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faeiri-tft · 6 months

Note

PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

youtube

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

youtube

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

youtube

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

youtube

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

#toontown #toontown online #tto #tft talks #tft stuff #<- this goes in that tag i think #this was like. enrichment. thank you

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drkineildwicks · 11 months

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SoD - Record it for the History books...and the programmers

I’m seeing on the HTTYD tag that School of Dragons is shutting down and as someone who lost a beloved MMO back in the day, my heart goes out to you all

Never played it myself, but I can appreciate that it was out there

Saying that...I’d like to share a bit about that MMO I lost, Pirates of the Caribbean Online

Because at the time I was in college and pretty must postponed everything to enjoy my last few days with that game that was a big chunk of my childhood

And while I was doing that there was this group in the server I was on who was busy documenting as much of the game as possible with the intent to revive it

Revive it they did

The Legend of Pirates Online is the PotC MMO fully recreated by the fans, for the fans, for free, with nothing but passion and blood sweat and tears behind it

They’ve actually recently figured out how to program everything so they don’t have to do stuff like quest-building and asset-building fully by hand, and in addition to all the old stuff they’ve added new stuff and improved on the old

And as one of the fandom olds with that MMO, they did it well

So. Calling out to everyone sad that School of Dragons is shutting down.

Start documenting assets.

I don’t care if it’s just screenshots of character comments or videos of dragons moving around, start doing it

Make it so that when that little dedicated group decides to bring it back from the ashes, they’ve got an easier time of it

Even if no one does, even if it takes years, document it for the history books

So much fandom and gaming history gets lost because these games were shut down with no documentation, so archive as much as you can

Just because the game is shutting down doesn’t mean the fans can’t ever bring it back

Pirates Online did it--now I pass that hope to you

#httyd #how to train your dragon #school of dragons #potc #pirates of the caribbean online #the legend of pirates online #those two games are about the same age (when pirates shut down I think)#so it can be done #do it #live your dream #save your dragons

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kraviolis · 5 months

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someone liked one of my TOH headcanon posts from earlier this year and it reminded me about the specific headcanons i have for exactly what types of games the hexsquad plays and how they play them.

luz is obv an RPG fantasy fan. anything with a juicy story and a character creator and complex lore she’ll love. she definitely plays series like elder scrolls and baldur’s gate and final fantasy. she also plays final fantasy 14 and has her character as the good witch luzura and she isnt good at playing it like an mmo is supposed to be played but she loves the story. when endwalker came out luz couldnt stop sobbing to the point that camila was actually worried about her. also enjoys roguelikes such as hades or binding of isaac even if she can only play for so long before getting too frustrated. she also 100% plays genshin impact and gets into arguments online with other genshin fans.

amity is a fighting game girl. she is highly competitive and practices combos with her eyes shut. she prefers the tekken series but when luz wants to play with her they play guilty gear bcus luz likes it’s art style the most. she also likes fantasy RPGs but is way more picky about which ones she plays. she likes fire emblem. she also plays ff14 with luz and is actually good at the game (she carries luz sometimes) but isnt a huge fan of MMOs. she also is the one in the friend group with the NASA ass PC rig with a custom case and the most organized wiring you’ve ever seen with the lcd screen on the liquid cooled cpu and the azura figurine inside the case. she also does custom wraps for all her consoles.

hunter likes games that are very much like, micromanagement sims. like civ5 or cities skylines or factorio (i dont know anything about it but ive been assured by my sister that hunter plays modded factorio) but he’s also a fan of like, old school FPS games like doom and half life. i can see him doing speedruns of those games. (also he 100% once got addicted to some game like fuckin. galactic pinball or something to the point where he was staying up all night and not sleeping so he could play more pinball. in order to get him to stop playing so much and actually get some sleep, gus used illusions to make hunter think he was hallucinating about pinball and scared him into not looking at a single screen or monitor for like three weeks.)

gus is a very chill gamer but he likes games that he can sink hours and hours into. instead of playing a wide variety of games he has a select few that he dedicates his time into learning every last mechanic, but there’s also some games he just plays casually. like with pokemon games he’ll put hundreds of hours into them and carefully curate his team and does like nuzlocke runs but when he plays on his and willow’s shared-custody new horizons island he’ll just walk around and catch bugs and shit and not really worry about upgrading his house and make matching fits with his favorite villager.

