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thisisnotthenerd · 12 days

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The Last Stand Exam

This file documents the questions administered to the adventuring party known as the Bad Kids during their Last Standard Exam, in their junior year at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. This assessment was produced from a variety of class materials relevant to the curriculum of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, as submitted to the principal Arthur Aguefort prior to the start of the school year. This list is accompanied by documentation of the creatures the party known as the Bad Kids was required to face as part of the exam.

The exam is graded out of 100 points; the scoring involves the students correctly answering the questions in the appropriate time interval as well as their heroic last stands. The students are expected to simultaneously fight off a horde of creatures and participate in the examination equally; each student in this party must answer two of the twelve questions.

Neither exam aids, nor outside interference are permitted during the examination period--this excludes clerical divine intervention, as appropriately performed by a member of the party in question. By standard, the proctor must be protected--death of the proctor results in a 30 point score reduction regardless of circumstance.

By Solisian School District Standards, this party reports excellent grades and a high level of competency with regard to independent adventuring.* They were allotted a grace period prior to exam initiation for preparatory spellcasting and review of the exam parameters. Based on prior academic achievement**, the students were allowed two chances to defer a question or utilize previous materials in their response. Questions where these materials were used will be marked with a **.

Exam Proctor: Gavin Pundle

Assisting Cleric: Buddy Dawn

Party Members:

Adaine Abernant | Wizard

Kristen Applebees | Cleric

Figueroth Faeth | Bard / Paladin / Warlock / "Barbarian"

Riz Gukgak | Rogue

Fabian Aramais Seacaster | Fighter / Bard

Gorgug Thistlespring | Barbarian / Artificer

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Exam Questions

These will be listed with the appropriate subject as well as the allotted time, and prospective solutions. This is ordered with respect to how the students answered the questions, with the primary respondent indicated.

Investigation: (2 min)

Question: BONY GIRTH

Solution: NIGHT YORB

Primary Respondent: Riz Gukgak

Athletics: (1 min)

Question: What rival Bloodrush team do our beloved Owlbears most often compete against?

A) Buccaneers

B) Hellions

C) Grapplers

D) Scoundrels

Solution: B) Hudol Hellions

Primary Respondent: Fabian Aramais Seacaster

Religion: (1 min)

Question: Which rad Dwarven deity holds dominion over the art of Shredding?

A) Orrie

B) Ollie

C) Ormry

D) Oggie

Solution: B) Ollie

Primary Respondent: Kristen Applebees

Performance: (3 min)

Question: Please compose a limerick, sonnet, or haiku expressing your feelings and emotions relating to the exam you are currently taking.

Solution:

There was an exam that was hard

But luckily, I am a bard

The demons are slayed

'Cause of how we played

They're hoisted by their own petard

Primary Respondent: Figueroth Faeth

Elven: (1 min)

Question: Please translate the following phrase into Common:

"Pedo Mellon a Minno"

Extra Credit: The word "Mellon" is the root word for which extremely weak form of magic?

Solution: "Speak friends and enter"

Extra Credit Solution: Friendship

Primary Respondent: Adaine Abernant

History: (2 min)

Question: 225 immaculate conceptions occurred on the same day in Solace in reaction to the first public performance of which instrument?

A) The octocord

B) The electric lute

C) The astral piano

D) The hurdy-gurdy

Extra Credit: Nine months later, the newborns were discovered to have been wearing vests in utero. What material were the vests made out of?

Solution: B) The electric lute

Extra Credit Solution: Denim

Primary Respondent: Riz Gukgak

Common: (5 min)

Question: Please write a 300 word essay arguing for a proposed improvement at the aguefort Adventuring Academy in the space provided below.

Solution: We believe a greater amount of our grade should come from the actual good we do in the world. Given the number of times our adventuring party have been put in a situation where the actual fate of our very existence has hung in the balance, it seems only fitting that the result of our efforts impact our academic study. Considering the ultimate goal is to become adventurers, it makes the most sense that actual application of our skills would be most important. If actual adventuring doesn't show our skills, what will? No matter how many class I take, it won't make me a better bard or fighter. I, Fabian Seacaster, son of the great Bill Seacaster, privateer, not pirate... (108)**

Primary Respondent: Fabian Aramais Seacaster

Driver's Ed: (1 min)

Question: What is the proper way to reverse a vehicle's orientation 180 degrees while driving at top speed?

A) Signal the turn correctly

B) Slowly decrease acceleration

C) Engage the emergency brake

D) Rebuild the car facing the other way while driving

Solution: C) Engage the emergency brake

Primary Respondent: Figueroth Faeth

Medicine: (1 min)

Question: What is the most certain way for a wounded adventurer to make a full recovery from even the most grievous injuries?

A) Be healed by a powerful cleric

B) Drink an artifact-level healing potion

C) Receive a greater restoration from a celestial

D) Lie down for eight hours

Solution: D) Lie down for eight hours

Primary Respondent: Kristen Applebees

Arcana: (1 min)

Question: What is the most powerful form of magic?

Extra Credit: What is the easiest object in which to magically trap an opponent?

Solution: Chronomancy

Extra Credit Solution: A Gem

Primary Respondent: Adaine Abernant

Mathematics: (2 min)

Question: Two trains are driving toward one another on the same track. The first train leaves Elmville at 5:05 AM traveling at 60 miles per hour. The second train leaves Bastion City, 135 miles away, at 5:30 AM traveling at 70 miles per hour. What is the exact time that the collision will occur?

Solution: 6:20:46 AM**

Primary Respondent: Gorgug Thistlespring

Biology: (45 sec)

Question: Of the following creatures, which cannot turn its prey into stone?

A) Basilisk

B) Cockatrice

C) Gorgon

D) Manticore

Solution: D) Manticore

Primary Respondent: Gorgug Thistlespring

Written Portion of Exam: Passed (100% + 2 points extra credit)

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Last Stand Monsters

This table documents the monsters faced by the party within the duration of the Last Standard Examination. Note the indicated modifiers for the quantity of enemy combatants and the exam questions.

Format: Monster - Killing Blow

Otyugh - Fireball from Figueroth Faeth

Ochre Jellies - Fireball from Figueroth Faeth, Word of Radiance from Kristen Applebees

Gorgon - Sneak attack with arquebus from Riz Gukgak

Hydra - Attack with Fandrangor from Fabian Aramais Seacaster + Fire Breath from Hangman

Skeletons - Turn Undead from Kristen Applebees

Mimic - Green Flame Blade from Figueroth Faeth

Manticore - Banishment from Kristen Applebees

Shrimp Dragon - Hellish Rebuke from Figueroth Faeth

Roper - Sneak attack with arquebus from Riz Gukgak

Stirges - Spirit Guardians from Figueroth Faeth

Umber Hulk - Sneak attack with arquebus from Riz Gukgak

Wyvern - Spirit Guardians & Booming Blade from Figueroth Faeth

Crab Man - Attack with Fandrangor from Fabian Aramais Seacaster + Bite Attack from Hangman

Rust Monsters - Spirit Guardians from Figueroth Faeth, Erupting Earth from Adaine Abernant, Fire Breath from Hangman

Pentacorn - Green Flame Blade + Divine Smite from Figueroth Faeth

Purple Worm - Soloed by Gorgug Thistlespring

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Proctor Notes:

Party bard Figueroth Faeth used Disguise Self to assume form of proctor

Proctor attacked by Gorgon, not killed

Significant critical hits throughout combat from Gorgug Thistlespring.

Attendant Cleric Buddy Dawn was killed during the exam by unknown assailants; clarification on this event obtained post-exam and reported to the superintendent.

This party is on record as the first party to complete the Last Standard exam without perishing, thereby understanding Arthur Aguefort's intent for the assessment.

