on, but also her accessories don't fit her symbolism theme of flowers because she's wearing stars.

With all of the above in mind, I surmised Cloud would do the monster hunt branch of quests and quit while he was ahead.

Chapter 9

Where before we had a few choices happening, once we hit Wall Market we're inundated with options that affect Cloud's outfit later on. They also showcase what kind of morals Cloud has. Either way, it's canonically easier to get Chocobo Sam's pts higher than Madam M's, leading me to believe he is the canon narrative choice for this section and that Cloud's black and blue corset dress is the one he ends up wearing.

This contradicts my previous theory about the ultimania in which Cloud is shown very uncomfortable in the loli outfit, which led me to believe that was the one he ended up in if he made the choices in Wall Market. I now believe it's because if you pick this outfit it's his “bad ending”, worse than if you don't make any effort and get the plain black and grey dress.

The maximum amount of pts you can get from Chocobo Sam's options is 6.5, compared to Madam M's 5.

There are several people who offer you options during Wall Market.

The love hotel owner (not a Nojima self-insert lol).

Johnny (discovery) + before the first coloseum match – there's a bottle on the table and the choice is to drink or not.

Madam M x2

Sam x2

The first option you get in Wall Market happens before you've even entered the place. Sam asks you what the girl you're searching for looks like. No matter which option you choose, Sam says that Cloud has a crush on Tifa – which he doesn't deny.

If you choose the first option you get 1pt with Sam.

If you choose the second option you get 0pts

If you choose the 3rd option you get 1pt with Madam M.

I chose the first option because Cloud's a guy, with eyes, and the other two choices don't offer anything in the way of a physical description and if he's describing her to someone then he needs to actually describe what she looks like in some way. This is the only option that does that. It's also the only option that gets a different reaction out of Aerith, whereas the other two options have the same reaction from her.

This is the second option we can choose from and it's the love hotel guy (still not a Nojima self-insert). If you choose “no thanks,” this gets you 1pt with Sam and Aerith flirts with Cloud.

If you choose “how much?” you get a surprised “Cloud!” from Aerith and 1pt with Madam M.

If you choose “back off” you get 0pts and Aerith apologises on his behalf.

Of the 3 choices, I picked “back off” because it's the most Cloud appropriate choice.

Next, we have the Johnny discovery when he literally runs past you as you try to go to Don Corneo's for the first time. By following him to the Honey Bee, we get a lecherous dialogue from him and then a question about Cloud's own preferences. Would he go into the Honey Bee? If he agrees with Johnny, we get a slightly self-loathing assumption of a reply, whereas if we disagree, Johnny says that Cloud hasn't experienced anything yet. Either way, he runs off once he's finished.

By agreeing with Johnny you get 1pt for Sam.

If you don't agree you get 0pts.

I chose to disagree because Cloud isn't a lecherous pig and is actually pure af with no experience.

We learn from Leslie that the only way to get into an audition with Corneo is through the trio. Andrea Rhodea has a 3 year waiting list, so we don't even see him. So, we go back to Sam.

This is a hint that the following event with Sam is a load of bull. Johnny telling Cloud – if you interact with him – that he should've followed his gut is a hint that Cloud should trust his instincts. It’s also confirming that while Cloud is a total cheapskate who doesn’t do anything for free, he’s also a betting man who’ll think little of dropping 1000g on a sure thing (why 1000g? because that’s the amount he says to Barret in chapter 6, showing that while Cloud appreciates having money, he’ll also spend it.) Then it's around the corner to where Sam waits. Who, despite having already endorsed Tifa, says he's willing to help Aerith if she can guess the result of a coin toss.

Ofc it's rigged. But if you choose to gamble, it impresses Sam. You get 1.5 pts for choosing heads or tails. If you refuse to gamble then you get 0.5pts.

I believe the narrative choice is to pick heads, like Johnny suggested because he is the inner voice of Cloud and gives us hints as to real Cloud’s feelings at different points in the game. Either way, Cloud gets the coin and says he had a hunch about the result.

After this it's away to Madam M's and the most hilarious choice I've ever seen! I have to wait until the room's clear before choosing because it's a watch from behind a cushion moment lol

Madam M won't help Cloud unless he agrees to a massage. Since our SOLDIER boi doesn't like being forced into decisions and has issues around touch and intimacy, not to mention he's stingy af and wouldn't drop 3k on a massage when he's previously hounded people for a lot less money. But, he also doesn’t stop to think about spending money if it’s worth this while. 1000g doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to him, if it’s his standard amount of bet on a sure thing. He wants to save Tifa, so he’d likely go with the standard course. The other one alludes to him being a cheapskate like Aerith accused and there’s no reference to the luxury course anywhere in the game except here. This isn't something he's doing for pleasure, he's in Wall Market to save Tifa, so the things he's doing are a means to an end.

If you pick the luxury massage you get 2pts with Madam M.

If you pick the standard massage you get 1pt with Madam M

If you pick the poor man's massage you get 0pts.

I chose the standard course massage because I believe that's what Cloud would choose just to get Madam M to agree to help them.

The next choice comes right off the back of the massage at Madam M's and involves Cloud giving an opinion of Aerith's outfit.

If you choose the first option it gets you 1pt with Sam and a pleased reaction from Aerith.

If you choose the second option you get 0pts and an angry retort from Aerith.

If you choose the third option you get 1pt with Madam M and a middle of the road comment from Aerith. No matter which you choose, Madam M scolds you.

Since by this point in the game Cloud and Aerith are friendly enough for him to pass comment on her outfit, I could see him answering with the second choice, but not the first since he doesn't even notice what anyone's wearing let alone have an opinion on it. The third option sounds the most Cloud-centric choice, so that's what I picked.

The last option is for Cloud to drink an unknown substance or not while waiting for his match to start at the coliseum. Johnny gives the explanation of what it is, who it came from and what it potentially does.

By choosing to drink the mystery substance you get 1pt with Sam.

By ignoring the drink you get 0pts.

Since Cloud is the last person to put weird shit in his body I went with not drinking it.

The final tally for the options that Cloud gets set him on Chocobo Sam's side quests for the blue corset dress that matches Tifa's canon outfit – she said dress to match, remember? It's also the one that in the ultimania Cloud looks the most at ease in.

Chocobo Sam's sidequests are the ones that I got as a result of choosing the options I did. I believe this is the canon narrative that Cloud would take if he were choosing. After several playthroughs I did waver on whose quests seemed more the narrative canon. I began thinking Sam's were, but then the ultimania illustration of Cloud embarrassed in the satin dress led me to think Madam M's were the narrative canon. After playing both sets of side quests, I've come to the conclusion that Sam's would be the narrative choice if Cloud were making the decisions.

Having Cloud's choices result in Sam's side quests we get burning thighs (appears in both), the party never stops and a dynamite body.

Burning thighs is the squats contest that echoes the OG storyline. We meet Andrea's little brother, Jules – who is totally not staring at Cloud's ass through the entire minigame while encouraging him. This side quest touches on egos and being cocky – which Cloud can be. It's a humble pie moment, which is another life lesson that Cloud needs to learn also.

The party never stops features the return of Johnny, who appears as we leave the dressmaker's son who's the originator for the quest. We're sent over into the bar, where we can collect the Midgar Blues single for the cd achievement. This song is canonically Cloud and Tifa's romantic theme in Advent Children. Once we meet the dressmaker, we're sent over to the materia guy who wants “the sauce” in exchange for “inspiration”.

This sidequest is a bunch of tongue in cheek dick jokes and it's hilarious! It's also alludes to the fact that Cloud has zero experience since he had a crush on Tifa until he left the village, spent his time pining for her as a grunt, then got stuffed in a test tube and was in a coma for five years. Ofc he blusters his way through it, handling his balls and making comments about how he doesn't need lessons on “whipping it out”. Oh you poor sweet boi.

Once we get the sauce – fun fact there's no picture in the inventory of it when you get it – and we hand off to the materia guy (unintentional pun but I'm leaving it in now I've done it – and that one) we head over to the next weirdo on the list. The chef. Who literally poisons all of his customers. I suspect he and the pharmacy guy are in cahoots. He poisons people, the pharmacy guy cures them and they both get rich.

The chef asks Cloud to help fix the problem with his kitchen – but from npcs around it sounds like it's just his cooking that's the issue. It doesn't matter which option you pick, Johnny still gets food poisoning. Even if you max your materia, nothing changes. Cloud doesn't even offer the options, Johnny does the talking.

Once we're done with the killer chef, it's over to the pharmacy guy, who asks Cloud to go and deliver medicine. If you maxed your cleansing materia you get 3 packets of meds. The only one that matters is the guy in the pub bathroom since that moves the side quest along. The others are optional, but increase Cloud's rep about town since he's helping more people.

The pharmacy guy gives Cloud a Honey Bee Inn VIP pass, which is the dressmaker's inspiration. Once that's handed back, Cloud chats to the dressmaker's son, who caps the side quest off with the below screen.

This is a reference to the dream that Cloud had during chapter 8 where his mother mentioned he should have a mature girlfriend. This is the contradicting opinion that balances that. The dressmaker's son saying age doesn't equal maturity is referencing Tifa – since these quests are the ones that get you the matching dress to her canon one. This is the same as the Midgar Blues playing in the pub. These are Tifa centric quests, which is the entire reason Cloud's in Wall Market to begin with.

The last quest is a dynamite body, which comes from Sam. Tifa has a bomb bracelet on her default weapon that is part of a matching pair with her chocobo bracelet. Tifa is represented by “da bomb” and everyone knows Cloud’s a chocobo head. This quest is referencing cloti, and a comment from the announcer using a mixed metaphor mentions putting on shades.

Afterwards Same tries to hand Cloud his cut of the prize money and Cloud says he's there for Tifa, not money. Sam replies that Cloud has changed since his arrival and could likely storm Corneo's place all by himself to save Tifa. He also mentions that Tifa is a bombshell and Cloud goes to confront him by taking a step forward and saying “Hey.” This is Cloud stepping up to people sexually objectifying Tifa.

Once the quests are done, it's back to Corneo's where Cloud considers breaking in – like Sam suggested – but Leslie uses Cloud's feelings for Tifa against him by saying Corneo could hurt her if he does anything he shouldn't. This isn’t the first time Cloud’s emotionally blackmailed in Wall Market.

Cloud backs down, but is now operating under the sense that Corneo is a lot more dangerous than he first thought, and he's sending Aerith in. Aerith. Who's useless in a fight. He's now thinking that he'd have to go in and save them both, which is why he says to Aerith that he's not letting her go alone.

We've now reached the point where Cloud's earlier refusal to do kid related quests gives us the result with Aerith's dress. Her theme has been given a slightly rock vibe, which is SOLDIER Cloud appropriate, and the design is something that she has chosen – this is in line with her OG dress which she chose herself. She also has a large hair bow, similar hairstyle to OG and her flower symbolism throughout – compared to the red dress which has stars that haven't been associated with her at any point. The straps on the pink dress – which is her signature colour – also match the straps on the OG design. Johnny’s around throwing cherry blossom petals, which match several of her abilities and are a reference to Zack. Aerith wore this dress for Zack. This is her Zack date dress. This leads me to believe that this is her canon narrative outfit.

The accompanying blocking to this scene is also more realistic than the other two.

Cloud's reaction to the dress is suitably Cloud. His jaw drops a little and he gets a bit soft voiced when talking to Aerith, though it's a quick moment that ends when he asks why she left Madam M's.

And now we're at the point where Cloud has to impress Andrea Rhodea. As long as you get 112pts in his dance sequence (great = 2, good = 1) then Cloud will wear the earrings with his dress, no matter which one it is.

This is the last choice you have and it's the tie breaker between the two girls if you chose to do all of the side quests for them. By choosing Aerith you get her resolution later in chapter 14, but in the meantime you get a short dialogue and then Tifa wakes up.

If you choose Tifa, this goes towards her resolution in chapter 14, but in the meantime you get a longer dialogue concerning the imminent dangers in sector 7 and also she questions Cloud about his relationship with Aerith. This is referencing all of the strange things about Aerith from her initial touch to Cloud’s wrist letting him see the whispers, to the whispers attacking them later in sector 7, to her not letting him leave sector 5, to her crying and wanting to go with him. Tifa’s question makes Cloud suspicious. It’s not romantically motivated on her part because her focus is on saving sector 7.

Cloud doesn't get a chance to answer, as Aerith wakes up.

Chapter 12

Technically not a choice -- in fact it implies the opposite -- because if you run the timer out in chapter 12 at the top of the pillar nothing happens. This is a message that all previous timed events were optional because that’s what the players wanted. This is saying that no matter if you try to choose to ignore Tifa or Barret or any of the plot, that the game will wait for you to move. There are no consequences to running this timer down because it’s implying that the time for optional choices has passed. Narrative canon only will commence from this point on.

The last optional choice in the game comes a lot later with the stairs and elevator, so anything that Cloud says or does between then is canon. All of the resolutions are canon, but we're only able to view one at a time because of how the game operates. Cloud is the witness to the resolutions because they’re Barret, Tifa’s and Aerith’s resolutions.

Barret's resolution is first because the lighting is much brighter indicating it's earlier in the night.

After that comes Tifa's resolution, which is much later in the night, but well before dawn.

The last resolution is Aerith's and she indicates that it's almost morning at the end of hers.

All resolutions are canon

Aerith's resolution is hinted at by Mirielle during the lost wallet and Kyrie sidequests.

Tifa's resolution is hinted at by Tifa, through Leslie in the chapter 14 intel gathering main quest where you hunt down Don Corneo. Tifa relates Leslie's fiancee's necklace to a symbol of reunion. Since the necklace has a reunion flower on it, that she's seen, and the only time she mentions learning about the meaning of that flower is during her resolution, this is the confirmation of it having happened. Also, the fact that Cloud was about to mention the meaning, then stopped because he thought it might embarrass Tifa – who'd been in a vulnerable state at the time – shows that he was aware of both the meaning and the resolution and Tifa's feelings.

Chapter 16

Last choice in the game and it’s between the stairs and the elevator. And as much as I love the stairs, Mayor Domino tells us later on that the stuff in the elevator is what happened.

Feel bad for Cloud having to confront his claustrophobia with Tifa there. He’s not happy at all by the time they reach the top.

In Conclusion.

Playing as though Cloud were the one making the choices was a lot harder than I thought. I tend to choose things either as he would, or close enough in most cases, but there were some choices that had me stopping to debate which was the right choice. Cloud's character development is a slow process and even though I know he's got a whole kid army in AC, I couldn't resolve that with his current personality, so that led me to avoiding the kid quests. This revealed that Aerith should have worn her pink dress in the narrative and the scene between them when she reveals it feels a very narrative canon type of scene.

Tifa's dress is the same no matter what. I also believe she'd be the narrative choice in the sewers over Aerith because of the content of her dialogue and the fact real!Cloud has a crush on her still. He often checks in with her to make sure she's ok and he has an overriding urge to support and comfort her even when he doesn't know how. The way she lands in the sewers is echoed later in several other falls, but there’s one in the opening of chapter 13 where she’s got her arm under her head. This is because Cloud positioned her that way after she got knocked out. This shows he’d go to her if he saw her hurt.

All of the events, options and side quests culminate in Tifa's resolution being the main narrative option we see, with Aerith and Barret as a second and third option through replay choices, though all three do happen. From Cloud’s pov, though, the important one is Tifa because that’s the person he cares about the most. You only get Barret’s resolution by being a closed off asshole and Aerith’s if you act out of character and more like Zack, which is what Aerith wants. The quest dialogue with Leslie shows the resolutions happened, which makes them narrative canon.

People can disagree with this, but I found the narrative canon a really enjoyable way to play – once I got over messing up in wall market with the dress and had to start again (the choices are hard lol). Seeing events through Cloud's eyes, instead of being like some puppet master telling him what to do so I could get the story I wanted to see, was a really fun way to play. I definitely recommend it!

#final fantasy 7 remake spoilers #the cloud narrative #cloud strife #tifa lockheart #Aerith Gainsborough #choice analysis #long post

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100: 7x07 The Queen’s Gambit

I owe you all the reviews for episodes 7x07, 7x08 and 7x09, the only ones I didn’t have the time to write after the episodes aired. (I only posted My authentic live reactions to 7x07.) Now I’m on my annual leave (since yesterday... well, technically, from tomorrow) so finally I’m gonna post them before the show returns. During this mini hiatus, @jeanie205 and me have been doing a joint rewatch of season 7, and we’ve reached 7x08 (which I’ll be posting a review of tomorrow).

Unpopular opinion - I quite liked this one. Roughly on the same level as the previous two episodes, maybe even slightly more as there was nothing major that really bugged me this time. I like it when the show takes a break from the plot and exposition to focus on characters, and this one had some character moments I really enjoyed (in particular for Emori, Octavia, Diyoza and Hope) and the show addressed some of the long-standing issues I’ve had with some of the previous events (such as Octavia’s beating of Bellamy in season 3 or Madi taking the Flame in season 5). It certainly helps that Emori and Diyoza have always been among my favorite characters and that Octavia has become one of my favorites with her amazing development over the last few seasons. One of those “addressing previous issues” things was the Becho flashback (as the lack of flashbacks for that relationship has been rightfully criticized) was OK and in line with what we know of this relationship. Even Nelson’s characterization made sense this time.