willow prefers cozy games, like slime rancher or stardew valley or the aforementioned shared new horizons island, but she’s also a fucking menace about them. like she goes HARD on the min-maxing and automation and shit. while gus is wandering around their island catching fish, willow’s busy rearranging her fully upgraded mansion up in the hills and harassing any villagers she doesnt like with nets and deciding what hybrids to plant in front of her bell trees (she only has bell trees for the aesthetic. gus isnt allowed to harvest them) she would also be running the most high profit slime ranch ever but the way she treats her slimes makes hunter upset whenever he sees her just fuckin throwing them off a cliff the second they arent useful to her anymore. (meanwhile hunter names each one of his slimes and always feeds them their favorite foods and cried over casey & beatrix)

vee enjoys survival/strategic horror games, like DBD, resident evil, deadspace, or even FNAF. she’s the type of person to see the goriest most violent death in a video game ever and just go “ew yucky” then carry on. masha and her are often playing DBD together while in a call and are the most annoying pair of suvivors ever. she also likes games such as original katamari and pikmin 1 and chulip. she's also the undefeated DDR champion of the friend group.

and of COURSE they all play video games together. they all have a terraria world they play on together where they all are focused on their own little projects while still working together and are slowly building up their own village/mansion/castle/fort but luz keeps rushing ahead of everyone just bcus she's so excited and she definitely somehow ends up summoning the wall of flesh accidentally

they DID have a modded minecraft world for a few months with both tech mods and magic mods but while hunter, amity, and vee all focused on their factories and computers and technology, gus, willow, and luz fucked around with all the crazy magic and accidentally found out by blowing up a factory. this is where heightened tension between the the warlocks & the scientists began. this spark eventually turned into a full fledged war that lasted two months before it ended in mutually assured destruction to the point where no one could actually load into the server without their game crashing.

bonus: camila isnt much of a gamer with one exception-- when she was in college manny introduced her to WoW and got her hooked. it was Their Game that they played together all the time. they made cosplays of their characters together. they had several dates in game. they optimized their characters to perfect compliment one another when they ran dungeons with their guild. even since manny passed camila still plays every so often and keeps in touch with their guild members. for the longest time luz has 0 idea that camila plays WoW at all and only finds out after the whole secret nerd confession.

#krav talks #the owl house #toh #luz noceda #amity blight #hunter noceda #willow park #gus porter #camila noceda #vee noceda #lumity #toh headcanons #headcanons #eda plays candy crush. also she and lilith have a 1800 day words with friends streak going

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magicmindless · 13 days

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Please please please! Taylor or chuck hcs if you havent yet <3

I’ll do Chuck another time but for now:

A HC List but it’s just Taylor

Gaymer/j

- A restless yet ambitious fellow. He likes keeping himself busy with fun events and hanging out with friends. Very extroverted

- Has ADHD and unfortunately went through the “gifted kid to burnout” phase in his life. He wasn’t diagnosed until he entered college

- Had strict parents who always expected him to do well in school and was seen as a remarkable student, but later got burnt out due to the pressure put on him

- Video games were always an escapism for him growing up. Though his free time was limited, gaming always helped him get through rough times and even make new friends

- Took care of a stray dog when he was little and called it Luigi. His parents didn’t let him have it but he secretly took care of it whenever he showed up at his house. He was an old stray so he died after a couple years. He really wants a dog but has yet to find the time to adopt one

- Had some online friends growing up. Most of them he’s lost touch with completely, but he has a select few he still talks to occasionally

- Cameo is one of his longest-lasting online friends. They friended each other in a gaming lobby in an MMO game when they were teens and later talked through other sites like Skype (or whatever it is in their world) and now they hang out irl

- Like any gamer Taylor has had his rage quitting moments. When he was younger, they were a lot tamer but only because his parents would get mad at him for being a nuisance but he lets it all out now. The worst thing he did was impailing the tv with a broom by throwing it like a javelin

- Met Chuck as his dorm mate when he was attending college as a computer science major. After they both graduated, they decided to still be roommates to save on rent

- Knows how to rollerblade and is sometimes seen doing it on the sidewalks of Tastyville. He’s pretty good at it though he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t almost been run over in the street before because of it

- He can’t be productive unless he’s listening to music. In canon his favorite music artist is DJ Honey Buster (Hugo), but he’s not that picky. He’s even a longtime follower of Simone’s Lofi channel

- Has heavy footsteps whenever he walks or runs, and they’re so loud he’s gotten noise complaints from his neighbors, so he has to have carpet all over the floors to be quieter