---------------- AAA ----------------

*Reference files for evaluating adventuring party competency: AAA-BKQ-01-KVX, AAA-BKQ-02-CNK, AAA-BKQ-03-CNY

**This was awarded to Gorgug Thistlespring, for exemplary work as a triple-year artificer student, in addition to the junior year barbarian curriculum

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #dimension 20 meta #thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats #musings on the solisian school district #the perils of xp leveling #the last stand #the bad kids

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sukimas · 11 months

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maybe this makes me annoying to a degree but i absolutely believe video games need to have some Auteurship to them. you need to have a guy who has an insane and weird vision somewhere along the way or otherwise you end up with slop. it doesn't have to be about story necessarily- you could want a distinct visual style (many, many examples), a place to put your insane music you've composed (touhou, undertale, among others), or a particularly unique type of gameplay (kaga saga, celeste, etc.) but you have to have 1 or 2 extremely weird guys with Ideas.

this doesn't NECESSARILY make your game good, but it's a requirement for it to rise above mediocrity. actually, let's take a concrete example!

metroid is an interesting video game series. it's famous for a lot of things- going around places collecting items that unlock new areas, the way it encourages fast play, having an interesting setting and kickass female protagonist in an era where the latter was very uncommon.

its development teams- one r&d team within nintendo, and one subcontracted outside company- were, at the time, primarily known for ports of arcade games and some sports games. a small subteam within the r&d team, however, were the Idea Guys- they came up with character, script, and world designs even when other games of the time were not even thinking of the concept of games being IN a world. thanks to them, a great number of nintendo games that would have been, well, just "games" like mario ended up being beloved for their characters and worlds (metroid, of course, but kid icarus and others, too.)

anyway, nintendo r&d1 and intelligent systems later became known for being at the forefront of story-driven and otherwise unique first/second party nintendo games, as i'm sure you know by now if you've heard of them. all it takes is a bunch of weird guys! otherwise you end up like the poor duck hunt dog or the ice climbers- revolutionary in their time, but who wants a new duck hunt or ice climbers game?

i feel that many AAA games of the modern era are falling into that same trap of "being a good game" while not realizing that being a "good game" with all the latest features and being a game that people will remember and continue to give you goodwill for making are very different things. what's old is new again.

#you need weird guys.

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raindropren · 5 months

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!!!!!! Secret Life Episode 9 Spoilers !!!!!!

THIS SEASON IS SO FUCKING GOOD HELL YA

I LOVE THIS

I LOVE SECRET LIFE

IT'S SO GOOD

I'M

SIIJOHFSIHFJSNF

LETS GO, SCAR!! WOO HOO

I GENUINELY LOVE THIS SO MUCH AAA

ALSO WHY IS PEARL SO CRACKED AT THIS GAME!?!?!

So she was i think 3rd in last life, Won in double life, I think 4th or 5th in limited life, and now, 2nd in Secret life!!

What the F u c k

I love it so much

It really helps all my headcanons tbh, it makes me so happy.

Also why does pearl always survive longer then her allies/teammates(Unless they win)

and by always i mean like, 2 times? 2 and a half? if u count tilly maybe? i do... 2.5 :]

I really do wish joel or bdubs won, mostly joel because it would've been so good but I deffo think scar deserved this win.

I think it wouldve been kind of funny if in the 1v1 battle between scar and pearl.. pearl won... and it's just, awkward cause she... didn't want that. at all.

She wanted scar to win after bdubs and joel died, she wanted to sacrifice her life to scar in the end because she wanted her allies to win.

I also think shiny duo is a tragedy in the end. I really hope someone makes a fanfic about them in secret life cause they just, they, they just, <3 <3 <3

I love them alot

I'm making a theory that Gem might, win the next life seires.

Shiny duo winning their second season, please please please /hj /lh

I've already really loved the pearl fanfics from this season cause omg but I just, i just <3 <3 can't wait to see more!! aaa :D

if i get the motivation i fucking will make a fic about gem and pearl coming back into hermitcraft. They have very similar vibes in the life series(they're fucking crazy, don't mess with them, but also you'd rather be on their side then not(I haven't watched gems life series so if i'm wrong on this one, oopsie) cause they are more loyal then most) and I think it'd be fun to see them coming back and talking to eachother about the season ngl.

Murder camel my beloved, shiny duo my beloved

I also think(if I get the motivation) i'd want to make a fic with Pearl and Bdubs, in hermitcraft, afterwards.

ooo so many ideas, so many ideas so little time and motivation.

i wanna know what would happen if pearl accidentally won, despite not wanting too, if she hit scar just alittle to hard and now she was alone, as the sole 2 time winner. I think AU!pearl would have a mental fucking breakdown but i also think it'd be a fun concept aaaa

I want a fic about Pearl just after Bdubs and Joel died, just crying. like tears down her cheeks when she meets back up with scar and aaaa <3

All these would be my au obviously cause i'm way to obsessed with it but my au is set in canon, mostly. or at least alittle, i'm trying LOL

I'm proud of scar :]

like, i'm proud of all the winners but, i really do feel like scar deserved this win

I might watch his pov at some point, i can't wait for people to tear the angst from scars episodes, they already have alittle but with him winning, I can't fucking wait, omg <3

I'm just so excited now

aaaa

i'm nhjgofubkhgfubkjhdfjl eee

I really hope gem and pearl team next season instead of just being temporary allies because they are so fun omg

I really hope there's another season cause god they are so good /nf

I can't get enough of life series pearl in my au

which is why i keep mentioning her, i've basically only watched her pov cause I have a hard time watching others. I wanna watch gem, lizzies(it's ies right? i'm bad with spelling names aa), and now scars. stars above, i love this series

aaaaaaaaaaaaa

secret is probably my new favorite season, idk why, maybe it's because of shiny duo alittle, but y'know :]

There's so much i wish i wanna talk about

like how Pearl said "Always Watching" to BigB

Or just any moment with Pearl and Scott, I miss their last life dynamic alot /pos /notneg

Cleo and Pearls pupper alliance breaking and Pearl saying she really wanted to be allies with Cleo, like I need fics of that so much guys omg (Big MoonRot fan!! ee)

Anytime Gem, Impulse, and Pearl were in a trio together, like omg, It's Soup Group!!! Guys!!! it's them!!! omg!!!!!!!! guys!!

Pearl walking the Warden around like a pro, i love that so much LOL

there's deffo more, but i've typed way to much LOL i just love this so much, it's insane.

#GUYS I'M SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS SERIES #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa #secret life #life series #i'm gonna tag everyone i mentioned so yee #not tagging people i only mentioned once hmmm #pearlescentmoon #geminitay #goodtimeswithscar #bdoubleo100 #bdubs #smallishbeans #joel smallishbeans #shiny duo #idk which one is the main tag for them aaa #I mention moonrot btw. i've seen people use that duo name as a shipping thing. i don't ship them!! it's all platonic!!#I type so much omg i'm so sorry

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homomenhommes · 2 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … March 8

Radcliffe-Hall & Lady Troubridge

1887 – The British sculptor and translator Una Vincenzo, aka Lady Troubridge was born on this date (d. 1963). Born Margot Elena Gertrude Taylor, she is best known as the long-time partner (28 years) of Marguerite "John" Radclyffe-Hall, the author of The Well of Loneliness. She married Admiral Ernest Thomas Troubridge in 1908 and gained her title when Admiral Troubridge was knighted in 1919.

Troubridge was an educated woman who had many achievements in her own right. Most notably she was a successful translator and introduced the French writer Colette to English readers. Her talent as a sculptor prompted Nijinsky to sit for her several times. Troubridge met Hall in 1915 as Troubridge was the cousin of singer Mabel Batten who was Hall's lover at the time. Mabel died in 1916, and Hall and Troubridge moved in together the following year. Troubridge wrote about the intensity of their relationship in her diary: "I could not, having come to know her, imagine life without her."

Both Troubridge and Hall identified as 'inverts', a term used by sexologists such as Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis usually to connote what we now think of as homosexuality. Hall and Troubridge raised and showed dachshunds and griffons. The dachshunds shown in the Romaine Brooks portrait of Troubridge (above) were a prize winning pair given to her by Hall.

1900 – Otto Peltzer (d.1970) was a German middle distance runner who set world records in the 1920s. Over the 800m Peltzer improved Ted Meredith's long-standing record by 0.3 seconds to 1:51.6 min in London in July 1926. Over the 1000m he set a world record of 2:25.8 in Paris in July 1927, and over 1500 m Peltzer broke Paavo Nurmi's world record (3:52.6) and set a new one at 3:51.0 in Berlin in September 1926. Peltzer was the only athlete to have held the 800m and the 1500m world records simultaneously, until Sebastian Coe matched the feat over fifty years later.

Born in Ellernbrook-Drage in Holstein, Peltzer overcame childhood ill-health to become a successful athlete, winning his first German championship at age twenty-two. He started university in Munich in 1918, joining the TSV 1860 club, where he was nicknamed "Otto der Seltsame" (Otto the Strange). He continued in Munich, receiving his doctorate in 1925. In 1926 he was one of a group of German athletes invited to the AAA Championships at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, where he won the 800m, beating Britain's Douglas Lowe, who had won the event at the 1924 Olympic Games which, along with the 1920 Games, Germany had been barred from entering. In 1926, a specially arranged 1500m race between Peltzer, Paavo Nurmi of Finland, Edvin Wide of Sweden and Herbert Bocher of Germany took place in Berlin which was won by Peltzer in a new world record time.

Shortly before the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, to which German athletes were again allowed to enter with Peltzer elected as team leader, Peltzer was injured in an accident while playing handball. Although he recovered enough to take part in the 800m heats, he failed to qualify for the final. In 1932 he was team captain, but poor arrangements left the German team trying to run with spiked shoes on the hard Olympic track. Peltzer made the final, but did not finish.

Peltzer was often persecuted for his homosexuality.In 1933 he joined the Nazi Party and the SS. However, in June 1935 he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for 'homosexual offences with youths'. He was released early on condition that he would end his involvement in sport, but was rearrested in 1937. After spending time in Denmark, Finland (where he slept rough and contracted bronchitis) and Sweden, he returned to Germany in 1941 having been assured that the charges against him would be dropped. However, he was arrested and sent to KZ Mauthausen, where he remained until the camp was liberated on 5 May 1945.

With homosexuality remaining a criminal offence in 1950s Germany, and Peltzer in conflict with the German Athletic Association (DLV), Peltzer's opportunities to coach athletics were limited in Germany. He obtained a commission from a German newspaper to report on the Melbourne Olympics, and after the Games tried unsuccessfully to get work with various national athletics organisations. He eventually came to India, coaching in the national athletics stadium in New Delhi, and founded the Olympic Youth Delhi club, later renamed the Otto Peltzer Memorial Athletic Club in his honour.

Following a heart attack in 1967, Peltzer was persuaded to return to Germany, and was treated in hospital in Holstein. After attending an athletics meeting in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Peltzer collapsed and was found dead on a path towards the car park.

1929 – American poet, publisher, essayist and photographer Jonathan Williams was born (d. 2008). Williams was the author of more than a hundred books and booklets of gay poetry that merges flesh and spirit with a sense of history.

Williams was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and educated at St. Alban's School in Washington and at Princeton University. His real education, however, began at Black Mountain College (1951-1956), where he met Charles Olson and, in company with another gay poet, Robert Duncan, took on Ezra Pound's lesson of compact speech and William Carlos Williams' maxim "no ideas but in things."

Jonathan Williams has been described as a cross "between Richard Pryor and the Roman poet Martial." Indeed, his poetic reception has suffered from his refusal to keep the flesh and the spirit separate.

Either he is criticized by the traditional straight world for lowering poetic tone or ignored by the gay world, both for seeing the raunchiness of our world in classical terms and for having a sense of history. For him Zeus is a randy old-goat tourist snatching up the local Ganymede trade, and Catullus is familiar with jock straps.

"I haven't seen the territory yet that can't be sexualized or examined for its poetic cuisine, or its birds, or for its dialects," Williams wrote. In one of his collections, Quantulumcumque (1991) (the word means "as much as can be said in a small space"), is an epigram of a modern hustler that reappropriates classical epigram form:

Donnie pocket full of green bottom full of cum

But he was also concerned with feeling--with getting beyond what he called the verbal and imaginative penury of "hardcornponeography." What he imagined best was the hard-on longing for it of country boys wild for passion.

He also wrote a fine sequence based on the fears and failings of the men interviewed by Havelock Ellis and a beautiful love poem ("Lexington Nocturne"), in which he lets his hand hang for a moment in the hair of his as-yet-unseduced bedmate and concludes "let that be all / for then."

Williams was a pathologist of the ordinary, listening to the quirks and privacies of speech as they reveal character. Many of his poems sound like (and were) overheards:

i hear you do not care greatly for the fair sex the fair sex he snapped back which is that

Along with his lover, the accomplished poet, Tom Meyer, Williams kept busy running Jargon Press, which has been responsible for publishing a number of gay poets—James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Harold Norse, and Paul Metcalf among them.

Some of his essays and reviews have been collected in The Magpie's Bagpipe (1982), but much of his liveliest work still remains uncollected in the annual collections of squibs and ripostes that he sent out to friends.

If he had failings, they were the result of his being too large, of embracing multitudes, as Whitman would put it. His bibliography extends to more than a hundred books and booklets as well as many other publications. It would be hard to think of any one person who did more for poetry, gay and straight, in America.

Williams died on March 16, 2008 in Highlands, North Carolina. He was survived by Meyer, his companion for more than 40 years.

1963 – Jim Nelson was editor-in-chief of the magazine GQ.

Nelson began his journalism career in television, first working as a producer and writer at CNN and later moving to Hollywood where he worked briefly as a writer's assistant on television sitcoms.

He made the shift to magazines at age thirty, starting with an internship at Harper's Magazine, From 1994 to 1997 Nelson was an editor at Harper’s Magazine under Lewis Lapham, where he was responsible for the magazine’s Readings section. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Gourmet, and Food & Wine.

Nelson had been editor-in-chief of GQ since March 2003. He retired from that post at the end of 2018. Nelson joined the magazine as a senior editor in 1997, editing the work of such writers as Andrew Corsello, Elizabeth Gilbert, Charles Bowden, and Michael Paterniti. After working under Art Cooper as an executive editor, Nelson was appointed by Condé Nast to replace him as editor-in-chief in 2003.

Under his direction, the magazine has been nominated for sixty-two National Magazine Awards and has won for feature writing, reporting, design, photography, and general excellence, the highest honor in the industry. His own writing for GQ was cited in The Best American Sports Writing 2001.

Also during Nelson’s time at GQ, the magazine has been nominated for forty-one James Beard Awards and has won for restaurant reviews and critiques, distinguished food writing, writing on wine spirits or beer, and humor. In 2016 The Daily Front Row’s fourth annual Fashion and Media Awards honored Jim Nelson with the Magazine of the Year award for GQ.

Most recently Nelson launched ‘The Closer with Keith Olbermann,’ a twice-weekly web series offering political commentary on the 2016 election and other timely news topics. After garnering more than 75 million views[14] for ‘The Closer,’ Olbermann returned with a post-election series on GQ.com called ‘The Resistance’ where he continues the conversation about the President elect.Additionally, during Nelson’s time at the magazine, a number of GQ stories have become both small and large-scale film productions and TV series, including Concussion starring Will Smith, the Netflix series Last Chance U and the forthcoming film Granite Mountain.

