#but this is semi important for plot and nihil stuff

[thatch-loose-lipped-linguist]

Hitting the Books

As more and more jobs came in from Mister Martin of the Ministry of Magic, Milo grew ever more curious about what he was translating.  When he had the time to sit down and think about it, he recalled how some stories and characters seemed to be reflected in many of his students.  Some of these documents were also simply fairy tales, from what Milo gathered, and as any good story goes, people should be able to relate to the characters.  But it was odd how close some of the similarities were, especially when it came to names.

Upon translating a document on Indian stories and tales, he came across an interesting character.  For some reason, this character reminded him strongly of someone, yet he couldn’t quite pinpoint who it was.  Additionally, Milo was not well-versed in Indian folklore and so the stories from that specific culture were ones he required more studying.

He would have asked Aparna for some help, but in the rush of the moment, he couldn’t find his friend and decided he must find the solution now.  What better place to look than the library!

So off Milo ran in hopes of finding what he needed.  He passed by many students studying and if he had not been so in his own head, he would have sensed the tense energy.  Now, granted that it was a library full of (typically) wizarding materials, there was a section for muggle lore and readings (he internally thanked Jock for teaching such a class and thus the need for these books).  His eyes scanned quickly with practiced ease as he was used to speed-reading and picking out the exact books he needed.

Finally, his eyes caught onto something.  The spine read Anthology of Indian Tales.  Pulling the book from the shelf, he stood there, quietly flipping through the pages until he came to the story that seemed to fit the translated Nihil work the most.  It was called Jungle Book and the character that resonated him was a tiger named Shere Khan.  Thankfully, the text was written in English, though that did mean some things were probably lost in translation.  The tiger had a strong personality and large disdain of humans.  He called many of the other characters in the story imbeciles, a rather interesting and specific choice of insult.  Where had he heard that before?  He racked his mind for several minutes, his gaze going back and forth between the text and the open air above him as if the answer would magically appear.

Then a lightbulb turned on and he knew who this Shere Khan shared a spitting resemblance to.  He was about to turn and search for the young Slytherin girl when a loud crashing sound split his ears and the shelves before him toppled over.  Books crashed down, knocking him on his head and he dropped his book onto the ground.  He seemed to have blacked out for a moment because the next thing he knew, young Gryffindor prefect Holley Shiftwell was helping him out from the cave of books.

“Professor!  Are you okay?  Are you injured?” she cried out, glancing quickly over him and inspecting for any injuries.

Milo chuckled and winced.  His head felt like it was bruised and pounding intensely from the inside.  “I have been better, Miss Shiftwell, but thank you for the rescue.”  For once, he looked around and was shocked to find the library in shambles.

“Why were you under there, professor?  Did you need a book?  Perhaps we can summon it so we don’t have to crawl back in to find it,” Holley frowned, looking very concernedly at the pile.  She seemed determined to help and Milo admired the bravery.

“I- Well frankly, Miss Shiftwell, I can’t recall why I was here nor what book I was looking for.  Must have been the hits to the head,” he frowned.  A small part of him felt that he was in search for something very pertinent.  But he simply couldn’t remember at all.  So, he shook his head and chuckled softly again.  “Well, look alive, Miss Shiftwell.  We’ve got some cleaning up to do.”

#fhogself #fhwc8 #hitting the books #i'm not gonna proofread this because i'm lazy like that #but this is semi important for plot and nihil stuff #self

[ghoultyrant]

Dawn of War II

At one point I watched a Let’s Play covering Dawn of War II, starting from the base game, going through Chaos Rising, and then doing the Marine campaign in Retribution. The excruciating stupidity on display lead me to A: decide I didn’t want to buy the game, even though I love the original Dawn of War, and B: write the following semi-coherent ravings of a madman.

They are slightly edited for comprehension and I made a little to clarify what any given thing is alluding to, but not much. I had vague notions of posting this to Vigaroe once upon a time, but it really doesn’t fit the tone I’m trying to maintain on that site. Tumblr, meanwhile, I’m perfectly happy to dump things that may or may not be insightful or entertaining and move on with my life.

Here we go.

