Ben Stovall Blog

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Warcraft: Mythic+ Affixes Are Overbearing

Since its addition in Legion, Warcraft’s Mythic+ dungeons have become an insanely popular endgame activity. I’ve participated in most seasons, missing only seasons 3 and 4 of Shadowlands while I was unsubscribed. Overall, it’s been a huge boon to the game. Mythic+ serves as a PVE activity that doesn’t require the level of investment and set-up that raiding needs.

The system has survived some large changes since its inception. Fortified and Tyrannical were originally envisioned as a hurdle for keys beyond level 10, but are now present on all keystones. We’ve seen several affixes nerfed, rotating seasonal affixes, and some that have been introduced and removed entirely.

Presently, Blizzard is testing a new slate of affixes on the Public Test Realm, and much of the player base has had few kind things to say for them. Many players find the affixes to be unduly impactful, to the extent that players have to focus more on avoiding the negative consequences of failing the affixes over battling the mechanics designed specifically for the dungeon.

Others claim this criticism is the whining of a player that lacks the skill to engage with the affixes as they are. However, many of the top-rated Mythic+ players share these opinions, as I do. And, while I’m certainly not in the realm of the very best players, I’ve never lacked the ability to attain the goals I chase in the game.

But, as a pre-emptive counter to anyone who would discredit this post on the merit of skill or accomplishment, here is my raider.io profile. I have two characters beyond the rating threshold for Keystone Hero and several Keystone Master achievements.

Now, let’s talk affixes: new, old, and philosophically.

Playing the Affix

The most criticized affixes are the ones that become so intrusive to the standard gameplay that they overshadow the usual dungeon experience, such as Explosive and Sanguine.

With Explosive, we are constantly battling our UI to kill these priority target bombs before they explode for heavy group-wide damage. For many players, the task of killing these bombs falls on the healer’s shoulders – at the lower levels of play, players are unlikely to swap targets and kill them, while at the top-end of play, the group loses the least amount of damage throughput if the healer defeats them all. Since these spawns scale with the number of enemies engaged, many orbs might be active at once, rolling throughout the duration of a fight. On the PTR over the weekend, there was an adjustment in testing to make these orbs several more times durable, but with a reduced spawn frequency.

Now, conceptually, I don’t think this was a bad direction. However, the pool of hit points tested over the weekend was bloated such that players were simply ignoring them outright with their spawn cadence. I’d prefer to see the spawn rate reduced further, but I think another nerf to both values would be an even an even better adjustment. UPDATE: Blizzard has since proposed a huge change to the functionality of Explosive orbs, having them instead shield enemies based on the health remaining instead of damaging the party. I think this would be better for the experience of the affix, but I don’t think it addresses much the feeling of playing against the affix over the dungeon. We’ll see how it works when that begins testing.

Then, Sanguine requires a dedication to movement and area control beyond what is usually asked by the affixes or base dungeon mechanics. Even the tools players bring to aid the tank in repositioning monsters are suspect in many scenarios, with enemies that are immune to knockback and grip effects, or uninterruptible casts, which adds an element of target prioritization on top of this affix’s asks. I think it’s wrong to say that all affixes shouldn’t affect tanks because of the role they play in the group, but I think Sanguine is a bit heavy handed in that it requires the tank’s engagement the most with minimal impact from the other players.

There’s even a couple more affixes that have been adjusted since their introduction, but would’ve fit here before: Bursting and Bolstering.

Bursting changes the way every pull in a dungeon should be played, with the enemies afflicting the players with a stacking damage-over-time effect for each enemy they kill. This extends the danger of a pull beyond the point where the monsters are dead, and asks for halting damage to prevent refreshing the damage effect’s duration. It’s since had a change to make it dispellable, allowing a class-utility counter to make it much more bearable with a priest’s Mass Dispel, but I haven’t chosen to run a dungeon with this affix without a priest all season, and not all groups have that luxury.

Bolstering once called for adjusting target priority on many pulls in a dungeon, but the new duration limit on the buff has significantly reduced the impact of pulls with one monster of higher health than the smaller creatures around it that die from passive cleave.

And there’s many more affixes that contribute negatively to the experience of running dungeons without overtaking the gameplay loop to the degree of those above outliers. Quaking hits casters harder than tanks and melee players by interrupting their casts and has required multiple specific exceptions to be installed to avoid catastrophic overlaps; Raging can create unavoidable one-shot damage instances with the only counter being large defensive cooldowns or limited soothe effects; Overflowing affected some healers much more negatively than others; Necrotic and Skittish put more responsibility on the tank in an unfun way; Inspiring created painful monster groups by restricting the use of the class tools we had to overcome dangerous enemies; Infested and Beguiling were infuriating to deal with throughout their respective seasons.

And I think it’s bad for dungeon affixes to exist solely in this space – to add only annoyance to a dungeon. These were originally created to add variance to the dungeons week-to-week, because, for most people, running the same encounters ad infinitum would get stale fast.

But Blizzard doesn’t seem to agree. Let’s look at those new test affixes.

Our New Afflictions

So, available for testing over the weekend, we had Incorporeal, Afflicted, and Entangling. Despite the callout, Afflicted looked to be the least offensive of these three. It functions a lot like explosive, but in reverse. A ghost spawns with low health and dispellable afflictions. Removing any of these effects or healing the ghost to full health removes the ghost. Should the ghost be left alone, it afflicts the party with a Haste reduction (which we don’t want). Unlike Explosive, the affix is presented more directly healer-facing. They can address it with their usual game play, and hybrid classes can ease the burden at low-cost, and I think both have factored into its reception thus far.

Then, there’s Incorporeal, which has been adjusted a bit for the better since the weekend’s testing, but I still think could use a redesign. These creatures require direct crowd control effects or kicks to prevent them from massively hampering your group, but you generally would like to invest those abilities into the dungeon’s monsters instead. However, since it’s intended that they be immune to damage, and things like Blind, Polymorph, Hex, or Hibernate would deal with them completely, I think they’re not in as worse a place as they were when those effects were breaking.

And, last, we have Entangling. Like Quaking before it, this affix is just going to be at its worst creating painful overlaps with the dungeon’s mechanics. I know it’s going away next season, but imagine this effect occurring during Odyn’s runes in Halls of Valor. That extra delay of movement could spell catastrophe for an otherwise successful key. In Blizzard’s post, they do talk about increasing the visual clarity of the effect, which was a pain point for testers over the weekend.

Even as unintrusive as Afflicted looks, these affixes are all still annoyances to be layered onto the game. But I think it’s wrong to behave like that’s the best or only avenue to add challenge to the game.

Examining the Philosophy

In the past, I had discussions about my grips with the Mythic+ system and often talked about Hades, an isometric roguelite with fantastic game play. After you’ve had a successful clear or two, the game opens up a “Heat” system, where you can elect to add on additional modifier to make the run more challenge, and more rewarding.

There’s options here that would be an annoyance if they were prescribed: enemies need to be hit a number of times before they begin taking damage; monsters can deal up to 100% more damage and have up to 30% more life or both; you have to sacrifice a boon to climb between the underworld regions; you put yourself on a timer. Yet, these never felt intrusive because of two reasons: one, they affected the “Heat” of the run at different values, so harder affixes increased the rewards more; and two, you picked every single effect you were going to deal with on a run. So, why the hell doesn’t Warcraft do it that way?

Well, as far as picking your poison goes, I don’t think it would work as well in Warcraft. Hades is played solo, while Mythic+ is a 5-man group activity with the active player base of an MMO. Everyone having the same affixes on their key every week is good for people forming and joining groups. It just wouldn’t work as well to go from Volcanic in one key to realizing you have Spiteful ghosts chasing you down on the next.

As for the former, there is a built-in rating system for Mythic+, and Tyrannical and Fortified already provide semi-separate score values, but I don’t think increasing the requisite investment to have all players engage with every affix would be health for the game. Currently, you can get a real decent rating on one month’s subscription, but if every affix had its own point contribution, it’d take several weeks to clear your scorecard of any zeroes.

So, fundamentally, I think affixes-as-annoyances is a bad design space for Warcraft. It is good for the process of grouping to have keys prescribed for the week, and detrimental that we cannot opt-in to the annoyances.

So, I’d propose–

Affixes-as-Boons

I think affixes should exist. Tyrannical and Fortified don’t need to go anywhere; they do a lot of the legwork in modifying the week-to-week experience in these dungeons.

But positive-effect affixes – even built as a reward for engaging with something like Afflicted – would be better than what we have. I don’t propose this as a way to make dungeons easier; I’d want to see it paired with an adjustment to the overall scaling, so that obtaining the benefits from the affixes would affect the dungeon’s success.

I wouldn’t even begrudge the existence of an annoyance affix paired with a boon affix. Just by virtue of design, the affixes will always be less interesting than the dungeon mechanics, because the affixes must be designed to be applied to all the dungeons, whereas a boss or monster pack have a lot more freedom in their design space.

What affixes do to add variety to dungeons in the long-term is valuable, but instead of each week ending with the sentiment, “That goodness I don’t have to deal with that anymore,” dungeon affixes could instead foster excitement for the gameplay opportunities they provide. At the very least, I’d be interested to try.

As always, thank you for reading. I’m looking forward to starting the climb all over again in season two, even with all my complaints. I just wonder if things can be better. Now, to get after these last few portals for my paladin …

April 6, 2023
Revisiting the Last of Us Part II

In June of 2020, a sequel many never thought would come released on the Playstation 4. When the news of a new entry in the Last of Us world was first announced, I was tentative. The first game ended so well, and I wasn’t sure how a direct sequel would affect the ambiguous and emotional ending between Joel and Ellie. But, one day, I watched Grounded: The Making of the Last of Us; I saw the care and thought and effort that was poured into the game, and I felt assured that the team behind the game wouldn’t rush headlong into anything without that same level of love.

I ended up with an unfortunately uncommon experience with the game. As anticipated as its release came, in the last few weeks before its debut, there was a massive leak. Major story elements were laid bare as walls of text on the internet. Many people had their experience with this game poisoned by these leaks. I, oblivious to their existence entirely, avoided these spoilers and managed to meet the story where it asked to be met.

The Last of Us Part II was every bit the sequel the first game deserved. For three consecutive days, I was enthralled by the game. I barely did anything else at all. When I was in the last section of the game, my then-roommate-who-was-actually-just-moving-out came by to gather some of his things, and found me there in the living room. He asked how I was liking the game, and when I said it was fantastic, I knew he’d expected me to have the opinion that was circulating on the internet already.

I never managed to find any clarity about why people were mad about this game when it released. There were some comments that were unmasked homo- and transphobia, but the criticism was so mainstream it didn’t seem like that could be the cornerstone to the wider reaction. There were people that dismissed the story as basic and overbearing, but those comments were rarely insightful about what the story was saying or the details of the plot. There were people who criticized the story structure, and I will admit it is unusual in its shape, but that is not at all without purpose.

Revisiting the game, examining where the discourse online has shifted in the nearly three years since its release – that brought all these criticisms back to mind. And, I didn’t have a blog back then, so I’m going to talk about it now. This is my space after all, I get to do whatever the hell I want with it.

Spoilers ahead – and since this game is getting adapted, I sincerely recommend disengaging with this post if you haven’t experienced the story before. Maybe come back in a couple years, or give the game a go: but just as this story was damaged by the leaks before its release, this story is best experienced as the authors intended. Do not let me ruin it for you.

Here we go.

A Quick Rundown of Events

As mentioned, there’s been a lot said about the narrative structure of this game. And, well, it is unusual. Everything carries on at a pretty normal clip, then you reach the moment you’ve been anticipating for a dozen hours. Abby and Ellie finally meet again, there’s a gun at-the-ready and–hard stop. Flashback.

You’re Abby now. She’s plagued by nightmares about her father’s death. It’s three days ago. You’ve got practically the same amount of game ahead of you as behind you, just to get back to where you just were, to see what happens next.

Also, you hate Abby. Maybe you don’t want to play as her, but it’s the only way forward. So, you keep going. You see Abby’s struggles, see the horror she puts up with. We see that vengeance didn’t bring her peace, but opening herself up and helping a pair of strangers – that does. Like Joel in the game before, a relationship with a child brings Abby back in touch with her humanity, and many of us are able to look beyond the worst things she’s ever done and forgive her.

Then we get slammed with the discovery of the carnage Ellie left in her wake. And we know why Abby would want to get revenge again. There you are, back at the theater.

You fight Ellie as Abby, and the fight only ends one way: Abby victorious, but sparing Ellie and Dina because of Lev, because of wanting to be better for Lev.

Some time passes, and we see Ellie and Dina on a farm. On the surface, it looks like it’s over. Like Ellie is past it all and has found some peace. But, she hasn’t. She’s plagued with nightmares about her father’s death. She’s barely human – not eating, not sleeping. To her, it doesn’t seem like anything other than the vengeance denied to her will bring her peace. And she abandons her happy ending because this character is just too human for it all to end perfectly.

She hunts Abby down across-country, one last time. She fights through a stronghold of some of the worst scum that humanity has become since the infection: the Rattlers. People who use the infected to torture slaves for their own amusement. It’s hell fighting through them and Ellie is horribly wounded the whole time, and you finally find Abby crucified in their camp with Lev for trying to escape. She’s a shell of her former self, withered and weak, but she’s alive. You cut her down and she immediately goes to Lev and gets him down, carrying him down to some boats nearby. Ellie follows, and she seems so disconnected. Part of her knows how pointless it all would be. They’re at these two boats, Ellie has a flash of memory, and by threatening Lev she forces Abby to fight her.

And she wins.

But she doesn’t kill Abby, and people were furious.

Empathy on Hardmode

This game did not make it easy for itself. So many critics of the game think it would be better for the experience if you know who Abby is and why she wants to kill Joel before she does. But this team knew what they were doing. They put it out in front: this is Abby. For whatever reason, she wants to kill your favorite character, and she does. Also, we’re going to make you play as her.

They bury this lead to set the player so firmly against Abby, to help the player feel as Ellie feels for the adventure, then drop you into her shoes halfway through the game. They show you who Abby is: compassionate, caring, tough as all hell, and willing to lose everything she has to rescue one kid.

The Last of Us challenges its player to forgive Abby after you watch her do the worst thing she’s ever done. By the end of the game, the literal last thing I wanted to see was for Ellie to kill Abby. I don’t imagine it’s an uncommon experience for people to stop interacting with the button prompt in that last fight and die at least once, just to be certain that the game won’t let you stop and choose. They set everything against themselves, and still they pulled it off. At least, they did for me.

The Purpose of the Rattlers

Another specific criticism I wanted to pick at here – the Rattlers and Santa Barbara. There’s been some people that say the last level of the game feels “tacked on.” It’s in a different state with so many people we’ve never seen or cared about before, just to show the lengths that Ellie’s gone to pursuing Abby? No, that’s too dismissive, I think. This team does everything they do with deliberation.

So, the Rattlers. Slavers that have infected tied up, allowing their prisoners to be bitten and turned for their amusement. The worst of the worst that humanity has to offer in this world. These people are so disconnected from their humanity, that it’s maybe the first-and-only time in the game that you can engage in the gunplay without any remorse. That’s got value for sure, this game’s run-and-gun hide-and-seek is a blast, but even that’s not quite there.

I think the Rattlers are here as a warning. They weaponize the infected, like Ellie does throughout the game. If Ellie killed Abby, it wouldn’t have brought her peace. She might’ve lost her ability for empathy living with that pain. I don’t think she’d ever have been as bad as they were, but I don’t think she would have recovered, not into the girl we knew.

Where Things Are Now

I spent time scrolling through threads on the Last of Us subreddit. There’s posts of people who’ve come to the game recently and were blown away by it, comments from people saying the game’s finally getting the recognition it deserves, counter-criticism to some of the most popular “proposed changes” essays.

Reception has changed, because this game is truly incredible. It’s so affecting and challenging, so moving. A common sentiment I’ve seen reads, “It’s the best game I’ve played that I can never play again.” And, I guess if you value replayability in games, that’s sad to hear. But the journey experienced even once was worthwhile and one of the best games I’ve ever played.

The reception of the game at launch was unforgiving. People wanted to hate this game because it wasn’t giving them what they thought they wanted. Years on, however, people see the value in the game as it is. People nowadays are willing to meet the game where it’s asking to be met, and that’s all you really need to do.

As always, thank you for reading. See you again soon.

April 2, 2023
The Last of Us: An Incredible Adaptation

There are few games whose stories were as moving and affecting as the Last of Us, and it’s no surprise to its many fans how well this adaptation landed. The gameplay is good, but the meat and potatoes of this game was always its narrative. So, despite the storied history of failed video game adaptations, I and many others were excited for this show for a long time.

I can certainly say I wasn’t disappointed.

Changes Made for the Better

I’ve talked before in this blog about how adaptation often necessitates change – going from one medium to another requires work. Things that are fun to play through might get stale to watch. Something that reads well might be hard to present in a way that captures the attention of the audience. Here, the creative team deviated from the game in several places (and held fast to the game in others), but never did I feel like what they were doing wasn’t the right move for the show.

Bill and Frank receiving practically their own episode devoted to their lives together made perfect sense for the show over the gameplay sections involving their story. Exploring a booby-trapped town and battling infected was fun to play through, but I don’t think it would’ve worked as well as a viewing experience – certainly not as well as what we did get. Sam being deaf and needing Henry’s protection even more was inspired; Druckmann himself was frustrated he hadn’t thought of it.

Every moment of this show oozed with the respect and love the original story deserved from the team behind it. Craig Mazin in the “Behind the Episode” segments spoke unabashedly about his love for the game. More than anything else, I think that care and devotion to the original really brought the best things forward while providing them the room to make changes and come out the better for it. As a result, we have two incredible stories that exist in a shared space, but their differences remain and give them each a different flavor. If you prefer a show, the series is excellent; if you love an interactive experience, the game is there for you.

All Killer, No Filler

There’s been a few criticisms online about the third and seventh episodes in the series. Some derided them as filler: pointless excursions that did nothing to further the story present. I read comments from users on Reddit that posited that all flashbacks are bad for media, in any story – that stories told nonlinearly are just inherently poorly written (which, ridiculous).

Never mind that this whole thing is just outright about the characters within it. The journey across the country is just the backdrop for Ellie and Joel to come to find family in one another. Each obstacle they encounter and overcome isn’t them battling against FEDRA or learning more about the fireflies – it’s just an exploration of the world, how these characters behave within it, and, most importantly, how that changes while they’re orbiting around each other.

An interesting facet of this criticism is that both of these episodes featured homosexual romance, and they received the harshest response. But, that doesn’t have anything to do with it, right?

History Repeating

For years after people reached the credits on the Last of Us, there were debates about the ending. This story is challenging. It is upfront and honest about these characters, about how human they are. Everyone knows that a parent will do anything to protect their child, and this story doesn’t shy away from it. It doesn’t give us an out.

Joel commits an atrocity for Ellie. He refuses to let her die, to lose her, even though it will allow humanity to overcome cordyceps. And, playing the game, I was with him. I wasn’t going to let them kill Ellie. In the game, it’s a final shootout and run-and-gun, a finale and set piece. In the show, it is the most violence we get on screen between humans.

To me, the show is even less ambiguous about whether the cure will work than the game. It is presented as a certainty. Yet, just as with the game a decade ago, people cast doubts about its effectiveness so that Joel’s actions can be justifiable. And, the fact of the matter is, that what Joel does is horrific, but many people would do the same.

This story challenges us to recognize that. To accept that piece of human nature, what love can drive us to do. To behave like the cure is uncertain is to attempt to disengage with the question, to create a moral justification for the mundane horror humankind is capable of. And it’s interesting to see that happening again in the wake of the finale.

Suffice it to say that I loved the show and I’m looking forward for more. A few weeks ago, the series inspired me to revisit the game’s sequel, and my next post will be about that experience. As always, thank you for reading. When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.

March 17, 2023
Harry Potter and the Author Who Damaged Its Legacy

I have this vivid memory from when I was a child. I don’t remember where we were or why we were there, but my brother and I were in a hotel room with my mom and an ad for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came on the TV. My brother and I were enraptured, and for weeks we quoted the “… or worse, expelled.” exchange. It’s the first time I remember hearing about the franchise.

I couldn’t tell you how many days or weeks there were between then and when my mom took us to see the movie, but we loved it. And I was just a kid, not keeping up with movie releases or anything at the time, so when we went next year to see a sequel I was blown away even further.

I went with my mom to nearly every Harry Potter release in theaters. I got the books as they were released (though I only ended up reading Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows before seeing their movies). I think the ending of Goblet of Fire just made me need to know what was going to happen next – more than the earlier movies had, anyway.

Between the Wizarding World and Lord of the Rings, I was certainly not starved for fantasy stories growing up. Then, we got an Xbox 360 in 2006 with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, eventually got Dragon Age: Origins, and I’d begun playing Runescape and World of Warcraft and my fate was sealed. This was my bag, sword fights and wizards and dragons: that shit was my jam.

Harry Potter was incredibly important to me growing up. I’d watch and rewatch these movies with my mom or on my own. So much so, that when Rowling first starting getting a bit of pushback for “adding context” to her books via twitter, I didn’t see what the fuss was. I mean, it was stupid to insist that the wizards were just shitting themselves, but I guess I didn’t really consider it true, you know? I supposed I’d already gotten into the “Death of the Author” camp, and didn’t care for her “intent” beyond the written words.

The problem, then, is that weird tweets isn’t at all where it stopped.

J.K. Rowling isn’t just desperately grasping onto her work as a means to remain relevant long after its release, she’s using the platform her success catapulted her into to advocate against human rights. Rowling is a card-carrying Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, using all the money and fame she’s accumulated to make life harder for an incredibly small and marginalized population of people just trying to live their lives. People that might’ve found solace in her work in their youth.

And, for me, that was enough for me to decide that insofar as my money goes, it wouldn’t be going toward Rowling. I disengaged with her other work and the fandom. And I was able to set it down. I can accept that these books were influential and formative for my youth, but I also choose to leave them there.

I also recognize that others don’t have any imperative to do the same. I don’t presume that the standards I hold myself to should apply to everyone else. I would, perhaps, merely advocate for others to endeavor to be aware of where their money is going and consider that when making nonessential purchases, but I know, for the most part, people who bought this game or still enjoy these movies are just trying to relax after working to live their own lives. And for that, I wouldn’t condemn them. The energy and time expended by many on attacking others for not joining them in their boycott could be better used elsewhere.

There’s been a lot of instances lately, it seems, where people use social media to attack their allies for failing to be perfect allies. That left-wing spaces have a tendency to eat their own, and the fact of the matter is that they kind of do. Because our true opponents do not care about our disappointment in them, many of them revel in it. There are people who respond to learning about Hogwarts: Legacy’s transphobic originator and antisemitic narrative and choose to reply “Well now I am buying two copies.” We are unable to shame these people into reasonable action, so we instead attack those who do worry that they may do harm with their actions. And that is not activism – more often than not, it is little more than cruelty. Do good in your communities, help real people, donate, discuss these issues and educate those we can – whatever you can manage.

But I’m also a cis white man, so what the hell does my opinion count for anyway?

As always, thank you for reading. Good luck out there, everyone. Remember that you are loved.

February 18, 2023
Returning to Warcraft

In July of 2021, news broke about a lawsuit against Blizzard Entertainment. The suit alleged that, as a company, Blizzard had systemically mistreated their female employees. There was a “frat boy culture” complete with “cube crawls” in which workers would drink at one another’s cubicles during the workday and grope their female coworkers. Employees who reported these behaviors faced retaliation. A female employee committed suicide during a business trip with a male supervisor who had brought sex toys with him on the trip. Their courtesy rooms for recently pregnant employees who needed to pump were poorly furnished and lacked security with someone reporting their breast milk stolen from the fridge. In the midst of all this news, two people were promoted to fill J. Allen Brack’s position once he left the company, Mike Ybarra and Jen O’neal, and they did not pay Jen as much as they paid Ybarra despite both of them advocating for it.

I ended an eleven-year concurrent subscription to World of Warcraft the same day that this news broke. I was horrified and disgusted that this company that had been a part of my life for so long was like this. Unfortunately, it was more akin to the last straw than a strictly moral stance. Shadowlands was the least fun I’d ever had playing Warcraft, but I was more-or-less in charge of the guild I’d been playing with for over a decade, so I felt some sort of duty to stick around.

When this news broke, I told the guild that when my time expired, I was done. I didn’t think I’d ever be coming back. My game time lasted until November, and on the last possible night we managed to finish the raid on heroic after several weeks of attempts on the final boss. I did not open Battle.net for an entire year after that moment.

I kept up with some news. I watched the Dragonflight announcement and felt underwhelmed. I didn’t really think Blizzard would change – not in philosophy, and not in culture.

But, maybe they did.

New Direction

I’ve been a fan of Preach Gaming for a long time. I think I first found his channel in 2012 during Mists of Pandaria, but I probably became a subscriber and fan in the time of Legion (2016). Like much of the player base, Preach had been heartbroken with the news and resolved to risk his entire livelihood and stop his daily coverage of Warcraft as his primary work for his videos. Like many of us, he had been passionate about this game for a long time despite it feeling worse and worse over time.

Late last year, Preach spent his own money to take a trip to California and visit the Blizzard campus, interviewing the developers to talk about the new direction of the game and the fallout of the lawsuit. And, honestly, it began to look like the lawsuit had helped remove the problematic people who had been with Blizzard all those years. Things looked like they’d gotten better.

The game was headed to a healthier place: one designed for the player’s enjoyment and not just their retention. Gone were the nonoptional activities that advanced your character’s power outside of the endgame pillars. Gone were the restrictive systems and grinds that made players feel the need to engage with content they’d long since grown tired of to continue gaining artifact and anima power. Playing multiple characters became something encouraged by the game, instead of a burden as players saw a laundry list of dozens of things they’d need to complete again to get their characters ready for the fun stuff they wanted to do.

Even hearing this from friends, I was skeptical. Many of them hadn’t quit in Shadowlands, maybe it was just survivorship bias. Ultimately, I knew I couldn’t take anyone’s word but my own, so I decided to drop some of the gold I’d had in game for a token and give it a shot.

It’s been about a month since then. I’ve leveled four of my characters to 70, when I only ever got one to 60 in Shadowlands. I’ve just achieved Keystone Master with my friends, despite us now needing to find people to fill our groups instead of having an active guild to run with. I’ve been making gold with my professions, in the hopes of continuing to pay for the game with that virtual currency. I haven’t been into the raid yet, but I’ve been completely satisfied with the dungeon endgame.

That game is just fun again.

But I’m not ready to give Blizzard a full pass.

There’s Still Room to Improve

Ultimately, the monetization of Blizzard’s games is still disgusting. Diablo: Immortal is not even a year old. Diablo 4 is set to release this year with a battle pass system for cosmetics and so far, they’ve been quiet on what, if anything, they’re doing with this system to address FOMO. And, at any point, they could fall into their old ways and start designing poor systems that restrict the players again.

But, unlike before, I’m not going to stick around if the game stops being fun. There’s really not much else to it.

As always, thank you for reading. Now let’s drop that ready check and get this run going.

January 12, 2023
2022: Year in Review

As we come upon the end of 2022, I wanted to take a moment to look back at all of the media I’ve enjoyed this year and talk about what I loved. Consider this a graduation of a “Ben Recommends” post, one plus-sized entry to talk about several games, books, movies, and TV shows that I didn’t devote an entire post to earlier in the year. Not all of these projects were released this year, but they were things I experienced for the first time in 2022. As always, we’ll avoid spoilers as much as we can, so without further delay, let’s dive in.

Books

I didn’t read as much as I’d planned to this year, but there was certainly no shortage of quality books that completely ensnared me. The craft on display inspired me to keep honing my own writing, to pursue the best I can manage and always improve.

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace

Arkady Martine’s Hugo winning duology was instantly one of the best books I’d ever read. I remember a moment – the first “on-screen” interaction between Ambassador Mahit and her predecessor Yskandr – that I just felt floored. Every time I pick up a Hugo winner, I find something, an idea or an impeccable presentation, some way to present a thought in a way that I hadn’t been able to consider or articulate myself, that just reminds me why I was so drawn to writing in the first place. I read Desolation before 2022’s Hugos were awarded, but I had no doubt it my mind it would snag the win.

The Rage of Dragons

I first picked up Evan Winter’s novel to read while I was unable to engage in my more persistent distractions, but I found it so gripping that even when I’d finally returned home, it was still consuming my time. Reading it reminded me of the way Game of Thrones made me feel when the show had been at its best, even despite how different the two tales are. The book is so deliberate, so consistent, that even moments that might drag in a lesser novel remained just as enthralling here. I can’t wait to catch up with the Fires of Vengeance and join everyone else in waiting for the next novel.

Elder Race

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an author whose name I’d see pop up on the fantasy subreddit time and again, so I decided to give Elder Race a try to dip my toes into his work. I finished the entire novella in a day, moving only when my spot on the couch started to become uncomfortable. Only once I’d finished did I set the book down, adding more of his work to my wish list for the holidays.

Movies

I only found my way into a theater a handful of times this year, catching The Batman and the new Marvel movies, and when I did sit down with a movie at home it was often one I’d already seen. Still, there was a notable exception that deserves a spot of recognition here.

Knives Out & Glass Onion

Say what you will for Rian Johnson’s entry into Star Wars, but the man knows how to craft an exciting mystery. I finally got around to seeing Knives Out this year, and I immediately knew I had to share the movie with my mother. It’s a wonderful film with surprising twists and turns all throughout, and Glass Onion certainly serves as a great sequel to expand the canon on Benoit Blanc.

TV Shows

There were a lot of new shows this year that I didn’t ever get around to watching. I’ve heard great things about dozens of shows, but never had the opportunity to check most of them out. Of what I did see, the two below really stick out as the best of the best.

Better Call Saul

I was a huge fan of Better Call Saul since the first season. Each time they finally got added to Netflix, I slammed through each episode, hungry for more. Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan worked a miracle, following up one of the best television dramas ever with a spinoff sequel, that, for me, surpassed the original. It’s a master class in pacing, in setup and payoff, in following through, even if it might become predictable. The final season stuck the landing, and I can’t wait to see what these guys do next.

Andor

If it hadn’t finished so close to the year, I think Andor would’ve had its own entire post. This show was something I’d always wanted from Star Wars: a gritty, grounded story about people rising against the tyranny of the empire. It isn’t afraid to take its time, to build clear stakes and show us who these characters are. Despite the darkness it is hopeful – things are bad, but there are those who are willing to fight, to build a tomorrow they will never see, so that things will be better one day.

Video Games

The video game industry continues to swing wildly between the best and the worst it can be. In the same year that we get Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok as examples of the pinnacle of what games can be, we get Diablo: Immortal, a blatant pay-to-win cash grab, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet releases as a buggy mess with very little in the way of innovation despite being one of the highest grossing media franchises in the world. I’ve always been a bit of a patient gamer, only buying games on day one when they’re a highly anticipated release, but I still got around to a lot of games that were new this year.

Vampire Survivors

I was an early adopter of this tiny little game, picking it up at the start of February in early access. Very, very few games are as much of a value trade as this ended up being. For that $3 price point I got 54 hours of excellent gameplay, and they just released a $2 DLC that I’m excited to get around to diving into soon. For a while, I was keeping up with each patch and collecting the achievements as they came, but I hadn’t played since April until a couple weeks ago and I had a lot of new things to check out when I got back into it.

Potionomics

I was never someone who was interested in dating simulator games. I’d confidently skipped over them all, certain I wasn’t missing anything. Then, I saw someone playing Potionomics on a stream and decided to give it a shot. It had just enough of a game laid overtop that I bought in, and I enjoyed the game immensely. I stuck around for two full playthroughs to get all of the achievements on Steam and I have no regrets. I don’t think it’s completely changed my opinion on dating simulators, but if this team releases another one with another decent game on top, they’ve at a minimum earned my interest.

Dicey Dungeons

A friend of mine played this game on Game Pass and immediately knew I’d love it. That same day he sent me a gifted copy, and he was completely correct. This little roguelike battle game has been an absolute blast to play. The game gives you items to equip on each run that you use rolled six-sided dice to dismantle your foes with. There’s appropriately six characters to play as, each with their own unique dice interactions and mechanics: the warrior can reroll dice to get better results, the rogue wants lower dice values to unleash a flurry of attacks, the robot rolls each dice one-at-a-time with a hard cap on how much their CPU can handle each turn. With lots of comedy buried in the enemy profiles you unlock with each achievement, this game is overflowing with charm.

My Game of the Year: God of War Ragnarok

Ragnarok is a sequel in the most honest sense of the word. Everything about God of War (2018) is improved upon here: the gameplay is smoother, the systems are more developed with more options, things are expanded naturally, and the story and performances are top-notch. Elden Ring is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever played, but Ragnarok appeals more to me as a person. It would be a lie to say Elden Ring lacks a narrative, but presentation between these two games couldn’t be more different, and I’m a sucker for a great story.

There’s also something to be said for the difference in boss design in these two games. While you have so much more freedom in how you build your character in Elden Ring, there’s certainly a value in the way a God of War boss can have mechanics that require a specific answer to be dealt with. In Elden Ring and the Dark Souls games, what you’re capable of as a character can be so varied that I don’t believe there’s any mechanics in the game that the dodge roll can’t avoid. In Ragnarok, there was a boss that I needed to interrupt with a weapon throw, or a couple mechanics that I could use a specific arrow from my ally to interrupt, and it felt fantastic to go step-for-step in these dance-like encounters. Neither of these design philosophies is better than the other: what you gain in player choice and freedom in Elden Ring is incredibly valuable, while the limited choices you make in God of War can still adjust your playstyle, just not nearly as much as the decisions in Elden Ring.

2022 delivered some truly incredible stories, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have the opportunity to experience them. I’m excited to see what new stories we can share with one another in 2023. As always, thank you for reading. I hope you have a happy New Year, and I’ll see you again soon.

December 29, 2022
The Pokémon Problem

Back in 2019, Nintendo and Gamefreak made a highly anticipated announcement for the next mainline Pokémon games, Sword and Shield. With one controversial decision made during development, this became one of the most divisive reveals ever made by the company. For the first time, a mainline entry in the Pokémon series would not launch with support for all of the previous Pokémon. Sword and Shield would release with a significantly reduced roster.

This announcement ignited a backlash still burning to this day. People called for boycotts. Internet petitions were signed. We desperately wanted Gamefreak to reconsider this choice, but the fandom’s arguments fell on deaf ears. Sword and Shield were the first Pokémon games I did not buy.

Now, new releases are yet again on the horizon: Scarlett and Violet, and again, they will launch bereft of hundreds of Pokémon. This post is going to dive in on this controversy – to examine why it mattered then and why it matters now. To clarify why Gamefreak’s excuses don’t satisfy many former fans.

Every Pokémon is Someone’s Favorite Pokémon

I remember reading through threads upon threads on Reddit when the announcement came through. So many people were upset with Gamefreak’s decision and they were listing their favorites and despondent at the possibility that they might be absent from a future title. It was astounding how varied each comment read. Pokémon I had no care for whatsoever were hailed as a poster’s favorite, or their sibling’s, or their child’s. Pokémon widely considered ugly or poorly designed (people harped on the ice-cream-cone Pokémon for years) were beloved by someone. Some artist painstakingly designed these creatures. And it never sat right with me that they would just toss them aside like that.

One of Gamefreak’s chief reasons for their choice came down to the ever growing roster of Pokémon in their games. Right now, prior to the launch of their new games, there are 905 Pokémon in the Pokédex. Yeah. It’s a lot. But it has always been a strength of their design that you can nearly always tell what type of Pokémon you’re up against immediately. Each environment carries an implicit rule for the encounters you can expect. You never have to walk into a gym or Elite Four match blind. The design of their trainer sprites clued players in on the type of Pokémon those trainers would field. Ultimately, I don’t find the claim of a bloated roster compelling in the least – I believe it to be undermined by the excellent clarity existent already in each game.

At the time of the announcement, a counter-argument sprung up to call for the fanbase’s understanding of Gamefreak’s decision. Commentors asked, “How many people will this really affect?” How many players of the Pokémon games will really be disenfranchised by these limitations? What’s the percentage of Gamefreak’s player base that use every Pokémon or have collected them each? And, clearly, collecting a “Living Dex*” or constantly switching between dozens and dozens of Pokémon is something a low number of players would do in these games. I myself collected a near-complete Living Dex (missing only a percentage of the event-only Pokémon) back in Pokémon Y (and though Pokémon Sun ended up being my last venture into the franchise to present, I did not at the time invest the time to fill out that game’s Pokédex). But, I think that’s ultimately incorrect.

The truth is, this decision affected every player. Maybe their favorite Pokémon had the fortune to remain in the roster, but their second, third, seventy-eighth favorite–maybe they weren’t. Perhaps they just had an enormously abridged list of potential enemies. The games lost the true extent of their variability, and I don’t think that was the right decision to make.

Regional Forms: A Flawed Compromise

In Pokémon Sun and Moon, Gamefreak added a new variable to the mix: classic Pokémon with new appearances based on the environments in the latest games. Looking back, I think this was an attempt at future-proofing the games by reducing the volume of new Pokémon added each game. I think it’s possible Gamefreak by the time of Sun and Moon knew they would need to change their strategy when it comes to the addition of new Pokémon, and with regional forms they might’ve been trying to walk the middle road. They could add new, exciting Pokémon appearances and fill out the availability of Pokémon types, while having a version of older Pokémon that wouldn’t carry the expectation of being carried forward. Alolan Vulpix is from Alola, after all. Do we need to worry about its availability in the next region?

But therein lies the problem, right? What if Alolan Vulpix or Ninetails becomes you favorite Pokémon in the space of Sun and Moon? With a DLC package, many Alolan Pokémon became available in Sword and Shield, is that going to be standard going forward? Is it acceptable to put these Pokémon behind an additional paywall beyond the game itself?

New Pokémon are always the most exciting part of each new generation. My friends that have interest in Scarlet and Violet love Fidough and Lechonk. They had their starting Pokémon selected months ago. Just rebranding an old design doesn’t carry the same splash. Wooper’s got a new type and a palette swap! Ok? It just doesn’t land in the same way this adorably chubby pig.

Regional forms fell short of both of their goals I assume they were intended to reach. They aren’t as exciting to obtain as truly new Pokémon, and they didn’t aid in the reduction of new Pokémon in a way that kept them from needing to limit the roster. And it is a shame, because Pokémon reacting to different environments to become discernibly different is a good idea: I just think it came much too late. That role had already been taken by a wide array of new Pokémon being available in every region.

There isn’t a Hoenn region Pidgey, they have Taillow. They have Plusle and Minun, Pikachu was in the exotic safari zone.

Conclusion

This post isn’t meant at all to call for a boycott or dissuade a Pokémon fan from buying the next game in one of their favorite series. Scarlet and Violet will at a minimum be the standard Pokémon fare, and they’ve been the name in monster-pet-battling games for decades. It’s likely to be another fun romp in a beloved series I spent a lot of time on as a child and teen and young adult. But I won’t be there until all of the Pokémon are in again – and not as DLC, but from the jump.

As always, thank you for reading. Now, I need to go run uselessly after a trio of criminals while an electric rat rescues himself with a blast of lightning.

October 13, 2022
Ben Recommends: A Starstruck Odyssey
It feels like every time I write about media on this blog, it’s in a negative–or at least critical light. Partially, there’s something easier about criticism; it’s really apparent when there’s something you don’t like. It can be harder to parse out the specifics of a piece of media that made you appreciate it.

And it’s unfair, because there is a lot of media these days and so much of it is crafted with care and passion. So, that’s where this comes in. I want to celebrate works (movies, shows, etc.) that really resonated with me; I want to share out some positivity, some reinforcement. I want the things I love to get the recognition that they deserve.

Welcome to Ben Recommends. Today, I want to talk about Dimension 20’s A Starstruck Odyssey.

What is it?

I’ve mentioned Dimension 20 and other “actual play” RPG shows on my D&D blog posts before. These days, Dimension 20 is my favorite of the bunch (more on that later). For the uninitiated, these “actual play” shows are a bunch of people playing a table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) on camera.

Naturally, this isn’t something everyone will be interested in. You might love TTRPGs but watching someone else play will do nothing for you. You might have no experience in D&D or its contemporaries, and that lack of knowledge might cause the inherent limitations of the content to fall flat. However, there are tons of people who are fans of these shows despite never dabbling in RPGs themselves, so it might be worth a try regardless.

Dimension 20 began after long-running Internet content creation company CollegeHumor picked up Brennan Lee Mulligan, featuring a mix of new and old CollegeHumor alumni as the cast (seven total, Brennan and six players). Unlike many other actual play shows, Dimension 20 has a staffed production team making their battle maps and miniatures and a set number of episodes each season (usually 17+ episodes for the core cast, and between 6-10 for “sidequest” campaigns with guests).

In this specific season of Dimension 20, they used a heavily modified version of 5th edition D&D to run a crazy, galaxy-spanning adventure full of exciting shootouts and climactic space battles. This is the core D20 cast at their absolute best (yet). It is one of the most entertaining and compelling TTRPG shows I’ve ever seen.

What do I like about it?

Dimension 20 has explored a vast selection of settings since their first season. In Fantasy High, we have teenage heroes in a strikingly modern setting; the Unsleeping City is an urban fantasy in New York City; Escape From the Bloodkeep is an adventure about Not-Sauron-For-Legal-Reasons’s death and his lieutenants and advisors trying to keep everything they’ve fought for (evil) from collapsing.

A Starstruck Odyssey is their first foray into the stars, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect setting for them to explore. It is an age of anarchy and the chaos gremlins are off the leash. The electricity of their first time at a table together since COVID-19 began fuels the game and their energy never comes down.

It’s fast paced. It’s hilarious. I’ve never had more fun watching a show.

How does it compare to similar shows?

I mentioned earlier that D20 is my favorite show of its kind, and that’s for a reason others might view as a mark against the show.

I like Dimension 20’s production. My longest-standing gripe with Critical Role (and even my own D&D games) is when the party waffles around, uncertain of what to do next. With Dimension 20’s limited seasons and driving narratives, there’s no time for that aimlessness. It is more of a “show” than Critical Role: less of a group of friends just recording their game and uploading as-is. But I’ve come to appreciate that artifice immensely.

There’s less room for a long-term character reveal or mysterious overarching plot that spans several months of games, but for the trade they gained a show that I find vastly more watchable. I can actively view D20 with no distractions. Critical Role I generally listen to when I work or build maps for my own games. Where you fall between those two comes down to personal preference.

Potential Cons

There are some facets of this show that might be a dealbreaker for you.
- Beyond the 1st episode, the show is behind a paywall on dropout.tv
I think it’s entirely fair for the company and the team behind D20 to ask for compensation for their show, of course. But Dropout isn’t likely a service you’re using if you haven’t already seen A Starstruck Odyssey. I personally think the service is a great deal, and there’s other fun shows on there, but that barrier to entry might prove too high for some. (But! Those three other seasons I mentioned before? All of them are entirely available for free on Youtube!)
- These are long episodes
And the length is really variable. I didn’t have trouble keeping up week-to-week (or catching up on older seasons while I was unemployed), but there is a lot of content here. It might be unfeasible, even, depending on your schedule. But if I didn’t think it was worth the commitment, I wouldn’t have written this post.

That seems to be the most critical and compelling talking points I could conjure. I’d love to hear from you if this post convinced you to give the show a try. As always, thank you for reading! It’s a tough galaxy out there, but someone’s got to live in it. It might as well be you!
August 31, 2022
Kenobi: Another Missed Opportunity

I remember when the news about Disney purchasing Lucasfilm and Star Wars first surfaced. There was a cautious kind of excitement. A lot of blame had been laid at George Lucas’s feet for the missteps of the prequel trilogy, after all, and there’s fair criticism to be made when it comes to those three movies. So maybe with new blood at the helm, and Lucas reined in or aided in areas he had shown weakness, some new, incredible stories might’ve been told.

This post isn’t about the sequel trilogy, though. The Kenobi show “aired” (feels like the wrong word with a streaming service) its final episode about a month ago, and ultimately my feelings on the show have only soured further with time. Lucky for me, I’ve got the perfect excuse to write about it and pretend that it’s productive! So cue the John Williams and start the title crawl. And, obviously, spoilers ahead.

A Plague of Prequels

There’s a stagnation with Star Wars under Disney that I don’t know anyone expected would come when the buyout broke. The universe is stuck in a bookended era with movies on either side. We know how these stories end. Hell, for Kenobi and the upcoming Andor series, we know how these characters die. When Han Solo’s solo movie released, we knew how he died.

That of course doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a good story. Romeo and Juliet is still being enjoyed today and it tells you how the story ends right at the start. But it’s different in a prequel story. It completely changes the texture of tension. It is a foregone conclusion that anyone who’s had exposure to Star Wars before knows that Kenobi and Darth Vader must survive the show, and that cuts the tension of them battling one another off at the knees. It can still be entertaining and enjoyable, but that genuine worry that something bad might happen to a character you like is absent. We’ve seen old man Kenobi on Tatooine. We’ve seen him die when Luke and Han rescue Princess Leia. The stakes are not that high for a duel between him and Vader alone on a barren rock.

There are avenues to bring that tension back – introduce new likable characters and thrust them into danger. In Better Call Saul (no spoilers), the fate of Nacho Varga and Kim Wexler and other characters can revive that tension, so that while we know Jimmy McGill makes it alive to Walter White’s rise to power, we can be unsure of these other character’s fates.

Kenobi did some of this with the resistance group, the Path, and Indira Varma’s character Tala, but if the final battle between Vader and Kenobi had occurred in some place where other people were in immediate danger if Kenobi didn’t defeat him, that would’ve raised the stakes in a tangible way.

An expansion of a story must justify its own existence. When a sequel or prequel is made, it changes the context of the original work – there must be something driving that decision. In a sequel, the story is at a minimum moving forward, but prequels have predetermined end-points: all they do is add context. When you intend to craft a compelling story, these are important considerations to have in mind. With a show like Kenobi, however, it feels like the intent was merely to cash-in on something the fanbase had thought would be cool to see for a long time with little thought as to how such a project would impact the characters and the universe at large. Speaking of …

Darth Vader Shouldn’t be in This Show

I grew up seeing the prequel movies in theaters. Revenge of the Sith was a movie my mom took me to see on my birthday. I completely understand the desire to see Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen back together on the screen as these characters. Their dialogue in the final episode of the series is legitimately the greatest thing about the show.

But. In that selfsame conversation, Obi-wan accepts that Anakin is truly dead, going so far as to call him “Darth” as he exits (as he will later in A New Hope). So, why doesn’t Obi-wan kill him here? If he hadn’t had the opportunity, that would be one thing, but he bests Vader in one-on-one combat and leaves. I could accept it on Mustafar: he’d sliced up Anakin real good and it was all he could do to keep himself out of the lava. Not being able to strike the killing blow on his one-time padawan and brother made sense then, but it’s been years. Vader has terrorized the galaxy as part of the Empire, and while striking him down wouldn’t end the regime of the Galactic Empire, it would help people, right?

Obi-wan even advocates for Luke to kill Vader, and while Luke’s refusal ultimately brings Anakin back from the darkness to slay Darth Sidious, it isn’t something Obi-wan predicted would happen. But they’re both clearly alive in A New Hope, so this duel can only end with them both walking away. Which is flimsy itself, given that there’s a massive imperial ship in orbit that could and should obliterate Obi-wan’s ship as it leaves the planet after Vader’s failure.

There’s foundational flaws to the whole scene, no matter how great it is. It’s contrivance stacked on top of contrivance to get them both here and then allow them to both leave, and there’s no reason it had to be this way.

Princess Leia Shouldn’t be in This Show

The actress they found for young Leia did an truly good job. Child actors can be really hit-or-miss, but Vivien Blair sold young Leia well. I think, however, if they wanted to include a young Leia in this story, they shouldn’t have made her so entirely precocious. She behaves like an adult Leia shrunken down. Her being a child has almost no bearing on the story, with the exception of being physically picked up throughout the show, and being small enough to fit into a maintenance area that will open the gates for the members of the Path to escape their base toward the latter half of the series. (Which, why wouldn’t that be designed for average sized people to access? Anyway.)

If Leia had to be in this show, she should be a kid with traits we can tell will mature into her personality in A New Hope and onward. The same style of humor? That’s a decent fit. Outrunning adult bounty hunters for several minutes by using knee-high shrubs and bushes? That’s stretching my suspension of disbelief. I understand the idea of her being able to use her size to outmaneuver these guys, but it’s shot in such an unconvincing way with these professional bounty hunters running into chest- or knee-high branches and stopping dead, instead of just … going around, over, or under them.

It’s not impossible that Leia would’ve been an excellent addition to a Kenobi story. I just don’t think the show we got is that story. I’ve seen others online propose having the inquisitor, the Third Sister, Reva, be more friendly with children given her past as a jedi youngling. Her building a friendly rapport with Leia instead of interrogating her and nearly torturing her and getting information that way is an idea I can get behind.

Ultimately, I guess I expected something very different from what we got. I hoped for a story with different stakes than Kenobi being sent to save Leia on a galaxy-trotting adventure. And the story we got might’ve worked, but the execution and writing were flawed. We got a show full of contrivances and problems, with a couple moments of brilliance buried within it. When Star Wars is good, it’s incredible. But that just makes it seem even worse when it falls short of its potential.

The Dark Side of the Fanbase

The worst thing that about this show, though, is that it provided the worst parts of the Star Wars fandom another chance to spew vitriol and hate at a member of the cast for no good reason. Moses Ingram, the actress for the inquisitor Reva, faced a deluge of racist attacks on social media, not dissimilar from what happened to Kelly Marie Tran after her role as Rose Tico in the Last Jedi.

Whatever someone’s reaction to the writing of a character or the plot of a movie or show might be, it is not okay to harass actors or staff online. Whatever criticism someone might have regarding a piece of media, it should not deteriorate into personal attacks. Criticize the writing, the production, the acting itself, sure.

But racism has no place in Star Wars.