He resides in Brooklyn with his partner, John Mario Sevilla, a dancer and choreographer.

1963 – Bruce Hayes is an American former competition swimmer best known for anchoring the U.S. men's 4x200-meter freestyle relay team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

A native of Sarasota, Florida, Hayes' success as a Texas age group and high school swimmer earned him a full scholarship to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was the highest scoring freshman at the 1982 NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships, helping the UCLA Bruins win the national team championship.

Hayes represented the United States in several international swimming meets. His first national and international titles came in 1983. He won seven medals at the 1983 World University Games in Edmonton - the most by any American swimmer - and his win in the 200-meter freestyle was the only U.S. gold. A few weeks later, he won the 200-meter freestyle at the 1983 summer United States Swimming Championships.

At the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, Hayes won three gold medals in the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle races and in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. He also collected three gold medals at the 1983 Descente International Invitational Swim Meet in Tokyo in the same three events.

Hayes won the 400-meter freestyle race at the 1984 winter United States Swimming Championships for his second national title. He finished third in the 200-meter freestyle at the 1984 United States Olympic Swimming Trials, qualifying him for a place on the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team in Los Angeles.

Hayes captured one more national title before retiring when he won the 200-meter freestyle at the 1984 summer United States Swimming Championships, held after the Olympics. He subsequently earned a Masters degree in journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago and then moved to New York City to begin a professional career in public relations. He joined Team New York Aquatics in 1990 and began competing again, this time in Masters swimming events.

He became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete at the Gay Games when he swam at Gay Games III in Vancouver in August 1990.

In 1992, Hayes became the first American Olympic gold medalist to declare his homosexuality publicly when he was profiled by Dick Schaap for ABC's World News Tonight regarding the challenges of being gay in the sports community. He became a spokesperson for the Gay Games IV in New York City in 1994.

At Gay Games IV, his swimming success continued - he set five 25-meter short course Masters world records in the 30-34 age group, including becoming the first Masters swimmer to break 4:00 in the 400-meter freestyle. He was included in Out magazine's 1994 list of the 100 most influential gays and lesbians in America.

Hayes worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games as the Assistant Competition Manager for Swimming at the 1996 Summer Olympics. During his time in Atlanta, he co-founded the Atlanta Rainbow Trout Masters swimming team.

He resumed his public relations career at Edelman in New York following the Atlanta Olympics and later worked for two years in Edelman's Madrid office. In 2002, Hayes became a charter member of the Gay Games Ambassadors. He attended the Gay Games' 25th anniversary celebration in San Francisco in 2007 and presented the Federation of Gay Games' inaugural Media Award.

Hayes swam again at the 2010 Gay Games VIII in Cologne, Germany, winning a bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle (age 45-49) behind Aaron Murphy (Great Britain) and Jonathan Haines (Australia).

1965 – Robert Sabuda is a leading children's pop-up book artist and paper engineer. His recent books, such as those describing the stories of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have been well received and critically acclaimed.

Sabuda was born in Wyandotte, Michigan and raised in Pinckney, Michigan. He was skilled as an artist from a very young age, and attended the Pratt Institute in New York City. His specific interest in 3-D paper engineering (i.e., pop-up books) was sparked by a book he received that was illustrated by Vojtěch Kubašta. His interest in children's book illustration began with an internship at Dial Books for Young Readers while attending the Pratt Institute. Initially working as a package designer, he illustrated his first children's book series, of "Bulky Board Books", in 1987. Wide recognition only came his way after he started designing pop-up books for children in 1994.

Robert Sabuda kicked off the pop-up renaissance in 1996 with Christmas Alphabet, a series of elegantly constructed pop-up images that scaled the New York Times bestseller list, despite its then-staggering price tag of $19.99.

Matthew Reinhart began working alongside him and creating his own work when the two became a couple, in 1997. Now, working from their Tribeca studio with four assistants, Robert and Matthew start from scratch with each new book, crafting elaborate, intricately colored structures that leap from the pages, then sending the books off to be hand-assembled overseas.

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Robert and Matthew discuss their art

1970 – In the early morning hours, New York City police raid a gay bar called the Snake Pit for not having a license for dancing and selling alcohol, arresting 167 patrons. At the police station, one of the arrestees, an Argentine national named Diego Vinales so feared the possibility of deportation that he leapt from a second-story window of the police station, impaling himself on the spikes of an iron fence. He survived, though firemen were forced to cut out a section of the fence with Vinales still skewered on it, in order to move him to the hospital.

One journalist remarked, “It is no crime to be 'in' a place that is serving liquor illegally, the only crime is to run such a place. There were no grounds for hauling the customers away.”

Though charges against other patrons were dropped, Vinales was rebooked for "resisting arrest" and officers were stationed outside his hospital room to prevent another escape. The community organized a protest march.

1987 – Devon Graye Fleming, known professionally as Devon Graye, is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for portraying teenage Dexter in the TV series Dexter, as well as the second Trickster in The Flash. In 2019, he wrote the thriller film I See You.

Graye was born in Mountain View, California. He studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Although Graye is American, he lived in the United Kingdom for all four years of high school.

Graye wrote a thriller screenplay titled Allison Adams, which was featured on the 2016 Black List for most popular unproduced screenplays.

He has been dating Canadian actor Jordan Gavaris since September 2013.

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miyku · 9 months

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why are AAA studios bashing bg3 team :D ? oh they made this huge game....but dont expect the rest of us to do the same thing BUT you can expect more overpriced microtransactions from us uwu

#stop complaining this is embarrassing..aughh shut up #we had elden ring drama last year?#and now this

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mumms-the-word · 1 month

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tbh i'm actually kind of pissed at larian. regardless of if it's sticking it to hasbro or not, they're leaving the game in a potentially awful state and not delivering on promises they made, like the upper city. You also have SWEN talking about shit that could have been like ketheric's recruitment and what not, which stirs the pot even more and makes me angry. Like stop talking about it. we're already upset enough.

These are all very valid critiques, anon! I have many thoughts but I’ll put everything under the cut since I got a little long-winded because I’m passionate about video games in general.

I do play a bit of Devil’s Advocate here but please note I am not attacking you personally or trying to direct any hate towards anybody at all! This ask honestly gave me space to vent some thoughts I’ve had for months about this game. I did my best to offer nuanced perspectives and acknowledge my own biases. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, including their own disappointments and praises for Larian, Swen, the actors, and all involved in the making/maintaining (or lack thereof) of BG3.

TLDR: We shouldn’t put Larian on a pedestal as the Best Studio Ever, but we don’t have to grab our pitchforks and say they’re the worst studio ever either. If BG3 is a disappointment it might be because Larian flew a little too close to the sun trying to squeeze 80% of a functional D&D experience into a digital video game package, when (in my opinion) those two game genres are almost inherently designed to not mesh well, disappointing one fan while satisfying another.

———

Point #1, Idk how much Larian is sticking it to Hasbro but Hasbro IS a greedy corporation who has no idea how to make video games and I very highly suspect they’ve been making demands of Larian’s team that are impossible to meet without destroying the work ethic (and health/mental health/financial stability, etc) of Larian’s team. Hasbro just sees dollar signs. Larian isn’t necessarily as interested in milking BG3 for all it’s worth.

If they were, we’d be paying for Upper City in a DLC, and we’re not. Instead they’re choosing to pivot to a fresh new project that isn’t beholden to Hasbro or the demands of WOTC. Does it feel like they’re abandoning the game? Yeah, kinda. But if Swen says that his team looked visibly relieved to move on to something new, that gives me warning bells. Not against Swen, but about the crunch standard of games industries as a whole and possibly against Hasbro or WOTC. I’d much rather his team take care of their very human selves than grind themselves to ultimate burnout working on a game that is functionally complete, if buggy in places and not satisfying for some players because they didn’t get the content they wanted.