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Broadly: Let's take steps to scale down the player's troop count, and still end up with hundreds of Space Marines dead before the end of the campaign. Also broadly, let's have our special snowflake characters have squads (66% of them, anyway) but have the special snowflake character be the only one that counts: not only do your battlebrothers sensibly wearing helmets not count against your score at the end of the mission for dying, but if the special snowflake moron dies his goons instantly die too. I thought we were fighting against the Tyranids, not as the Tyranids? The score mechanic in general, as well as secondary objectives in general. They don't commit to the score mechanic as mattering, and secondary objectives seem absolutely worthless. In Dawn of War 1, secondary objectives were more like advisories: here's something you might want to deal with, but it isn't mission failure if you ignore it, hope you appreciate the heads-up. In II, they seem to be plotty things with no functionality and not much plot either, present because?... Also: WHY BRING BACK ANGELOS WITH THE WRONG VOICE? (fixed for Chaos Rising, to be fair) I'm a character narrating at another character completely unironically. The Tyranids are MYSTERIOUS AND DANGEROUS OOOOOHHHHH. I AM THE BOX GHOST! BEWARE!

(It’s a constant thing with the game to treat the Tyranids as mysterious and much more scary than anything else in the 40k setting. It falls flat, in spite of the heroic efforts on the voice actors’ parts)

HEY BOSSMEN SPACE MARINES FUCK YOU YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF US EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE AND WE AREN'T FILTHY HERETICS GO RUN SOME ERRANDS FOR US AND WE MIGHT MAYBE IF YOU SAY PLEASE DO AS YOU ASK. (Derosa’s initial interaction is idiotic) SCALE? WHAT'S THAT? TINY RAIDS BY A FEW HUNDRED GUYS CAN TOTALLY COMPROMISE AN ENTIRE PLANET'S SECURITY. AND NOT BY SECURING A LANDING ZONE OR WHATEVER. (What, exactly, are the Eldar supposed to be doing here?) Psionically gifted individuals. Because we aren't Blizzard fanboyz or NUFFIN. PSYCHIC GODDAMMIT. PSYCHICALLY GIFTED INDIVIDUALS. Furthermore, 40k is a setting in which psychic powers make you a reviled pariah who counts themself LUCKY to be treated as a subhuman tool. IT'S NOT A GIFT.

(Maybe ‘psionic’ has become the 40k default term since I wrote this back in like 2013. I stand by it anyway)

Naturally, It's A Girl Who Doesn't Do As Told was ENTIRELY to then bitchslap her for being bitchy. Admitting her error just leads to her begging you help them anyway, rather than assuring you that Angel Forge will be accessable to you since your need clearly is urgent. In other words, the entire sequence is mental masturbation with a very tiny helping of plot. Yaaaay.

(Still Derosa, only now I’ve shifted from hating her to hating the writer) Angel Gate fails in open mode! Because everyone knows all devices automatically stop doing what they're designed for if denied a continuous supply of electricity! Rather than ceasing moving. Like in real life. Incidentally, how does a GATE protect a PLANET?

(Angel’s Gate is retarded. And not the 40k funny/grimdark retarded, but “does anyone on this team understand anything?”) The Eldar are trying to blow up the subsector's planets to SOMEHOW stop the Hivefleet from... going towards the Craftworld. Not, like, weaken them, or something. Somehow the writer thinks this should redirect them from Ulthwe, instead of HURRYING THEM ALONG.

(This is dumb) WHERE ARE THE BLOOD RAVENS GETTING THEIR INFORMATION. SERIOUSLY.

(Once you’re more than halfway through the game, people just... know things, without any greater explanation than ‘scouts report things they can’t possibly know’) Hey, Force Commander, let's monologue at you why you're here AT THE END OF THE GAME AS PART OF AN OPTIONAL SCENE.

(Yes, you only learn at the end of the game why your avatar is in Sector Aurelia. What?) Derp final mission derp stupidly designed uberbosses in general. Also, thinking the Avatar of Khaine can burn down an entire world, and also EFFORT: THE GAME in terms of... rampaging godmonster patiently waiting in an arena to be killed. Yay.

(I boggle every time I remember this) Chaos Rising PLANET AURELIA IN SUBSECTOR AURELIA. What, is it capital Aurelia on continent Aurelia in hemisphere Aurelia?

(Real life can be like this. There’s still a reason for the One Steve Limit) Personal drop pods because reasons except Cyrus with Commander Hairgel because reasons on the first mission. (No explanation is provided for this) Traitor Guard calling the position, rather than the time or just saying "THEY'RE IN POSITION OPEN FIRE!"