- Good luck trying to get through to him whenever he’s listening to music. You’ll have to yank his earbuds to snap him out of it, which he hates people doing to him

- A horrible sleeper. He gets around like 5-6 hours of sleep at most every day and is fueled by energy drinks. Chuck has to be the one to get him to sleep sometimes

- Likes to do late-night convenience store runs to get snacks and instant ramen along with Chuck. It’s just fun and the town at night is very quiet and calm… unless Dynamoe is on the loose I guess

- After college Taylor and Chuck both had their own issues to work out which did affect their friendship for some time. This included the fact that they were crushing on each other but didn’t wanna ruin their friendship

- It was a hard thing to come to terms with, but one night alone in their apartment, Taylor took initiative and confessed and now they’re dating

- Huge retro nerd who loves collecting games and consoles from the 90s and such

- He’s the one guy at the arcade going absolutely ham on Dance Dance Revolution (or stomp stomp whatever it was called) and attracting a crowd because he’s that good at it

- Once got so many tickets playing arcade games that he got a roomba from the prize booth as a joke since he didn’t know what else to do with his tickets. Though later, him and Chuck grew attached to the Roomba and named it “Sir Robert the First”, even giving it a little top hat and putting googly eyes on it

- Not a content creator, but he’s a reoccurring person in Tohru’s gaming streams. It was totally on accident, they were playing a shooting game where people were in teams and he just happened to be in Tohru’s team. They made a pretty good duo so Tohru friend requested him and now he sometimes appears in her streams whenever he has time

- Used to be pretty hardcore into roleplaying back in the day. Especially loved DnD. The classes he usually gravitated towards was the bard or the sorcerer

- Used to have a side-hustle as a game tester for indie game creators. You wouldn’t think he’d quit doing something like this, but game-testing was too structured for him (it’s more about interacting with the game in super specific ways and stuff to make sure everything works out)

#papa louie #papa louie headcanons #flipline studios #asks #anon #papa louie taylor

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c-rowlesdraws · 9 months

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Oc ask: does Siwa play any video/tabletop games? What's her favorite kind of entertainment?

If sweet pea found a cool enchanted weapon, what would she do with it? Is there any particular magic thingamabob she'd really like to get a hold of?

Love your art, hope you have a good one!

thank you!!

Siwa LOVES video games. She's played MMOs especially since she was a kid-- it was the best way to make friends of other species for an extroverted little volus living planetside, and she met many of her current closest friends through online gaming. Don't ask her how many credits she's poured into her Galaxy Of Fantasy subscription and expansion packs. It's a sensitive topic.

Her other hobby is tinkering with technology; her day job is very by-the-book and usually consists of mundane suit maintenance and upgrades for customers, so in her spare time she likes to get creative and mess around with things like hardware mods and writing custom programs. She and her mechanical engineer dad enable each other; their apartment is full of old computers and exosuit parts, some disassembled for components and others frankensteined together in ways that would absolutely void any warranty they once upon a time might have come with.

---

Sweet Pea comes from a society that is both very spiritual and also very practical about magic. She doesn't like messing around with it; she has a healthy respect for it at best, like someone would with a dangerous animal, and would much rather leave it to trained professionals, or at least people more magically-gifted than she is. If she found an enchanted weapon, she'd find a cloth or something to bundle it up in and would sell it at the first opportunity. Is it cursed? Haunted? Not her problem anymore!

Someone choosing to just pick up an enchanted item they found and try to use it would freak her right out. She wouldn't try to stop them, it's their business if they want to get possessed or get in over their head in some other way, but she'll be over there, watching from a healthy distance.

#ask #mass effect #volus #sweet pea the gnoll #catie talks

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369ecommercenews · 1 year

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Ecommerce in 2023: What do the experts predict?

Ecommerce – The last year has been turbulent in ecommerce, following on from the surge in online shopping during 2020 and 2021. However, online sales are still growing steadily in the longer term (hitting 30% of total retail again in the UK in November 2022 according to ONS data), and the channel will be key for many retailers seeking to be as flexible as possible as inflation impacts on consumer…

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askagamedev · 1 year

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Isn't another issue with Live Service Games the fact that a game that wants you to play it consistently bumps up against other games that have the same need in a slightly different way than "one and done" experiences or even unchanging multiplayer games? Sort of how the vast majority of MMOs cannot compete with WoW, and so many tried and failed to dethrone DOTA and LoL? In contrast, successful visual novel games seem to lift up other visual novel games, but that seems less true for Live Service.

