Mera'din

Everything they've been doing has been for the better, but if you've stopped I don't see any real reason to start back up for a while. Wait for some big additions and really meaningful changes. I'm still playing a little bit each day mostly just saving up currency and what not and doing individual javelin challenges and stuff. Have both Interceptor and Colossus completely decked out in Legendaries and have all of their challenges done thus far. As long as they get shit out before I run out of side things to do, I'll be happy.

1.20, First update in like a month: https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/news/update-120 They've been pretty silent and rumor is they've been in pretty heavy crunch to catch back up to where they wanted to be at this point. Tweet went out a couple days ago about new story and lore content being finished up, and this update apparently has a lot of "under the hood" changes not listed that are supposed to set up for their first big roadmap thing that was originally supposed to have happened already, so we'll see how fast they can get that out. As such, they're also adding a Test Server on PC and will have the "Cataclysm" thing on it to test starting tomorrow it sounds like and will also be doing a stream about it around 3pm CST: https://answers.ea.com/t5/News-Updates/Update-on-1-2-0-the-Cataclysm-and-next-livestream/m-p/7902351#M15 Patch has some solid stuff in it either way. Can "fast travel" to the different strider locations now, map will show collectibles and rare enemies when you're near them and things like that on top of a lot of bug fixes and some ability buffs.

Another video today: Album is phenomenal too. Love pretty much every song on it. Some definitely stand out more than others, but am enjoying all of them. For a bit it seemed like they were going by the track list for videos, but they skipped one between Radio and this. Unfortunate because that is one of my favorite songs, but that one probably would have found a way to insight controversy and since they just did that with their first new video, maybe they wanted to wait a bit. XD Probably my favorite song on the album is "Puppe". Starts out slow and then gets a bit manic during the chorus. Reminds me a bit of something like "Mein Herz Brennt" tone wise. Lyrically, probably relates closer to something like "Mein Teil" for those that bother to get into that side of their music.

I feel like you'll enjoy the 3rd game a lot more. Potions are more meaningful (maybe not up to par with 1 still but I know I used them a fair amount vs. never using them in 2 basically), and the plot is a LOT more interesting between the Wild Hunt, the search for Ciri, and the crazy antics of Dandelion and co. There's a lot more interesting side stuff too and the monster hunting is more prominent and has more of that feeling that being a Witcher MEANS something and you actually have a job to do instead of being some pawn in weird political machinations the entire time. Even the DLC is really good (Blood and Wine especially). 12.) Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII This was... a lot better than I was expecting if I'm going to be completely honest. To a point. I finally bit the bullet and got it because I found a new copy for like $7, and I really enjoyed XIII-2, though I heard horrible things about this one so just stayed away from it until I could get a price I was comfortable with. The core mechanics of the game are garbage. You're basically on a time limit (world ends in 13 days, time counts down as you play. every 5 sec. or so is a "minute" in game) and I swear every single quest in the game is designed to waste as much time as possible. Would have been the most frustrating thing in the fucking world going into it blind. However, I had a fucking phenomenal guide I found and it turned it from a garbage heap into a halfway enjoyable experience from a gameplay side. Combat is reminiscent of X-2, with an outfit swapping mechanic that alters you stats and abilities, but is fully customizable which makes for a semi-decent experience for what it is. Story is where I was honestly surprised. Heard terrible things, and though it's rough around the edges, they wrapped up all the story threads from the first two games decently and I didn't hate it. Game starts out feeling like it should be called "The Book of Mormon: Final Fantasy XIII" since the basics of the story are you're literally doing peoples chores to save their souls before the world ends. Part way through though, the story shifts into some sort of acid trip Atheist wet dream about murder god and setting everyone's souls free to live their own lives and shit like that. They even kind of explain why Lightning is so deadpan monotonous all the time (I know it's not because of the VA, she's the same one that does Liara in Mass Effect). Side quests were fucking awful both in terms of writing and voice acting, but the main stuff was decent outside of the words "chaos", "hope" and "light" being uttered so many times it was starting to feel like someone was copying Kingdom Hearts' homework and just swapping out key words. This is especially awkward sometimes considering there is a character named Hope, and everyone calls Lightning "Light". >_> Overall I didn't hate it, and didn't feel like I wasted my time with it. Between XIII-2 and this, I feel like I hate XIII itself SLIGHTLY less now, so that's something I guess. XD

Now that I've had time to sort of sit on this for a week or so and think it over here are my thoughts:

This week is indeed Ventrue. For disciplines they'll have Dominate (Force of Will style mind control) and Fortitude (super resilience). They didn't do a live stream this time due to scheduling issues so they have a pre-recorded segment but still answer questions gathered from previous streams and such that they didn't get time to answer (mostly general questions about how the game will work and what not). They also go in depth about why the went with the clans they did and reinforcing that they want to support this game for a long time and want to add more clans to it. Even mentioning things outside the traditional set clans, such as the Antitribu clans and things like the Daughters of Cacophony. Would really be cool if they take it that far. Really like how blunt they are with some things too. They don't shy away from saying they changed things because as great as they can be in a table top game, they're garbage for a video game, or that there are some things they just aren't going to do or will do differently because it's how they need to do it from a business standpoint. Videos:

Blizzard tried to warn them about this years ago too when demand was really coming to a head before they decided to finally go ahead with the thing because people wouldn't shut up.

