Some Thoughts on Civ V vs Civ VI

So there was a post on Reddit talking about Civ V and VI arguments in the community, so I thought I'd add my answers to the poster's questions. It ended up being a long write-up. As a result, I decided to post it here as well since I haven't posted here much in a while anyway! My entire post, along with the quoted questions I'm responding to, are down below.

Alright, avid Civ V player here - I respect both V and VI for what they bring to the table equally, however, and play both. I'll answer your questions the best I can.

Is this a consequence of any long running video game series? One example I can think of is in the Pokémon games, where there are "genwunners" who swear to the point of toxicity that Generation 1 of the series is the best. Is Civilization no different?

Sort of. When it comes to Civ games, the arguments tend to lie between the most recent 2 entries. When V was still recent, it was critiqued for removing Unit stacks of death, having overall less core features than the previous entry like Faith, among many other things. Civ VI Vanilla arguably kept a lot of things that made BNW so damn good, despite the absence of a World Congress, but it has a lot of other core mechanic changes that rub people who transition over the wrong way. (Districts, gaps in the tech tree and Unit paths, Workers, etc.) In Pokemon, it's not as recent as Gen 6 vs 7, it's more so that everyone picks their favorite Gen (1, in the case of "genwunners"). While some say that IV or III or even I is still their fav, it's just not the same as franchises like Pokemon or COD.

The transition between Civ V and Civ VI was most drastic in both gameplay (esp. unstacked cities) and aesthetics (described favorably as "expressive" or unfavorably as "cartoony"). Is this simply a personal preference or could it be a case of change aversion?

Depends on the person, I suppose. As an example, I absolutely despite Workers having charges. I hate having to build Workers over and over to improve everything around my Cities. Civ V Workers on the other hand? Great. That's a personal thing, though. I come from an RTS background, and that's how a lot of my youth was spent when it came to Strategy, so I like micro-managing Workers, and clicking them to finish Improvements on that exact turn when I could, or finding a way to utilize them to improve tiles I may have forgotten about that could prove useful. IMO, it definitely is a personal preference thing in general - I haven't seen a global distaste for any specific Civ VI change unless I'm forgetting something. Some people are just more vocal about their preferences than others.

There are also several criticisms of representation and politicization. To name a few, a Korean gaming community complained (probably because Seondeok was chosen to represent Korea) that the game was merely meeting a quota for female leaders even though, historically, there are disproportionately more male leaders than the female. Also, Cathering de Medici, an Italian, leading the French was frowned upon by some. Firaxis including the climate change mechanic in Gathering storm was accused of pushing a political agenda. Are these criticisms valid?

Here's the thing with female Leaders;

When we say we don't like a Leader that happens to be female, 99% of the time, the person does not dislike them purely because they are a woman. It is because Firaxis and their choices of female Leaders in particular are highly questionable compared to Civ V or prior.

Catherine de Medici (France), Seondeok (Korea), and Kristina (Sweden) are the ones so far that bother me specifically. Gorgo is questionable too, but she's grown on me to be honest. I'm okay with all of the females beyond that so far in Civ VI. The 3 that I mention aren't particularly great choices at all for Leaders. While yes, Firaxis, does seem to have a certain quota they follow in their Expansions (At least 3 females in both RF and GS), female Leaders aren't the problem. Their choices are.

Civ V's only really questionable choice IMO is Maria I of Portugal. That was weird. She was the only female in that Expansion, however. They just needed to make a smarter choice. Maybe instead, they could've used Joao II for Portugal - and then used Gitarja for Indonesia, to get a female in as a better choice.

Medici? How about Louis XIV, and then Ana Nzinga for Kongo? Kristina, someone who is frowned upon Swedes? Why not give us Carolus instead, or save Sweden for a different expansion entirely if you can't get a proper female Leader in?

I could go on about this, and don't want to rant or anything, so I'll end with this. Does Firaxis have a political agenda? No. Trying to raise awareness for climate change? Yes, at least a bit. Female Leader quota? Yes. Although, I think they choose Leaders based on personality more so than achievements or greatness, which is what the majority feels like should be the case.

On the topic of AI, I hear Civ IV is the best and others are just "stupid" though there are mods for those who seek the challenge. Not really a question but it seemed important to a lot of people.

The AI is pretty dumb, yes. In V, they were very passive after BNW unless they were a warmonger, and never utilized Naval combat well in my experience. Don't have much more to say besides "use mods if it bothers you".

Thoughts on Soldier: 76 Being Gay

So if you haven't heard by now, the recent short story by Michael Chu, Lead Writer of Overwatch, has announced that Soldier 76 is homosexual. I posted this on r/unpopularopinion, but I'm posting it here as well just in case it gets deleted or whatever.

I have nothing against people being gay, but this decision felt so forced.

When the Tracer thing happened a long while ago, it felt natural in a way. Having the cover character be lesbian was huge, of course, but it still felt like it suited Tracer as a character. It does not suit Soldier: 76 or anything about his character so far, because it does not add to his character in any significant way. Tracer, on the other hand, sure - she's the title character, she's young and has something worth fighting for - in her eyes, people like her girlfriend are the reason "the world could always use more heroes". At least that's the way I see it.

Jack Morrison is a hardened veteran, a super-soldier, and a man who is thirsty for revenge. What drives Jack Morrison is his desire to seek revenge for the fall of Overwatch, and destroying Talon as an organization. The fact that Morrison is gay is irrelevant, and feels entirely shoehorned in, in a lackluster attempt to get people talking about Overwatch again. I guess in that sense, it worked, right?

Now it sucks to even be annoyed about this. Overwatch as a community was already unhappy with the way things were going. The game is a toxic mess competitively, it suffers from a lack of content via copy-paste, and communication from the Developers about the game's biggest issues are non-existent. Now we have this? Something that's going to split the community even further? Something that makes a rift in the playerbase over something that's literally meaningless.

What I hate most about this is that people don't seem to have the right to dislike a decision to make a character gay. If you criticize the decision to make Soldier 76 in anyway, you are berated and labeled as a "homophobe" by the rabid base of casual Tumblr-worthy folk who follow Overwatch. I outright dislike the decision, but that does not make me a homo-hater in any shape or form. Why can't people just see that?

I've seen people say that "context" or "build-up" isn't needed in this situation. Which is true, but... if you don't need context, and you don't need representation, then what's the point of making Jack Morrison gay for seemingly no other reason that needing to shoehorn in someone as LGBT because your Lead Writer is a Twilight-esque fanfiction writer, who shouldn't have the job in the first place since he's so incompetent at actually putting out lore anyway.

Seriously, can we fire Michael Chu already? I mean, really, this is the first time he writes lore in months, and it's a short story that divides the community? He's gotta go. 

I apologize to you all if I rambled on a bit. I'll stop before I ramble on anymore. Thank you for giving me a chance to express myself, because this is an issue that has annoyed me, personally. 

[Poetry] Mine

MINE by the divine right of Kings correction!

Blessed I am by his royal seal! -

Within his Love selection,

That no Thief may steal.

Thou is mine - here in vision;

Veto Death's repeal -

Dated, titled - with perfect precision!

And forevermore be mine, while the ages kneel!

With due time, I wish to transfer over my Poetry to my personal blog. I want to put some content up here, and keeping all my content in one place seems like a good idea going forward. New poems will still be on Hello Poetry as well, but I'll be posting them here too. 

Flappy Bird Lore #1 - Introduction

Good day, everyone. In conjunction with my Lore-writing prowess, I've been approached by the creator of Flappy Bird to create a formal Lore writeup of the game. While the game may seem rather simplistic at first glance, the Lore is actually rather deep. The universe is expansive, and there's many things to be discovered.

This is just your introduction and preface to the Lore series. We'll have more in the future! 

Flappy Bird takes place in an alternate universe, where the world has shifted to predominantly plumbers. The year is 2800, and people have now created high-tech pipes to live inside as the new form of town. One is left to wonder how pipes stretch down from the ceiling. These pipes are built from the bottom of high-tech aircraft carriers. People live in the pipes themselves, and then climb up to the runway to take off in their flying cars, or a public flight if need be. While leaving the pipe isn't a popular notion these days in the world of Flappy Bird, it is still in existence. Our perspective in the world of Flappy Bird is from the eyes of one of the few remaining facets of nature - a common Bird. The bird flaps its way among these pipe lines in hopes of finding other birds, which have become a rarity in the current day and age. Unfortunately, the road is hard and toilsome for the forsaken Bird - for the human-made pipes are electrified, and will kill the Bird on contact. 

Humanity's fear has always been the unknown - even if it is a species that was once common, and is now on the brink of becoming extinct. 

New Vegas 2 Probably Isn't A Thing

But don’t lose hope for more Fallout in the near future.

Fallout: New Vegas has been praised as the best game in the Fallout franchise by Fallout fans on numerous occasions.

So the rumor of a sequel has been met with much excitement by fans of the series.