You may be making a very common mistake here - the goal for a given game isn't necessarily to dethrone the genre leader. The goal for most live service games is to attract a sufficiently-large audience so as to sustain continued development costs and earn a reasonable profit. This is why, despite the vast majority of MMOGs not dethroning WoW, games like FF14, Runescape, Path of Exile, Warframe, Lost Ark, ESO, Guild Wars 2, EVE Online, SWTOR, ROBLOX, Black Desert Online, and New World are still continuing to sustain themselves. Sure, League might be the biggest MOBA out there, but there's still DOTA 2, Smite, Arena of Valor, and Pokemon Unite. Setting the bar for success at utter dominance of a genre isn't really feasible. What most live service games aim for isn't unconditional victory, it's sustainable profitability. That's a lot more reasonable as success criteria.

The reason live service games are so attractive is because they are more likely to be sustainable. It costs a lot more resources to develop and build the first bunch of game systems and content than it does the post-launch systems and content. The reason for this is because we don't know exactly what works and what doesn't the first time around, so we have to do a lot of experimentation, tool building, and make a lot of adjustments as we figure out what it is we're doing. Once we have the tools and systems built and earned enough experience using those tools and systems, it's a lot easier and cheaper to create more content with those tools and systems than it is to dump all of those systems and tools to start over fresh on a new game. Some genres lend themselves more to keeping the same tools and features for each game, but most players expect new games to have more new features, new systems, and new content than expanding an existing game. The expectations are lower for an existing game.

You're right in that live service games tend not to share audiences as well as other games. This is because most players have a finite amount of time and attention to play. This is why live service games are often called lifestyle games - it's just a game that their audiences play all the time. You're also right in that live service games don't work for every kind of game. It's just important to note that live service games are extremely attractive to publishers because a successful live service game is worth much, much more than a successful single-sale game. The successful single sale game nets a spike in revenue and the desperate hope that the next game the team builds will do as well or better. A successful live service game means reliable and sustained income for at least a year (possibly longer) after launch. That kind of reliable revenue stream is extremely attractive to businesses and investors.

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#live updates #continued development #live service #the business of video games

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somber-mangata · 7 months

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Oops...I stayed up too late after meeting a really cool group of people on Phantasy Star Online.

It took us forever to get through our first quest because we were too busy nerding out about our common interests (obviously these being very Sega fan things).

This is what I love about MMOs..I hopped into a game that was open and suddenly I have new friends. Maybe I'll only know them for a bit. Maybe I'll know some of them for the rest of my life. It's the journey that makes it all so fun, and I can't wait to see them tomorrow.

#phantasy star online #pso #psobb #blue burst #mmorpg #mmo #mmos #gamer girl #pc gamer #gaming #pc gaming

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misguidedlavender · 7 months

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happy birthday, toontown rewritten.

time to get sappy!

on a warm, sunny day, on august 20th, 2013, i booted up my familys ancient windows vista PC to redeem my 1 month membership card for toontown online. after going to the main website, as id done a thousand times before, there, in small white lettering, on a bold red background, i read the most earth shattering words that could have ever shaken my small teenage self. attention, toons! toontown online will be closing on september 19, 2013. i, along with many other kids and adults, felt our souls be crushed. i ran to toonbook to see if anyone else had seen it already. the heartbreak was palpable. our precious game, our fun little paradise, our home away from home, was going away in just a months time.

i remember playing nearly every day from that point on, doing everything i possibly could, holding hard and fast to what little time i had left before toontown shut down for good. i remember the communitys desperate pleas to disney to not close the game in the form of many change.org petitions. i remember the fiery anger at the original blog post, stating that disney wanted to divert resources towards club penguin (which was quickly edited out, of course). but so it goes, in the normal course of business, the cries of hundreds of thousands of children went ignored.

on the morning of september 19th, 2013, i woke up early to gather in toon valley of toontown central to bid farewell. my goodbye was not even remotely clean or graceful. i was booted out maybe an hour or so before the game officially shuttered at noon. and that was it. no fanfare or final words. there was silence, and there was sadness.

but in the midst of our collective grief, whispers began to spread around toonbook. did you hear? this guy on mmo central forums says hes gonna revive the game. no way, thats not possible, the games dead, obviously. but in a few days time, a proof of concept was revealed. from the cynicism, a different tune emerged. the sound of hope.

toontown wasnt coming back. it was being rewritten.