Album is out today. Also, missed this one last week. Not from new album. Cover of a Depeche Mode song from a tribute album, but still good:

That's all well and good for things in the long run, but how about we start simple and just finally fucking do cross platform games, Sony?

Yeah, they're one of the ones I'm hoping to see sooner rather than later as DLC. Hell, maybe even shake things up and actually make them a launch clan. In terms of lore, they've started joining the Camarilla now so it wouldn't cause any massive shakeup in the story and Obtenibration would be a really cool power for a video game. Expecting the next one to be Ventrue, and then PROBABLY Gangrel last, but I sincerely wish it would be anything BUT Gangrel, because I find them kind of boring but we'll see. They're being tight lipped on how many they'll actually end up adding post-launch, but that's probably because they want to see how the game does long term. Paradox is known to support their games for fucking ever though (they have games that released 6+ years ago that still get expansions even) so it would be cool if we eventually get all 13 of the main clans at the very least.

Today is Toreador. Their disciplines will be Celerity (Super Speed) and Presence (Crowd Control for lack of a better simple description. Like, LITERAL crowd control. Can make people follow you and stuff like that). These streams have been pretty informative. They go into more than just the particular clan and are starting to give little bits of information otherwise. I also like how the one guy goes pretty in depth about the way each clan works from a story standpoint and tries to give examples from well known vampire based movies that match the "style" of a particular clan for those that don't know anything about VtM. One cool thing they call out in this one is that the game will have auto-saves, and specifically, it will make a SEPARATE auto-save at the point where you pick your clan so you can start off of that point if you want to try something else or don't like the clan you picked without completely starting over. Videos:

Was announced today that Big Bad Wolf Studio (the studio that made 'The Council' ) is doing a Vampire: The Masquerade game. I'm not exaggerating when I say that ever since I played episode 1 of The Council, this is EXACTLY what I wanted to see come out of this studio. The style and game elements of that game all felt like they were MADE for a World of Darkness game and I am beyond excited. https://www.rpgsite.net/news/8483-an-additional-vampire-the-masquerade-rpg-is-in-development-more-information-to-come-at-this-year-s-gamescom

Because people nessecarily haven't seen the episode that just aired and aren't responsible enough to not click on the topic when they know that I guess? XD I'll post more later but I have two things to say before then: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Also:

I never played the other ones so don't know how it compares, but this looks like a nicer, more story driven version of that Marvel Heroes Omega game.

Clearly Steve Rogers doesn't suffer from depression? I don't really know what you're looking for here. The established him pretty early on as the kind of person who could have the whole world against him and he will never give up and never stop fighting. He'll always get back up and keep going no matter how bleak shit is and will help everyone he can along the way. Even his contentions with Tony stem from that drive. He was not willing to compromise his beliefs for anything, and would rather die fighting for all that he is than sacrifice even one part of it. Some people just don't break. At least not outwardly or in any quantifiable way that matters for this discussion. I don't know where the insistence on comparing Thor with him is coming from either. A better comparison for Thor would probably be Stark overall. Both in terms of their early lives, parts of their personalities and the kinds of shit they've had to deal with.

Fucking. Casual.

You misspelled the word "years". >_>

The full game has been done for over 20 years you fucking casual.

They never said it wouldn't still be like that so I don't know why so many people in general seem shocked at this. I'm cool with getting Disk 1 now instead of the whole thing 15 years from now. It's not like we don't know what happens. If they think they're going to charge full price for each one though that will be... not good. This would be the company to try it though. Obligatory:

Somewhere in the multiverse...

More Randy Pitchford shit. How this guy is still in charge of Gearbox is honestly mind blowing. >_>

The message that was attached on their Facebook post implies we should be getting a release date at least and seems like they're on the final stretch so it should hopefully be this year.

I wonder if they're actually going to do the thing with the Paul Bunyan statue from the books since they showed it for a second. XD

Today's reveal was Tremere. Their disciplines will be Thaumaturgy (Blood Magic) and Auspex (6th Sense/projection). Looks like they are going 2 per instead of 3 so no Dominate for them I guess. Unless this is rolled into normal social interaction as well like was insinuated with the 3rd Brujah one. Tremere have also had their clan weakness reworked a bit for this and they will be a sort of 'hard mode' for the game as they will take more damage from vampires than other clans (kind of comes from the innate hatred for the Tremere from most other clans due to their origins). Videos: