#The MMO Report

[adhdheather]

god fucking help me this upcoming week (group research report due friday @ 1pm, 10 page final paper due monday @ 11:59pm, cultural background research poster presentation due wednesday @ 10am, geographic controversy research poster presentation due wednesday @ 7pm)

#i feel like im drowing! this research report is the bane of my existence btw. fucking hate that class #im at least excited for the topics im doing for my other papers/presentations #like my paper is on mmos. avatar customization. and monetization models #my cultural background presentation is gonna be on american halloween traditions #and my geographic controversy presentation is gonna be abt the amazon hq2 in arlington #p

[dogencool]

If I’m gonna have to see and then report over a dozen porn bots every day can they at least give me like a daily grinding quest for it like it’s an MMO. Can I get some gold and a mediocre loot drop

#cait talks about things

[lecliss]

ENDRANCE IS ONLY 20??????? I thought he was like 30-something!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭 The Liam O'Brien voice really tricked me but he's voiced by Mitsuki Saiga in jp so maybe the dub shouldn't have gone THAT deep for his voice?? Also wtf he's only 20. HE WAS 13 IN THE FIRST GAME??? THE FIRST GAME WAS 7 YEARS AGO?????

#i have so much to rethink. hes younger than me.... i mean. g.u. came out in 2006 so he WAS older than me. hes not real and i am #and well. time you know. but man he just has a vibe of being at least a decade older. #but idk the details of what happened in the first game and im suspecting that he acts the way he does from trauma from back then??? #like the stuff related to mia and BEING 13 BACK THEN!!!! #i really need to know now if endy is okay or not. #HES ONLY 20. NOW I HAVE TO QUESTION HOW OLD SIRIUS AND TAIHAKU AND GABI ARE!!!! AND YATA AND EVEN OVAN!!! #i mean. if that one news report really was about sakaki then even sakaki is only 19 when i thought he like. about 27 maybe #i have to remember everyone is Literally playing an mmo. like yeah phyllo was an old man playing the game #BUT WHAT IF ANTARES IN ONLY LIKE 32 AND NOT. FUCKING. 45 OR SOME SHIT????? #I FEEL LIKE EVERYTHINGS A LIE NOW 😭😭😭😭😭😭 #personal

[monempathieetmoi]

Je suis à deux doigts d'arreter Black Desert Online tellement la communauté FR me fatigue.

Une de mes résolutions pour 2023 est d'essayer d'être plus sociable. Je me suis donc dis que j'allais rejoindre une guilde.

Annonce de guilde d'hier :venez on fait des activités blablabla. Et son pote qui rajoute : "et y'a pas de filles pour nous faire chier et créer son harem".

Sinon le mouvement "me too" tu connais? Le respect est mort? T'as oublié ton cerveau?

Bref, j'ai failli avoir une guilde.

#une heure avant j'ai report un joueur qui menaçait physiquement un autre joueur en plein chat general #communauté toxique #fr #bdo #mmo #mmorpg #gaming #jeux videos #black desert #black desert online #black desert remastered #feministe #feminisme #me too #comportement toxique #guilde #in extremis

[anacat195]

So earlier this week I got an invite to Palia's closed beta (which will be open to everyone on Thursday August 10), and I spent a few hours playing around in it. I have a few thoughts:

Overall I really love it! I don't play MMOs and I was worried that they were going to make it very dependent on playing with other people, but I have essentially played as a single player with no problems.

It doesn't feel crowded at all. I think there are maybe 25 people in each instance of an area and the areas are quite large so it doesn't feel like we're all on top of each other. Also it seems like when you're in special areas for the main story it's just you.

Palia please I am begging for a mini map. Mercy for the directionally challenged.

There's no stamina bar so feel free to keep doing activities as long as you want. Love that. You get experience bonuses for filling up your "focus" bar through eating, but like with a lot of mechanics in this game, you don't have to engage with it if you don't want to. You also don't need to sleep.

The cast of villagers is pretty well rounded, and I like the lore they're starting to build up for this world.

A very important part of any cozy game - I'm happy to report that the furniture is very cute. You also learn recipes of the same line as you craft items and it seems like some of the recipes you can only get this way. My one quibble is that the preview image is like an illustration and the actual item once you make it doesn't look exactly the same. Not drastically different but enough to notice. Like, why?

So one of the big things in this game is the romanceable characters. And I can tell that they're going for a younger age bracket than me because all of the options give early 20s vibes. But. BUT! Palia, you cannot stick these hot older people in my face and tell me they aren't romanceable. And you can't say you didn't know because you yourselves talked about Hodari being nicknamed "Hotdari" by the team, and there are flirty dialogue options with him! I am in my 30s; you give me huge tattooed inn keeper Ashura and tell me I can't romance him? Jail.

As far as monetization goes, they had one small quest to introduce the premium shop and otherwise I have not heard about it. You have to go out of your way and go to the clothing shop if you want to access it. And I do appreciate that.

#palia

[spicypepperjack]

If Miles and Gwen play an MMO together, they're the type of couple to have their characters have matching last names.

And you'll know they'll only buff each other, which may or may not cause them to be reported for griefing

#across the spiderverse #miles morales #gwen stacy #ghostflower #gwiles #spider gwen #atsv #miles x gwen #gwen x miles #spiderman #role playing games #mmorpg #ok maybe miles actually does try to play correctly #gwen is like NAH imma support only my man and no one else

[aotopmha]

The FF14 community has a sarcastic saying along the lines of "great community btw", which is used in cases whenever someone or some group of awful people pop up doing something shitty and which I find annoying.

I think it is really obnoxious because having a great community does not mean there will never be any awful people in that community.

Especially when you get an award for stuff like having a great community – something that in many spaces is usually based on popularity or earned via nebulous committee vote.

That's just not how people work. And putting that strange standard on every single person in that community is really unrealistic.

In fact, I think it would be creepier if occasional assholes didn't pop up. Actual cult behaviour entails a situation where nobody is frustrated, critical or says anything bad about each other ever.

And this is doubly so for stuff that is popular.

We have 30 million accounts in the game now. Do you honestly expect not one of them to be made by an awful person?

The second frustration I have is tying social media with the community. Yoshi-P and his team, don't, even in fact, straight-up can't really, moderate what happens on social media, on Twitter, Reddit, Discord etc.

And as far as I know their official accounts keep it pretty basic and chill.

So, a lot of the bad stuff is just the nature of social media and the internet.

Now, this actually does not mean the dev team bears no responsibility because what they can do is minimise the poison within the game itself.

FF14 is probably the cleanest multiplayer community I've been apart of ever. The most I've gotten is generic insults in French.

The lack of gamerwords in my 3 months of time surprised me the most, and so did the occasional actual compliments. We just either talk about the game or what issues there are with us doing the mechs or disband when stuff isn't working out and time is getting wasted.

But I also know many haven't been as lucky and some of the security features were dated even by the time the game re-released back in 2013.

The friendlist is a mess because it doesn't block properly, and I know stories of people who had to go to another region to escape their stalker.

The GMs, while preferrable to any automated moderation, still don't catch everything, sometimes for years, especially whistleblowers who signal stuff in specific codewords and technically aren't breaking the rules.

Unjust massreportings can happen.

Reporting can be clunky and from what I've explored is hidden behind some menuing instead of just being an open option like in many other online games.

So they kinda can't control Twitter or Reddit at all and they can't change human nature, but I think they can modernise a bunch of the social tab.

I also haven't experienced the game as a non-sprout/at endgame yet, which I'm told can make a difference. Part of the reason why I find the game so rewarding is because you find so many different experiences and opinions in just Duty Finder and you just sometimes get to talking with them about the game and then various other things.

Recently, many gathered to honor Akira Toriyama in many of the data centers and people were just kind of talking to each other about DB and other series.

And I've never seen anything like this in any other MMO or any multiplayer games. I know it happened for Kentaro Miura, too, when he died.

So clearly, the social element is a huge part of the identity of an MMO, so if they mean they're improving the MMO in the MMO, I hope this also includes the social tab features.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #FF14 #FFXIV #FF #Final Fantasy

[kemendin]

LOTRO venting re the reactions I’m seeing to the new update, with the disclaimer that I’m very very white and obviously can’t speak for any POC:

Man, I gotta say, I am severely disappointed with the reaction of so many people to the new Men options. And honestly, a little shocked. LOTRO has by far the nicest, most welcoming community of folks I’ve encountered in an MMO, and it feels disconcerting to see the ugly underside of that. Like, yes, the Tolkien fandom as a whole has always had that subset of racists, but LOTRO’s always felt much more niche and welcoming. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but - I am, a little.