in the many years ive played this game and been a part of its community, ive made so many precious memories and friends that have become core parts of my soul. it has served as an endless fuel for my creativity and introduced me to so many incredible and colorful people. heck, i married the guy i met through this game. ttr was there throughout my most formative years. even in my darkest moments, i never strayed too far from the trolley. i would be such a vastly different person without ttr. i will never not be grateful for all the opportunities, memories, love, and happiness that ive experienced because of this game.

with all the warmth i can afford, happy 10th birthday toontown rewritten. against all odds, you have survived—no, lived—a full ten years powered only by the love of community who refused to let their home disappear. your persistence in the most unlikely of circumstances is emblematic of why its worth it to keep striving. in the face of despair, what most would see as a stop sign, you saw as a giant green light. you radiate an infectious passion that makes me smile even when i dont want to. you are a happy respite in a world that is difficult, dark, gray, and full of cogs. you taught me that, no matter how old i am, silliness and fun arent something to grow out of, but essential to our existence.

geez, im getting a little misty eyed. i should stop here. thank you for everything ttr. heres to another decade of happiness.

#toontown #toontown rewritten #toonblr #toontown online #toontag

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mmofacts · 2 years

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Scott Keller:

"But suddenly you realize you've climbed a ladder you never really wanted to climb in the first place. The ladder I wanted was the ladder across the room."

On MMO Facts, we share real life online success stories, research and review ways you can make money online or build your online business. "NOW" is the best time in history than ever to create your content, product or service and sell it online.

And do like the page to see new videos and learn how you can make money online

#birding #bird watching #bird blogging #blogging #live video #ohio #scott keller #online success #success story #inpsiring story #business motivation #business ideas #mmo facts

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sleepyserena · 19 hours

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Some thoughts about the final shape (the DLC)

on one hand, i have been outspoken about the dangers of online only, live service games, and the practices their publishers continue to implement to rake in the largest amount of player retention and money possible quarter over quarter. I keep thinking to myself, “do i really want to support this kind of business model, knowing the servers could shut down at any moment and that there is very little possibility of an offline patch?” it would be hypocritical of me to spend money on the final shape when I’ve been so adamant about the fragility of digital goods, the psychological impact of FOMO tactics, and the prevalence of “you had to be there” in reference to an ongoing experience like destiny. I also have strong feelings on preordering things.

on the other hand, i like playing with my friends. This game has been the catalyst for a lot of friendships and i cherish the time i spend with them through the game. I’ve also spent so much time and money on destiny over the years that sunk cost fallacy is rearing its ugly head and I’m thinking it’s too late to back out now, I’m already so invested. I also think to myself “everything is limited: time, money, life. Why don’t i try and enjoy the content the game’s offering, and enjoy it with people i enjoy being around?”

I’m also so consumed by completionism and collecting, that i MUST have all of the new things, all of the new titles and triumphs and guns. It’s a problem I’ve been struggling with for a long time, most likely because i tie my self worth to what i can achieve, and this is what i can achieve. And I’m worried that final shape will just fuel that fire and not solve the root problem. Because at the end of the day it’s more content, with more things to obtain and feats to achieve.

But it’s also a story, a story that has been building up for 10 years, the climactic conclusion to the light and dark saga, and i don’t want to miss out on it, especially looking through the metaphorical window.

Yes, $124.99 is (in comparison to other MMOs (even though destiny isn’t really an MMO in the traditional sense)) is a reasonable asking price for a year’s worth of content. Yes, i don’t HAVE to buy the annual pass edition (and i probably shouldn’t, again, because of sunk cost fallacy). The basic edition comes with the expansion and the first episode, which is cool.

I want to be hyped about final shape. I want to join my friends in experiencing the expansion. But im just so conflicted because of my personal morals and stances, but maybe i can make an exception for destiny, but making exceptions just leads to more doubt, and if i can’t take a strong stand on something, then who am i really?

People have been so kind to me recently. I want to return that kindness by being there for them, even in a silly video game. Because this silly video game has meaning.

I don’t know, i just wanted to get these thoughts out there

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twilightmalachite · 9 months

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Machina - Test World 4

Author: Kino Seitaro (with Akira)

Characters: Mika, Makoto, Sora, Shu

Translator: Mika Enstars

"Strange. Kagehira won’t answer the phone."

Season: Winter

Location: Saison Avenue (SSVRS)

Several days later, Saison Avenue within SSVRS…

Sora: HaHa~, HiHi~, HuHu~♪

Sora still has some time left for winter break! He’s gonna play to the very last minute~! ♪

Should Sora take a stroll through the fantasy world’s Phantom Airship stage, today~? Hmm, the nearest warp portal is…

Ah, looks like Mika-chan-san is online~?

