The Queue: Spacing out
@MatthewWRossi
I’ve now done all of the Cyberpunk 2077 endings. My canon one for my V is the one with the Aldecaldos, but I like them all, except the really sad one. You’ll know which one if you’ve played it. Anyway, here’s V in space.
So, what’re y’all up to?
I made a Mag’har Warrior last night.
Kind of disappointed that tattoos are tied to skin color for them.
I’m sorry about the Mag’har tattoos, but come on, I bet you still look pretty awesome.
Q4tQ: How would you feel if Blizz said they were starting development on Warcraft 4, but it would be a different game genre, like instead of RTS they turned it into a turn based tactical RPG? Mad because it was so different from the original, or happy just because it means we are getting more?
I mean, is it Warcraft 4 if it’s not an RTS? Because we might as well call WoW by that name if any game in the franchise can be Warcraft 4 regardless of whether or not it’s an RTS game. I mean, I’m totally down for a turn based tactical RPG in the Warcraft setting — I mean, sign me up, I’ve played Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity and Pathfinder Kingmaker and I still have both Icewind Dale games on my computer, so I’m really happy to give that a shot.
But is it fair to the long time fans of the franchise? I mean, the last Warcraft RTS was twenty one years ago. I mean, okay, Warcraft 3 Reforged exists, but come on.
I really don’t know how I would feel if they did this. I can see reasons to do it, and I can see how people who were/are old school Warcraft fans might well feel betrayed if they did. I personally don’t really think it would be fair to call it Warcraft 4 if it isn’t an RTS.
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, so take it with a grain of salt I suppose, but could Blizzcon be a thing of the past?
I don’t think so. BlizzCon isn’t profitably for Blizzard — they’re not doing the con to make money on the con or merch sales directly. But it’s a way to build a core fanbase, and a convenient way to get their narrative about their upcoming games out into the world, and i doubt they’ll be willing to sacrifice that just yet. I suspect this is more because the past year utterly devastated live esports events, and going forward the way Blizzard thinks about how to do esports will change. But I’m hardly an expert, and I’d defer to Anna — so maybe ask again when she’s up on Tuesday.
Q4tQ: So most of us – including myself – will agree that the devs are really good at making a smaller space feel larger these days, when they’re designing new zones. I genuinely enjoy the Shadowlands, and did like that aspect about the BfA zones.
However, sometimes I miss less “functional” zones of actually larger size, such as Northrend. Dragonblight has wide open spaces with no mobs in them. From a dev perspective, probably poor design; from a player perspective, I loved the way it was. It was more like a real place. Some hotspots of action, some dangerous valleys, but also lots of space.
The question is, in an expansion like Shadowlands, could (or should?) they have designed larger zones once again, seeing as they’re not restricted by having to fit the new lands into Azeroth (where the free space on the map is arguably getting smaller)? What d’you think?
Shadowlands zones are purpose built, in large part because they serve a narrative role and the zones are designed around that narrative function, but also because in the story of the expansion each of the zones we’re traveling to had a purpose and were created to fulfill that purpose. So the zones are telling you the story of how that purpose is currently off the rails, and as a result, there’s both contextual and metatextual reasons for the zones to be designed to provide you with specific experiences.
Revendreth is all about funneling prideful souls through a labyrinthine, torturous experience to strip said prideful souls of their hubris, and the anima connected to it — and the zone as we experience it in Shadowlands shows you not just that process, but how it has begun to fail through the actions of those who were originally supposed to preserve it. I would argue that it, and indeed all the zones we experience in Shadowlands are sparse of non-narrative content by design and that it was a deliberate choice in terms of environmental storytelling.
In essence, the Shadowlands we visit are very definitely liminal in their nature — they aren’t ‘real places’ the way places in Azeroth are, and they shouldn’t be designed with an eye towards that kind of feeling. I would argue that’s more for whatever comes next, and I would applaud seeing it.
I cannot imagine wanting to replay a game, especially something as extensive as Mass Effect, and not wanting to try something different… I only replay such games because I want to see other parts of them.
The thing is, for some people, it can be hard to make certain decisions, even in a game. I have to force myself to be a jerk in games — my jack@$$ playthrough is very much hard for me to make myself do, and I have to keep reminding myself that this particular V (who I made a Corpo on purpose so she’d stay a jerk more easily) is a cold, ruthless person who cares about herself and her goals first and foremost. She shoots patients to force their doctors to get in the car! She’s bad news.
My Dragon Age 2 Hawkes almost always end up snarky and they almost always turn on Anders, I try to romance different people and act differently, but I’m worn into the game’s groove and it’s difficult to force myself to take wildly different actions.
Different people are different, it’s all good, let’s just play some games.
Okay, that’s the Queue for today. Liz is up tomorrow, so make sure to drop lots of questions for her, okay?
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