But seriously - the influx of inanities, the sheer immaturity I’m seeing on these comments. Adding more diversity to the character options is ‘ruining the game immersion’ and ‘an insult to Tolkien’s vision’ and all the other phrases these people like to throw around to cover up the simpler meaning of ‘POC shouldn’t exist here’. It’s the same thing that happened with Rings of Power.

And you know, I can even almost understand the point I’ve seen made several times, that they should have added more actual race options to go along with these new looks - Haradrim, Southron, Rhun, etc. And yes, that would be great! But a) do the people complaining even know how often players have chosen race not based on location, but on the visual options? Roleplayers do this ALL THE TIME. And b) until the devs DO give those options for more race origins, why not just... have the diversity in the character creation anyway? Why does it hurt so much if you can’t actually shuffle them off into another box that’s labelled ‘POC’ in your brain? I really don’t know whether to start Hulk-smashing people in my imagination or just sit here and laugh at their poor offended tears.

And then women with beard options - got to witness those reactions in SWTOR not long ago, and now in LOTRO. Someone quite correctly made the point that if you don’t care for such options, just don’t use them, to which the offended individual responded, in essence, ‘but they’re still being forced on me every time I see someone else playing one’.

Seriously. How is more options EVER a bad thing? How hard is it to just say ‘this is not for me’ and move on with your life? People -

Grow.

Up.

There are legitimate issues with the new update. I’ve seen a lot of general cosmetic bugs reported, and the whole face customisation being reset on acceptance is HIGHLY frustrating, when you have to go back and redo all the sliders when all you wanted to do was change your eyebrows. But MORE OPTIONS is not. An. Issue.

I can’t wait to see what happens if Elves get a revamp with darker skin tones....

(But also lol at all the people throwing hissy fits and saying they’re quitting over this. Trash takes itself out, I suppose!)

#kem rambles #lotro #lord of the rings online #i just can't even with people #i've been playing this game for over a decade #it's my home in a way no other game can be #and right now i want to take a giant can of raid and start spraying all the cockroaches complaining from the corners

[apples-stables]

listen, if you don't understand why SSO, a game that plans to continue running and updating for a while, needs to cost $70 when MOST OTHER MMOS do NOT offer a one time charge option. They're ALL subscription based. SSO has every right to be subscription based so they can pay their team and yet they keep the "one time charge" option available, which is not industry standard.

Yeah a completed game can cost less. Stardew, an amazing game, costs like $15. But it's posted in a state of completion where updates aren't guaranteed or promised. So he (one guy) gets continued revenue from purchases of the game which he doesnt HAVE to keep working on. SSO has to keep working. They have to keep paying their staff. $70 is not that big of an ask and is in fact a very small ask. It has bugs because they keep updating so more bugs are gonna occur. REPORT THE DAMN BUGS. They want the community to so they can damn fix em. And just talking about bugs on tumblr or instagram is not reporting them.

$70 is a lot of money for some people and thats VALID but guess what- you don't gotta play or hell you could play for free until you can't. Video games are a luxury, not a right.

#im sorry but im also not #it is worth fuckin $70 #do you think their employees dont deserve to be paid a living wage???? #can you really not think about that for a moment that most other continually updating games are either owned by MICROSOFT and have MERCh #that they make BUCKS on (i.e. Minecraft) #or that they cost a SUBSCRIPTION with NO OPTION for one time purchase?? (i.e. WoW #which is STILL owned by a large corp) #sse is not perfect but no company is and their employees still deserve to be able to put bread on the damn table #when i see someone say its not with $70 #to me thats them saying - with their whole chest - that they dont think the employees deserve to be paid fairly

[beesmygod]

laughing my ass off at this amazon rep telling someone who was trying to figure out why they were banned from that shitty new worlds mmo "oh yeah, when people get mass reported, the bot bans them". so people set up discord servers to fight other guilds in the game by mass reporting them

[writingonjorvik]

What do you think about the main story ending after playing the game for so long?

The story isn't ending. That's not like a denial response, the story isn't ending. That would be an incredibly poor financial decision on SSE's part.

Look, maybe it is. Maybe SSE is aiming to wrap up SSO and shut down the servers on the end of the story arc. We don't know the pace of "Beginning of the End" coming out, it may give SSO three more years to finish telling the one story they wanted to tell. But on account of SSE finally redesigning early gameplay, it makes very little sense to overhaul all of SSO's gameplay and then shut it down shortly after. That kind of change should set SSO up for many more years to come. But I don't see ending the story and making SSO a social hub kind of MMO really being good for retention. I'm sure there are some, but if the story ends completely, then a chunk of folks are going to get caught up and stop coming back. And when those folks start to dwindle, so will other groups of folks because there are less and less people online.

