Even though I have more important things I could be doing right now (namely sleeping), let me pause for a moment and fanboy over Battle for Azeroth.

  • That intro cinematic…it’s amazing how they can make the incredibly overdone original conflict of WoW feel fresh and dynamic every time they revisit it. I could write an entire post on Sylvanas alone, who is easily the character I’ve most wavered on over the years. I really didn’t like that period from Cataclysm to Legion where she had Koltira Deathweaver imprisoned and potentially brainwashed, and even though that subplot ended on a bit of a whimper at least it finally ended and we don’t have to contend with the uncomfortable prospect of one queer-coded character seemingly fridging another queer-coded character. In any case, that’s over with and now she’s working surprisingly well as warchief.
  • As much as the siege of Undercity and the burning of Teldrassil look awesome and would play greatly into another world update that would have the Alliance and Horde completely taking over most of their respective base continents, I’m guessing those will only be scenarios or the like. With Classic servers incoming I don’t see another large-scale world revamp any time soon (even if some places desperately need it…)
  • More elves is always wonderful to see, and after the elf-heavy lore of Legion there’s plenty to draw on. I’m most interested in void elves as they’re an entirely new(?) group that conveniently doubles as a means of getting playable high elves or something close to them in the Alliance. On the flip side the inclusion of the Nightborne presumably points to the blood elves now carrying greater political clout in the Horde than they’ve ever had – nice. I hope that allied races have class selections that differ from their standard counterparts when necessary, though; a void elf druid seems just as unlikely as, say, a Dark Iron paladin or any of these options having monks without a certain level of retconning.
  • Kul Tiras and to a lesser extent Zandalar look quite interesting, even if I’ve never been especially concerned about either before. At least we’ll finally know what happened to that elusive seventh human kingdom.
  • Stricken as I am by alt-itis I’m intrigued by the prospect of flexible leveling being applied to old expansion content. Making Outland and Northrend both 60-80 is a quick fix for the noticeably dated experience of the former, but it’s something I’d look forward to especially if it’s applied to all the expansion zones equally (in other words, that they’d all scale independent of one another so that Outland doesn’t have to start with Hellfire Peninsula and such). 
  • Although I’m a filthy casual who appreciates any QoL improvements in games I admit I am a bit intrigued by Classic servers. I started WoW a month before Burning Crusade launched so I didn’t get much of a Vanilla experience, and if nothing else it’ll be nice to revisit the pre-Cata zones at least once…and then probably never touch those servers again unless Blizzard takes significant steps to streamline and modernize the gameplay while sticking as closely as possible to the Vanilla experience – if such a compromise can even really be made.

markoftheasphodel said

FE4 has some of the worst art in the series for my money so I am looking forward to the lack of mercy there. ;P At least some of the personality-minus guys from FE5 are easy on the eyes compared with that Super Tactics artwork

Huh. Here I thought that the Jugdral fandom had an ironic attachment to those games’ art for being so overwhelmingly 90s. While I don’t think remakes would change the look of any characters as drastically as some of the ones from Gaiden, I suppose it may be worth preserving all the giant hair for posterity.

(Eventually) Upcoming Attractions

All of which are video game-related because that’s where I am with media consumption and analysis right now. Maybe not the best website for that sort of thing, but I’ve been here for five years already so what the hell.

  • Merciless judgment of the men of Jugdral. The conundrum I face is whether to tackle this project now or wait until one or both games are remade. I don’t think we can realistically expect remakes anytime soon especially with FE16 presumably on the horizon, but on the other hand there’s a bunch of Jugdral guys I’ve never gotten much of a handle on, like the sub kids from FE4 or personality-deprived fodder from FE5 like Hicks and Ralph and, uh…that other guy, the unpopular one. Whatever his name is. (Hey, if memetic loserdom propelled Arden to ironic popularity it can work for Glade too.)
  • Top X list of water dungeons in Zelda. Such lists for games are easy in concept and fun to write, and I think I already floated this idea around once before on account of how much flak these dungeons frequently get. Maybe around the last DLC of BotW, if it’s a substantial enough event to be worth commemorating?
  • Something with WoW, because after over a decade and very likely over a hundred characters I should be publishing dissertations on the damn game. No idea what or when, especially since I’m never on the cutting edge of either gameplay or lore as I don’t raid. It might just be me gushing over how priests are awesome in every way. I already did that for FE….
  • If USUM is sufficiently compelling, maybe something with that. I’ve never really done Pokémon meta.

markoftheasphodel said

Frankly my reaction to the opening scene was “Why are we doing the forced marriage thing again? In 2017”

It worked in Super Paper Mario because it fit into a larger and slightly more complicated narrative. Plus, it wasn’t actually Bowser’s fault and the game plays him up as a hopeless buffoon with a crush, so he’s easier to find sympathetic for those looking for that sort of thing. From everything I’ve seen Odyssey’s plot is just a wedding-themed variation on the standard excuse plot, so (notwithstanding the arguable separation between mainline Mario and RPG Mario) we’ve just regressed a decade or more.

Best case scenario is that the ending was a cartoonish attempt to lampshade this exact mindset and start a conversation about why some gamers think that male protagonists who go on adventures to rescue women are entitled to romance/sex/marriage…but that would be giving Nintendo entirely too much credit, I think.

A not insignificant reason for why I’ve been comparatively quieter lately is that, on account of my increasingly strained financial situation, it has become necessary for me to seek out regular employment in addition to the chronically underpaying job I already have. Unaccustomed as I am to job searching in the usual fashion it hasn’t been the most pleasant experience, though I think now I’ve got something fairly certain lined up, at least for the next few months. How much of my time and energy it’ll take up I’ve no idea, but this wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been expected to adapt to an entirely new set of duties.

capriciouscorvid:

I think one of the reasons I enjoy Pokémon so much is I miraculously avoid all fandom discourse. No idea how. It’s somehow my own safe escapist bubble filled with optimistic scifi and questionable ethics I willfully ignore.

Most of my fandom interactions are with Nuzlockers, which are largely positive and encouraging. No idea if this is an amazing coincidence or if the group is small enough to avoid large scale stupidity. The majority of the competitive community, however, can go fuck themselves.

I only recently found out about the hoards of people hating on Zinnia, which leaves me completely unimpressed and unmoved. I still can’t figure out if BW are the most hated or beloved games barring gen one.

Conversely I’ve all but had my fill of the Fire Emblem fandom, and I’ve only recently engaged more than in passing. I still love the games— well some of them, but I couldn’t care less what most people think on the subject. I think the only time I did was when my bruised high schooler heart needed validation for liking anything (not that I ever got it). It’s been a very long time since then.

Related, but tangentially: I don’t care about the opinion of anyone who uses the words “mary sue” in criticism. Uninteresting and uncritical engagement with media is a huge turn off for me.

The Pokémon and FE fandoms feel similar in that every single entry is both loved and hated by someone, with the only really noticeable patterns being which games tend to get grouped together most often in best/worst lists: FE has its fairly obvious splits by setting and/or platform, whereas Pokémon’s are more obscure like Gen I pairing with Gen VI (I think?) and Gen V pairing with either III or VII depending on whether you’re whining about soft reboots or excessive plot. It’s all extremely confusing, though on the plus side that means every game has its fans.