There is no perfect game, after all.

And honestly I’d say the same of any AAA studio too. I am consistently frustrated with game studios firing whole departments for the sake of retaining profits and treating their employees like content robots. Games should not be made at the expense of anyone’s physical or mental health, but unfortunately that’s The Industry Standard. (And personally I think Larian or at least Swen is uncomfortable with that.)

(Also I think people forget that making a game the size of BG3 requires the talents and hard work of hundreds of people. Larian was working with, what, 400 people? And that was after they hired like 250+ to even rise to the challenge of making BG3. Who are we even pointing the finger at for all these issues? Swen? He’s one man.)

Should they have promised something they couldn’t deliver? No. But also, I have no idea what issues led them to cutting the content, either. What’s done is done.

BG3 will be an obsolete game in a year or soon anyway, not because Larian isn’t working on it anymore, but because the games industry is just So. Freaking. Big. and pumps out thousands of games a year. Like, I hate to say it, but people are already dropping BG3 for other games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 because DD2 is shiny, new, and has a bonkers character creator.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! We’re not built to play (or work on) a narrative-focused game for 5-7 years, regardless of what any die-hard Destiny fan tells you (note: multiplayers without narrative get a pass purely because the focus isn’t on the narrative, but on collaborative play).

If a game is no longer fun to play, move on and find something that scratches your itch. Go back and play old games! There are so many things out there to explore. I have a To Be Played pile literally right now, a backlog of games I haven’t tried out yet. I’m sure many others do too.

Point #2 (and here I could be wrong, if I’m not already wrong in my opinions above), but they’re not entirely abandoning the game like…at the drop of a hat. They’re still promising at least a handful of hotfixes and at least one more patch with new evil epilogue endings (among other things).

Does that get us Upper City? Likely not. Does that add enough content to give Wyll a more well-rounded storyline, elevate all the romances to Astarion levels of cutscenes and dialogue, and finish Karlach’s questline with an actual solution for her heart? Also likely not. Is it precious to be mad about these losses? No! Be mad!! Wyll deserves justice!!!

I’d love to explore Upper City. I’m a huge advocate for Wyll getting more/better representation. If I could save Karlach without throwing her into Avernus I would in a HEARTBEAT. But these things aren’t in the game, and they likely won’t be. Larian made decisions to meet a (self-imposed? Hasbro imposed? Industry-relevant?) deadline that are ultimately disappointing. We can absolutely acknowledge that we’re disappointed.

But I don’t necessarily think Larian is just being lazy about these decisions, though. At the end of the day we have no idea what contracts Larian is under, what hell the developers have been through, either from the game industry, Hasbro, rabid fans, or excessively cruel critics, or what technical/gameplay/scheduling/financial issues they ran into at various parts of development.

Like the Ketheric thing (Point #3). Was it bad PR to bring up that Ketheric was a “kill your darlings” decision late in development around the same time you’re openly promoting the end of your relationship with BG3? Yeah. Totally. But I’m not surprised they had to cut something like that. Games, movies, books do that all the time. How many deleted scenes from movies have we seen where it could have changed the whole narrative (maybe even made it better) if it had just stayed in? I can think of a handful. It sucks, but trust me, it hurts the writers and developers way more to cut content they’ve poured money and time and heart and soul into than it hurts us, the players who would never know the wiser if they hadn’t said anything.

But also, the game is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. On PC you have to have 150GB free just to install it. Can you imagine how big it would be if they had shoved everything they wanted into it, even if they had delayed the game a while to make it happen? 150GB is a lot.

For perspective, that puts it on par with a very, very, VERY tiny sector of PC games at about the same level (or higher) of GB requirements, including Red Dead Redemption 2 (a fantastic open world game that still holds up in 2024), Microsoft Flight Simulator (which requires 150GB because it’s literally just flying through high quality renders of actual Earth), Forspoken (everyone says all the GB went to graphics here and I believe them), Star Wars: Jedi Survivor (which only has about 50 hours of playable content, allegedly), basically any VR game, and ARK: Survival Evolved which comes in at a whopping 400 GB mostly because of DLC. In other words, games that big get that big either because of graphics or like a hundred DLCs.

BG3 manages to fit in gorgeous cinematics, a super complex spell-combat system, a more or less streamlined video game build for complex D&D combat rules and mechanics, 10 potential companions, 8 romances among those companions, several large maps to explore, and branching narratives that would take you days to read every scrap of dialogue for (I’ve downloaded the datamined files for Patch6, and there are whole leagues of dialogue, encounters, and bits that are in the game, unbugged, that most of us pass by because we don’t explore enough). You want to know where most of the GB goes? It goes towards sustaining a D&D combat/narrative structure that was originally never built with video game constraints in mind.

Do you know how many conditions/status effects there are in the game? Over 1100. 1100+ unique descriptions and titles for conditions that debuff or buff your character or your enemies, granting hundreds of actual gameplay affects. Do you know how many spells there are across the 12 playable classes and all unique spells for enemies and allies? Like 400, if we’re getting picky and splitting hairs over stuff like Rolan’s Magic Missile being different than the usual Magic Missile or if we’re splitting out something like Disguise Self into its 32 different variations. Each spell needs a different icon, a different graphic effect, and it needs to do the right kind of damage and cause the right kind of condition or effect, some of which are immediate, others which linger.

We can speak with dead with hundreds of characters. That’s a lot of dialogue. We can talk to ANY named NPC. That’s a lot of dialogue! We can talk to any animal, with or without speak with animals enabled. That’s a lot of dialogue!!

A single playthrough where I try to explore as much as possible takes me 150 hours or more. I have 500 hours in this game and I’ve only got 4 characters and I’ve only finished 2 of them. This game is mind-bogglingly big. Even if it’s not the biggest game in history ever, or even the biggest game by the time of its release, its BIG.

The biggest critique I would have here is one that I’ve had since I first started playing the game, and it’s that D&D systems and video games don’t mesh comfortably well. I think that Larian got distracted trying to make the ultimate D&D experience, catering to a demographic that is known to ignore plot and pursue shenanigans, and Larian felt the need to build in a lot of shenanigans.

I think they got a little overzealous about it, and that’s where we have missing content, and a lot of fluff that isn’t always plot-relevant. If the game feels unfinished, it’s because Larian started too many threads, and while there are endings to all of those threads, many of them feel rushed or unsatisfactory. Why do they feel unsatisfactory? Because we’re offered so much freedom early on, only to be pulled back into the much more limited narrative constraints of a video game at the end. Because the game has to end eventually, unlike a D&D campaign which could go on or explore many other possibilities. But by act 3 in a 150 GB game, we’re running out of time and space.

And yes that’s disappointing as hell and Larian could and arguably SHOULD have made different decisions on what to focus on.

But ultimately, you just can’t fit a full-on, any-choice-goes D&D experience in a game that needs to be packaged neatly enough to run on most PCs or consoles, and Larian was ambitious as hell to try. Contrary to popular belief, I think they did pretty freaking well given the challenge, and no, it isn’t perfect, and no, to confess to my own bias, I don’t have the same complicated history with the game that early access or release day players have because I bought the game like 2 months after it was out and patched twice. But they’ve clearly built a game that people love so much they’re upset there isn’t more of it, or at least upset it isn’t the best it can be.

But sometimes we have to be realistic too. I can only imagine how many more bugs or render issues we’d get if they did try to shove in Upper City at this point. Games can only be so big before they start to become too much for the systems that try to run them and I don’t want the games industry veering towards making games an elitist hobby for only the rich and elite who can afford expensive rigs and $100 games.

(And also, I’m not at all upset that for $70 bucks I got 500 hours of gameplay and I’m not 100% sick of it yet. When EA and Activision are getting players to pay hundreds in micro transactions and DLC and dangling extra maps and new missions behind paywalls? Bish, please, I’m good. You want to talk about an unfinished experience? Dragon Age: Inquisition made us pay for our epilogue content as a DLC. At least Larian built theirs in for free from the start.)