What is happening is the end of the Garnok arc, which I've already said, needs to happen. This story has been being told since 2005, almost two decades at this point. It needs to end so the story can stop getting written into a corner, particularly when it comes to introducing new NPCs. And after Garnok gets defeated, SSE is open to telling all kinds of stories and introduce new characters, just some of which being:

What's up with the witches and their coven politics? How do they feel about the Vala? Are there more Vala? Is their magic affected in any way by not having access to Garnok or Pandoria?

If the Soul Riders and druids lose their powers after the Garnok fight because the connection with Pandoria is severed as Ydris said had to happen in the quests, how are they going to handle new threats? How does not having their powers affect the Soul Riders as people?

What does happen to Pandoria after Garnok is gone? Defeating Garnok doesn't remove all of DC or the damage they did, so what happens after?

What happens between the druids and DC afterwards? Like in actual politics, there are massive explosions going on in the modern era, someone is going to report that. There are going to be legal battles for both sides, how do those play out?

Most recent story snack has introduced morally gray trees, what are they going to do when the connection between Jorvik and Pandoria is severed? Do they still have access through the Brambletween or do they need to seek out new worlds? Can they survive without a source of magic to sustain them?

We're only seen 1/4 of the island of Jorvik, that's 3 more massive zones to be added (I will circle back to this one).

Half a dozen other portals we don't know where they go to like the Doors and the Icendell portal, not to mention other worlds like the Cloud Kingdom and wherever the Caprans are from. And anything else the Between or Brambletween is connected to, all possibilities to explore.

The politics thing again, DC getting overthrown leaves a massive power vacuum, assets, and probably some of the generals behind. SSE can handwave killing goons all they want, but I doubt they'll have the PC kill any of the generals, so what happens to them after? Do they die when Garnok dies? Who tries to step in to fill the void? Sure there's no Garnok, but there are all of the resources DC had and bound to be another world full of magic that can be manipulated. If it's just power they're after, I'm sure whatever rainy day magic DC had could still give someone quite a bit of that for a while to come.

Ok, but what does happen to Jorvik when the connection with magic gets severed? There is so much magic infrastructure built into the island now, what happens when it fails? What parts of it are native to Jorvik at this point? Do those things start dying? Does Jorvik establish its own source of magic? Does it bring back Aideen? Does it fully cut Jorvik off from Aideen? That could hypothetically kill the magic horses, and I don't think SSE would let that canon happen, so where is that new magic?

What happens to the MC after? Like do they lose their magic? Like, congrats, you got dragged into this quest after coming here for summer camp, like 3 months later you've got no magic and trauma. One of those I don't see SSE tackling, but where I can see the Soul Riders retiring or being more cyclable characters in the story, the MC has to be in the story. So what happens to them after? How do they reestablish themselves as important when their chosen one task is complete?

Secret other option, there's so much lore, I'm sure y'all can find another thing from the new lore that I don't remember.

I think the most set up story arc after the Garnok arc would be to start the Witch Wars arc. We know witches don't get their magic from Pandoria, so following the defeat of Garnok and the loss of Pandoria's magic, it makes the most sense for the druids to try and take some pointers from Mrs. Holdsworth. Which opens up the politics in the fallout of the druids vs DC battle and the sudden shift in magic between covens. And with the Vala making a very big play in the end of the Garnok arc, I'm sure there are some other witches with some feelings. Established NPCs there to introduce us to new NPCs, follows through on questions left over from the previous arc, lots of potential for new gameplay. That also sets up perfectly for a new 1/4 of the map, the northwest corner, as we know the shadow witches are in Northern Jorvik, and the fallout with DC very reasonably could take us to Pine Hill Mansion to make sure there aren't anymore loose ends/contingency plans Sands has set up.

I think also that folks should start working through the idea that the quarters of the map will be locked behind a paywall, like an expansion. There are plenty of buy to play MMOs who have this model, and I think realistically, it's one SSO will follow. Also following other MMOs, $20-$30 USD for several years of expansion is well within a reasonable ask in my opinion. It's not a microtransaction, it's a permanent add on, and I think holds way more value than what that amount of SC can get you in game currently.