The rumors started with a website by the name of FragHero making an article about Fallout New Vegas 2 being a potential thing. They claim they’ve heard from a source that Obsidian is working on it and will most likely present it at this year’s E3 Bethesda Conference. With Bethesda’s Conference becoming a yearly thing, it would make sense to announce it there.

With some further research about what Bethesda has in store for the rest of the year, only three games are on the table at the moment for the company: The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Prey, and Quake: Champions.

With Prey releasing in May before the June E3 showing, Bethesda is left in the position of only having TES: Legends and Quake: Champions at their conference. What would they have to show to make their conference interesting?

- Fallout 4 and Doom have already received DLC. Bethesda is done with DLC for Fallout 4 as well.

- Elder Scrolls 6 is VERY far off. We can’t expect that anytime soon. Skyrim Special Edition has come out already as well.

- Dishonored 2 came out late 2016. It’s too soon for another release. Perhaps DLC, but nothing more.

- Remember Battlecry? It was a TF2-like game that Bethesda announced a long while ago at E3 2015. Hasn’t been heard from since. I suppose it’s been cancelled and swept under the rug.

That leaves Wolfenstein out, which was teased last year with the name - “The Old Colossus.”

I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect Wolfenstein to be announced.

But Bethesda has literally nothing to show beyond that. What’s going to steal the show? What’s going to be the main focus of the show?

Fallout: New Vegas 2 seems like it’d be perfect.

After all, Fallout 3 released in 2008 and New Vegas released in 2010. With Fallout 4 being released in 2015, a New Vegas 2 release in 2017 would be the same time frame.

Call me superstitious or crazy, but I feel like it could happen!

I mean;

2010 - Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, and Fallout New Vegas

2017 - Red Dead Redemption 2, Mass Effect Andromeda and Fallout New Vegas 2?

History does repeat itself at times…

This would be nice, of course, but the original article has been proven to be very uncredible. Although the website claims they’ve predicted Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last Of Us 2 in the past, a Kotaku article by Jason Schreier points out the flaws in both of these statements, poking holes in the article by FragHero as a whole.

Jason Schreier writes:

“As Obsidian PR manager Mikey Dowling told me in an e-mail this morning: “We’ve said plenty of times that we’d love to work on a Fallout again if Bethesda wanted us to, we just aren’t at this time. Right now we’re very focused on the Fig campaign to make our first ever sequel in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Whenever a new Fallout comes around though, whoever is doing it, we all look forward to playing it!”

We shouldn’t lose hope, though. Perhaps a new Fallout game will be developed by someone else. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility!

But what do you guys think? Do you think it’s possible? Are you superstitious like me? Let me know below!

Sources:

Makuch, Eddie. "Wolfenstein: The New Order Sequel Teased Again." GameSpot. N.p., 10 Oct. 2016. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.

Schreier, Jason. "Why A Fake Fallout: New Vegas 2 Rumor Won't Stop Spreading." Kotaku. Kotaku.com, 31 Jan. 2017. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.

"Rumor: Fallout New Vegas 2 Details Leaked and Reveal Planned." Fraghero. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.

Thank You, Bethesda

I write this letter to both Bethesda and Todd Howard with deep sadness utterly crushing my forsaken heart. There is a vexing mist within the air of culminating sorrow - one of which that my very perception of reality is altered and misjudged to the point of complete burdening solace. For I am a plague individual - one who is not sane, not in the slightest. Yet the cards I have been dealt only seem to burden me further. I’m only twenty, mind you, and I’m forced to work from my home while attempting to help my mother in anyway possible.

So I write. So I play games. That is my purpose, and something I enjoy doing dearly. College? What of the thing? The sublimity of madness is intelligence, mind you, and while I find myself disappointed to tell my own mother that I’d rather be dead than be seen in a college classroom, I will happily accept this fact, if only for my own sanity. And here’s where I owe so much to Fallout and Bethesda.

I’ve been stuck in this room for countless hours simply working! I’m in a Vault of my own, I feel, sometimes. Of course, I’ve exited every so often like every normal human being, but I’ve enraptured myself within this world I dearly enjoy. See, my father is an alcoholic - and while it pains me to see how he consistently breaks out of his usually stable behavior to pick up the demon drink for hours on end - drifting off into the night without a clue to his whereabouts for days at a time, perhaps weeks to the immense stress and behest of my hard-working mother  - I find myself immersing myself in a world. I’m sure you know which one this is.

Let me quote a song here:

“You built up a world of magic, because your real life is tragic.”