Anyway.

All that said, I’m sure if Larian could turn back the clock and start over, they’d make different decisions about what to keep, cut, and refine. But we’re here now.

If I want to see anything from Larian right now, it’s a dedication to fix ongoing bugs that make the game unplayable or that block the narratives that they have built so that they play correctly (like with the Minthara romance). IDEALLY I’d like to see them add more content for companions other than Astarion, to equalize the romance experiences, but I’m not holding my breath (again, considering things like game development, actor schedules, contracts, etc).

While I’m sad about the permanent loss of stuff like the Upper City and disappointed by all the rushed questlines, I’d rather them fix the bugs that make the game un-fun to play and bow out gracefully once they’re sure the game won’t need constant supervision.

Besides, they’re working on cross-platform mod support, and mods are gonna add and mess with the game for many years to come, so we can pivot to support them instead while Larian works on its next game (and hopefully learns from its mistakes with BG3).

#bg3 critical #bg3 #my thoughts #super long post #long post #larian critical #op/anon I appreciate you and your ask #my hyperfixation triggered and I almost didn’t post this :’)#anyways feel free to ignore

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shanksbaby · 1 year

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what about yandere mihawk and shanks teaming up on kidnapping and loving their darling

or yandere mihawk forcing intimacy, not necesarly sex but it could be sew with his darling since hes so touch starved. keeping darling always in his grasp kissing and biting her neck and being overwhelming in all senses

AAA i love this :D

Shanks + Mihawk

yandere themes

both Mihawk and Shanks have been in love with you since they first saw you. And soon they developed an obsession with you. At first they were vying for your attention, but realizing that there were other men who might catch your attention or worse, might hurt you; by mutual agreement they decided to kidnap you.

for safety reason, you know?

with an excuse Mihawk invited you to his castle, and as soon as you set foot in his home they locked you up in one of the many rooms that occupy the building. You even tried to fight back, but all you could get was chuckles from both men.

they made sure you couldn't escape, as a citizen you certainly couldn't defend yourself from those monkeys that inhabit the island. The order obviously wasn't to kill you if they saw you fleeing but simply to wound you.

in this way you would have realized how much you needed their protection.

both Mihawk and Shanks sometimes leave you alone, knowing you can't escape, and always bring you back gifts to make it up to you (not realizing that wasn't the problem). The gifts they bring you are also very expensive, sometimes they give you expensive underwear, hoping that you wear it and they can look at you.

once you tried to escape, and came back with scratches and some deeper wounds back to the castle, where you found Mihawk and Shanks smiling, you didn't know if it was a mischievous smile or a warm smile. They didn't punish you, they treated your wounds, and took you to bed where they gave you an evening of pampering.

you have since become more obedient to them (and the two swordsmen were very happy with their plan, given the result). You never again tried to escape, and you didn't protest when you had to eat in their company.

if you prove that you are good enough, you can go out with them sometimes. Shanks would take you to one of those places he always tells you about, while Mihawk takes you on a raft ride when the waves are calm.

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not-poignant · 8 months

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@hellish-cleric replied to your post “I think it will come as no surprise to anyone that...”:

Yeah, everyone in my party, plus most of the players in my d&d group *hated* Astarion as soon as they met him. Meanwhile, I'm Team Ride or Die for Astarion. I'm a little confused at all the hate he gets.

Oh actually I can answer at least some of this!

He's an obviously camp character who was in a gay relationship (a forced gay relationship but w/e) in an AAA game that is mostly going out to dudebros, and frankly the people who overwhelmingly hate him or kill him immediately the most are straight guys. (The biggest complaints for BG3 are not actually the bugs, but the LGBTQIA+ rep, including being able to have a nonbinary character, or trans character). Within that context, there was already latent Astarion hate in the community that was easy for everyone else to pick up on. So some of it is honestly straight up homophobia!

Then on top of that they gave him PTSD over being saved by someone who then tortured him for 200 years and enslaved him in exchange for that rescue, so he reacts badly every time you save someone, because he doesn't trust that.

And then on top of that he's a complete chaos gremlin. After all, he was tortured and forced to torture people for 200 years, and just about no one maintains much of an ethical backbone after that kind of treatment.

And I think the combo of 'so much of the (guy) community hates Astarion so there's already a background vibe that predisposes people to being suspicious of him' and 'he's camp which hooks into the homophobic folks who don't like that' AND 'he keeps disapproving of me when I do heroic things' (which is a lie, he doesn't always disapprove, and sometimes he actually approves, it depends a lot on context) just kind of turns a lot of folks off him.

He's the only character in the whole story who will actually take you aside privately and comfort you if you do a sexual thing with an NPC later in the game and choose dialogue options that say you were disgusted by doing the thing. He literally takes you aside and starts joking and then is like 'actually... I know what that's like, and I'm so so sorry you had to go through that.'

Dude's fun to meme, hilarious to meme, but he's also the only character who comforts you after you get sexually assaulted/harassed, and in an extremely genuine, 'no strings attached' way. I'm ride or die for that fucker, and I laugh at the folks that turfed him because a bunch of dudes laid a path they walked down.

Like don't get me wrong, some folks just hate him because of the way he looks, the constant disapproval if you're playing a Very Good Character is frustrating, or they have no use for a rogue (they hate loot or maybe they're playing a rogue themselves), or because he can be naff in a battle if you spec him badly / don't know how to spec him out, or for a lot of super understandable reasons! Like, if you never talk your way out of situations, hulk smash a lot in battles, and save people, you're going to get his disapproval AND he won't be as useful in those battles. If you don't sneak around picking off folks, and just go in and smash everyone, he's not as useful as Gale and Wyll who have good AoE, or Lae'zel and Karlach who have amazing 'Hulk Smash' abilities.

I'd avoid him too if I was playing a character who couldn't persuade/deceive/intimidate my way out of situations (which is the best and easiest way to earn his approval), and I might be like 'I don't like Astarion' because of it. He doesn't fit my playstyle! I can't stand Lae'zel for example, because I just don't vibe with 'killing the weak and no one is equal' as a political stance!

But some of it re: Astarion is literally 'a lot of folks are implicitly homophobic and he's easy to hate.'

Frankly I think Dorian (from Dragon Age: Inquisition) would have received a lot more of this too if he'd been more morally questionable as a character when you first meet him. But they made him a 'good' queer so he got more conditional acceptance (and even then, he still got a lot of hate initially!!!)

I am very fortunate that everyone I know personally absolutely love him, and I'm surrounded by a lot of Ride or Die Astarion fans in my personal circle/s both offline and irl and that makes me so incredibly happy.

#hellish-cleric #i have a lot of thoughts about this #and i am absolutely turning off reblogs lmao #because i suspect this fandom could easily be a dumpster fire about this #but a lot of astarion hate is just #latent homophobia #HECK IT'S NOT EVEN LATENT #it's on the surface #i honestly don't get folks who don't earn his approval at all #because you don't have to be a bad / unethical / morally questionable person #to keep his approval decent?#i'm saving everyone #and i'm in Act 2 with Good approval with Astarion #but i did trick the Thorm siblings into killing themselves #in the Shadow-Cursed Lands #and that netted like 8+ approvals from Astarion lmao

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sapphire-weapon · 4 months

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so i spent my night watching RE9 speculation videos because, like, i compulsively make bad decisions

and i think people are vastly underestimating the likely scope of this game.

RE6 had an insanely massive budget -- so much so that capcom has refused to release the numbers, despite bragging in the time leading up to release that RE6 was their biggest project ever. for reference, most AAA titles (even today in the 2020s) are budgeted around $60-80mil. so, compared to other big-budget games at the time (GTA5 had about a $135mil budget), people speculate that RE6 probably had close to a $100mil budget.

and RE9 is bigger than that.

not only that, but RE6 only had about a 3-year development cycle. most of its budget was spent on voice talent and advertising.