But yeah. It would be a very poor financial decision to keep SSO going and not continue the story, and I think SSO is making too much money to not continue keeping the game going, so that would need a new story. There's going to be a new main arc, some archthreat comparable to Garnok, and a new way of looking at magic, which would time perfectly with SSE's promises of letting us use magic more actively. Start a new magic system, don't worry about adapting over the original one into mechanics.

#woj theories #star stable #star stable online #sso #starstableonline #starstable #sso blr #ssoblr

[freyalise]

reports are coming in that the mmo death game that had trapped some 90,000 gamers in virtual reality this evening had abruptly been cancelled. the suspected mastermind and lead developer of the top selling massively multiplayer online game stated that he "wanted to examine the depths of the human struggle for survival" but that he didn't expect everyone to, and i quote, "fuck nasty and sloppy style with each other instead of leveling up"

[datcloudboi]

List of video games turning 20 years old in 2023:

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising

Alien Versus Predator: Extinction

Amplitude (an early rhythm game from Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band)

Ape Escape 2

Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis (the Superman 64 for Aquaman)

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge

Batman: Dark Tomorrow (the Superman 64 for Batman)

Beyond Good and Evil

Bloody Roar 4 (the last game in the series to release)

Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand (a very unique action RPG from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima)

Brute Force

Call of Duty (the very first one)

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

Dark Cloud 2

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Devil May Cry 2

Dino Crisis 3 (C'mon, Capcom, do another one)

Disaster Report

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku II

Drake of the 99 Dragons

Dynasty Warriors 4

Enter the Matrix

Eve Online

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (my personal favorite TRPG)

Final Fantasy X-2

Final Fantasy XI Online (in the States. Also the first MMO in the series)

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (the first Fire Emblem game to release in the States)

Freedom Fighters

Freelancer

F-Zero GX

The Getaway

Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Grabbed by the Ghoulies (the first game developed by Rare after being acquired by Xbox)

.hack//Infection

.hack//Mutation

.hack//Outbreak (yep, three .hack games were released in a single year)

Homeworld 2

Ikaruga (the most video game-ass video game that ever video game'd)

Jak II

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

Kirby: Air Ride

Legacy of Kain: Defiance (the last game in the series to release)

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Lost Kingdoms II

Manhunt

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Mario Party 5

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Mega Man & Bass (was originally a Sega Saturn exclusive that only released in Japan. It released over in the States on the GBA.)

Mega Man Battle Network 3

Mega Man X7

Mega Man Zero 2

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

Midnight Club II

Need for Speed: Underground

Otogi: Myth of Demons (an early SoulsBorne-like game from From Software)

Panzer Dragoon Orta

P.N.03

Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire (in the States)

Postal 2

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

Rise of Nations

Robocop (the Superman 64 for Robocop)

Silent Hill 3

The Simpsons: Hit & Run

Sonic Advance 2

SoulCalibur II (the console versions)

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy

Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom

Star Wars: Galaxies

Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the GBA)

Tak and the Power of Juju

1080° Avalanche

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Tony Hawk’s Underground

Toontown Online

True Crime: Streets of LA (Activision's attempt at a GTA clone)

Unlimited SaGa

Unreal II: The Awakening

Viewtiful Joe

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (the last Warcraft game before WoW)

Wario World

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega MicroGame$!

Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power)

XIII

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

#video games #ape escape #aquaman #banjo kazooie #batman #hideo kojima #call of duty #castlevania #deus ex #devil may cry #dino crisis #disgaea #dragon ball #dynasty warriors #the matrix #eve online #fatal frame #final fantasy series #fire emblem #f zero #golden sun #.hack #kirby #legend of zelda #mega man #pokémon #silent hill #sonic the hedgehog #Spongebob #toontown

[rohirric-hunter]

I'm actually very curious what an intro questline starring Indarant would look like 👀 Forochel as a starting region sounds interesting!

Hmm, I feel like the most interesting thing I could do with this would be to move the story of how Indarant left the Gauredain up to the present day and adjust it for an additional character. (And squish it down a bit; what I'm about to describe took place over several months in the Wind will Set Me Racing 'Verse, but nobody wants timeskips in a tutorial quest.) The PC would be cast as a traveler in Forochel, or maybe a trader, who was attacked and captured by Indarant's tribe. Maybe alongside Lothrandir, or maybe Lothrandir comes to try and rescue them after the fact. Regardless, the PC would have the opportunity to help him convince her to switch sides and free the prisoner(s).