(They’re scripted to only fire on a handful of locations on the map. Come on, writer, help me suspend my disbelief) EVERYTHING IS BUILT INSTANTLY. EVERYTHING. FORGET THAT THIS GAME HAS NO BASEBUILDING MECHANICS TO JUSTIFY THIS NONSENSE, BAD GUYS HAVE INSTANT CONSTRUCTION SPEED. In general, everything happens in implausibly short time periods: when did the traitor get to Aurelia before everyone else? How?

(Chaos Rising’s plot is slipshod nonsense from step one, and it never improves. If anything it gets worse) What is the point of bringing back Eliphas WITHOUT HIS VOICE ACTOR?

(I don’t get this. Bring back arguably the single most popular character from the original game, who was so amazing due to his voice, and then... don’t bring back the voice actor? I really hope they tried and failed to get the man, rather than just failing to realize the voice mattered) "Most notably, the Blood Ravens have-" OUR BATTLEBROTHERS YOU FUCKER. "I must tend to one of the generators, Spess Mahreens-" BROTHERS. To be entirely fair, he's the pure run traitor, BUT COME ON MARTELLUS. (Why does Martellus talk like he’s some outsider? Who thought this made sense?) Of COURSE bitchslapped Derosa is a pseudo-love interest. OF COURSE. (I’m sorry, creepy writer, but this is fucked up in addition to being stupid nonsense. Why are you even writing a Space Marine having a romantic interest? And why does treating a woman like shit act as a vital part of your courtship ritual?) Some Corruption-if-failed-to-deploy missions are vaguely plausible. Sure, Thaddeus hates your guts forever and goes EEEEVVVILLL if you don't let him protect the home he so dearly loves. But Tarkus corrupting for not punching Eldar is dumb and Jonah corrupting for not going on the Space Hulk is DUMBER. HE SHOULD CORRUPT FOR GOING ONTO THE SPACE HULK.

(Corruption is a cool idea. Missions Corrupting someone because they get super-pissed makes sense. Your Psyker Corrupting for failing to go into a Warp-infested horror show is such a basic fail I have no words and cannot imagine how this got conceived of, let alone made it into the final product) Really? Araghast and Eliphas are Bale and Sindri again? REALLY?

(I don’t mind re-doing a cool character dynamic, and Sindri and Bale were great. But Eliphas was more interesting than that. You don’t bring back a cool character so they can do that less-cool thing some other characters did!)

Ulkair is pretty much a Slaaneshi demon with a good laugh and the wrong body. Fuck.

(I liked that Dawn of War II tried to give Nurgle representation and Slaanesh representation, since the original game was basically all Tzeentch and Khorne. It was undercut by making our Greater Demon of Nurgle a straightforward sadist having nothing to do with Nurgle values. Either do the new thing and get it right, or go back to the old thing you were fine at doing. Don’t write the new thing the exact way you wrote the old thing and pretend it’s different) RETRIBUTION Tutorial still sucks, albeit with less narrating at each other. Khornate Noise Marines!

Khornate Noise Marines in Alpha Legion colors. Relic, what?

(It’s baffling how Relic has a clear grasp on most of the lore, up to and including some fairly esoteric stuff, and then they cram in nonsense anyone who’s only peripherally familiar with 40k could probably tell you is wrong) "This is the Ascendant, Azariah Kyras." This is the shitty dialogue, unnatural speech.

(That’s Kyras talking, if you hadn’t guessed) I realize Kyras is supposed to be crazy, but... really? Nihilism? Khornate let's-Tzeentchian-plot nihilism, at that?

(I’ve seen other people point out how it’s questionable to have a Khornate psyker eg in Winter Assault’s campaign, but I’m personally willing to let that pass because that’s one piece of canon that’s always seemed flawed to me. That doesn’t mean Kyras actually makes sense. He doesn’t. At any point) why does kyras tell you his weakness

(It’s like the writers have utter and total contempt for their player base. You couldn’t have one of our dudes take a guess that the demonic artifact of empowerment might, maybe, when destroyed, stop empowering him? Or even have Kyras do 5-year-old levels of cunning and try to pretend very hard that it’s not important? I mean the game wants us to think Kyras is Very Smart and then he tells you his weak point for no actual reason. The writing in Dawn of War II: bonkers to the very end)

#Games #Dawn of War II