RE9 is slated to have a 7-year development cycle, and capcom no longer uses union actors.

people don't seem to realize that it's not just going to be chris starring in this game. or, it's not just going to be jill.

this game is going to be enormous.

it's not unreasonable to expect this game to have five full-length campaigns in it, one for each: chris, jill, leon, claire, and rebecca.

i really think that that's the reason why we got vendetta and infinite darkness and death island while the games were busy fuckin around with the winters storyline in order to iron out the RE engine and build assets and mechanics. capcom needed to:

a. bring rebecca back into the story and give her an established purpose and presence in it b. bring jill back into the story and finally put to bed the fallout of RE5 (since the last we heard of jill was in rev2 when she was in physical rehab) while also creating a new emotional throughline for her now that wesker is gone and chris is apparently helming his own team c. re-establish leon's storyline as being centered around his relationship with the government and not whatever the fuck was going on in RE6 d. give claire a reason to be out in the field again instead of being a paper pusher and lobbyist e. establish and solidify the relationship between all of these characters f. give nick apostolides a chance to take a crack at OG leon because that's a whole different voice he has to develop (and boy did he not do a great job in ID so i'm glad he got to practice)

all in preparation for RE9.

like this game's going to be a bfd. the more i think about it, the more i become convinced that RE9 is going to retire the entire legacy cast. this is going to be the end for all of them.

#this is a post i made at 3am and probably will have to recant at some later point but whatever

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felassan · 1 year

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Some more snippets of insight from Mark Darrah, from his recent Mark Darrah on Games YouTube Q&A video:

Cut for length

[source and watchlink; there are many other questions covered in the video, which is 3+ hours long, so check it out]

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and related topics -

Q. "What is your most cherished memory of your time on Dragon Age?" A. "For me, it's always about the game starting to come together after Alpha, because that's the point at which you feel like the knobs and levers that you've been pulling on frantically for the last who knows how long start to actually appear to be connected to something and you're actually starting the process of the game coming together. So that's where Dragon Age is right now, so hopefully they are similarly enjoying themselves. It's also the time where things can get really tough so it's kind of both the worst and best time."

Q. "Do you have any regrets about your time in BioWare and Dragon Age in terms of how the franchise has turned out?" A. "So a lot of times with Dragon Age, I feel like, as I've been thinking my way through Anthem, to try to get ready to do the Memories and Lessons [video] there, it makes me re-evaluate Dragon Age as well. To a large degree with Dragon Age I actually feel like Dragon Age is on its best possible path. The things that happened are the things that needed to happen and there wasn't necessarily a better path. I don't have that same feeling with Anthem, but that is where my mind is with Dragon Age, so as a result I don't really have regrets. I have regrets potentially more about the consequences on the team on certain times, but largely no."

Q. "Do you know of any changes to the control scheme for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf compared to Dragon Age: Inquisition?" A. "I'm not aware of anything, I'm sure there will be changes for sure."

Q. "How do you feel about the cRPG revival and its potential impact on the future of AAA RPGs like Dragon Age?" A. "I think that what we're actually seeing is the AAs moving into the space that's been vacated by the AAAs. I suspect it's not going to have a ton of impact on AAA RPGs to be honest."

Q. "What influence do you think D&D has on Dragon Age?" A. "Bioware is a D&D studio back in its past, that's what Baldur's Gate is. Dragon Age: Origins was definitely trying to feel like Baldur's Gate, so I definitely think it has had an influence in it from its conception. Now I think it isn't actually as influential as it once was. BioWare used to be made entirely of people who play D&D, now it's made entirely of people who play RPGs, so it's not as influential as it once was but it's definitely in there."

Q. "Is it true that some game studio companies that are due to release games only to the new platforms are delaying their games on purpose, basically because of lack of hardware and stuff?" A. "I have not heard this. That's not what's happening with Dragon Age, I guarantee that, so. Could it be happening? Maybe. But big public companies like money now, 'even less money now better than more money later', so I doubt this is true."

Mark: "I know that EA, I don't know if they've changed this but, EA six months ago was saying 'we're all gonna go back to the office and you're gonna have to go back to the office and that's gonna be the goal, and we're going to support semi-remote work, but most people have got to go back to the office.'"

Mark: "BioWare has had people working remotely with great success for a long time, but, so here's what I've seen. 'Person' can work remotely, because that person is largely responsible for them remaining integrated in the team. The expectation is that they are largely a self-starter, you can largely leave them to their own devices, they will get the information on their own that they need to work. Groups work very successfully remotely because then it's a big group, the communication channel is relatively small, there's a producer on both sides that talk to each other, and this group is self-contained. You can give them a self-contained thing. The hangar in Anthem was built in Montreal, and they basically built it almost completely on their own with only a few touch points between Edmonton and Montreal. The place where I've seen it fail really bad is people working remotely, which is a bunch of individuals all over the place, the expectation is that it's unclear where the communication responsibility lies. It's not to say that this is unsolvable, it's just that one person works great, a complete cohesive team that's all together can work great. A bunch of people scattered to the winds maybe can work great but the strategies aren't always mature to handle that."

Q. "What is your opinion on canon endings? For example, how do you think BioWare would have to solve the problem with multiple endings in Mass Effect 3 if they decided to bring back Shepard in Mass Effect 4?" A. "I feel like, yes. That being said, Dragon Age is kind of been a little, loosey-goosey, especially in the linear stuff, you know, Alistair, who could be dead, is in some of the linear stuff, I don't love that. But I guess you kind of have to decide how close to the center you want everything to set, and the farther away you get I think the looser you can be, but I think you have to kind of at least care."

Mark: "So BioWare has teased games [early] for a couple of reasons. One, EA feels like their press conference is too light and they need something to throw in there that makes it look like they're not just making sports games. So therefore you get an early, early tease of Anthem, I think there was Anthem in 2014 E3 for example. Or the team feels like they're gonna get cancelled, so by making an announcement they make the game more real and make it much harder for the publisher to cancel them. That's the primary reason why Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was at The Game Awards in 2017. Or because they feel like there is some damage that needs to be fixed or some sort of conversation that's going to take a lot longer with the core [fans], that they need to talk to the core and have it out there floating around for a while to kind of let the bad stuff settle. That happened to some degree with Dragon Age: Inquisition, where it was out, announced for a while, just to kind've let all the bad gas around Dragon Age II dissipate."

Q. "Is it true that EA didn't know BioWare was going to drop the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf trailer then?" A: "Not exactly, because we were working with internal groups within EA to get that thing done, so, no, it's not really true, but the push was coming from BioWare more than it was coming from EA."

Mark: "[on video game journalism & Jason Schreier] "I would argue that, other than Jason Schreier, most of the industry doesn't contain very many journalists. Most of them are more like people who are reporting what the companies want them to report, which is great, it's actually what exists mostly in movies as well, there's not a lot of investigative journalism happening in video games. So for the most part, if what they're doing is reporting what the company is doing, they're not influencing the industry positively or negatively really. Jason Schreier, as annoying as some of it can be, is probably influencing the industry positively, he's forcing some of these conversations into the light, which is probably what we need."

Mark: "I think Dragon Age, I think Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be at The Game Awards. I don't know what you [the questioner] mean by 'announcement'. I'm kind of feeling like they might date at The Game Awards, because they're gonna wanna open up the pre-orders. But maybe it's still too early."

Q. "Do you think the backlash to Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem has negatively or positively affected BioWare?" A. "A bit of both. I think that someone once told me that everyone loves a fall from grace story, but the only story they love better than a fall from grace story is a redemption story. BioWare has fallen from grace, so hopefully the next story is a redemption story."