Combat tutorial would be a dramatic escape from the Gauredan camp, interrupted by the presence of a powerful Angmarim sorcerer, who is acting as an emissary to the tribe, trying to stop you. This would be the main tie-in to the Epic, representing a concern Lothrandir would express at some point about an increased number of Angmarim in Forochel. Maybe he would even mention the Lost Company? In any event, Lothrandir would be injured in the fight and you and Indarant would bring him to the nearest Lossoth settlement.

The Lossoth would Not trust Indarant, though. At Lothrandir's behest she would be left alone, but, unwelcome in the settlement, she would leave, and the rest of the tutorial would be Lothrandir giving you tasks to do that he can't do himself a la Aragorn in the human/hobbit intro, with some sidequests from various Lossoth and Indarant. Indarant would go off to investigate the Angmarim that have been interfering with her tribe and point the player in the direction of some troubling discoveries; Angmarim plans for expansion into all the neighboring lands, notes on their search for the Helcessar, and possibly even a mention of all nine Nazgul being at large in Eriador.

On your way back to the settlement, you would find that the Angmarim are preparing a raid on it. Indarant would return with you to warn them, just in time for people to fortify the place and fight off the attack. This would earn Indarant a bit more goodwill from the Lossoth.

This would all tie into the Epic probably when you reported all your findings to Lothrandir. He would be unable to go himself, due to his injury, but he's certain that someone needs to warn Aragorn or Elrond or someone about what the Angmarim are up to, so he would ask you to do it. (He would have asked Indarant as well, but she got into an argument with that sorcerer and may or may not have sworn to kill him and is CLEARLY in no mood to be asked to make a trip to who even knows where right now.) Then, most likely, the PC would be teleported to Archet looking for Aragorn a la Beornings.

(Alternatively, and I absolutely think this is a terrible idea for an MMO but I'll entertain it for the sake of the story, it could be an intro that spits you out at level 50 and you pick up the Epic where it enters Forochel, joining other PCs who came here looking for the missing half of Narchuil. In this case everything would happen a few months later and the PC would likely have found some information about Narchuil itself, and their mission from Lothrandir would be to find whatever it was before the Angmarim could. Again, terrible idea for a video game but it could make for a fun story.)

Maybe as an NPC Indarant would have a sidequest you could help her with when you eventually got back to Forochel, and maybe she would also show up as a character in Vol. III.

(Also I finally found my notes re: Indarant's name. A LotRO name generator original but its parts seem to be ind -- purpose, intent; ar -- noble, kingly; ant -- gift. I'm keeping it because I like the idea of Lothrandir giving it to her as a sort of thank you for saving his life and the lives of the prisoners, and it's a nice reminder for her when she's afraid of the bad things she's done or thinks about doing that she can also choose to have a "noble purpose." This scene would probably be somewhere in the intro and hopefully very touching.)

#lotro #ty for the ask friend! and the idea too #i think theres probably an 'ill distract the guard you go get the spare weapons out of that satchel' moment too #also friends who have watched stargate sg-1 might be wondering if this is in part inspired by teal'c #of course it is #god what a great trope #trope doesnt feel like the right word but its 3am its the word im gonna use

[rotworld]

So I recently finished reading all of Griefing (despite never having read/watched mha lol). I went in already knowing it had been discontinued so I didn’t have any expectations. I was just wondering if it’d be ok to ask about stuff that had already been hinted at? Like what was the plan WhiteNoiz was talking about? And what did you mean when you said “penumbra is something of a pr disaster for pro heroes”? Feel free to ignore if you just don’t want to get into it or whatever

sure thing. answer ended up kinda long, it's under the cut.

.