There are a couple of things I’m not sure how I feel about, and the big “reveal” at the end was hardly a reveal to anyone in the hardcore fandom, but was still necessary. The pacing of this season hasn’t been the best for sure, but I think I wouldn’t have had any problems if the momentum from the end of this episode - with Clarke and co. arriving on Bardo and learning about Bellamy’s “death”, followed by Cadogan being woken up from the cryo sleep - and the backdoor pilot was followed by getting directly into present day action and involving Clarke and the rest of the Nakara group in what’s going on. I think it was mostly 7x09 and the completely unnecessary flashbacks that really ruined it and made me lose patience with the season.

I loved the mother/daughter conversation between the two Dizoyas in this episode, which was emotional and also touched on the show’s crucial themes of violence and morality. These two haven’t seen each other in what was just about a month for the mother, but 15 years for the daughter. Diyoza is treating Hope as a child, because that is what she is for her, which frustrates Hope - a dynamic that many will find familiar - though in this case, it’s a bit more understandable as Diyoza hasn’t seen Hope since she was 10, and secondly, she is right that Hope is still naive in some respects as she hasn’t had a chance to meet that many people and experience that much. But that is partly a consequence of Diyoza sheltering Hope from the knowledge about her own life before Skyring. (Hope even threw Dev in her face - explicitly calling him her father - as her other parent figure, one who did teach her to fight and try to prepare her for the real world.) And Diyoza getting upset that Hope came to Bardo to rescue her - as she saw it her role to save her (“I was coming to save you”) was not logical - she knows how time dilation works, so she should know that Hope would have been long dead by that time, if she hadn’t come to Bardo. Hope was right when she pointed out that the real problem is that her mother wanted Hope to be innocent, the way she isn’t, and that she is upset to see that Hope has become a killer, too. Diyoza was driven both to protect Hope in the physical sense and to protect her innocence - and, as she finally admits here, she wanted Hope to see her in a different light than everyone else does. We’ve already seen in season 6 that Diyoza is really unhappy about her legacy and her past and the idea that everyone sees her as a killer and terrorist. I’ve never thought she should have paid much attention to what Russell Lightbourne of all people said her place in “history books” was (which history books? The Sanctum ones? He left Earth shortly after Diyoza was arrested), but it’s clear that the reason she took it so hard is because she herself feels bad about her past actions. She thinks goal was right, but her methods were not - as she ended up killing innocent people. “Doing the right thing the wrong way isn’t doing the right thing”. She is a jaded character who can do violence better than anyone - in a tactical way and only as much as necessary, rather than impulsively or out of bloodlust - and she still does it, but who hates it at the same time, which is why she puts hope (!) in her daughter to be different. When she tells Hope “Violence and rage will destroy your soul, revenge is a game with no winners”, it feels like this is the show working towards its final messages in its final season.

If the prequel gets green lit, I hope we get more Charmaine Diyoza backstory in flashbacks and learn what was going in pre-apocalypse. In season 5, she said she was fighting a fascist government, and in this scene, we got a few more backstory crumbs, such as that everyone she loved died in wars, some of which “did not need to be fought”. I want to know what the Battle of San Francisco was - the one where Diyoza apparently saved people and was considered a hero for - and what later made her rebel against the government. We also get a McCreary mention when Diyoza finally decides it is time to disclose the full ugly truth to Hope - who and what he was and what he did, which the audience already knew, and the new info for us, that the reason why she had sex with him was to get him on her side during the uprising. (Which, I believe, is the first time anyone on the show has admitted that sex may sometimes be motivated by manipulative reasons.)

Octavia comforting Echo is a scene that got a lot of criticism. But I think this is a really good scene for Octavia and her character development. No, Octavia hugging Echo and telling her she is her family isn’t inconsistent with the fact that Octavia has never liked Echo (and was open about it in how she talked to Hope about her) or that these two characters were never anywhere near being friends, even when they stopped being outright enemies. This is simply Octavia letting go off all grudges and seeing herself and Echo as united in grief,, and is accepting Echo as family because she was in her brother’s life. And she is also now able to empathize with people instead of judging them, seeing the echoes of her how she herself felt after Lincoln’s death.

What particularly meant a lot for me is that the show has finally addressed her beating of Bellamy in season 3 and that Octavia expressed regret about it. That’s something I had been waiting for, for 4 years. That controversial scene had become even more upsetting over time because of the amount of fanon built around it in fandom wars. Such as the Bellamy-haters attempt to justify it and claim that he “deserved it” and even attempt to blame him for Lincoln’s death, ignoring the fact that Bellamy had tried ti save Lincoln and turned his back on Pike after Lincoln, Kane and Sinclair were sentenced to death, and offered Octavia his help - but she distrusted him, knocked him out and chained him up in a cave and went to save Lincoln by herself. On the other hand, I’ve now seen people criticize Octavia saying “And he let me” and argue that he was “helpless” as he was chained up - which is again ignoring canon, since Miller and others wanted to interfere and stop the beating, by Bellamy kept telling them to stay away. It’s been argued that Bellamy let her do it because he felt guilty. but while there may have been some of that, I've always thought the main reason because he realized she needed it, she needed to blame someone else and take it out on someone else, and Pike was not around. And more importantly, she needed to blame Bellamy in order not to blame herself for failing to rescue him, in order not to think “If only I had done this differently..”. Bellamy started telling her in 3x13: "I came to you, I offered help. If you had only..." and then he saw her look and stopped himself and left, realizing what he was about to say. Octavia sees his motives the same way, saying he let her because she knew he needed it, but she isn’t using this to justify herself. She can now acknowledge her mistakes and take responsibility, and show compassion for someone in a similar situation. It’s not just about grief and losing a loved one - Octavia is now a different person and does not react to losing Bellamy (as she believes) in the same violent, desperate way. Octavia saw Lincoln as her “home” at the time. Echo saw Bellamy as her leader and made saving him her mission for 5 years, and Octavia realizes she must be blaming herself for failing at it. She tells her "It’s not your fault" because she blamed herself when she did not save Lincoln.

The show has been criticized (with good reason) for developing the Bellamy/Echo relationship off-screen during a time jump, and showing a flashback in season 7 could be seen as the show ticking off another box. But the flashback’s main purpose here is clearly to comment on Echo’s storyline this season - specifically, on the issue of loyalty as her main motive (or her tendency to always look for someone to follow, as she herself has said to herself through her hallucinations). The most important lines in the scene are Bellamy telling her “Loyalty is your weakness” and, after she replies it is not, “It is, when it makes us do things we know are wrong”. To paraphrase Indra from a previous episode - loyalty is not a weakness, blind loyalty is. (I will go with the least cynical of the several interpretations I’ve seen floating around of what Bellamy meant when he followed this with a question “Do you think you can be loyal to us?” I think he thought that, as a “shapeshifter”, as he called her, he and the Spacekru can influence her to accept their values and not be a ruthless killer as she was taught to be by Queen Nia.)

Still, there’s a lot that can be deduced from this scene regarding Bellamy’s mindset on the Ring and the Bellamy/Echo dynamic in general - though it’s more of a confirmation of the things we have noticed before. What strikes me the most about this scene is that it may be the least romantic first kiss scene I’ve seen, at least out of those that resulted in a long-term relationship. It feels more like a recruitment scene - and most of the dialogue is about Echo’s and Bellamy’s relative character strengths and weaknesses, and whether Echo can be a loyal part of Bellamy’s team. Echo does look softer and more vulnerable and insecure than we’re used to seeing her, and very surprised that Bellamy is forgiving her for things she herself was afraid he never would be able to (such as betraying him at MW - which led to his previous girlfriend’s death, or trying to kill his sister), let alone show interest in a relationship with her. But Bellamy is a far cry from the emotional man we see interacting with Clarke, either in seasons 1-4 or in seasons 5-6. He is calm, composed, he wants to move on from the past, and when he kisses Echo, it feels like a moment of decision. The Ring!Bellamy has spent 3 years in peace, without needing to protect anyone - as there are no outside threats. He has mourned Clarke, believing that she died saving them all and he left her behind. He feels that his sister is his “weakness” (”love is weakness” - Echo calls it his strength), but his guiding motivation is still to go back to Earth and reunite with her. It’s not the first time Bellamy has lamented the power that his feelings for his sister have over him - in season 4, he described himself as pathetic as always coming back after she had treated him so badly. (Is this a part of the reason why he’s only ever had romantic and/or sexual relationships with women that he doesn’t have such powerful feelings for - unlike Clarke, who is also his ‘weakness’ and the only person for whom he has feelings strong enough to rival those for his sister?) In season 6, Bellamy will criticize Echo for not being emotionally open as he said she was on the Ring. As we know, she was not fully emotionally open on the Ring, either, as she never told him her backstory (he notes here that she doesn’t like talking about herself), but I can kind of see what he meant - she was a lot softer, and going back to the ground and back into the center of action made her go back into the emotionless soldier mode, which is her default survival mode. And for Bellamy, going to the ground, on the other hand, meant being caught again in a swirl of all the emotions - learning Clarke was alive and reuniting with her, seeing a very changed Octavia, having to fight and kill and do things to protect people again - we saw him change from this laid-back Bellamy in 5x01 and become more emotional, throughout seasons 5 and 6. The Ring, with its 6 years of peace and boredom, was like a vacuum - and Echo saw it as something that was “not real” and their relationship as one that’s specific to the Ring and that wouldn’t survive on the ground. One thing that this flashback revealed is how long they had been dating - it seems that “forgiving” was synonymous with “starting to date” (they really spent no time being friends), which makes it all the more astounding that, after 3 years of dating, Echo had the exact same insecurities in 5x01, believing that their relationship would not survive on the ground. In this scene here, Bellamy wasn’t even trying to reassure her - he instead used a kiss to shut her up and make her ignore those concerns. There is a development in their relationship - as Bellamy here calls Spacekru a team, a unit, and wants Echo to be a part of it, and Bellamy in 5x01, three years later, calls them and Echo his “family”. He certainly started to care about her deeply. But at no point does he mention love, and he certainly doesn’t look like a man in love.

But while it’s clear what the main themes of Echo’s character arc are, I have to say that I have no idea where exactly this arc is going. Will she learn to have some sort of identity outside loyalty to Azgeda or Bellamy or anyone else? Can she stop being a soldier and a killer, or is the point of her arc that some people can never change? Will she ever examine the morality of her actions the way Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia have been doing, and as Diyoza does in this same episode? I can’t say I’m fully sure what the dramatic moment of Echo slashing her face Azgeda-style meant. All I can say is that it seems to point out that 1) she has been shaped as a person by her Azgeda warrior upbringing in her childhood and this is her main identity she will probably never let go off, and 2) the way she said the scars mean the pain has stopped but you will never forget makes me think she has revenge on her mind. But this wouldn’t be very different of what we already saw her do impulsively in 7x05. Everyone expects Echo to be out for revenge against the Disciples - so it might be more interesting if she really decided to fight for them because she needs that in her life.

We also see Gabriel’s recruitment - the episode’s opening scene, with a pretty straightforward combination of both carrot and stick: come join us and explore the universe, something you’ve been obsessed with for over a hundred years, and oh, the alternative is getting executed, and your friends potentially getting executed. Gabriel is driven by both his scientific curiosity and a wish to save Echo/Hope/Octavia. He genuinely wanted to save them, but he also took away their choice and did it against their will and feels bad about betraying them - another one of those tricky situations in the show where someone betrays someone out of the desire to save their life.

As the Disciples are sending Orlando’s body to Nakara, we see Gabriel do his own ritual of saying “Death is life” as he did for Josephine. Conspiracy theorists were very excited about the fact that we don’t see Orlando’s dead body, but I’d say that simply means the show didn’t want to call the actor back and pay him for appearing as a dead body for 2 seconds.

An unexpectedly funny moment was Anders saying, in reference to Orlando’s death: “I think we need to rethink our penal system” (ya think?) - Neal McDonough’s face was just perfect in that moment. And Gabriel is getting back some of his tendency for snarky one-liners that we haven’t seen much since the first half of season 6 (his only question about being a Disciple is “Do I get a robe?” )

I have no idea why the show, in the following episodes. treats the characters’ decisions to join the Disciples as a big mystery that needed flashbacks to be explained. Anders directly threatened Gabriel and Diyoza, Hope, Octavia and Echo thought they would be executed or tortured, until Echo realized they wanted to recruit them (which was becoming obvious from the nice treatment they were getting - Octavia was even allowed to read a book). It’s not like any of them had a choice, and joining the Disciples and pretending to be loyal is the obvious way to go.

Another instance of the show commenting on its previous controversial storyline: when Jackson tells Madi that Bellamy convincing her in S5 to take the Flame was not right even though it was also true that it was the only way to save Clarke. Fans tend to take extreme positions on this one - either it was unambiguously bad or it was the right thing - so I’m glad to see the show admitting the complexity of that situation, and that some things can be both necessary and morally wrong - especially since season 5 seemed to treat Commander!Madi as an unambiguously good thing. Seasons 6 and 7 have since gone a long way to acknowledge that making the Grounder tradition of 12 old Commanders is pretty messed up.

I do wonder though, just like Emori did in this episode, since when is Jackson is shrink. He’s a surgeon, and neither he nor Abby have ever shown much in the way of understanding about mental health issues before.

I’ve always loved Emori - back when she was first introduced, because she was a morally ambiguous but sympathetic antiheroine with a developed backstory and because her relationship with Murphy initially subvert the “redemption for the love of a good woman” trope. Both she and the relationship have since developed and changed a lot. Emori started out cynical, distrustful of people and bent on her own survival, due to having such a tough life since she was a child cast out for the way she was born, but over the seasons, she has found love, a “family”, developed new skills, and learned what it is like to be cared, loved and respected by others - and she has become a much more idealistic character. She’s adapted to the new situation - having to pretend to be a Prime - much better than Murphy. Murphy says (and Sheidheda later echoes that) that it is because she enjoys being worshiped - and I’m sure that’s a part of the reason (and is very understandable - as someone who was thrown away like garbage as a child and an outcast for most of her life, of course she would enjoy adoration, even if it is for directed at someone she is only pretending to be), but she is happily embracing her role mostly because she can use that newfound privilege and power to do something good - and to try to heal an old emotional wound, trying to do reunite the CoG with their parents who rejected them for being nulls. She will never get a chance to learn if her own parents would be able to un-learn their own brainwashing, regret their actions and have an emotional reunion with her - but she clearly wants to believe they would. This episode may be hammering that point a bit too much with having Jackson analyze her actions - when it’s already obvious and she also straight up tells all that to Nelson, making a parallel between his and her fate, the “nulls” and “Frikdreinas”, both rejected as abominations for their DNA, (When Nelson does his angry-stubborn thing and tells her “You know nothing about me”, it reminded me of Emori’s conversation with Clarke in 4x07, when she said “You know nothing of my pain”.) Unfortunately - while Emori tells Murphy: “The way out of hell is paved with good deeds” - what happens ends up being in line with the proverb “The way to hell is paved with good intentions”. We see some of the old, sly Emori when she tricks Nelson into drinking so she could use his DNA to match him with his parents. But her new idealism makes her underestimate just how horrible people can be.

As I said in my immediate reactions, Nelson’s father is the worst. I really don’t want to judge if it is realistic that people can be so horrible and so brainwashed... sadly, it probably is. And to be fair, everyone else at that event seemed to be OK, but it’s enough for one a-hole to ruin everything. In any case, that scene was quite strong and well-acted on the part of Lee Majdoub as Nelson (aka Sachin). Unlike in the last episode, Nelson’s characterization made sense this time. His reasoning does not (and Nikki - who is not an interesting antagonist but whose motivations at least make sense - points out the exact same thing I wondered about 7x06, what kind of justice is he looking for now that all the Primes are gone?), he’s not a very rational character, but you can see where he was coming from emotionally, reacting to what happened.

It was weird, though, that he immediately started talking in the name of all Children of Gabriel and making decisions for them. In season 6, they seemed more like a bunch of people with different ideas who disagreed a lot, but now they seem to be another group that blindly follows a leader.

One thing I enjoyed better the first time were the Murphy and Sheidheda scenes. I really didn’t realize where it was going the first time I watched the episode, but knowing what it’s all about and that Shady is just stalling - it makes sense, but it also makes these scene drag on during a rewatch. Yes, Sheidheda is portrayed as a master manipulator (I think he is the first antagonist in this show who can be said to be one), and he found all the right ways to get to Murphy - calling him out on his desire to be a hero and desire to be loved (both of which Murphy always wants to deny), threatening his “queen” Emori, trying to play on Murphy’s concerns about the fact Emori is more adaptable than him, and, most of all, tricks Murphy into trying to play a mind game with him and prove something, try to outsmart him. But when you already know where it’s all going, it feels like those could have been a bit shorter. Maybe instead we could have had a couple more scenes showing what was up with Octavia, Echo, Hope and Diyoza, so they wouldn’t dedicate an entire episode (7x09) to that. But maybe putting a couple of flashbacks (around 5-10 minutes) at the beginning of 7x09 and then getting on with the present day Bardo action (i.e. whatever is gonna happen in 7x10) would have been an even better solution.

As with “Hesperides”, I’m still not sure why this episode has the title it has and if I’ve been overthinking it. Surely it can’t just be so literal and refer only to Murphy’s move in the chess game between him and Sheidheda? I expected a metaphor about sacrificing a pawn, someone or something of yours that you see as less important, to gain something else, and/or empower your strongest player. I can’t really think of anything in this episode that really fits that. Unless it refers to something else that’s yet to happen this season.