Mika-chan-san’s always been online lately, maybe Sora should go and make sure all’s okay?

A common theme in MMO-related works is about not being able to return from the game world, or something.

If Mika-chan-san ends up getting addicted, Sora will feel guilty about inviting him~.

Since he’s been playing to craft, perhaps he’s at a store somewhere around here…

Makoto: Oh, you’re also here, Harukawa-kun! Hello.

Sora: Yuuki-sense~!

Yuuki-sense~’s also been busy playing the game every day~! Thank you so much for testing!

By the way, does Yuuki-sense~ have an idea on where Mika-chan-san might be? There are material shops nearby, so Sora thought maybe somewhere here~?

Makoto: Yeah, Harukawa-kun. Speaking of which…

Mika: Hello there, I see both of you have come to visit!

I ended up openin’ a store after I ended up savin’ enough VL$ sellin’ my artwork. People were sayin’ they wanted ownership of my data in exchange for virtual currency~?

There were several contenders I utilized the Test World’s auction feature to figure the price, and it ended up bein’ a real high offer!

‘Cause of that, I was able to open a shop in a prime location along Saison Avenue! ♪

Sora: HeHe~, Mika-chan-san’s finding big success as a Test World creator, huh? ♪

Makoto: Nah, if anything, “big success” might even be an understatement!

I checked earlier, Kagehira-kun’s work has brought attention to the Test World and even boosted the value of VL$.

And thanks to that new attention, it’s been getting coverage through online media and a bunch of different people are interested.

Mika: Eh, really?

Im jus’ makin my work as I usually do. But, come to think of it, every work I put up in the shop do end up gettin’ bids.

Well, I’m not makin’ artwork to make money, though. All this VL$ will be goin’ towards production costs.

I’ve been overflowin’ with creative inspiration, though it’s nothin’ compared to you two. Yer welcome to check out my exhibit here~! ♪

Sora: HoHo~, Mika-chan-san’s an artist!

There are artworks lined up in the store from corner to corner, and it’s very lively~! ♪

Sora also would love to display Mika-chan-san’s work in his Test World house!

Does Yuuki-sense~ wanna join Sora in looking around and bidding on the ones he likes?

Makoto: Sure. It’s the Test World, so might as well test my hand at bidding!

The Test World will become luxurious with a creator like Kagehira-kun here, huh!

This object here’s interesting and screams “created by Kagehira-kun!” I think I’ll bid on this one.

Mika: You guys are a big help~! I’ll use the money to create even greater works of art! ♪

Location: Shu’s Atelier (Paris)

Shu: ……

Strange. Kagehira won’t answer the phone.

It’s evening time in Japan right now, and he shouldn’t have any jobs either…

There’s no issue if he is simply concentrating on his production. But it is odd that he didn’t respond immediately yesterday either. And his schedule should be open for a while so he can concentrate on his work.

…This is troubling. I was going to ask Kagehira how his new work is coming along.

Should I try giving him another call…? No, I feel awkward towards the prospect of calling him too many times.

And he’ll end up getting carried away and say things like “You’re such a worrywart, Oshi-san~”, which is quite irritating.

…I know. I’ll just return to Japan early, then.

Fortunately, my New Year’s schedule is open as it’s right after SS. Showing up unannounced to see Kagehira’s production process in action doesn’t hurt either.

It shouldn't be an issue to let Kagehira know only after I’ve returned to Japan either. I’ll put in a request for a flight at once.

…Oh, what’s wrong, Mademoiselle?

I only worry about Kagehira, to where I don’t bother to care for myself…?

Don’t misunderstand, Mademoiselle. It is not that I care about him, it is just my responsibility as a mentor.

This is Kagehira we're talking about. I worry he’s leading a self-indulgent life, taking advantage of the fact he’s out of my sight… And if that is the case, I must return to him and tell him to get his life back on track.

Shu: Non! So there is nothing for you to fret over! I’m simply keeping an eye on Kagehira so he does not slack off…!

Believe me. The fact I’m preparing to leave Paris implicates nothing. Returning to the country early is just yet another part of my artistic pursuits, and just that.

Now, don’t look so sullen, go prepare a change of clothes and get ready to return home, Mademoiselle. As his mentor, I have a duty to oversee his creation, after all.

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#machina #event #translation #shu itsuki #mika kagehira #sora harukawa #makoto yuuki

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