Q. "Do you think if EA managed more RPGs instead of sports competitive games it would've been easier for BioWare to make more RPG quality of life features?" A. "Yeah for sure. Inherently, EA doesn't understand RPGs, same as they don't understand The Sims, and so it's always been a struggle to get them to understand why things take the amount of time they are, why certain features matter, why other features don't really matter, there's been a disconnect all along for sure."

Q. "Do the developers of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf request your opinions on some aspects of the game?" A. "No, they haven't been. I think that's smart on their part because they need to be careful, it needs to be their game, not my game. I hope they'll let me play it at some point but I have not played it as of yet."

Q. "Will we get Dragon Age: Dreadwolf streams [from Mark's YouTube channel] when it comes out?" A. "Yeah, probably, I'll probably stream it, we'll see how weird that is [for Mark to stream]."

Mark: "Dragon Age: Origins wasn't intended to have sequels, but now it's a franchise built to have sequels. The Mass Effect Trilogy definitely was an end, but we've already made one more Mass Effect so at the moment I don't think they should be ending it. There are places where that could've been a 'yes' but those places have already passed. I think there is a time at which you probably should let an IP rest at least for a while, but I don't think either of those franchises are there."

Q. "Have you ever been reached out to by the folks at BioWare to be more shush about their process? I can't imagine your crunch/BioWare Magic video went over too well with management." A. "Some people told me that there were people mad about the BioWare Magic video, but I think for the most part that it was received okay. I think there are people within EA that wish I would shut up but, you know, they had ways they could've made that happen, they did not do that. I have not been reached out to to be quiet. EA's general thinking makes it very unlikely that they would do so, and I think the average BioWare dev is at worst ambivalent, at best supportive of it over all."

Q. "How do you think the events at the Winter Palace will influence the next game? A. "So I suspect that the Orlesian throne will be reflected in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, but I don't know how much it will actually impact because it has to be manageable."

Q. "Do you think the Well of Sorrows choice will return?" A. "I do not know."

Q. "Do you feel like BioWare/EA left Anthem behind too soon?" A. "Yeah so, I've been thinking about this, and like why did Battlefield 4 and The Sims 4 get so much time to kind've fix everything, and Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda didn't. I think the answer to that question is actually because of BioWare's structure, because there are people, there are teams that needed those resources, and so there was pressure. If you're at DICE, and Battlefield 4 is floundering, there's pressure coming from EA central to stop working on it and just leave it alone, but the studio is like, 'but if we do that, we have to fire a whole bunch of people', so the pressure balances them working on it. In the case of BioWare, same pressure comes in, but then the studio is like, 'ohh yeah, maybe you're right, we can put those people on Dragon Age, or we can put those people on Anthem', and so I think that's probably part of why it's happened. So EA wants people to move off, but then the studio isn't resisting as hard."

Q. "Do you think that the final decision with Solas, Redeem or not, will have consequences on in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?" A. "I would be amazed if it didn't, given that it's called Dreadwolf."

Mark: "[on the idea of removing classes in Dragon Age] I go back and forth on this because classes help onboard players and they make, they give some ability to do more strong things. I don't really like usage-based levelling up like Elder Scrolls has because I feel like it kind of heads me down a narrower and narrower path as I play the game, but flattening it out and letting me level up in a more traditional way, maybe, but I wouldn't do it in Dragon Age because I think it's too integral to the game itself."

Q. "Do you think we'll see the Warden from Dragon Age: Origins in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?" A. "I don't know. There's a huge question that would need to be answered to bring them back which is, do you give them a voice, do you keep them silent, do you explain why they don't have a voice? I don't know if we'll see them or not because of that."

Q. "If BioWare does another open world, what should they do different? I always thought a big hub area would work well or just a large level?" A. "I don't think BioWare is equipped to do a really large level and I kind've don't think, for what BioWare is trying to do, it's the right approach because I think you want to have that big epic story. But a hub area is interesting becaise then you could have smaller things, smaller open world areas more like the bog or the Storm Coast and then have a central hub, so maybe."

Q. "Do you know to what extent 'project Joplin' factored into the development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?" A. "Definitely stuff from Joplin is still in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for sure."

Q. "Where do you see BioWare heading at present, do you think BioWare is best when creating new worlds?" A. "I actually don't think thats been my experience, I actually think that on average BioWare's second entry has typically been its best, not the case in Dragon Age II but for externality reasons, so I think that usually it needs one to kind've shake the things loose. But some people just like world-building and the first one is definitely where you do all the world-building."

Q. "Is Dragon Age: Dreadwolf's combat going to be a big departure from Dragon Age: Inquisition?" A. "Don't know, guess we'll see."

Mark: "[on Dragon Age: Absolution] I haven't seen any of it yet, but it was in development when I was still at BioWare. I think most of the Dragon Age media has been pretty good, with a few exceptions, but I think usually the team uses it as bridges between new concepts or new things that they're gonna talk about in future games, which I think is exactly how you should use this kind of stuff."

Q. "What were you most excited about on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf when you were there? Gameplay and story?" A. "For me it's always characters, characters are what drive BioWare games and I think that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is the one that's finally admitting that, so hopefully they can lean into that hard."

Q. "Will you go to the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf launch party?" A. "Guess we'll see if I'm invited."

Q. "Do you think that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will have more accessibility options?" A. "Yeah I think so, they are becoming more and more common and there are now good AAA games that are providing a pretty good template of something that at least brings the conversation forward quite a bit, so I think that we should see more, I would think."

Mark: "[on modding] There's been no attempt to ever prevent modding [in BioWare games]. We did, on Joplin, talk about actually making the toolset accessible to the public, but there wasn't really an appetite within the Frostbite development community to do that at the time, though interestingly enough I don't think that's actually the case any longer, but it wasn't at the time, so it got abandoned along the way."

Mark: "[on Sandal] That's true, I did basically say to cut, specifically Sandal, from Dragon Age: Inquisition because my feeling was that if you put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition you had to put Sandal in every single game for the rest of time, he then became a concrete part of the lore and he became something more and that's fine, basically what I said to the writers was, you can put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition but know that if you put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition you're going to be putting Sandal into every single Dragon Age game for the rest of time. [...] Sandal isn't done, so Sandal's [story's] not necessarily done, but I think by taking a break in Dragon Age: Inquisition now you're able to kind've pop him in and out, but if you had him in all three games in a row he became too central, so that's what I mean by, so it's not that Sandal can never be back, he needed to not be in Dragon Age: Inquisition if you wanted to have control of that situation."

Mark: "[on new IPs and different genres] I know that there's this feeling like, stick to your lane [BioWare]. I don't feel this. If you just keep making the same thing, eventually, like, BioWare has changed genres several times over its history. Baldur's Gate 1 and Dragon Age are not the same genre so I think you have to keep evolving. there's always a risk but I think you have to keep going."

Mark: "[on tactical camera] I feel like it's not actually really part of the Dragon Age DNA. It's part of the Dragon Age: Origins DNA, and we decided it was important to put back in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It was kind've a partial implementation, and as a result, I actually kind've feel like it's not part of the franchise any longer."

Mark: "[on recasting problematic voice actors] We have recast people before, there's nothing stopping BioWare from doing it again, though maybe it's a bit more of a hot button issue these days than it was before."

Q. "Has fan criticism negatively affected BioWare, like with Dragon Age II to Dragon Age: Inquisition?" A. "I mean, Dragon Age: Inquisition is in part in response to the negative feedback on Dragon Age II. It hurts peoples' feelings for sure, like it can be hard to work on something that people didn't like, absolutely."

Q. "Do you think Broodmothers will ever make a return, given some of the social commentary around them?" A. "I don't think so. I think they will be in the background and largely ignored. If they ever had to return for some reason I think they would get a massive visual redesign. I don't think so."

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