One minor thing that doesn’t make much sense to me was Murphy mentioning Lexa to try to make Sheidheda feel bad, by pointing out her popularity (”everyone loves her”) and his unpopularity. I’m confused by this, because it feels like a big retcon, or a case of the writers starting to confuse Lexa’s popularity in the fandom with her status in-universe. It was a major plot point that everyone was turning against her in season 3 (Nia challenged her and all the other clan leaders sided with Nia and almost voted Lexa down, a Trikru farmer tried to assassinate her, her Flamekeeper was worried that her people would turn against her...) I suppose we’re meant to think her popularity has risen since she died - that seemed to be how it was portrayed in season 4 - but even if that were the case, how much would Murphy know about it? He was only in Polis for a short time in season 3 (pre-ALIE) and mostly interacted with Titus and Ontari, spent season 4 hanging out with Skaikru, was not in the bunker and never got to spend much time with Wonkru. Are we to think that he learned of Lexa’s popularity with Wonkru during these few days on Sanctum in season 7? But as we’ve seen, Sheidheda is not really universally hated among Wonkru and still has stans at least in his own clan, Sangedakru. Sheidheda, on his part, correctly points out that Lexa was killed by a Flamekeeper, just as he was. He says it was because they were afraid of his “ideas” - not explaining what ideas those were, and says Lexa also was... Which also isn’t exactly what happened: Titus was not afraid of Lexa’s ideas, he was afraid she was listening to Clarke and Clarke’s ideas too much.

We get a minor Bardo time jump of 3 months in the middle of the episode. I have no idea at which point in the Sanctum timeline this or that part of the Bardo storyline happened - they are clearly not being shown chronologically, as the Bardo part of the episodes 7x05-7x06 probably lasted for a few (Bardo) hours.

Gabriel is apparently now a Level 3 Disciple and works on the "cipher” team. I guess the Disciples value scientific people more than soldier Disciples, since Echo, Octavia and Diyoza still don’t seem to be even Level 1 based on the lack of symbols on their faces, and Levitt is somehow Level 11. Since they have been working on the codes for thousands of (Bardo) years, I’m surprised that the Disciples haven’t managed to do more. According to another team member, the last big discovery was before he was born and it was a 10 digit code that allows them to “harness the power of what you call the Anomaly.

We get new info in this episode as the final code they are looking for is supposed to help them achieve “transcendence” aka “the final evolution of the species” (which they believe the beings who made the Anomaly Stones had done) and help them win the “last war”, and I assume that the transcendence has something to do with the white light that was seen when Becca typed the 7 symbol combination she only managed to find because she had the Flame in her head, and whatever she saw on the other side - which must be something different from the regular green light that appears when a bridge to another planet is opened. Cadogan’s questions to Anders after waking up were: "Have we cracked the code? Has the war begun?" It's a bit frustrating that the show keep withholding the info - what is the last war, who is it fought against? Is it even a physical war? I guess it must be at least partially, as they train and they want to recruit people like Echo, Octavia, Diyoza. But is that all?

Such a funny contrast between the star-struck, adoring Anders and an almost bored Cadogan, who first asks, after seeing who woke him up: “You again?” Having seen 7x08, I wonder if maybe Cadogan is not impressed by people who worship him without question and try to please him -as his son did (as opposed to his daughter). Anders keep calling him the “Shepherd” and Cadogan says his trademark line “Call me Bill”. He must have told him that before, if Anders had already woken him up before. Or he just doesn’t like to be woken up more often than once in a few decades or a century, since he says he was woken up “this early”.

I really like the way Clarke’s reaction to hearing about Bellamy’s “death” was portrayed. There was some debate about the fact that Lindsey Morgan, the director of the episode, first wanted to have Clarke fall to her knees, and that Jason overruled her - and I have to say I agree with him. Focusing on Clarke’s face and seeing the shock and gradual realization on her face felt a lot less melodramatic and a lot more real.

A couple of interesting things I’ve noticed: Cadogan has a picture of pre-apocalypse “Polis” (Baltimore?) on Level 13 where his cryo is.

I was first under the impression that Madi’s drawing we see in this episode showed Becca going into the Anomaly, then when I saw it showed multiple people, that it was the Second Dawn members leaving Earth. But after rewatching Anaconda, I think this is the scene when Becca activated the Stone and everyone (Becca, Bill, Grace, Callie and Reese) stood there around it, talking about it. So, probably another one of Becca’s memories.

Rating: 7.5/10

#the 100 #the 100 7x07 #the queen's gambit #the 100 season 7 #emori #octavia blake #charmaine diyoza #hope diyoza #john murphy #clarke griffin #madi griffin #bill cadogan #gabriel santiago

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nbapprentice · 6 years

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there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

#the arcana #the arcana game #julian devorak #count lucio #asra #HAHA HOO BOY

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writingonjorvik · 5 years

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If I Could Ask the Devs 10 Questions: A WOJ Interview

I think if you’ve known me for a while, you probably know I would jump at the idea of getting to interview the SSO devs, particularly because they tend to have internalized or cherry picked interviews that only focus on what they want to tell us, and not on the questions the players tend to have about the game. So if I could have an interview with the devs, these are the 10 questions I would ask.

Sidenote: I have 10 core topic questions with some brief follow-up questions for clarity. If you counted, yes, there would be more than ten, but there are ten core areas.

What kind of updates can we expect for this year; in terms of new areas, horses, features, etc.?

When can we expect the return of bigger area expansions with full side quests prepared for them and secrets like in the Harvest Counties and Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur launches?

Speaking of updates, about 80% of SSO community wants to see the older Gen 1 & Gen 1.5 models updated across the board like with the update to Gen 1.5. Considering that this is a super majority, and these horses are paid for content, what does SSO intend to do to meet this request from its player base?

Again, since this content is already been paid for, would an “upgrade” feature for purchased old models require additional payment, making player pay to make already purchased content playable again?

If opposed to updating earlier gen models, why does SSO ignore something a super majority of their players want that seems it would also benefit the devs work load?

How does SSO plan to counter price bloat, like what’s happened on the upgraded pets?

Expected counterpoint: SSO has said that the walking pets are more expensive because of “all the hard work that went into them.” This is both a sunken cost and false equivalence fallacy. It’s the developers’ job to continue to make SSO better, and make better content for the game. That should not result in bloated prices for players, but rather more product that they can spend their money on. Saying that “all that hard work” just went into making expensive content diminishes the rest of the work made on the game and it trivializes the job the devs are supposed to be doing. It’s your job to make content for the game. We should not have to pay extra for something we already paid for, and certainly not at a bloat of 4-5x the initial cost for a few bonus animations.

On the note of purchased content, over 70% of SSO’s player base thinks that the game is overpriced, but 90%, regardless of their opinions on fairness, say they would buy more often if the prices were lowered. Is there any intention to lower the prices around SSO to make it more accessible?

Is there any intention is making supplementary content, like more unique items in the merch store that aren’t simply designs with your logo on them?

Would SSO be able to release the comic in English any time soon?

Are there any plans to rerelease the Starshine Legacy games on Steam or the teams merch store?

SSO prides itself for being a narrative oriented story. Are there any plans to establish an official writing team on SSO?

What about a canon wiki about the series?

One of the things the devs have stated about the genderlock on SSO is that it’s to create a space for women in gaming. Does SSO donate to any charities that support girls to play video games like Child’s Play, Code Liberation, or Games For Change, or charities that help women in general like National Women’s Law Center, Dress For Success Worldwide, Girls Not Brides, or Futures Without Violence?

What actions outside of having female leads and job equality is SSO pursuing to promote gender equality?

Can we expect the ability to get magic powers that we can use outside of cutscenes?

Would this involve the “power-up” system the devs have discussed before?

What kind of new customization can we expect in the future of the game?

Would this include the return of the housing function?

Will this provide more options for other gender presenting players besides femme?

Would SSO consider letting the player input their own pronouns into the game without changing the story in any other way?

Would SSO ever consider switching to an expansion based system over the weekly release schedule?

If not, why is the weekly release better for the game than having larger, less frequent updates?

If they would, what would this mean for daily content, in terms of daily quests and achievements, as well as the payment system for an expansion?

Would SSO ever bring back more fan generated content, like the T-Shirt contest?

With SSO branching out to more unique types of story telling, would SSO hold contests for writing companion short stories or producing audio stories like Texas Bluebells?

Will SSO release a public list of community guidelines, so both players and moderators know what is correct behavior, and so also ensure that moderators are upholding SSO’s rules and not personal ones?

What about an internal reporting system to simplify reporting?

Question I Think Would Be Asked Of Me

1. Why are you so critical of the game?

Ok. Here’s the essay.

I suppose it would be easy to say that it’s out of spite. And there’s probably some of that in there. Some innate bitterness over the fact that the PR team, for a period, actively deleted anything critical, regardless of content. The fact that they outright lied about empirical data the players were giving the devs (see the AQH release). Sure, there’s the fact that I’ve seen and had SSO’s dev team do a 180 on me from offering me a space on the mod team for trying to promote a better community to having their devs and outreach insult and demean me on the basis of my comments being “critical.”

And it does drive me a little nutty to see the devs so successfully have turned their player base on anyone who might critique the game. To see my hard work trying to get players to be decent people in the game turned on its head when I say one word crosswise about something that might make the game better. And I’ve be wrong to say I don’t get frustrated when I talk about changes SSO could apply with after being a gamer for way longer than most of the people debating me, with enough research done on my own to be the basis for a master’s thesis, only to be told by someone who SSO is their first video game telling me how the industry works. But that’s really not it.

So, here it is:

Star Stable is one of the only non-combat MMOs in the world.

Let me repeat that; Star Stable is one of the only non-combat MMOs in the world. And I imagine that invokes a sense of pride, like you’ve hit some kind of niche. But that’s not a truth because of some lucky chance.

Non-combat MMOs survive on small niche markets, before consistently dying off because of failure to expand beyond their initial targets. And it’s not for lack of trying. People love non-combat games; Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Nintendogs, Roller Coaster and Zoo Tycoon, the Myst series, so on. But when those games refuse to look passed their niche, to expand and improve, they have historically failed as MMOs because one niche cannot fund an MMO.

And where SSO has survived on the niche market of “horse girl fantasy,” it is most certainly not expanding. SSO talks about its overall player count being in the millions, but ignores that fact that for every unique player there are five duplicate accounts, which is a metric that continues to bloat. That out of 12 million players, only 3% of those players are regularly active, compared to most MMOs which will hit 15-25% of their player base regularly between expansions. And no matter how you swing those numbers, no matter how much more you bloat the prices, that is not a long term lifespan. You can’t survive on that niche.

I genuinely believe SSO could help influence the industry. And I don’t mean that in a “if you follow all my ideas, everything will end up perfectly.” I’m not always right, and I’m willing to admit that. But the fact that SSO has been so resistant to any criticism results in a mob mentality with its core player base and it ostracizes anyone who can’t put up with that attitude any longer. Not only does it put the developers into an echo chamber where they can’t improve, it continues to push away the people who care enough to sit down and explain why they’re frustrated. You tighten that niche. You limit your market. You run out of resources.

And I do think SSO has already made leaps ahead for parts of the industry. The number of people who say SSO was their first MMO, their first game, is amazing. It’s great to see a game helping young people get into gaming, particularly girls who, when I was their age, were bullied for even liking video games. So for SSO to make that platform is amazing. But they cannot abuse that by taking advantage of new gamers who don’t know any better about how games are made or sold. I feel, and I feel this of every company, not just SSO, that there is a moral obligation to do right by people, and not to take advantage of their ignorance. And with such a powerful platform to invite young people into this sphere, into making new games and telling new stories, it is imperative that SSO does right by people.

I’m hard on SSO because I care, immensely. You could say I have a fixation on the game, really. I am invested in the survival of this game. But you can’t survive without getting better. Not to mention, the criticism SSO gets is free! From thousands of people. When I edited my book, I paid over $2,000 for my two editors I worked with, and that’s not even getting into beta readers and reviewers. I would love to be able to get feedback for free like SSO does. Because it’s an opportunity to improve because we are never going to be perfect. And if SSO wants to survive the trends surrounding their genre, then they can leave no room for quarter to people like me. Not out of oppression of people’s voices, but by listening and making a better game.

Thanks for your time.

#woj analysis #star stable #starstable #star stable online #starstableonline

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sonicranticoot · 5 years

Text

About CTR, Money, and Both Together

Yeah I know I took a break. Regular types of posts to resume shortly. I haven’t actually ranted in a very long time (”Why does he have rant in his name, and never actually rants?”) but today’s...uh, news about CTR is such a hot topic in the Crash community I want to talk about it.

That being yeah. Microtransactions. How quaint. It’s 2019 and Crash Bandicoot has microtransactions. Absolutely beautiful. Mostly being that, a lot of you already know this but I’m making it even more blatantly clear. They’re not ok, but it goes a bit deeper than “not ok.”

One of my main reasons for being annoyed with them is that simply put, they hurt my trust in the game. Pre-launch, it was confirmed in several interviews there would be no in-game purchases or any of the sort and all content would be available in the game itself. Now it’s always possible Beenox really did mean they didn’t want to put them in and never did and they were forced upon by Activision. Although wouldn’t be the first time it has happened in the industry (as one example, Square Enix similarly forced them into Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at the last minute). publishers being willing to blatantly break promises made by the developers still paints a pretty bad message. Regardless of how it happened, it gives me reason to put less trust into Beenox.

It’s also a bit of a skewed priority here in my opinion that microtransactions are more or less taking priority in development. Of course we don’t know everything about what will be done in the patch that adds the content from the new Grand Prix but no patch notes like the last GP is kind of concerning. There are a lot of things aside from the Wumpa Coin system that are serious issues with the game, like no host migration making it very hard to actually find games at times, long wait times between online matches, invisible items, invisible walls, lack of online options, etc.

I mention online because online is obviously a part of the game Beenox and Activision are encouraging people to play a lot - not just with coins but also the increased Nitro payouts and the incentive of the championship leaderboard that gets you a kart/decal (the latter even for who got the kart in an earlier GP, giving them incentive to make the top 5% again). But simply put, it’s barebones, has difficulty functioning well, and the fact the game uses peer-to-peer instead of its own servers is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

I mentioned coins before, and I know I’m not alone in expressing this fear, but with the already mangled coin handling last GP’s patch (honestly exaggerated, it’s better in some places, worse in others, it has actually encouraged me to vote for different tracks online than pre-patch but that’s just me), and the inclusion of microtransactions and them being explicitly said to help fast track coin collection, there’s...reason to believe that coin payouts are going to suck more than ever. Or they might jack up the prices to get people to grind even more, sucking out lives of people with limited time to play the game, or take the “easy way out” and get them to buy coins. Of course you also have to take into consideration that CTR is a kid friendly game that has this stuff. FIFA, rated E for Everyone, in recent years has cost parents literal thousands of dollars out of their bank accounts. Now I am unsure if CTR would ever get that bad since to my understanding FIFA has gambling and lootboxes which CTR currently lacks, but the real fear of a kid not versed in money spending too much on coins is a real thing. Or, people just wanting to catch up real quick, and with no self control, plunging into buy out the store.

Then there’s how the store actually works at the moment with its daily deals stuff that can, to a new player, actually make their cash-earned coins into either a test of luck by buying repeatedly, or just waiting forever. There’s a million ways that microtransactions can ruin people’s experiences with a game I don’t know where to begin.

I’ve heard all the excuses. “It’s all cosmetics.” “It’s optional.” “People need to watch their money.” “It funds the rest of the game!” Well some people would say, those are all pretty valid reasons at first glance, I refute:

Yes. They are cosmetics. That’s always how it starts. What if that’s a skin everyone loves? What if you’re the one person who doesn’t have it? What if that becomes a problem?

Yes. It is optional. Honestly I do think it’s the best argument, because you can do what I intend on doing: not buying into them. Sometimes, though, it’s not that simple; sometimes things feel so excessive they begin to not feel optional.

Sometimes, simply put, it’s not that simple. Today it’s easier than ever for a kid to randomly jack daddy’s credit card. Some people have genuine problems with money and have no control over how they spend it. It’s not that easy for some people. Maybe it is for you. It is for me. But it isn’t for everyone.

You know what else funds development? Game sales. You already paid $40 up front (or $60 if you wanted Robot Crunch that bad, I didn’t) and I don’t think you should be expected to pay more just to ease out of a slog that, depending on purchase date, can take months. Activision (or EA or Ubisoft or 2K or Square Enix or Warner Bros.) isn’t exactly light on money anyway.

Back to the grind for a little bit. Yes. Coin rates for offline players suck. Online sometimes gives you good coins and only does so when it wants to work in the first place. I, however, have a different take on the grind. The grind only becomes a grind if you make it into a grind. If you’re having fun playing the game, honestly? That’s what any good game does, it makes you play the game because you like playing the game. A lot of games have things that take forever to do, but are praised in spite of that because of things like strong game mechanics. CTR has amassed a dedicated community in spite of its well-documented issues because, simply put, this game is great. I’ve put god knows how many hours into it, admittedly sometimes as an active grind (I hate those battle mode challenges for the Grand Prix), but much of the time, it’s because I love playing a great racing game in my favorite gaming series.

Of course, that’s just me. Not everyone thinks a game is just a game, and sometimes the game itself these days gives off that message. Games you buy from a brick and mortar store operated completely differently before mobile phone games got big. Once those did, and devs started putting things into them, it just hasn’t been the same for a lot of people. Today, you have to log in to an account to play Doom, a game released 26 years ago, not on phones but after you pay for it with your own money on consoles current as of 2019. Mobile games and free to play games always operated differently from console games because that’s their whole thing, they generally aren’t console experiences and vice versa.

In summary:

If you love CTR, keep playing it, because without microtransactions, you have a game with a lot of good content and amazing gameplay.

