Another weekend down, another session of The Magical Millennium in the bag! As we have been for the last few sessions, we’re still in the middle of the Lock-In at school. This past session covered almost two hours of time, which would mean we’re actually picking up the pace if it weren’t for the fact that we weren’t able to finish up the final match of the dodgeball tournament and so didn’t REALLY get through a whole two-hour period. In the time we did cover, though, we got to see everyone except the Cleric run off to sign up for the “random party” Adventurer Escape Room activity. Only one player got randomly selected for a time slot they’d chosen, unfortunately, but that just means that everyone else will feel a bit more ready when they go to compete in the time trial version with their established party after the dodgeball tournament. We got a little bit of conversation between the Artificer and the Bard, a pair we don’t see much, saw the Cleric almost have a panic attack as they sought out some peace and quiet, and saw a fated confrontation between the Barbarian and Group B’s fighter on the dodgeball court (well, we saw the start of what the Barbarian’s player is describing as a fated confrontation with her character’s foil. I’m pretty sure it’s just some jock-on-jock competition, but we’ll have to see how it goes). After that, we managed to actually end on time since one of the players had to leave right away. Now, we’re looking at some potential scheduling woes as we approach the winter holiday season and must face up to the reality that skipping even one session means going a long time without getting to meet up again.
Continue readingWhat’s Actually Next Now That I’ve Finished Veilguard
Every so often, I decide to watch something on Twitch. It’s usually Friends at the Table streaming something because, if I’m being honest, I don’t much care for watching one person play a video game. If it’s a group of people, or one person is playing but there’s multiple voices involved, I enjoy it more, but I still don’t generally enjoy watching people play games. Friends at the Table is different, though, because my entire familiarity with them is listening to them play games, so watching them play games feels like a lateral move. Another reason I tend to avoid it is because I’m a sucker for “this looks fun!” type enthusiasm. I will absolutely get suckered into buying a game because I saw someone else enjoying it and then wind up not liking it myself because a large part of the fun was watching the other person play it. If I avoid watching streams of people playing games, then I don’t have to contend with wanting to buy a bunch of indie or smaller-studio games that I will never play (like 90% of my Steam library) or that I just won’t enjoy for longer than I watched the person stream it. The rest of my reason for not watching much streamed stuff is that I generally enjoy playing a game more than watching someone else play it. There are exceptions to this, of course, but it’s still generally true. All of which is largely beside the point because I’ve been watching a little more streamed stuff lately than I usually do and I’ve been thinking about buying some new games to fill an incredibly specific and empty niche in my life right now.
Continue readingWhat’s Next Now That My Dragon Age Playthrough Is In The Rearview Mirror?
Please, if you know the answer, tell me. I’m desperate. As of writing this, it has been almost a week since I finished this momentous task, this three hundred forty hour undertaking, and nothing compares to the soaring highs and wonderful emotional lows (that were also soaring highs, let’s be real, because I love a tear-jerker) of Veilguard. I’ve tried playing other video games, things I set aside to brute-force my way through Inquisition, and none of them seem fun. I’ve tried to read, but my mind can’t focus on something that doesn’t feel as real as Veilguard did. I tried taking a night off, to do something other than play a Dragon Age game, and yet I found myself unable to focus on anything but thoughts of how nice it would be to start a new file. Nothing compares to the depth of character and delight I felt while blissfully escaping into this latest Dragon Age game, so how can I tear myself away from the fresh character I made on my second night after beating the first one? How can I deny myself what my entire being desires so deeply and clearly?
Continue readingShould You Play Dragon Age: The Veilguard?
The short answer is yes. If you trust me and my reviews, feel free to bounce right now and go enjoy yourself. If you still need convincing, then I’m sure I can manage that. The game doesn’t do a great job of selling itself unless you’re already on the Dragon Age train and looking for your next destination. After all, most trailers for it showcase grand, sweeping events that are mostly exciting as references to past games and older characters (and sometimes things that were specifically avoided in these past games). If you don’t already know who Solas and Varric are, you might not care much about seeing them in opposition. If you haven’t followed the Dragon Age games for their decade and a half run, you might not have a reason to care about the arrival of what might be some Elven gods. Sure, it’s all tons of pretty typical fantasy and RPG type stuff, but most of it doesn’t really make an impact without history or greater context (which I can provide for you). Still, it’s a pretty good video game, taken on its own merits, and absolutely worth your time on that front alone. If you’ve played other Dragon Age games and just aren’t sure you want to continue? Then it is worth your time even more so.