“the plan” refers to the upcoming ua school field trip to the sabutera public hero training seminars mentioned in chapter 16. this was the big finale event i basically planned to end the fic with. penumbra’s online friends have pieced together that they’re probably the person who went missing from sabutera. they’re getting information about the investigation from midoriya who’s getting it from all might, and there’s some concern in pro hero circles that the field trip might attract villain attention. therefore the plan was to try and use the field trip as a rescue mission. a confrontation between the league and several members of class 1-a would have happened. denki and kyoka were going to recognize penumbra because the way they move and attack has been mostly copied from games they like, including their rogue character in the mmo they play together.

penumbra is a “pr disaster” because they, and their hometown more generally, represent what’s wrong with a hero-centric society. we didn’t have all the character backstory reveals at the time i started griefing but even then it was clear that the league of villains was mostly tragedies. penumbra is another instance of someone locked out of better opportunities because of circumstances beyond their control, it’s just that their case ends up on national television so it’s harder to ignore. it only gets there because pro heroes take an interest in the case, and that only happens because it’d be a really bad look if they ignore it any longer. 

someone gets kidnapped and nothing is done about it for weeks. why? one could argue because other, more pressing things were happening. they went missing the same night shigaraki attacked hosu, and he even went out of his way to stall an investigation. but there’s something else noteworthy in that same section:

—believes her child's disappearance may be connected to the recent outbreak of villain attacks. Local law enforcement was previously unable to pursue the investigation due to fears of a copycat incident after an anonymous tip claimed Sabutera would be the next city to "experience destruction as Hosu did.” Police have been unable to locate the perpetrator of the false report, which delayed the search by forty-eight hours, and now believe the tip may have been a deliberate distraction to impede the investigation —

there is no mention here of pro heroes. the absence is contrasted with an earlier news segment in the same chapter about hosu rebuilding, where the police department is partnering with a “coalition of heroes.” there are no heroes in sabutera. there weren’t even any who came in response to the anonymous tip in case it turned out to be true. this city has been left to rot. nothing happened because no one was looking for penumbra, because people don’t look for you when you’re from a place like that. by the time penumbra’s mother can get someone to listen to her and actually do something, it’s far too late.

#rotpeach answers #griefing #apologies im behind on asks and didnt get to them all tonight #also someones ask definitely got eaten i have the email notification but its not in my inbox lol so give me a second to track that down #i had a very kind anon come through with words of encouragement and i really appreciate it!! ;v; #still kinda in the depression trenches but i'm working my way out

[consequencesofargentdawn]

And now we give our main festive gift to our dear readers. Our final quarterly report of the year on the PCU and its current state!

Well what can we say? By admission of its own membership (both current and former) over the last few months during the Fall and Winter there has been nothing short of a metaphoric bloodbath for the PCU.

Red Venturers and Ronin have fell into inactivity, both very large PCU guilds with large member bases (and many alts too) quietly shuffled off, no doubt seeing how times are indeed changing. BOOMTEC INC has left the PCU, and appears to be thriving for it, so we wish them all the best in their new lease of energy free from the PCU parasitic vampires.

But the most startling and unexpected collapse by far has to be the end of The Rotgarde. While not as large as it was during the era of Perroy, the guild had seemingly been maintaining itself until a sudden collapse at some point in September. The end of The Rotgarde of course marks a key moment for all anti-PCU players.

We thought it best to announce this formally on the one year anniversary of Perroy quitting Argent Dawn for his new enterprise in the Neverwinter MMO, which in turn has seemingly caused a significant bleed off of PCU diehards to follow him, namely the likes of Morsteth, who's dramatic removal as GM of Grim Gest has all but paralysed them. A notable exception to this appears to be Coalburnt, who instead went on a week long rampage on the forums of conspiratorial ranting and raving about how 'NOTHING EVER CHANGES' and how 'NOTHING MATTERS' almost in a kafkaesque parody of Sylvanas Windrunner declaring the Horde in fact did not matter before promptly having his posting privileges revoked.

It is difficult to measure Perroy's influence from beyond so to speak but it is obvious the allure of a new MMO who apparently seem ignorant of the PCU's existence (unlike in places such as Final Fantasy XIV and The Elder Scrolls Online) where they can assume direct control over everything in their domain easily is very likely to be tempting to many 'Old Guard' members, who incidentally have been the most active within the PCU.

With a rough average of merely 29 players per PCU guild, the days of them having any real menace left on Argent Dawn has gone, something that we should celebrate and be happy for. This does of course not mean that the PCU are 'gone' or that its members will not engage in harassment of players still, this is something to remain vigilant about.

But as we settle down for our festive break and enjoy time with our friends, families and loved ones we can safely say that decency and the good people of Argent Dawn have endured the worst. We can at least say we will be pouring an extra glass of wine out for the Requiem of the PCU.

We would like to wish you all a happy and most lovely festive celebration here from the CoAD Team to you all.

#confessions of argent dawn #pcu #argent dawn eu #hypocrisy #harassment #PCU census #merry christmas #the rotgarde