However, actual issues with the game should be prioritized over trying to nickel and dime people, and with any game - not just this one - this message NEEDS to be loud and clear.

It is important for developers and publishers to see on the same terms, so they same message is given to consumers.

You don’t fucking put mobile game mechanics into video games that existed 10 years before Angry Birds and expect people to not talk about them.

Monetization is bad in so many ways it can hurt people and imply things about everything about the game in all kinds of ways. No ifs or buts about it.

Have a good night.

#crash team racing nitro fueled #crash bandicoot #microtransactions #rant

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

THE COURAGE OF OFFICE

Corp dev people's whole job is to push you down it. Even corp dev people had pulled on a YC startup.1 It's not just that I miss her but that I think of all the things we build are so complicated, there's another set of techniques for doing that.2 There were no fixed office hours. Universities have both, and that's why so many startups grow out of them. It comes right out of stock that could otherwise be given to them. 7% of the company they take is artificially low.3

The problem with the facetime model is not just that it's demoralizing, but that the people pretending to work interrupt the ones actually working.4 Arguing online is only incidentally addictive. Within the office you now have to walk on eggshells lest anyone say or do something that makes the company prey to a lawsuit.5 It's ok to do a little consulting-type work at first. Those are pretty expensive. In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good. What keeps people from starting startups is the risk.6 If you're talking to someone from corp dev, is the group within companies that buys other companies. This was Henry Ford's plan.

Imagine what it would do to you if at mile 20 of a marathon, someone ran up beside you and said You must feel really tired. So while on average public acquirers behave like pooled-risk company management companies existed, signing up with one would seem the ideal plan for most people following the route David advocated. And being a boss is also horribly frustrating; half the time it's easier just to do stuff yourself than to get someone else to do it.7 Everyone knows computer science and electrical engineering are related, but precisely because everyone knows it, importing ideas from one to the other doesn't yield great profits.8 Each year. And since I made much more money from it, it wouldn't be read by anyone for months, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old copy editor. I never became a drunkard?9 The same mix of denial and wishful thinking that underlies most mistakes founders make.10 What if both are true? Founders would start to move there without being paid, because that was where the deals were. Just don't wait.11 And that being so, revenues would continue to flow in, so you'd have security as well.12

What happened to Don't be Evil? But there are also three less obvious advantages of ramen profitability is not the word. For the average startup, that would be a well-paying but boring job at a big company: the pay's low but you spend most of your time working on new stuff. And this is not an ordinary economic relationship than companies being sued for firing people. When you assemble ideas at random and see what you came up with. And certainly the founders of Big Company won't be offended. You should at least see what it is, right? 2 that the standard office environment is very unproductive, and 3 that bottom-up often works better than top-down.

Notes

There are successful women who don't like. On the other hand, he was skeptical about things you like a body cavity search by someone else to lend to, so it may not be led by a factor of 20. No, but in fact I read comments on really bad sites I can imagine what it would be. Yahoo was their customer.

Y Combinator is a great idea that evolves into Facebook is a bit dishonest, incidentally, that is worth more, the transistor it is possible to make money for depends on a form you forgot to fill out can be done, at which point it suddenly stops. To get all the poorer countries. A doctor, P.

Believe it or not, greater accessibility. So if it's not as a whole is becoming more fragmented, and it has to work with founders create a silicon valley.

That's why Kazaa took the place of Napster. They assumed that their explicit goal at Y Combinator to increase it, by Courant and Robbins; Geometry and the opinion of the most abstract ideas, because the rich. In principle you might be an instance of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. Life seemed so much on luck.

Obviously this is so valuable that visitors should gladly register to try your site. I'd encourage anyone starting a startup to succeed in a way that makes you much more fun in college is much smaller commitment than a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and yet managed to screw up twice at the final version that afternoon. Something similar happens with suburbs.

We try to establish a silicon valley in Israel.

But let someone else created earlier.

Eric Raymond says the best are Goodwin Procter, Wilmer Hale, and there are before the name Homer, to buy it despite having no evidence it's for sale. Imagine the reaction might be enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the beginning even they don't yet have any of his first acts as president, he found himself concealing from his predecessors was a false positive rates are untrustworthy, as reported in their experiences came not with the other by adjusting the boundaries of what they are so dull and artificial that by the government. His theory was that there could be done, at one remove from the revenue-collecting half of the more thoughtful people start to finance themselves with retained earnings till the 1920s to financing growth with the same thing 2300 years later. There is no external source they can get it, and since you can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising.

No. Whereas many of the tube.

The best technique I've found for dealing with YC companies that get funded this way, be forthright with investors. I made because the money was the ads they show first. In the thirties his support of the court. I'd encourage anyone starting a company grew at 1.

Looking at the network level, and when I said by definition this will help you along by promising to invest, it might help to be on fewer boards at once, and in some cases the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for discouraging stupid comments instead. We walked with him for a future in which YC can help, either, that all metaphysics between Aristotle and 1783 had been bred to look appealing in stores, but corrupt practices in finance, healthcare, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this process but that's not art because it made a lot of time.

Simpler just to load a problem that they got to targeting when I said that a company they'd pay a premium for you. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than their competitors, who had small children, we're going to do as some European countries have done well if they'd like it that the VC declines to participate in the sense that if a company.

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tearasshouse · 3 years

Text

Mostly vidya ramblings pt 3C

Previous post here.

Right, software time. A cursory glance at my PSN Profile will show that I’ve met my personal quota of getting the platinum in at least 10 PlayStation titles over the year, with a few PC titles sprinkled in for good measure since hey, I have access to a Windows machine again (though it’s not exactly a games machine, unless your definition of a “gaming rig” is something with a 15W Core i3 and modest laptop Radeon graphics). While I didn’t start out meaning to rank these games, I find I have a tendency to do so anyway and while I’m certainly not saying these games are outright bad, they were absolutely lower on the rung, so I’ve dubbed this part “C” (again, no disrespect to the devs or any who rate these games higher than I do; these are just my personal assessments). These are OK games.

The Darkness 2 (Steam)

Enjoyable, somewhat! I put this down like, ages ago when I picked it up for a song on PC, feeling it was too basic and uh “console shootery” at the time. Often times, having restrictions placed upon something can net great results, and hamstrung as I am by my less-capable hardware, I’ve only been picking up Steam games that could run on lower end hardware, or anything released prior to say, 2015. Surprisingly this runs at something stupid like 200 FPS on my machine with V-Sync off and all settings on High at 1080p, so go figure. Anyway, it’s a short and enjoyable shooter. I don’t know anything about the comics upon which the game(s) are based, but Jackie is a likeable character, the Darkness powers are fun enough, the locations are varied, the supporting cast surprisingly interesting and the plot was actually pretty cool too, with a major sequel hook that we’ll probably never get.

Ori & The Blind Forest (Steam)

It sorta hovers a bit below 60fps while running at 1080p, but it’s all just a bit reductive when one spends more time looking at the framerate counter than playing a game, no? The blessing and curse of PC gaming I suppose. Anyway, as a Metroidvania the game is a bit annoying. As a piece of interactive fiction, it’s too saccharine and feels like a B-tier Dreamworks production for children which, I suppose shouldn’t be a knock against the game but I have to say -- wasn’t my cup of tea. Reminds me a bit of Child of Light by Ubisoft -- gorgeous to look at, benign if not frustrating to play (those escape sequences can piss off), and young gamers would probably find more to like in the...emotional tidbits than most adults.

Crysis 2 (Steam)

So apparently this got delisted off Steam but now it’s back up or something with EA deciding to put their back catalog on the platform or something? Anyway, like this list implies, Crysis 2 is an okay game, nothing more and nothing less. The nanosuit energy depletes a bit too quick for my liking, and you’re really made to feel like a badass only some of the times, in quick and short bursts, not unlike BJ in the new Wolfenstein games by MachineGames (any more prolonged exposure to hitscan weapons and other bullshit will quickly send you to the loading screen). Thing is, I don’t want to feel like a badass only some of the time? I mean, you put a ripped supersoldier type doing the Badass Looking Back At the Viewer Pose on the cover and I expect to be able to do certain things without stopping for a breather every 20 seconds, ya know? If you’re going to give me the power fantasy, commit to it. Or, find ways to keep the flow up and reward mastery to make players earn said fantasy (something the new DOOMs have done and why those have been so successful). I certainly don’t envy game devs for having to balance this shit, but id Software showed you one way of how you might do that while the Crysis games and those of their ilk just feel slow and unrewarding.

Quantum Break (Steam)

Really surprised I was able to get this running on my PC but hey, it runs on the Xbox One so how hard could it be? I dearly love Remedy’s games, even if they’re a bit straightforward at times and you get the feeling they’d rather be in the business of non-interactive fiction than games making at times. Well here is a TV show hybrid! Made exclusively in partnership with Microsoft as part of their TV & STREAMING, TV & STREAMING, SPORTS & STREAMING strategy of the 2010s. I didn’t care for the plot, nor the endless email / audiobook / loredumps scattered around, nor the characters, any of it. I will say the final stage with the super high tech offices was a delight (boy wouldn’t I love to live the corpo life in such beautiful, clean office environs). Lance Reddick was a treat as always. Peter “Littlefinger” Baelish shows up to do a thing. Yeah, it’s a Remedy joint through and through. 2019′s Control was such a highlight for me that I’ll take any kind of prototype-y take on it (and QB certainly feels like a rougher, worse version of Control, at least mechanically).

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs / Dear Esther: Landmark Edition (Steam)

These titles were certainly...things that I installed onto my PC and sat through... Yes. Look, I’m not one to dog on walking simulators, and I know the devs have faced tough times recently but I still feel these are acquired tastes and could be appreciably improved in too many ways to name. Of the two, Dear Esther is the one I’d rec because at least that one was quite pleasant to meander around in while Amnesia left me disappointed that I’d wasted my time, physically sick with its subpar performance and muddy graphics, flaccid with its stodgy plot and left absolutely disappointed that I’d wasted my time on such a bizarre and confusing payoff towards the end. Chinese Room, I mean this in the most constructive way possible: maybe try a different type of game next time.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (GOG)

I remember putting in some decent time into the DEMO version of RtCW’s MP mode, being amazed at the time by the particle effects, with child-me just running around the D-Day map with the flamethrower out. Anyway, years later and I finally played the SP campaign. It’s maybe better than Allied Assault’s? It feels more consistently entertaining anyway. Hell I think I like these boomer shooters better than MachineGames’ recent efforts (which isn’t saying a whole lot because I find those games just merely okay). I promise you I’m not just being a crotchety old fart.

Ys: Memories of Celceta (PS Vita)

I’d been playing through this over the spring on my Vita TV, before it bit the dust eventually and I’ve been meaning to go back and wrap up the cheevos. I was a bit lukewarm with Oath in Felghana (my first Ys), but could definitely see the appeal in the series, as boss rush games aren’t really my cup of tea (ie. it’s the journey and not the destination of say, a Souls game that is the meat for me). Definitely a game that would benefit from a 60fps refresh and cleaner graphics than what the Vita can provide. I’ve already got a copy of Ys 8 in shrink wrap and have my eyes set on emulating Ys Seven or grabbing the GOG version. A game where action is king and story or character development is secondary; I would prefer more of the latter to make this more of a JRPG and less of a “predominantly Japanese action game with superficial RPG elements”.

Catherine: Full Body (PS4)

I paid $70 for this on day one and I’ve gotta say... should’ve waited for the price drop. I’m a somewhat lapsed Atlus mark, and I still hold the original Persona 5 as my no. 1 in the PS4′s lineup (with Dragon Quest XI possibly being a tie), yet I bought this knowing it wouldn’t really be for me. Why? High difficulty in a genre I don’t play, like at all, a relatively short clear time (in itself not an issue and frankly welcome these days HOWEVER...), and a somewhat unsatisfying payoff despite being a supernatural romance thriller. I bought this as seed money for Atlus’s P.Studio/Studio Zero, in the hopes that Project Re: Fantasy will knock my socks off just like the latter day Persona games have. Because in spite of the contents not really appealing to me, it’s still supremely well made, and it’s not everyday that games like these get made, so there you go. Look, if I could go back in time and put this money towards 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, I probably would, but then the Catherine steelbook is ever so pretty...

Tearaway Unfolded (PS4)

The OG game is one of the most charming little 3D platformer/collect-a-thons out there, and as far as children’s games (or er, “games that also appeal to children”) go, more of these and less of those please (your Child of Lights and Oris). I’d go as far as to say the OG version is better than the PS4 version, though the PS4 version is also quite good. Really, if I wasn’t going for that stupid Misplaced Gopher trophy, this would probably be an easy shoe-in for the B-tier list, but I place this demotion firmly at Media.Molecule’s feet. That cheevo is cursed.

The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories (PS4)

I’d almost forgotten about this! If that doesn’t qualify for making the C-tier list then I don’t know what else does. I only know of Swery65′s qualities through osmosis, having watched the 2BF’s legendary LP of Deadly Premonition and the gone-too-soon D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die. He’s an interesting person with interesting ideas but crucially, as a game dev, his output is just... kinda mediocre? If not outright bad? Case in point with this game. It looks and runs like garbo; it plays like garbo; the character designs are cute; the dialogue is pretty good; there is a wonderful and gradual “twist” to the main character that was super spoiled for me when people were discussing and promoting it (like, that is my bad, but also internet discourse on any kind of entertainment media is just *fucked*); there’s a lot of semi-colons in this sentence so I’ll stop here.

And the balls to charge like, what, $40+ for the game on PSN?? I’d gotten it for way less on a sale but in a day and age when $1 could buy you 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and MS might also throw in a curio like this in there just to fill in the gaps, it makes you wonder if these kinds of games can ever turn a profit, especially when the end product is this jank. And these are commercial goods, make no mistake, any aspirations to being an art piece or social critique notwithstanding, so that also brings to the fore the whole aspect of pricing games, relative value, production and marketing costs, blah blah.

IF you like something different, can appreciate games made on a shoestring budget with arguably bad gameplay and technical deficiencies, but has...heart? Then look no further to the output of this man. The most C-worthy of all the titles listed here.

#vidya #gaming #tech #tl;dr #long post #games #videogames #2020 in review

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evanvanness · 4 years

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Annotated edition for the May 31, 2020, Week in Ethereum News

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

I think the Societe Generale bond issuance paying Banque de France with a CBDC digital euro hadn’t been hyped at all, hence why it led the list. In fact, I don’t think anyone had noticed the press release until Julien Bouteloup tweeted it a week after it had gone out.

Given France’s history protecting domestic industry, you would expect Tezos to be getting these projects due its (probably inaccurate) reputation as being a French project. And I bet Tezos will get some involvement in the future from the French government linked projects, but it’s still notable that these things are still on Ethereum when Tezos has been live for nearly 2 years (though with very little use).

Meanwhile, alongside yesterday’s announcements of Starkware and OMG, Vitalik tweeted that “initial deployment of ethereum's layer 2 scaling strategy has *basically* succeeded.” That’s not wrong, but it’s prone to misinterpretation.

The history of layer2 in blockchain is not a particularly successful one. I’d argue that the question isn’t whether it works, per se, but can it work in a way that gets users over the long haul. Sure, we’re starting to see that (loopring is live with a million trades on its rollup!) - and we appear to be on the verge of real apps running on layer2 - but there’s a long history in Bitcoin and Ethereum of unrealistic expectations for layer2.

Here’s the high-level things for Eth holders reads:

8 things you should consider before staking

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Lots of folks are considering whether to stake, how much to stake, whether to use a staking service, etc etc. Cayman’s post was a pretty good primer on these questions. Eth2 staking will lock your ETH up for awhile. The return is likely to be quite good, though as more people lock up ETH, the return declines. So it’s hard to say exactly what the return will be - and you won’t be liquid for a long while.

Eth2′s beacon chain is designed for decentralization, with penalties for being offline or doing something wrong (eg, double signing) going up exponentially if they are part of an attack (”correlated”).

That is to say, you should be totally fine staking at home even with mediocre residential connection - going offline usually just means you miss rewards. And even if you go offline when AWS goes down, as long as you bring your connection back up quickly, you should be relatively ok.

Staking services should professionalize the staking in ways that ameliorate some risks but which might provide hidden risk if they don’t make sure to think about the risks. Do they do their staking in the cloud, especially something like AWS east? Do they spread across different clients? How much of a honey pot are they?

Meanwhile, Devcon will be in Colombia but postponed until next year.

Finally, of my 3 high level articles to read: liquidity mining. DeFi apps like Balancer and Compound are decentralizing themselves by giving tokens to their users, to bootstrap the things the network needs to be example. By no means are these the first examples of giving away tokens to users, but these are 2 notable examples of a trend to keep an eye on.

Now for the annotations. A few sections I don’t have anything to add:

Eth1

Latest core devs call, discussion of EIPs for inclusion in Berlin hard fork, whether or not to include 2046 (static call to precompile gas reduction) and 2565 (modexp reprice). Working toward an ephemeral testnet for Berlin.

Latest fee market change (1559) call. Notes from the EIP1559 call

Discussion thread on meta transactions, oil, opcode repricing

Snap sync mainnet benchmarking, single peer on AWS

I basically say the same thing in this section every week. People are implementing the EIPs and figuring out which ones will be ready to go for Berlin. EIP1559 will not be ready until the hard fork after Berlin. Then in the longer-term, there’s lots of work on Stateless Ethereum (or the non-preferred nomenclature: 1.x 🤮) and that’s in discussion.

And then Peter is working on a new sync (formerly known as leaf sync) which seems to cut bandwidth way way down.

Eth2

Latest what’s new in eth2, features a Schlesi testnet postmortem

The new multi-client testnet is Witti. Here’s a guide to staking

Latest eth2 implementer call. Notes from Ben and Mamy

Cross-shard transaction simulation

8 things you should consider before staking

RocketPool is going to wrap the ETH locked up in Eth2 staking, thus giving liquidity to eth2 stakers

New multi-client testnet. They’re basically going to spin them up, try to break them, and not worry about rescuing them if they go down, since you can spin a new one up. This one is called Witti.

RocketPool deciding to tokenize the 32staked eth is interesting. It’s basically inevitable - anything that can get wrapped, eventually will get wrapped. This may end up being the decentralized way to get liquidity for your staked ETH if plans change and you decide you need liquidity for your 32 staked ETH. There will almost certainly be centralized ways - exchanges eventually offer staking and let you trade IOUs. Of course, that depends on how much you trust the exchange.

Layer2

Raiden v1 is live on mainnet for DAI and WETH, with some token limits

Deconstructing a state channel app and how a dev interacts with a state channel wallet

A zk-rollups to scale blockchain explainer

Understanding optimistic rollups by building one

Dharma and Interstate open source their Tiramisu optimistic rollup for token transfers

Raiden shipped with the training wheels on!

Not much else to say around layer2 besides what I said above. Gotta get users.

This newsletter is made possible by Chainlink!

Connect your smart contract to decentralized oracles that provide the most tamper-proof and accurate market price data, as well as on-chain verifiable randomness that’s provably fair.

Stuff for developers

Array slices in Solidity v0.6

Truffle v5.1.27 – debugger support for Solidity inline assembly

Upgradeable contracts using diamond standard

web3j now includes abi v2

Typescript types for Solidity AST

i18n translation strings for Defi, available as npm package

Build your first Harberger tax app tutorial

eth95: retro UI for calling contract functions

secp256k1 twist attacks

BLS12-381 pairing-friendly curve in JavaScript, now with hash-to-curve v7 and 50 pairings/sec

Ecosystem

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

All the projects from EthGlobal’s Hack Money

A surprising 120 submissions for Hack Money!

I’m not surprised Devcon got pushed to 2021, but I am disappointed. I’d like to see a prediction market on when the next ETH event is which has more than ~400 attendees.

We’re also getting out of the spring conference season (note for southern hemisphere readers: sorry, I know it’s fall for you), so I’m curious whether we’ll see online conferences continue to pop up for every day of the week. I suspect not, but it is open real estate at the moment.

Enterprise

First Central Bank Digital Currency public blockchain transaction is on Ethereum: Societe General issued €40m of covered bonds as security tokens and paid with Banque de France digital euros. While the press release does not make it clear, the transaction was on Ethereum mainnet

It actually took me the better part of an hour to find the link that confirmed that this was on Eth mainnet.

DAOs and Standards

Summoning the spirit of DAO ops

ERC2680: eth2 standard wallet layout and naming format

ERC2678: EthPM v3

EIP2681: Limit account nonce to 2^64-1

EIP2677: Limit initcode size

Application layer

Enjin plugin for Minecraft to tokenize Minecraft items on your server

Umbra: stealth payments to ENS names, running on Ropsten testnet

How does NexusMutual become an efficient version of Lloyd’s of London?

Maker’s Oasis now makes it easy to leverage up with ETH

DeFi777 – wrap your erc20 tokens as erc777 tokens, then swap through ENS names

RenVM brings BTC, BCH, and ZEC to Ethereum as ERC20 tokens

Mstable basket of stablecoins live on mainnet, includes yield from Compound/Aave plus swap fees – there’s a zero slippage stablecoin trade with 30 basis points of fees

Centrifuge’s Tinlake asset factoring is on mainnet, with factoring for freight shipping and Spotify payments

4/8 arbitrarily classified as DeFi this week.

Zero slippage stablecoin trade is an interesting approach - of course, as a liquidity provider, you’re assuming those stablecoins stay stable. As a user, you want tiny slippage and tiny fees for going between two things that are supposed to represent the same value. As a liquidity provider you want as much fees as possible, especially since you’re assuming the risk of pegs slipping or being broken.

Also just wait until Centrifuge’s factoring gets pushed as collateral for Maker. I’m curious what the response will be - or is it hohum since some trusted assets have already been added?

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Zap your liquidity around in one transaction

Ryan Sean Adams: Eth is doubly undervalued

Gavin Andresen: crypto markets take a long time to reflect reality

People seem to call it maximalism these days when you point out that anything is overvalued, but I thought Gavin’s post was a concise reflection of the irrationality of crypto markets.

General

LadderLeak and ECDSA explainer

Hundreds of thousands of Thai users switching to Minds, a Twitter/Facebook hybrid social network incentivized through an ERC20 token

I checked out Minds. They did a token sale two years ago, though you can still buy it on their site now. It’s an interesting concept, you can get paid to post, except you have to pay to be a paid member first. I couldn’t quite work out what the incentives were for me, but social networks need to get traction in one niche and then expand, and it seems like they may be getting that in Thailand. I’d like to see more social network attempts using tokenized incentives.

Housekeeping

Follow me on Twitter @evan_van_ness to get the annotated edition of this newsletter on Monday or Tuesday. Plus I tweet most of what makes it into the newsletter.

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Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-may-31-2020/

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

June 1-6 – DAO Rush Week

June 3 – BlockVigil’s free remote developer bootcamp begins

June 16 – deadline to apply for Gitcoin’s Kernel incubator

Oct 2-Oct 30 – EthOnline hackathon

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dorianpavus · 7 years

Text

sometimes people make these big long posts complaining about bioware and i’m like. sigh. there’s so many times that i never say anything cause i’m not trying to get involved in fandom drama but like oh my god

salt beneath the cut?

bioware should not be forced to only make the kinds of games you like. so historically they made some games you love, ok, cool. i don’t know why you all think that a company trying new things and experimenting and trying to push the boundaries of what their games should be is such a terrible horrible no good dirty-rotten thing. innovation is great. experimenting is good. bioware is not betraying you for trying to incorporate different ideas into their games like?? not everything is going to work out to your satisfaction but that doesn’t mean they should remain stagnant and only ever do the same thing. why not see if they can incorporate a big explorable world into a game with a really structured and nuanced story, as they tried to do with inquisition? it may not have worked out perfectly but now they have a better base on which to build their next game (which, if it can strike a balance between dao/dai, would be amazing, btw). and if you’re really upset that there’s a big world in inquisition and that offends you, just don’t buy the game. like. bioware going, “hey look there’s a huge world to explore!” and you paying money for the game and then going “but why is there a huge world to explore???? #betrayed” is like.... can’t wrap my head around that one. you paid for the game they made you, not 8000 years of their lives, the entire future of the company and right for every subsequent game to be made exactly as you like it, and their first borns.

(the contract is only for the first borns)

2: video games aren’t books, especially not a huge game like inquisition. it’s not “bad writing” for every small detail or character quirk to not be expounded upon super obviously all the time -- that’s hard to do in a video game with a huge ensemble cast and epic fantasy plot. like don’t get me wrong i think there were plenty of things in dai that could have been executed a lot better but y’all were the ones who wanted a big cast of characters to be so developed, but now you’re actually complaining because they developed them really well? if you wish you could have had more engagement with the characters over smaller facets of their personality/beliefs, that’s not a problem with the writing, that’s a disagreement with the game’s focus on conversation and character vs the rest of the game. like i too would have preferred more conversation and to call characters out more on things, 100%, but to just disagree with the way something was executed and then slap a “bad writing” on it is just like... not what that actually is

which i know is stupid of me to make a post about how some otherwise-valid criticisms of the game isn’t actually about That Thing They’re Saying It’s About, like, ok katie who cares, but people are so smug about the “bad writing” in inquisition it’s hard not for me to roll my eyes really hard when literally everything is equated to bad writing and not actually dissected and discussed for what it is and how it could actually be improved

(that’s not to say that there weren’t aspects of the game that were poorly written cause there totally were, but being upset about the lack of conversation options FOR your extra conversation options [when you already had sooooooo mannnyyyyyyy long talks with your companions, which the devs added specifically because fans loved them and wanted them to return with a vengeance post-da2-no conversations whatsoever] is like... extra. like ppl really be complaining about the inability to have conversations about the companion’s extra extra side dialogue options. we were lucky to get that in the first place lmao! don’t get me wrong i want more of them too and i don’t disagree that i want to be able to comment on all of those things, but it’s not “bad writing” but more a lack of resources to just give you unlimited discussions with the companions. they respected their fans and listened to us and put in a ton of effort to making sure in DAI we got to talk with our companions a ton, waaaay more than in previous games (even dao, and with a bigger cast of characters!), so it’s just so bizarre to ppl saying it’s “bad writing” that you can’t talk to these characters literally about everything they say all the time, that every single thread and facet to their development isn’t able to be discussed. it’s a video game, not real life, and conversations have to stop somewhere. and they gave us so much! should they have just left those details of the character out completely then, if you can’t completely and fully turn over and call out everything they say? obviously not. i agree with what yall are saying about those conversations could have been better, of course!! but i feel like it’s more about resources than like... bad writing

(of course in da4 i still want even mOAR conversations and also a “BS BUTTON” would be great)

(it’s just not necessarily “bad writing”)

(also that said sera’s arc was poorly written but that’s another story)

(anyway i’m not saying every single thing someone complains about isn’t Valid(TM) because so much of it is great criticism, but rather that some of the arguments i’ve seen over and over and over and over and over on my dash are like..... not really.... accurate

and there are just so many people in the fandom are so smug and condescending and seem like they enjoy criticizing games for the stupidest reasons like it makes them smarter and more Enlightened like they need to chill

(also i’m aware i’m asking ppl to chill by writing a really long salty personal post that��s gonna lose me 150 followers so obviously i also have lost my chill but come on yall omg please stop whining over inquisitions “bad writing” that isn’t bad writing just maybe something you didn’t like (like the explorable areas) and how bioware obviously is betraying you, its lord and master, for trying to incorporate different elements into their games or explore new genres like anthem u know how ridiculous it sounds right)

(that said fuck bioware, just for other reasons lmao)

honestly i’m writing this and kind of disagreeing with myself cause i’m like “but there’s so much bad writing” and there totally fuckin is but that’s not the specific thing i’m trying to talk about so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

why am i defending it then?? also good question but here we are

#personal spam #negative /#uhh probs gonna delete this? idk

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allenmendezsr · 4 years

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How To Create An Iphone Or Ipad Apps And Games Succeed In App Store!

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/how-to-create-an-iphone-or-ipad-apps-and-games-succeed-in-app-store/

How To Create An Iphone Or Ipad Apps And Games Succeed In App Store!

Buy Now

$ 63,896.21 USD last month?

Looks impressive? I bet it does!

But now, let me tell you the ugly truth.

It looks like I am raking in money now, but the truth is that it was not always like that! Just 6 months ago I was completely struggling. I had no programming skills, no team and no money. The only thing I had was a great desire to create the game of my dreams.

Since childhood, I always had a dream to make it big. I was thinking my game over and over again and again during the sleepless nights, imagining the characters and heroes, levels, gameplay tricks… etc.

Does that sound familiar to you?

To be honest, I am a big fan of the iPhone, so I did not even consider the idea of creating games for anything else but the iPhone or iPad.

But I was missing the main thing – I had no team and no programming skills at all. Even worse – I did not even have a technical education!

Over and over again I have been reading the blogs and reports about the Gold Rush in the Apps Store where small guys like you and me achieved immense success by creating simple but great applications or games!

Did you know that guys from the Top Applications part of the App Store are selling over 35,000 copies a day!

35 thousand!

If you sell your app for $0.99 and get $0.70 from it after all apple commission cuts you are left with pure profit of $24,500 USD per DAY! Well, you can’t live with that but that is a good start, isn’t it 🙂

This thought would not let me sleep well. Of course I did not live in the illusion that I would get on top with my first app but you know me already – I am a kind of guy who always wants to reach the stars!

So my target was to get into the Top100 Apps at least.

Here is what I did. I decided to take it really seriously. First, I bought all the books available in my local Barnes&Noble store and on Amazon as well. Everything from Iphone Development for dummies to the advanced experts-stuff.

Oh boy, that was a real head ache to read all that stuff. It took me about 3 months alone to read all those books.

And you know what?

After I tried to implement the knowledge I was totally disappointed – most of the printed books turned out to be completely outdated. You know it is a long process after you write a book, it goes to the publisher, stays in editing for weeks, then the printing office keeps delaying it again and again. Then you need to distribute it throughout the country to local shops etc.. And the things change so fast. Once iPod was released, next year iPhone, then iPhone3GS, then iPad, then iPhone4, iPad2, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5… the list goes on and on. Things change so fast and these printed books can’t even catch up. Most samples were outdated and never worked for me. What a bummer.

So finally after reading all this crap my head was ready to explode and I decided to take action. My first game was supposed to be the simple “Hidden object” game –you know where you tap the screen to find the hidden objects. I found out that these kind of games are very popular among people and I figured out it is pretty easy to make it – you simply need several images properly cut into layers and a little bit of coding.

Getting a developer account with Apple was pretty easy, so I went ahead and opened it and started the development.

Since I had no one to help and guide me – I guess I spent 3 times longer than average creating it than I actually needed to. In about 2 months of sleepless nights my game was finally ready. The approval process from apple took about a week. This week of waiting was the most frustrating time for me, it felt like time itself stopped… I got so nervous my hands even shook. What if they disapproved of it? I have read tons of horror stories about developers failing because Apple did not accept their game or delayed approval for months. I could not even sleep. I was checking my email and Dev account every minute to see the desired “your App was approved” message from Apple. I was so noxious I even sent 3 followup emails asking apple why it takes so long. Don’t do that guys, I heard you only make the reviewers angry if you display impatience!

Finally I got approved and the sales started! I went to bed dreaming about loads of cash rushing into my pockets.

And can you imagine what happened?

I failed miserably!

The next day, when I checked my sales, I saw the devastating numbers – 16 copies sold. Total net profit: $9 … Well, obviously not the kind of numbers I was expecting…

Next day – 11 copies, then 8 copies, then about 2-3 copies per day during the next week. After 2 weeks my total net profit was around 50 bucks.. Sounds like now I have enough money to invite my girlfriend to McDonalds, right… what an epic failure.

And here is why.

Creating a great app or game is only part of the story. The most important part is how to sell it successfully and get on top of apps store sales. That’s what most developers are missing, failing one after another in their efforts to live their dream. They put all their efforts into the development and miss the most important part – successful marketing! Even the best app can remain totally unknown if you fail to market it properly.

Once I realized this, I decided not to give up. So I spent the next 6 months making the comprehensive market research. I contacted 135 top apple apps and games developers asking for help and advice. As you may expect, 90% of them simply ignored me. But you know I am not kind of guy who gives up easily.

Those 10% who replied gave me knowledge you’d never find in books or on the internet.

I could personally meet some of them and receive the most valuable insider information on how this market works. Oh you can’t imagine how it turned my worldview upside down. Nearly everything I learned before…

…was wrong.

That’s how top developers keep the information from small guys like you and me so they can rake in money, while we can’t even sell 10 copies! Did you know there is a list of elite developers who get fast approvals, premium placing in “What we are playing” and other top ratings & benefits?

All this information is well kept secret from us…

… so no surprise thousands and thousands of new developers who enter the market fail one after another. While you get confused reading and learning hundreds of ways of advertising your app – these guys use only a couple of ways that really work and don’t even waste their time on others…

Where to advertise the app? How to get traffic to the page? Should I order paid reviews or not? Should I create blogs? Do I need to make support forums for my game? Should I make my app free and earn money only by selling Ads inside, or is it better to get rid of ads and sell the app itself? All these questions could leave the newbie developer totally confused and as a result – on the road to total failure in achieving success in the apple store.

Let me tell you this.

Like Tony Robbins once said “Become the best by modeling the best”. Find out what the best developers do and mimic their techniques, use their secrets and tricks and you will become successful. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Use what is already working! Don’t spread out efforts on useless stuff that takes up your time but never brings results.

And you know it already – you’ve seen the proof before. Once I started implementing these ideas my sales started to go up and up. Literally, through the roof. Now my girlfriend and I are even thinking on opening our own McDonalds on the franchise next year on a $506,000 investment and 45k/year franchise fee so we can secure my profits in some real offline business. Well.. Ok ..maybe mcdonalds sounds too crazy, but if not McDonalds, I can predict we’ll buy some luxury apartment on the California coast for sure.

But after all that, I still realize that I owe my success to the few generous people among the top developers who decided not to ignore me and help me out by sharing their valuable knowledge with me. Without it, nothing could be possible.

That’s why I decided to gather all my knowledge and resources and put up a comprehensive course on iPhone and iPad development secrets.

My main goal was to make a full multimedia course that I can easily update on a monthly basis instead of writing the boring printed book that will become outdated even before it comes on the store shelf.

Secondly I wanted to make my course really newbie friendly. The arrogant expert authors are so proud of themselves that they don’t even bother to explain the details for people who are just starting out and don’t have any programming knowledge at all. They all assume you are at least expert in C++ before you start learning XCode and other iphone development stuff.

I decided to change this approach completely. You know I had no programming skills at all when I started out so I don’t expect you to know anything about programming. You don’t have to have any technical knowledge. If you can operate your iPhone and basic computer software – that’s all we need to start.