As always, for reading, I thank you.

August 8, 2022
Pay-to-Win Video Games

One of my earliest memories is about video games. I remember waking up one morning, I must’ve been around four or five. It was a Sunday, I think, and both my mom and dad were asleep, my brother was asleep. And, usually, I’d wake someone up to get breakfast made or something. Instead, I hurried over to the TV and the Nintendo 64, booted up Super Mario 64, and played. When my mom finally got up, she was so surprised to find me out there playing the game, having booted it all up on my own.

Video games are an entirely different beast these days. Back then, you bought the game, you had it. That was all there was to it. I remember my brother and all his friends were way better at Super Smash Bros. and NFL Blitz N64 than me.

None of them paid for that, though. They’d played the games more, they were older, and given time, I could match up to them no problem.

Last week, Activision Blizzard released Diablo Immortal, and almost everyone I know is talking about this predatory pay-to-win video game. For those who don’t know, the math indicates that if you want to pay to get the best gear, it costs around $110,000 to max out a single character through the “legendary gems.” If you don’t want to spend a cent? About 10 years of daily gameplay. Assuming nothing more powerful gets added to the game from its launch state.

Disgusting.

Abusing Psychology

These games use a lot of predatory tactics to get their players to throw their money at the software, no matter how miserly they might want to be. One of the most widespread tactics in games nowadays is utilizing your player base’s “Fear-of-Missing-Out” (FOMO). These games have cosmetics and powerful items that vanish after a set amount of time. Think you might want to use that cool superhero inspired costume? Buy it now for $19.99! Or try to gain enough in game currency in the one week its available to obtain it for “free.” It might never be available for purchase again.

They also create these “daily bonuses” you “earn” by opening the game every day. They want booting the game to be habitual. These bonuses are usually redeemed in these games’ shops, to make opening them a more usual interaction for their players. Diablo Immortal, naturally, does this. Even worse, the game has a “battle pass” with a free track, a premium track, a super-premium pass with exclusive cosmetics, and an ability to outright buy the ranks of the pass. You buy it for $5, but if you fail to complete the pass, you miss out on the last of the rewards you didn’t earn at the end of the season. They’re just gone. Unless you spend some cash to boost through the last few levels.

The battle pass purchase in Diablo Immortal also gives you extra inventory space – but just until the pass expires. This first one is gone on July 7th. And speaking of expiring rewards you might’ve paid for – there’s a “Boon of Plenty” system that grants daily login rewards and a few other perks. And if you don’t login on one of those days, those items that you’ve paid for just vanish into the ether. That’s worth $9.99, right?

These games also use a secondary currency for their purchases. In Diablo Immortal, you spend your money on orbs that you then use to buy other items. Naturally, these orbs are sold in bundles that do not line up with the prices in the shop. The first time you play the game, you get a special deal to buy a box that gives you 60 orbs for $0.99 – but there’s nothing in the shop available for 60 orbs.

Not to mention the elephant in the room: these games are targeted at children first and foremost. I remember when iPhone games were just becoming a thing. Seemed like there was a story in the news every week about some kid who’d spent $500 or more on a game without their parents realizing.

Can Pay-to-Win be Ethical?

There are some games on the market with features that aren’t as immediately pay-to-win as buying stronger units or better items than are available to free-to-play gamers. These games are often dubbed “pay-for-convenience.” People like to overlook that such a moniker betrays the truth of the systems: if the developers of the game have a financial incentive to make the game inconvenient, why wouldn’t they? If you can pay to skip levels, they have a financial incentive to make leveling as long and monotonous as possible.

If, say, there’s a game that only has the same level of gear available for free-to-play and premium players, they have a built-in incentive to ensure that obtaining that gear is frustrating and repetitive, to push people toward a purchase. Why run the same dungeon, fight the same boss, dozens or hundreds of times, when you could swipe your credit card and be done with it? Be as strong as you can be?

Even in a game like Lost Ark, which equalizes gear in a player-versus-player setting, still allows you to specifically purchase an advantage over other players. You can buy the items needed to reach the highest gear potency, or spend weeks, gated by daily timers killing the same bosses for the items to drop naturally. But doing the same thing over and over isn’t content. It’s a grind.

Some games only release purchasable cosmetics, which can be a much more ethical model, but even then, in a lot of these games, having a cool-looking character is the goal of the endgame. Why make that very interesting set of gear available from in-game activities, when you can charge $20 for it?

This gets even more absurd in another game from Activision Blizzard that I (until last year) played a lot myself. In World of Warcraft, you have to pay a monthly subscription to play the game (for the ongoing development of the game, allegedly), buy each expansion when it releases to access that part of the game ($40 minimum purchase every two years), and then there is a cosmetic shop that allows you to buy armor sets and mounts and pets for varying prices, and then there’s a way to exchange money for the in-game currency, which you can then use to buy services and goods from other players.

It became obvious that the majority of work was going into these premium cosmetics instead of the ones added to the game. They’d add a mount with a dozen recolors spread out over several acquisition streams, and then a truly unique mount with a special skeleton to the shop for more money than you pay every month to play the game.

Buying gold for your real money also lets people buy themselves through the hardest content in the game, obtaining achievements that normal players might work at for months without success. A rich player could buy themselves to “Gladiator,” a special PvP rank that comes with a unique mount each season, by buying gold for cash. A lot of people like to combat World of Warcraft becoming pay-to-win with the WOW Token (the option to exchange your real life money for the in-game gold) by reminding everyone that people bought gold or just straight-up exchanged money for these carries before the token was introduced, but that doesn’t excuse anything. Blizzard could have hired more employees to moderate their game to crack down on these actions that were clearly against the game’s Terms of Service, but instead they cut themselves in on the profit and legitimized it all at once.

So, no, I don’t really think Pay-to-Win can be ethical.

Becoming the Product

Some people play these games with the stubborn insistence that it’s alright because they aren’t spending money. They aren’t aiding in the perpetuation of this predatory business model with their wallet.

Instead, they’re doing it with their time.

They become part of the product doing this. They become the fodder that high-paying “whales” (people who spend an inordinate amount of money on these games) are paying to smile satisfied at for having paid for their rewards rather than enduring the grind the free players suffer through. These are the players that get rolled over by the whales in competitive game modes, much to the spending player’s delight.

The science has been around for a while: the vast majority of these games’ player bases never spend a dime, then a small percentage make a few purchases, and then the whales, a fraction of a percent of the player base, subsidize the entire game by spending thousands, such as the person who spent $14,000 dollars on Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode. Such as the streamers playing Diablo Immortal or Lost Ark and dropping thousands. These games need to exploit these players to financially justify their existence and all the time and money that went into their development.

The Genuine Answer

It’s clear by now that these games will never self-regulate. It is just a fact of business that these companies are always going to push the boundaries to obtain more money this quarter than the last. The only thing that stops them is legislation.

Belgium and the Netherlands have laws preventing these games from obtaining widespread appeal in their countries. Games with “lootboxes,” where you spend money to obtain random rewards of vastly different value, are correctly identified as gambling mechanics and disallowed. These games must either adjust their mechanics, or as is the case for Diablo Immortal, never release in those two countries.

And the gamers there are thankful for that.

Additional Viewing

Here’s an additional video if you are interested in learning more about this topic. This is a game developer conference discussing the exact methods they should use to entice “whales” into their games.

June 14, 2022