Continue readingWrapping Up Worldbuilding For “The Rotten”
In one final session that took three hours (which is two more than I hoped it would take and one more than I expected it to take), we wrapped up our game of The Quiet Year with a much more detailed map than we started with and an idea of what the world looked like after that year of relative peace. We’ve got a fully underground society, a mysterious Labyrinth that defies mapping and contains seemingly limitless treasure, and a yearly pass of horrific monsters that will kill or infect any being unfortunate enough to be caught outside by their organized sweep with The Rot. It was a lot of cool stuff that has left the group in a situation where they’re well-off as adventurers but maybe not super well-off as a society. Sure, they’ve got a decent amount of food and livestock, not to mention more water than they could need, but their population isn’t super big and they only have enough food because their population is small. There’ll be a lot of problems facing this community thirty years down the road, when we start up the Dungeons and Dragons campaign side of things, but I think it’s well-within the group’s ability to handle them or die trying. Not sure which is more likely at this point, given that I’m starting them at level one and this world’s rough on characters of all levels, but I’m interested to find out!
Continue readingThe Only Good Thing About Social Media Today
I’ve been trying to take it easy on the news front lately. I’ve been super busy at work and don’t have the emotional resiliency to wallow in online misery like I did back in 2016. Plus, the last place I go online for social media, bsky.app, has been struggling all day every day this week as it gets flooded by new users who are either clogging the servers, attempting to remake the existing culture on the website, or blathering on and on about how they’re crushed that they have to rebuild their followings while also spamming the world with new starter packs (groups of users collected by the person who made the starter pack that you can choose to follow in their entirety if, for some reason, you want to just blindly follow a dozen to a couple hundred people). These people need to sit down, take some time to adjust, and get used to the idea that they’re called “skeets,” as gross as that is. I resent anyone showing up after a goddamn year of hanging out in a nazi bar (aka, Twitter) who tries to dictate how the people who BUILT this website into the haven they’re now seeking use that same website. I don’t care what other people call a post to Bluesky, but they don’t get to tell anyone else what they’re called. We settled that in the great posting wars/posting strike of 2023.
Continue readingSpoiler-Filled Thoughts On Veilguard Right After Beating The Game
In case the title wasn’t clue enough, this post is going to contain spoilers for the end of Dragon Age: The Veilguard pretty much throughout the entire thing. This little preamble paragraph won’t have any (nor will the full game review I’ll be posting next week), but you continuing to read this before bailing out to avoid spoilers is REALLY risking it. You’re playing with fire here. Just head out before I have enough words to make sure no preview of this post contains any kind of reference to the end of the game or my feelings relating to it. Which is pretty much now. You’ve been warned!
Continue readingSpoiler-Free Thoughts On Veilguard Right Before I Beat The Game
I’ve almost finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I’ve explored every map, found every chest (well, the ones included in the counts for each map since I’m positive I missed a few of the chests from the special areas you can only access during certain quests), completed all of my companion quests, gotten all of them up to level nine (saving Harding, my Rook’s partner, who is level ten because I take her everywhere with me), and even gotten an hour or so into the final quest. I’m almost finished with my first playthrough, though I suspect I’ll keep playing it through again as the next year passes. There’s a lot I want to explore in the game, still, and while most of the big decisions haven’t felt that consequential yet, I’m interested to see how they all play out anyway. Plus, I still need to romance the other six companions since there isn’t a single one of them that I didn’t fall at least a little in love with during this playthrough. I just, you know, had to stick to Harding in order to fulfil a dream almost a decade in the making (since I couldn’t do more than flirt with her in Inquisition, which was criminal). I’ve been having a lot of fun, even if I do have to admit that I’ve been playing it as much as I have been not because I enjoy it that much (I enjoy it plenty, though, just to be clear), but because I desperately need to escape life right now and don’t really want to leave myself with extra time to think about things. As far as games go, though, I don’t think I’ve played one in a while that drew me in as deeply as this one has.
Continue readingAn Exchange Of Beliefs To Reflect This Upcoming Political Era
Content warning for discussion of childhood abuse and the lingering effects of that trauma.
Continue readingI’m Tired and Sad, So Let’s Talk About The Legend of Zelda: Episode 31
I’m out of blog posts, exhausted, and super depressed about everything going on in the world (which is why I’m out of blog posts, but I’ll write about that later). So, rather than try to kick my ass into gear in order to pretend that I’m still writing these a week ahead of time, I’m going to fully admit that I’m writing this on the eleventh, that I’m probably going to have to edit this after it posts tomorrow, and that all I can seem to do right now is take refuge in what scant comforts remain to me after I burned through them in the first year of the pandemic… [this is why I try to write them early enough that I can edit them before they go up since the rest of the post doesn’t really support this idea here]. The primary comfort amongst them being The Legend of Zelda and Majora’s Mask in particular. I feel a little weird, writing about it right now, but it also feels kind of appropriate given that it is a game about preventing the end of the world while the world is constantly ending. About finding joy or love or peace as the world falls down around your ears. About grief and endings and healing throughout them. I’m pretty sure that all the recent thoughts buzzing around my head are a result of something I read and a discussion I had rather than something I wrote, but it still feels like I’ve touched on this recently even though I have clear evidence I haven’t.
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