What does that mean to you? Well it means that you won’t have to spend 12 months and tens of thousands of dollars figuring this out like I did. More importantly, it means…

… you can start creating your own app or game today and making money with it tomorrow.

Here is what my course is all about.

During the 4 weeks, I am going to take you by the hand and follow through the whole process of creating your first app or game. I promise – we’ll do it the easy and fun way. No boring theories, no hard core programming, no useless stuff. Only practical information and step by step instructions!

Here is what we are going to cover in the first week.

Like I mentioned before, I don’t expect you to be an expert right of the bat, so first of all we are going to cover the great variety of basic information on how to start and apply yourself in different areas of game and application development: from creating your first “Hello World” application, to developing your first game with Cocos 2d toolkit. Did you know that Cocos 2d is considered one of the easiest ways of creating good Apps and will be the most used toolkit next year?

You will also discover how to create your first web using iWebKit and animated application using Adobe Flash CS5. We’ll also discu ss how to debug your application and get rid of the bugs so you have all the knowledge necessary to dive into more in-depth information over the following weeks. And like I said – it’ll be painless – we’ll do it the easy and fun way.

In Weeks 2&3 you will discover different iPhone development tools starting from simple Xcode to more advanced stuff like Cocos 2d & iWebKit secrets & tricks. Let me warn you – even if this may sound complicated – I put my information, tutorials and samples in such an easily understood manner that you can feel yourself becoming an expert even if you are a total newbie!

We are also going to learn the 2d and 3d editing software for game and app development and some sort of “cheat”-kinds of software & tricks – for those of you who want to use advanced stuff without wasting months on learning it. That’s why I call it “The lazy person’s guide to success” – I just give what you really need and don’t waste your time describing stuff you will never use!

As a result of week 3 you will have your first game or application ready to go!

In the final week we are going to cover the most important part of the story – how to market your game and finally make money by selling it in the App Store. Time to get the money rolling 🙂 Let’s be honest with each other – after all, you want to make good bucks with it, don’t you? I have prepared a lot of good, fresh, updated stuff on how to market your game, and where to get the dirt cheap targeted traffic!

We’ll also cover the most recent trends in game development – what genres are popular now and in the next year, what are the best converting ways to promote the game today and next year.

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camtosh · 7 years

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My Take of E3 2017 (very long post)

I’m not exactly a writer so this post won’t be perfect, full of mistakes and whatever but I have proof read it so hopefully it wont be too bad. I’ve also put a recap at the bottom of the post incase you don’t want to read it all.

Starts off with typical EA yearly releases, Madden, Need for Speed, FIFA and NBA, nothing to be excited about. Showed a new co-op game called A Way Out which looks really cool, a split screen game this generation was badly needing and I’m glad someone took a risk to make one. Teaser trailer for Anthem, which we will get to later, and DLC for Battlefield. Finished with Battlefront 2 gameplay, although I was disappointed to not have Galactic Conquest we did get Skirmish and new class system which is more like the old Battlefront games. Amazing looking game and something to look forward too!

Microsoft (xbox)

Xbox One X (not exactly the best name but who really cares, the same was said when the One was released) announced at £450/$499 which I think is a reasonable price and will be buying one for that sweet true 4k graphics! Forza 7 shown and a Porsche appears on stage and no-one is surprised/seemed to care, myself included. New Assassins Creed is shown and is set in Egypt which I think is a fantastic setting and is hopefully a breath of fresh air since they took a year extra for more development time. Gameplay of a really interesting game is displayed for us to find out its a new Metro game, I haven’t played any of them before but that trailer made me want to check them out. Battlegrounds coming to the xbox, feel like this is a big deal but as I haven’t played it on the PC I don’t know why. State of Decay 2 made me remember that I no longer care for zombie games. The Darwin Project starts off with ESports commentary to let us know that they want this game to be an ESport (I don’t see that happening). 2D DBZ game announced and looks great but not something I want to pick up. The annual indie game montage showed some promising games that will probably end up being free in the games with gold program. Sea of Thieves gameplay really surprised me, something that I think I would love to play with some friends. Crackdown 3 announces Terry Crews is a part of the game which is basically an instant sell because who the fuck doesn’t love Terry Crews?! Super Lucky’s Tale is announced which looks like a children’s platformer, got to target that demographic I guess. Shadow of War gameplay is given to us and it looks really good, nemesis system is awesome and they made the game better by adding a strategic approach to attacking strongholds which I think is really cool. Now we are shown gameplay for Anthem. What is this fucking game? Did the devs just pick and choose things from every game and just throw it in their own? Titanfall/Destiny vibes too it, fly like Iron Man in an exo suit that reminds me of Fallout power armour and the game looks like it has the same setting as Evolve/Horizon. That being said it’s probably the most exciting looking game of the whole show and I want it now because I fucking love loot shooters. Finally end the show with the news that Xbox Original games will be coming to the backwards compatibility program which is cool I guess but I think I only ever played Halo on it 😂 I’m probably biased towards Xbox but I do think that they put on the best show this year.

Bethesda

Why even bother with a conference if you are just going to have a pre rendered video introduce everything? They showed VR for games that have been out for ages and DLC for Dishonoured 2. Paid mods are back, I’m sure that will go down well. A couple of sequels,The Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein 2 announced which almost saved the terrible conference. Wolfenstein 2 looking the better of the two and seem like it has a compelling story. They close their show by letting us know that Quake still exists. Terrible showing from such a good company, shame.

Ubisoft

No Aisha Tyler!?! well ok. The first 15 mins of the show is all about Mario and Rabbids for the Switch, seems a bit boring to me but its Mario so it well sell millions. More Assassins Creed stuff that didn’t feel like they showed anything different from the Microsoft show. The Crew 2 and Skull and Bones are announced which look cool I guess. Even more South Park trailers, I honestly thought it was out already. A new IP called Starlink is announced and looks like a skylanders/amiibo thing. Gameplay trailer for Farcry 5 looked really good, 10/10 for the dog that brings you guns. They finished by announcing Beyond Good and Evil 2 which I’m guessing is a big deal, I never played the PS2 game but that trailer looked fun. Kinda boring show all round for Ubisoft, they spent a lot of time not very exciting games.

Sony

What the fuck Sony? You usually put on the best E3 show and you didn’t seem to care that much this year. They opened with the final trailer for the Crash Bandicoot remake which made me very nostalgic but not really hyped for a game I’ll probably get. I said before that I’m bored of zombie games but I think Day’s Gone looks like it can give them one last chance. Monster Hunter Wold was shown and that got me happy, I’ve always wanted to play them on console rather than a handheld. Shadow of the Colossus remaster is shown and I personally think looks incredible, 100% something I want to pick up. Gameplay trailer for COD: WW2 which to me just felt like a bunch of planes falling out of the sky and not much else, looks pretty though. DLC for Horizon was announced which I might get because that game is amazing! More trailers for God of War 4 and Destiny 2, the latter of which still has year long timed exclusives which is just ridiculous. Something about a new Gran Turismo game but I didn’t really pay attention because I haven’t played a racing game for a long time. They closed with some Spiderman gameplay which looks awesome! There was loads of cool things shown but the presentation of it felt really strange, like there was no-one to hype everything up.

Nintendo

Nintendo always do good at E3, they don’t need to have a huge conference to put on a fun show. Xenoblade 2 trailer shown and Metroid Prime 4 announced which is cool! Kirby and Yoshi games for the Switch which is increasing the likelihood of me buying a Switch. They very lowkey announce a main Pokemon game like its nothing, fucking what?! ok 100% buying a Switch now. Super Mario Odyssey is given loads of time to show off gameplay and I think it looks brilliant! Nintendo are boosting the need for a Switch in their show and its worked for me at least!

Too Long; Didn’t Read?

So pros and cons of this years show? Aka TL;DR

Cons- Well I think there is maybe one game that I’m desperate to know more about, Bethesdas full show, there was too much VR. There were more boring shows compared to ones that were really gripping and there were very little AAA new IP’s.

Pros- Star Wars looks amazing, the Xbox One X release was very exciting. Sea of Thieves looks like it has potential, Anthem looks so promising, Shadow of War looks like a good sequel and they were not all remasters! And there was Loads of content for the Switch including a main Pokemon game!

I enjoyed this year but my wallet has not.

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 4 years

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Tips for a winning content marketing team structure

Just one thing separates a bad content marketing team from no content marketing team: the cost.

Far from “the poor man’s copywriting”, content marketing has evolved into a multimedia practice that demands creativity, expert analytics and highly synchronised execution. Half measures will do little more than waste your time and money.

That’s why step No. 1 in structuring a winning content marketing team is unequivocal buy-in. You have to want to create a dream team. We’re talking “1980 US Olympic hockey team” good.

Via buzzfeed.com

If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place.

Let’s find out what gold-medal content marketing teams are made of.

Part 1: Form

What kind of team are you?

Content marketing teams come in all shapes and sizes.

Yours might be an in-house operation with a substantial budget. It could be completely outsourced to a third party with strict caps on monthly spend and only one internal contact. It might be a combination, where a small marketing team oversees the content marketing activities of an external agency.

We’ve even encountered one-person operations, where a single person acts as content strategist, creator and promoter.

Whatever the case, the shoe needs to fit.

You have to be realistic about your organisation’s – or business unit’s – internal capabilities. This may mean making certain trade-offs to operate within your budget. Our advice? Always err on the side of quality. One really strong, well-promoted asset will always outperform five pieces of content that are just OK.

On a more concrete level, any content marketing team must exhibit certain cultural values if it hopes to excel across core functions.

Shared project ownership

“Build marketing programs around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”

– The Agile Marketing Manifesto

We cannot overstate the importance of caring. From the outset, every stakeholder – from your stategist to your project manager to your graphic designer – needs to be invested in the project. Cultivate this shared sense of accountability by:

Setting clear goal posts.

Tieing visions for execution back to these goals when communicating with creatives.

Tracking progress at various points in the campaign with the appropriate analytics (e.g., impressions on social, bounce rates on landing pages, etc.).

Sharing that progress with everyone, so the entire team can see the fruits of its labour.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 70 percent of organisations have the ability to illustrate, with metrics, how content marketing has improved B2B engagement.

Don’t keep that data under lock and key. The greatest source of success in content marketing is enthusiasm and collective pride for what’s been brought to the table.

Agility

“Great marketing requires close alignment with the business people, sales and development.”

– The Agile Marketing Manifesto

This first and foremost means eliminating silos, and we don’t just mean silos between strategists and execution teams. Start at the top, with sales.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Sales and marketing need to be in alignment if you hope to tell a consistent story to your prospects, leads and existing customers. This doesn’t mean you need to initiate sales into your content marketing team structure, but think of them as consultants.

Secondly, try not to think of your content marketing team as a well-oiled machine. You’re not manufacturers pumping products down an assembly line. You’re creative, responsive marketers whose objectives can change at a moment’s notice.

Instead, learn from the late, great Bruce Lee and “be like water.” On a practical level, this means:

Holding weekly or bi-weekly meetings to update one another on progress of current initiatives, or to re-calibrate as needed.

Leveraging project management resources such as Trello, Asana, Podio, Airtable, etc. to centralise core information and provide updates to the entire team on the fly.

Being ready and willing to make adjustments in response to shifting circumstances.

Once again, the Agile Marketing Manifesto, released in 2012, probably summed the goal up best:

“We welcome and plan for change. We believe that our ability to quickly respond to change is a source of competitive advantage.”

Now, here’s Bruce Lee playing pingpong with nunchucks:

Part 2: Function

What key roles need to be represented in your team?

By now, it’s clear that every function on a content marketing is deeply intertwined. Of course, that raises an important question: What are those functions?

We’re glad you asked, and we’ll tell you.

But first, bear in mind that scale has a lot to do with how these functions will be divvied up among individual team members. In smaller teams, a single person might wear more hats than in say, a well-funded enterprise marketing department, or a content marketing agency.

Ideally, though, all of these core functions will be fulfilled in your content marketing team structure:

Strategy

Your strategists are responsible for creating a marketing strategy that aligns with the business goals du jour. In content marketing, they’ll typically focus on SEO strategy, content creation and distribution goals at a high level, website consulting services, brand awareness and analytics. Strategists are also responsible for aligning budget and execution.

Strategists might go by any number of names depending on your content marketing team structure. Internally, they might be “marketing directors.” Externally you might call them “content marketing strategist” or “account manager.” But a rose by any other name …

Ideation

This is the unsung hero of content marketing, partly because it doesn’t necessarily belong to any one, single role on your team. A case could be made that marketing directors / associates and agency project managers are the stewards of ideation. But by definition, ideation is development of a creative execution plan for the strategy at large. Thus, it requires input from your strategists, project managers and your production people (writers, designers, etc.).

This is where the “agile” aspect of content marketing team structure really comes into play. More often than not, ideation is a shared effort that requires signoff from multiple stakeholders, and possibly even ad-hoc input at different phases of content development (you’re not married to an idea, after all; if you think of something better during the production phase and can pivot within reason, then by all means, do it).

Execution and creative tracking

That brings us to the doing. Once you have a strategy and high-level creative vision — as in you know the assets (eBooks, videos, paid ads) you want to create — you need someone or someones to create content calendars, and to manage timelines for deliverables, release dates and social posting schedules.

That someone — usually a project manager, managing editor, marketing assistant or combination thereof — also needs to track the progress of those deliverables as the campaign or scope of work moves forward and, if necessary, adjust schedules in the face of the unforeseen.

Production

Your writers, designers, videographers, editors and social media managers are the lifeblood of your content marketing team. Without them, you’re all talk.

If you’re lucky, your internal marketing has the budget, time and resources to produce its own content. But if you’re like the vast majority of organisations, you’ll probably outsource content production to freelancers or to a content marketing agency. And if that’s the case, think of these creatives as an extension of your team. The farther removed they are from the shared vision, the less likely they’ll be to deliver killer content.

Promotion and distribution

You’ve put all this work into creating awesome content, which is great, but now you have to make sure that it reaches the target audience. This requires social media mavens who know how to build a base of followers, and then hook their attention with compelling teasers that will lead them to your content, and deeper into the sales funnel. Likewise, you’ll need strategists who understand how to structure an email drip campaign.

Whether these functions are fulfilled internally by your own marketers or externally by contracted marketers makes no difference. What matters is that you have someone on your team who has dedicated time to promote and distribute your content, and maintain a strong social presence. Otherwise your assets will collect dust, and all your hard work will have been for naught.

Dev and IT

Last but not least, you need people who can help on the technical side of things — to make sure that different content types are loading correctly, and that your integrations aren’t disrupting the user experience.

This is web marketing, after all, and that means you’ll need access to web development experts and site admins to answer the tough questions: Is my site performance optimised for mobile? Are there any hiccups in UX? If you’re working with an agency that has its own CMS, is it exporting multimedia content properly? These are all questions that someone on your content marketing team needs to be able to answer.

Part 3: Finesse

How are you executing?

Ok, so you have an idea of the types of values that drive good team dynamics, and you’re familiar with the core functions that will need to be covered.

That brings us at last to the final lap of building a gold-medal content marketing team: the nuances of execution.

Let results show you the way

As we’ve already mentioned, agility is hugely important in a content marketing team. You can certainly establish an operating rhythm, but don’t get hung up on trying to create a rigid routine.

Instead, let your results determine your next actions. Content marketing has a cycle in that directives are continuously handed off between roles.

For example, analytics-based insights provided by your strategist will influence the types of assets (videos, blogs, etc.) that need to be created, and the channels on which they should be promoted and distributed (social, email, etc.).

Subsequent SEO research might reveal more nuanced keywords that will improve the performance of these assets, which will then impact topic research and ideation. At this point, additional research from your strategist might identify optimal content length, and more specific talking points that will help those particular topics cut through the noise.

Once the piece is produced by your creatives, project managers — the QC gurus of the content marketing world — might identify areas where the content could be improved, or better optimised to align with the strategists’ findings.

Finally, the piece is posted, distributed and promoted. Subsequent analytics might determine that engagement for the piece is high, but clickthrough is low, which could be indicative of a shortcoming in how the content is being promoted. Or, maybe the piece appears to be performing well on search, but doesn’t seem to be generating qualified leads, which could indicate a fault in your site’s UX design.

Whatever the case, the team will need to take action to respond to the newest findings. Consequently, the many roles of a content marketing team will play off each other in unique, and sometimes unpredictable, ways.

And it goes on and on like this, in a never-ending cycle.

Because that, in a nutshell, is what content marketing is: A marathon made up of many sprints.

Ready? Set. Go!

from http://bit.ly/38KPjZx

#content marketing

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ormlacom · 6 years

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The DeanBeat: The tragedy of the Star Wars: Battlefront II loot crates

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

Electronic Arts made a great game in Star Wars: Battlefront II. But it stepped in a pile of controversy by adding an unpopular monetization system known as loot crates. Those crates appear in a lot of games, mostly free-to-play titles where you pay real money for the crates and a chance to get some good loot. Gamers viewed the loot crate scheme as a money grab. As of last night, EA decided to back off on the controversial microtransactions for the loot crates.

Call it a victory for consumers, but this is going to come at a price for everyone.

In console games, where you already pay $60 for a full game, they have been taboo. People feel like they’ve already paid once, and they don’t want to pay again to unlock something else. EA pushed the envelope with Battlefront II, removing the traditional fee for downloadable content (DLC) such as new maps and characters. That was good for gamers and keeping the community whole. But EA also added in loot crates that you could buy for real money. Those loot crates not only gave you cosmetic stuff. They also helped accelerate weapon unlocks and the use of heroes and villains, such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

“Battlefront 2 EA is said to have gotten rid of the whole DLC thing with their introduction of microtransaction galore,” said one gamer on Steam. “We’ve traded one type of evil for another in the form of casting aside DLC for loot crates.”

This kind of sentiment has been expressed about other games, like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, where the final ending was locked behind a number of grind-like missions, and fans fretted that they could shorten that grand by buying loot crates. But EA’s problem looks worse because Battlefront II — whose predecessor sold 14 million units — is one of the biggest titles of the year.

Above: Four human players play as heroes and take on four villains in Star Wars: Battlefront II’s Heroes vs. Villains multiplayer mode.

Image Credit: Electronic Arts/GamesBeat

Battlefront II launches today on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But it is sad that this loot crate controversy has dominated the conversation. And it’s not necessarily the fault of oversenstive gamers who are raging. This problem is also a case of EA shooting itself in the foot. If you are a developer on this game, imagine the horror. You’ve spent a couple of years polishing this game, but it’s going to suffer because of the way monetization was built into the loot crate system.

Gamers have been strident, and EA has had to retreat and deal with the growing outrage.

Listen, the Battlefront II issue isn’t about pissy gamers complaining. It’s about what the industry has turned into and what people won’t tolerate anymore. If you purchase the game, you are basically telling EA it’s okay. When in fact, it isn’t. #StarWarsBattlefrontII

— Dalton Davis (@daltonldavis) November 16, 2017

In other games like Overwatch, loot crates unlock purely cosmetic items that don’t affect gameplay or the progression through the multiplayer ladder, which gets you access to better gear and makes you more powerful in multiplayer.

Above: Starfighter combat in Star Wars: Battlefront II.

Image Credit: Electronic Arts

But EA tied its Star Card system to more than just cosmetic items, and that made the gamers mad. It reeked of “pay-to-win” schemes where players who spent the most money can outplay those who don’t. Such schemes are OK in China but not so in the West.

Loot boxes, by the way, are also controversial for another reason. When you buy one, you don’t know what you’ll get. Sometimes you get something good. Sometimes it’s bad. That’s a lot like a slot machine. They’re akin to gambling, and some regulators think they should be regulated. In Japan, loot crates known as “gacha” systems were forcibly changed by regulators, as some personalities became addicted to the chance to win big in purchases.

Back to EA. The trouble popped up when EA showed off its beta and left gamers to interpret the loot crate system. In the beta tests, you could unlock things like weapons in multiplayer over time. Each class of character, such as a Heavy Gunner, had four guns. One was free. The others had to be unlocked. You could unlock them with points, but players noted how long it took to get those points through online battles. EA clarified at the time that some things you couldn’t buy with money.

But players still had complaints. You could unlock guns through credits that you earned through loot crates. And those loot crates could either be earned through gameplay or purchased with real money. The crystals that you purchased could effectively be used to unlock better weapons as well as heroes and villains. One fan estimated that it would take $80 or 40 hours to unlock Darth Vader. That’s a long time to unlock a character in a game that you have already paid for. EA’s response to this became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

So EA took one step back and, earlier this week, announced that it would cut the time required to earn Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker by 75 percent, and it would make it much easier to earn the lesser characters. That definitely helped, and EA did a Reddit conversation with its developers to help alleviate fan concerns. EA constantly said it was listening to fan feedback and would adjust the system. EA said that Epic Star Cards, or rare items that you can get in the loot crates, would have to be earned only through gameplay. Other Star Cards could be purchased through the loot crates still. But you had to reach a certain level of play to use the Star Cards.

Above: Loot create in Star Wars Battlefront II.

Image Credit: EA

In certain modes, you could still play as any of the heroes or villains, such as the multiplayer mode Heroes vs Villains. But that was different from regular multiplayer, where if you show up with a hero, then you have a chance to dominate gameplay.

But the fans still complained, and the conversation got even louder after the Reddit Q&A session. So last night, EA took the final step and disabled the system for purchasing crystals in the game with real money. Now you can’t buy loot crates at all, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. EA said that microtransactions will return, but only after EA had changed the system and the game.

Now the system will be fair for all players, from the point of view of gamers. But this will likely create far-reaching consequences. Encouraged by the success of microtransactions and live operations in games like FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield, EA tried to evolve the monetization too far.

We don’t what the consequences are yet, but gamers should know that nothing comes for free. If you take away monetization of DLC, and monetization of loot crates, you also take away the things that those make possible, like more and better game content.

EA has taken a lot of abuse online. Many fans called it greedy and the most-hated company in video games. Those words come after EA bought Titanfall maker Respawn Entertainment for $455 million last week. And after EA shut down Visceral Games because its Star Wars game wasn’t resonating with fans. Both the Respawn and Visceral moves prompted a lot of cynicism from fans. I thought the criticism was unfair and I gave EA the benefit of the doubt in those cases. But in my opinion, EA’s handling of the loot crates has been worse. The company has staged a long retreat, when a simple and short one would have been better, in hindsight.

We haven’t heard such hateful words about EA since former CEO John Riccitiello left EA in 2013 and the company appointed Andrew Wilson as its CEO. Wilson’s policy has been to put players first, but with this controversy, now his reputation has some tarnish on it. And the tragedy here? The game is good, particularly when you’re playing big 20-versus-20 multiplayer battles that make you feel like you’re in a Star Wars movie.

The PC Gaming channel is presented by Intel®'s Game Dev program.

Reverse Phone - People Search - Email Search - Public Records - Criminal Records. Best Data, Conversions, And Customer Suppor

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

TL;DR: At the bottom.

I'm Jeffrey Nielson. I’m an independent developer coming from a game artist background, who recently started working solo. Now, I'm in the late stages of finishing my second self-directed project, Nova Drift. I'm no expert, but I've had some success, so I want to share some of what I've learned for aspiring small / solo developers, clear up some misconceptions, and also talk about how I got here and what I'm working on now.

Disclaimer:

There are many strategies and approaches to game development. This one is just mine. Also, when I say that solo game development is "working for me", I don't have nearly enough data to know that it will continue to work for me. Having said that, I can say that based on my checkered career, there isn't really a particularly stable place to be in games. Anyone can bomb, and even huge, successful game corporations can lay you off without warning. Because of this, you might as well be doing what you love, whatever that is. In any case, I hope that some of the lessons I've learned benefit you.

(Skip it if you like!)

I started playing around with pixel art in MS paint when I was around 10 years old, mimicking the art style from Genesis JRPGs I loved. At 15, I joined my cousins and their programmer friend who were making a ridiculous shooter-platformer called "Worminator" I'm still amazed we were somehow able to create and distribute (for free) a finished game at this age, given how quickly random collabs tend to go sour as adults. They would later create the sequel, Worminator 3 (yes, they skipped 2, it was that good) I played around with RPG Maker, and later discovered Game Maker. After college, where I studied art & design, I worked for a few game companies creating art and animation in a wide range of styles. I met PixelJam Games during this time, after sending them fan art for one of my favorite indie games. To my great surprise, they offered me contract work as a side job. They would later become my foot in the door to independent game development. Meanwhile, my primary employer's company was bought by Facebook game giant Zynga, and I was swept up along with it. Despite having less-than-no interest in those types of games, I decided to go with it and see what it would do for my career. It ended up being incredibly valuable. I learned from talented and brilliant people, became a far better artist, and most importantly, figured out what I wanted out of life.

Gear Shift

My greatest revelation was that I never truly wanted to be an artist. I didn't carry sketchbooks like the others, practice, or show off personal works. I wrote down ideas and made little games. Art turned out to be a means to an end: to create games. I never considered learning to program because I had been encouraged to be an artist all of my life. I had assumed it was my only entry point to the video game industry... and programming seemed incredibly inaccessible. Once I knew I wanted to be more than a small cog in the machine, I had to try. So, after two years, I put in my resignation. I worked with PixelJam for a few years on many small projects, benefiting greatly from their years of experience both thriving and struggling in the industry. I continued to practice coding with GameMaker, until one day Miles Tilmann of PixelJam suggested I try my hand at it full time for one of their clients. Unsure of myself, I reluctantly accepted.

Last Horizon & Nova Drift

The game was a gravity-based "planet lander" game titled Last Horizon. I drafted a design for the game and got to work prototyping it. Rich Grillotti, PixelJam artist, handled the artwork. For the first time, I had nothing to do with the visuals of a game! The game was meant to be a small browser game, but we soon recognized its potential, and it ballooned into a year long desktop & mobile project. It was really difficult. I had to solve a lot of problems I'd never encountered before, and lost faith a few times. However, to our surprise, the game was a hit on mobile! With the revenue split only four ways, we did alright. I started to wonder just how small a team I could manage. An earlier project of mine, Nova Drift, still interested me and I decided to make it my full time job & first solo endeavor, utilizing PixelJam as a publisher and hiring Miles for audio. Two years later, it’s nearly finished.

Be versatile, know your weaknesses.

The common advice I see given is to specialize in a field that can get you an entry level job, such as art, writing, or programming. This still makes sense, but if you want to work alone, you're going to need to be far more versatile. The trick is to practice by creating (just make something-- anything! As soon as possible!) and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are. Games encompass a huge number of specialized fields, and most people simply won't have time to excell in all of them. Once you know your weaknesses, you can design with these deficiencies in mind, or hire help to fill the gaps. In my case, I had a very strong art and animation background, and a fascination with design. By the end of Last Horizon, I was a pretty solid programmer-- but I'd never had a chance to learn about audio, marketing or production. Now that I'm self directed, those are the areas I contract out, or fill with partnerships. One more thing bears mentioning, and I might start some arguments here, but I believe it to be far easier to be an artist or musician who learns to program than the other way around. Most people can learn to program well enough to create a game in a few years, but developing the arts can take most of your life. My advice is start early, hire out, or both.

Don't underestimate what you can accomplish.

I put off learning to code in earnest for decades. I thought it was "for another kind of person". It’s not. It’s intimidating, but you can learn it piece by piece.

I recommend working for companies before going independent.

...Especially if you plan to work solo. This is for many reasons: First, there is an incredible amount to learn from the success and failure of other people. I can't overstate this: Failing a lot is really, really important. It's a lot better if they're failures you're witnessing, or at least still getting paid for, than failures that burn through your savings. Second, the contacts gained from doing so are too valuable to miss out on. You can benefit from these for the rest of your career. Moreover, working for companies hopefully provides you with a decent amount of startup capital so you don't have to rely on begging, borrowing, or crowdfunding (which is unreliable at best).

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” - Stephen McCranie.

Networking and building contacts early will benefit you in the long term.

They’ll help you get eyes where you need them, cross-promote, and they may know how to solve problems you do not. I made quite a lot of mistakes in this regard. I resisted Twitter and Facebook networking for years, relying on my employers and producers for networking. I failed to direct thousands of DeviantArt followers to my social media for future endeavors. I waited way too long to create Reddit presence and credibility. I never blogged or wrote about what I was doing. Thanks to my producer, I’m OK, but had I done this we’d have two pools of resources to tap!

Beyond the internet, make as many meaningful connections as you can.

Attend conventions, talk to people, attend events, or work in shared dev spaces. Always remember to be polite, giving and gracious. People are far more likely to help you or care about what you're doing if you show genuine interest in them, too. Most of all, do not underestimate yourself or the strength of your passion. The most important contact I have ever made, PixelJam Games, was made by sending them fan art. This small gesture quite literally changed my life. I was hired, creatively galvanized, and relocated to a new state. There, I met my wife whom I’m now traveling the world with while making video games (she is an elementary school teacher, employed by an international school). PixelJam taught me most of what I know about running a business, empowered me to work solo, and continue to be my most valuable business allies and dear friends. I’m not saying that slinging fan art is going to get you your golden ticket, but don’t underestimate the power of a bold initiative and a little fearlessness.

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” - Seneca

Make things, whenever you have time.

Anything that aligns with your passion and your goals. In doing so, you can let your work do the talking for you while you're networking. I got my first game job by showing the art director a little pixel art shoot 'em up game I had created in GameMaker. He told me, "This is the most fun interview I’ve ever done". Even if your first creation is hot garbage, it shows great character to have finished the thing on your own impetus.

Write down all of your ideas, even the bad ones.

Scribbles, diagrams, ideas that are nothing more than titles, your spouse’s bad ideas, everything. Archive all of these, make a collection. You'll find uses for some of them later, and others will coalesce into a greater idea.

Rapid prototyping! Get your hands on it!

Prototype ideas often to find out what works and what doesn't. You really won't know until you get your hands on it in action. Game Maker Studio is an alternative to Unity, and a good tool for prototyping if you're still getting the hang of coding or come from an art background. In fact, I still use it for professional development today. If you have any doubts, look into the great games it’s produced. It’s also great for weekend game jams. (These are awesome for getting reinvigorated during long projects).

Better yet, get other people's hands on it.

When we design, we are sort of in a vacuum and take things for granted. Testers will reveal fundamental problems with your game very quickly that you didn't consider. It may not be easy, but I recommend keeping silent as they play and avoid helping. You won’t be there to help your players once the game is out. Recognize that these frustrations are places where the game fails to convey what is needed of the player. Keep notes. Do this early. Fundamental flaws are not something you want to discover at the 11th hour.

Above all, keep things simple.

The tradeoff for complete control is that you have to be incredibly conservative with scope and features due to lack of manpower. Because I'm designing and programming as well, I can't spend all day polishing a painterly masterpiece. Instead, I choose a simple and stylish aesthetic which allows me to rapidly create art and execute ideas. Undertale is a good example of this working well, as is Super Hexagon, Geometry Wars, and Spelunky.

Don’t make your “masterpiece” your first game!

You should try to keep your first few projects very, very small. Maybe even attempt the tiniest crash course to get all of the problems out of the way. What you do NOT want is to encounter every inevitable hang up and brick wall on your grandest, favorite idea, losing your valuable momentum. That game should be your third or fourth, maybe.

Plan, but not too much.

Nobody's estimates are accurate. Just know that it will take far, far longer than you expect it to. It's very easy for a 3 month game idea to turn into several years if you aren't careful. As you develop, you'll often find that your game starts to deviate from your original concept. This is fine; the game informs its own design. Where you need to be alarmed is when the game idea begins to proliferate, considerably larger than you had originally planned. This is called "feature creep", and depending on your restraint and financial situation, it can either bury a project or improve it. Plenty of people have written on this subject, so I'll keep it short: Decide how much you want to allow your project to grow over time, and be strict about it. One thing I do recommend planning for is systems you plan to port to. Look ahead of time at all of the requirements for getting on things like iOS and Android’s Google Play. Saying these platforms are fussy is… putting it mildly.

Don’t over do it.

Inevitably, as you develop, your skill as a programmer will grow immensely from sheer repetition and immersion. You may be faced with the urge to constantly correct mistakes, over-optimize, and even rip things apart and start over. I suggest not doing this. Instead, get it working well, but accept that your early work will inevitably be below your standards and look forward. Do it right in the next game. Unless it's ruining the performance of your game, that imperfect code won't make a huge difference and it's more valuable to complete the project, start building your audience, and begin earning revenue. Also, be careful not to overreact to feedback. Oftentimes, people know something feels off, but they give the wrong reason why. Trust your instincts and solve the problem the best way you know how.

Simple Ideas.

Did I mention to keep it simple? You should keep it simple. It probably won't work, but you can try, and each time you will get better at it.

Live cheap.

Unless you're very solvent to begin with, the full creative control that solo dev allows you comes with a heavy demand: live and work cheaply. I won't get into the basics such as housing, food, lifestyle, and material possessions, but of course these are important. The big one is staying small: by definition, employees and employers are out of the picture, but that doesn't mean you won't have partners, such as publishers, or work with contractors. In fact, I suggest you do, but keep it to the absolute minimum. I've seen many games (and studios!) wither and die because overzealous creators struck too many deals and split the pie too many different ways, beyond the game's capability to generate cash. Another way this happens is over promising during desperate Kickstarter campaigns. I'll go over this more, later. A big company wants to grow, you should want the opposite: become as lean as physically possible. In doing so you can be agile and focus on our strength: creating a uniquely cohesive product in the way only a lone visionary can. So, generally speaking, if you can do it yourself well, do it. However, be willing to pay generously to hire out work you can't do well. If you can't compose music or write, paying for that could make a huge difference in the reception of your game… and paying well for it means getting it done right, and quickly.

Be cautious about cutting people in.

...For reasons other than money, too. There are many ways people you don't know well can throw you a curve ball, or even kill your game. Look for and learn to read red flags. Ask yourself: Do they have a library of creations to verify their skill and follow-through? Are they earnest and forthright with you? Does it seem like they're trying to sell you something? Are they promising impossible or unlikely things? Is there anyone you trust to vouch for them? Have you protected yourself legally? Just... please be careful. Listen to your gut. I've seen a lot go wrong, and I’ve experienced it, too.

Consider working abroad.

I totally get that this isn’t an option for most people, but if you can manage it, it’s possible to have significantly lower living expenses and still earn globally. (I’m living in Thailand at the moment, where a fairly comfortable life is cheap). If you can’t do this, you don’t have to live in Palo Alto / Seattle / Austin...

Auxiliary Income

Crowdfunding: Use it, don’t need it. These are powerful tools that should be wielded with great care. Platforms like Kickstarter are wonderful, but they're often misused. People rely on it, get caught up in the hype, become desperate, and make too many promises. In the end, many cannot deliver, run out of money, or delay and delay until they’re vaporware. Bottom line: Definitely use it, but never need it. I personally won't ever create a kickstarter campaign until I know for certain I can deliver my product without it. It's great for having extra funds to survive the long stretch, maybe add some nice new features, but I firmly believe that if your game cannot survive without being crowdfunded, it should not be created in the first place. It's too great a risk, because we can never predict what won’t go as planned. The resulting time, morale, and energy sink from a failed campaign can be devastating, and a backed campaign that cannot follow through is even worse.

Backers can’t read your mind.

If you do run a campaign, consider the following: Take nothing for granted. Your game idea may be crystal clear in your head, but if a stranger watches the video and doesn't understand what the game is, they won't be backing it. Remember, you’ve been in a vacuum with the game for a long time. Everyone else has not. Make sure a lot of people see your trailer and provide critical feedback. Show it to hard-ass devs and ask them to be brutal. Show it to me. If you've planned properly, you've budgeted time to fix it.

Don't just prepare your kickstarter page, prepare the update material, too. Get an early start on screenshots, GIFs, press kits, social media, etc. This is all easier if you're fairly late in your game development and already have a lot of information and visuals to work with.

Above all, be honest and as transparent as possible with your backers. They will appreciate it, and it will generate faith in you. If they believe supporting you will reflect well on them, they will be far more likely to help you spread the word and get more backers. I hear Steam early-access and Patreon can be also great sources of income during development, but I haven’t tried them.

Self Promotion

It’s OK to ask for help. Getting used to this was the hardest bit for me, as I tend to prefer hiding in the shadows to the spotlight. You have to do it, and there's nothing wrong with it. Despite what you may instinctively feel, it's pretty hard to get annoyed at an earnest self-promoter, provided they're only asking once. Again, people are far more likely to help you if you show genuine interest in them, too. Start a conversation, talk about what's important to them. Ask them for a signal boost if they're into what you're making. Don't ask for money, and don't ask to trade promo, that's a bit weak. I recommend using Facebook, Twitter, maybe a blog if you enjoy it.. Having a separate Twitter and Facebook for work and personal can be useful. Good hashtags to use are #indiedev and #gamedev. Post a lot, show your passion, and as long as you're respectful and your product is good, people will help you.

Don’t go crazy.

Bear in mind that working alone, creatively, can have some psychological tolls. When you work for years on something important to you, it's easy to give in to doubt and anxiety. The longer you work on it, the greater it seems to need to be to live up to that. You keep raising the bar, but whenever you do, every aspect of the game has to rise up. Distraction, too, can become a constant problem to the developer who disengages with their creation. It can get bad.

Some things you can do to counter this:

Move around. Work from cafes, outside, or in shared work spaces in cities.

Don’t make your sleep-zone or gaming-zone be your work area. That separation helps you relax during off-time.

Take advantage of your flexible schedule. If it works for you, occasionally break up your work day and enjoy the daylight outside.

Get and give feedback from developers you trust, who are also making awesome things. I’m always surprised how much this small thing matters and inspires.

During the drag of a long project, take days to work on something else. Game jams, or new ideas. (I make nerdy charts and skill trees for future games)

You should love it.

Let’s face it, if you can make a game, there are much easier ways to use your talents to make lots of money. If you’re in this field, it should bring you joy. If that’s not happening, and it’s not on the horizon, you should reconsider the path you’re on.

If you made it this far, awesome. Thank you for listening. I’m happy to answer any questions you have in the comments. Ask me anything! Also, please take a look at my game in the link at the bottom, and if you’re into it, spread the word.

TL;DR:

Work for a company first, earn some coin, exp, and recruit allies.

Try to become versatile, and don’t underestimate what you can learn.

Determine your strengths and weaknesses, and know how to fill in the gaps with help.

Spend good money on things you can't do well.

Start building an online following ASAP.

Write all of your ideas down, bad ones too.

Create, a lot. Good things, bad things, just create.

Get people to test early, because you're in a vacuum and take things for granted.

Don’t try to make your first game your masterpiece.

Plan, but not too much.

Don't over-optimize or start over, instead do it better the next time.

Finish projects and don't get ahead of yourself.

Everything you make increases your residual income, brand strength, and freedom.

Keep your business as simple and as small as you can.

Be careful who you sign on with and what you sign up for.

Live cheaply.

Don't "feature creep".

Crowdfund for extra money, or use early access but never rely on these. Avoid the "cycle of need".

Promote and share often, don't be afraid to ask for help, but don't be annoying either.

Care about what other people are doing and they will care about your work.

Master solitude, self-doubt, and distraction.

Love what you are doing, and if you don’t, change course.

Nova Drift Kickstarter and Trailer

#IFTTT #Blogger

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opepin · 7 years

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march: week 2

06: i was so sleepy today. i don’t know why. i still got a good chunk of work done though -- there weren’t many meetings today. i ate lunch with the dev guys and cole gave me one of his scallion pancakes! i shared half with stephen. i kept almost crashing so i just stood up and shuffled while doing work. x__x; i ate two hard caramel candies to try to keep myself awake but it didn’t work either. i managed to get through the day though. i left work a bit early because i wanted to catch the train early and phil couldn’t meet until 5 pm. i got back, skyped with phil for a bit, and then snacked and ko’d. i planned on taking a nap for 30 minutes but ended up sleeping for 2 hours and also getting mad at kevin for trying to wake me up LOL. he came back from climbing and he tried giving me kisses and i like grunted at him and yelled at him while half asleep. LOL DON’T MESS WITH ME AND MY SLEEP :P

i did wake up after he finished showering and then we ate dinner and watched izombie. we did some apartment furniture/things purchasing, vacation planning, and budgeting. then kevin went to game and i continued to shop LOL. i got a resistance band with the help of daniel and got ourselves a cute rug from society6. i’m excited for all of this! then i showered and brushed my teeth and went to sleep with kevin. i didn’t work out because i was so tired from traveling and work i guess. i mean rest days are okay too. i did hit less than 21% of body fat today on the scale :D woot.

07: i was again sleepy but more awake. it was nice and warm outside (as warm as it gets when it rains). it was nice. i was surprised because cole was in the office today and stephen and john. apparently, their schedules switched for this week. well, cole and stephen are going to move into the office and haowei and kien will be out here now. :( i like everyone but i love my table ahah. stephen said he wanted to stay with me tooo ahha. they won’t move until next week probably. i met eddie from new york and the office was just full of people. :O it was so much fun! i got a burrito at sabrosa because i wanted tacos but 2 tacos were $9 and a burrito was $9...so i got the burrito because it makes more sense... i ate lunch with the guys again and then went into meetings for the rest of the day. i was more awake after lunch today. it was probably because i was super hungry and the burrito filled me up :3

stephen and cole left the table to sit in the office now T_T but at least i’m sitting with haowei and kien now (: i walked to south station with cole and then i accidentally prepped for oyakodon and then i did abs and zumba. we watched an episode of izombie before kevin went off to game and then i talked to vivian on the phone. then i went to shower and waited for kevin to finish up whatever he was doing so we could plan our trips together. i got sleepy so i went to sleep. kevin left the bed at 2 am and it ended up in a terrible argument where i just blew up like i never have before. i’m just so tired. it’s tiring when you feel like they just don’t listen. they want to understand your feelings on their terms and it just doesn’t work like that. i stayed up until 4 am and ko’d after watching some youtube videos.

08: i was exhausted in the morning but i had to get stuff done. i was in a crappy mood but i wanted to work. i did talk to vivian about the argument and stuff too. i found out that she and i have the exact same love language and it is 12/12. that’s why she’s my lo gong <3 i cranked out 3 videos today even though my voice was shot from yesterday. my throat is hurting now. i bought tickets for chicago in june too! it’s official. i got to use the LUV vouchers finally. hen got her flowers from me and it made my day that she was happy about it. i sent her flowers because i’ve been meaning to an also for international’s women’s day because she deserves a reminder of how strong she is and also i miss her so. we got our amazon shipment today so that meant getting our cookbooks and i also got my resistance band today! yassss. i’m so excited to use it but i’m gonna use it tomorrow probably. oh, so there’s a crack in our bathroom tiled wall for some reason so rachel (deco girl) offered us to stay in the guest suite while they fix it for 2 days. that’s like a paid vacation. i talked to kevin about doing it on the weekend because we’re going to o ya and getting a massage next weekend too. it’ll be great.

i finished my day off wth phil telling me that i didn’t need to attend the last late meeting of the day and i finished up my videos. i started preparing dinner when kevin came in. he wouldn’t talk to me or anything so i knew he was mad. i only asked him about cooking stuff and etc. then i looked through the cookbooks and i tried getting him to sit next to me while watching izombie, but he didn’t :( i asked vivian to try to message him and talk to him because i didn’t know what to do at that point. before that, i put on an episode of ‘the mind of a chef’ and i thought he softened up. well, he didn’t and then he ate and disappeared into the room. i finished the izombie episode and then went to look for him. i saw him ko’d on the bed in the dark .___. so i put a blanket on him and did my exercise early. it was kickboxing day! i got so tired halfway through though. hmm. kevin woke up and then we talked. it was a bit rocky at first but i can feel that he really cares, he’s patient, and he really wanted to understand and fix this. so we made a plan and hopefully, it works out. i’ll be less passive aggressive and more active in communicating and he’ll be less accusatory and ask me more general questions like how was my day and how i’m feeling so he can gauge why i’m angry and how angry i am.

we spent time together doing nothing and just talking about our lives and then we looked at the cookbooks together. i showered and then ko’d next to kevin while he played pokemon. it was tiring but good day. we’ve also booked our tickets to chicago this spring/summer! we’re coming back and i’m so excited!

09: my new buddies in my area are just as great as cole and steve LOL. :) i enjoy everyone’s company at t7. i was really productive today. i cranked out a lot of video edits and then at the end of the day, rushed to finish a pricing sheet with phil’s help. lol omg i was struggling so hard making it and i had to ask cole and he found a very granular way to make it but i didn’t think it was what phil wanted. anyway, the day itself was great and i talked to steve and cole on slack. i had a funny conversation with steve about his name (it’s spelled stephen). i also got donuts with cole in the morning and i did not like them. i got pistachio and reese’s cup -- they were both too sweet. i also got to meet diego and said goodbye to eddie. eddie owns 2 whiskey bars in new york so i hope we’ll get to visit sometime. :3 it was a very friendly thursday with tech thursdays and etc. the office was lively and it was really nice.

i rushed to get off skype and ran downstairs to get kevin because he needed to use the washroom. then i brought him in the office and no one cared LOLOL. i thought it was funny -- i knew no one would care but just seeing them not move from their seats or look up, it was hilarious. i introduced kevin to cole and then we rushed to the elephant walk restaurant for our dine-out boston reservations! it was a long and kinda windy walk. the weather was cool and nice but our ears started hurting. we got there before we died -- it was a 30 minute walk. i was really excited about this restaurant but everything was just ok. i admit that kevin picked better dishes that me. he got this warm noodle with shrimp as an appetizer and i got the fried dumplings. the warm noodles were my favorite dish out of everything. then he got this tiger shrimp dish with coconut rice and i got boeuf borrgnhinin (lol i don’t want to look it up. it’s a beef dish) and it tasted too much like alcohol. i feel like it wasn’t cooked out properly. for dessert, i got the coconut egg custard and kevin got a passionfruit mousse. they complemented each other so well. they tasted so good together. individually, his tasted better.

we waited a bit inside for the bus then walked outside and found a heating station and waited there. we got on SL5 instead of SL4 but still got to a red line so whatevs. we watched two episodes of izombie and then kevin gave me a light shoulder massage and i ko’d on the bed face into the bed for like 20 minutes LOL. i woke up and exercised with my new resistance band/cuff. it was weird? but my butt did hurt when i did exercises. then i did hip hop cardio, we showered, and then ended up sleeping at 3 am? lulz. good thing i’m working from home tomorrow. i love staying up with kevin (:

10: i had a great night of sleep :3 i was working from home so i focused on recording today while attending a good amount of meetings. it was snowing outside and kevin scared me in the morning because i was still half asleep when he screamed, “snow!” his alarm also went off like 6x this morning. @_@; i wasn’t mad though. i had to organize my day because i felt a little bit scared to proceed with the videos, but i figured it out and i can just rewatch phil’s videos and then do the newer version of them. i missed a call due to mass emailing issues and etc but it was alright. i recorded 2 more videos by the end of the day and got template work to do on monday. woot! i worked a bit past 5 pm and then kevin came back from work and we cooked dinner. we made niratama donburi and it was so fluffy and delicious. we watched 2 episodes of izombie and then kevin went to game and i did my workout. i almost fell asleep again x__X; it was a pretty uneventful but chill night :) oh, i also got my snack care package from ashley! i went crazy looking through the box and i realized they gave me 5 free full-sized products -- whut. then me and ashley waited for victoria to come home and get the package. haha she was so surprised and it was so cute. i hope she does well on finals and i hope ashley bbg is doing well. i love this triangular snack delivery thing we did ;D i opened all the snacks to try some and share some with kevin. we both loved the muscat chocolate gummies, which kevin has never had :O i’m glad ashley picked those out for me (: thanks, girl! so yeah, things have been pretty great.

11: lol, we got up later than we expected because we are bums and we love our sleep so we left the house at 11:20 am or something to get to the new england dessert showcase. it was cold af and the train took its sweet time getting to us. we got to see some cosplayers and a lot of people heading over to PAX because the showcase was in the westin hotel, which was also hosting PAX in a way and connected to both events. it was pretty lively. we were about to check in with our groupon and then a lady stopped us and gave us her two vip tickets because her sister was sick and couldn’t make it. me and kevin were pretty much like whaaa? in awe basically. so we went in and vip only meant that we could go to the afterparty and use this side room to check in our coats and hang out in. the venue was pretty empty and all of the vendors gave out costco-sized samples -__- we paid $40 for this?! of course we tried everything and then watcheda bit of a demo, but left fairly quickly. my favorite treat out of this was the proyo samples and the palm house mini desserts. they were tiny though. we looked around the westin to see if we could “sneak” into PAX, but obviously we didn’t and headed home.

we went to the mall to get our knives sharpened. however, when we got there, we were told that the person who does that wasn’t in today and to come tomorrow after 12 pm. that was fine, but the people who work at the sur la table in braintree mall are kinda rude. .__. we stopped by lush then to prepare for our staycation! i got help from a kind worker and i believe his name was gabe. he introduced me to the perfect moistuzing bath bomb, luxury oil bomb thingy, and body exfoliator. we checked out, headed back home and then we ate lunch and caught ourselves in a izombie vortex. i think we watched 5 episodes until the season finale and we found out the next season comes out in april. oh no, what do we watch in the meantime?! then we cooked dinner, ate and planned meals for the week, and then kevin went to climb at 10 pm or so LOL. i did an hour long workout, cleaned my yoga mat, showered, and stayed up listening to the kiev dota tournament while flipping through the cookbooks with kevin. i went to sleep right before 2 am (daylight savings) and ko’d.

12: uhhh...vivian and jackson megabus’d to boston and then went to get hot pot at kaze while me and kevin were still trying to wake up LOL. i got up at 12 pm and then shot the clips i needed for my 2 minute showcase video for the week and then i woke up kevin because vivian and jackson were done eating 20 minutes before the time they estimated (they ate so quickly)! so kevin and i got ready and then drove to chinatown and got them. :) it was great seeing jackson again aka my gbf~ we drove back to the apartment, vivian shared some of her “vegan” cake and when we looked at the ingredients, it was definitely not vegan so i don’t know what the bakery was tryna sell her LOL. then vivian gave jackson the tour of deco while kevin and i ate potstickers for breakfast/lunch. we finished writing down all the stuff we needed for groceries this week and then bounced. vivian and jackson were busy playing some card game i bought a while back.

kevin and i hit up sur la table first and got to see our knives getting sharpened. the lady sharpening our knives was reaaaal nice. (: then we went to kam man, got our groceries and a few more staple pantry items, and went to bj’s for some beef stew meat. we got back, kevin made himself a quesadilla, i ate a bit of kale fried rice, and vivian and jackson were watching ‘the flash’ on netflix. they also took initiative and ordered food from an indian place. so then kevin and i left to go to our chef week reservation. it was quite a busy day for both of us. the drive to osaka was a bit long -- 30 minutes or so but it was so worth it. we found parking right in front and then i realized that we were going to get dinner and show because it was a hibachi steak house!!! score! it was my first time going to one. kevin got the rock shrimp, filet mignon with scallops and shrimp, and mochi. i got the tuna dumpling, filet mignon with lobster tail, and mochi. this was greeeeat. i also ordered a drink on kevin’s suggestion: summer in osaka and it was deliciously sweet. the chef was so interactive and it was great seeing people catch zucchini in their mouths and fire and etc. it was exciting. kevin and i really enjoyed it and it was only $28 each for the meal -- totally worth. we’re considering coming back :)

kevin drove back and i kept him awake by talking about random things. when we got back, we see vivian and jackson ko’d in the living room. they ate and fell asleep watching ‘the flash.’ LOOOOL. kevin and i took this time to leave them be. i did some errands and then they woke up and i talked to them a bit while watching ‘the flash.’ then i edited my video and all three of us did my 45 minute cardio workout and both of them died. i guess my cardio is now pretty good? LOL. so appreciative of them to do it with me even though both of them HATE cardio. <3 they went to play in the fitness center and then i went back, edited my video while kevin showered, showered, and then finished editing my video. they went to sleep at like 1 am? i stayed up until 2 am or so finishing editing and then waiting for kevin to get in bed. i just knocked out. i knew i would regret staying up haha. also, my mom sent me videos of a vegetable garden from china LOLOL.

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