Kudos to you if you’ve caught on to the reference. I’ve immersed myself in the world and lore of Fallout, and I love writing about it because I don’t want to be in this perception of reality. All of these fan-made factions, and lore… this is my reality. This is what I want to build up as my own fictional expansion of the Fallout 4 world. What I would do if I had the chance to write DLC. I dislike when the game is criticized, because I owe so much to it - my own stronghold of sanity, at the least. Even though I do have things to critique myself, as all normal humans are capable of formulating opinions.

In summary, I’d like to thank Bethesda and Todd Howard’s team for crafting a game that I just adore so much to it’s very core that I’ve written so much lore for it. In other words, this is an explanation for why I do all of that. It just makes me happy, which is why I keep at it - even if I am not making a living off of it - and I’m only taking the scraps given to me via ad revenue on YouTube or on stuff I sell on Redbubble. And I’ll keep at it. So, thank you, Bethesda.

RandomReview: NBA 2K17: The Prelude [Rapid-Fire]

Rapid-Fire Review: NBA 2K17 The Prelude

This is a rapid-fire review, which is a shorter review than normal due to the game being small.

I’Il preface this by saying that I’ve never been a fan of MyCareer. So take my words with a grain of salt.

Me? Playing a sports game? Well yeah, I’m a big basketball fan, and I like the NBA 2K series because of it’s roster editor and franchise mode. As someone who likes being creative, I appreciate those features greatly, and I’m excited to see what MyLeague has to offer this year.

Then again, I think the series has a lot of faults. I think there’s improvements that need to be made in the other game modes for sure. MyLeague is perfect, it just needs to be given more features over time - which they are doing with 2K17.

So the prelude is a sort of free beta of 2K17’s MyCareer mode, where you create a player and follow a storyline through your player’s career. The storyline last year was curated by Spike Lee, but it just felt lackluster overall. It wasn’t really an intriguing story whatsoever. The story this year feels a tad more generic, but it feels superior to the storyline from last year. A lot less corny, for lack of a better term. Despite feeling generic, it’s still a sports game. It doesn’t have to be super complicated. Thus far, the college portion of the storyline that’s showcased seems fine.

Upon booting the game up, you’re presented with building a MyPlayer - whom you’ll assume control of in your career. Right away, I noticed that the UI for the menus was much slower than NBA 2K16, which surprised me. Was the game laggy? How could it regress from the past iteration? Although that bugged me a bit, I still went on to create a character. Now I didn’t scan my face, because I didn’t feel like it. If I can’t play as a female, what’s the point of putting my face on a masculine body? Sure, it’d be funny, but I want to take it seriously. So this guy who looks like a generic lawyer or something and played.

Besides, I noticed that the face scan feature was tied to the MyNBA2K17 app - but where is it? It’s not translated well. I’m sure if I looked it up I would find it, but you would think a big feature like that would be prevalent within the app. Instead it’s just a basketball Hearthstone game or whatever. (Which is fun, by the way.)

After creating my player, I noticed I got an achievement! Thank you, 2K, for adding simple achievements! Hey, if you need to rack up a few extra achievements or trophies, this little beta is worth it. The achievements aren’t tied to skill or performance, so even non-basketball fans could rack them up easily. My problem is that the last two achievements are tied to the 2K Store, which you must use in-game currency on. Which in itself is fine, I earned enough currency to do so… but the game fucking crashes everytime I select the store! I mean, I know it’s a beta, but it’s frustrating to see the game crash when I’m just trying to get those last few achievements! Come on, 2K.

One of the achievements was extremely frustrating. Not in difficulty, but the way it was presented. The game wants you to play a tutorial scrimmage match in order to get an achievement. You have to play the entire match of a 5v5, with a bunch of dudes that look like they’re from the YMCA. I wanted to use this mode simply to test the gameplay in a 5v5, since I’m not a big fan of MyCareer. It’s hard to do that when a little message pops up every few seconds telling you how to do something in the game, most of which are things I already knew how to do! You aren’t capable of turning these messages off, by the way. They freeze the game, and you’re forced to read it before the dismissal prompt appears a few prolonged seconds later. It was just something that made you roll your eyes every single instance it appeared.

That vexing experience aside, I can say with confidence that gameplay in NBA 2K17 is excellent. Graphics? Surely improved. They are top notch with graphical capability. The tutorial mode, besides the annoying pop-ups, was the most fun I’ve had in the entire length of The Prelude, along with the Olympic game in MyCareer.

MyCareer stretches through your player’s college days, where your performance will impact your draft stock in the upcoming NBA Draft. When creating your player, you’re given a variety of specializations for your player’s playstyle. You can customize their wingspan, height, and weight, as well - which impact the player’s capabilities when it comes to their attributes. After making the player, you’ll be given a brief cutscene with your high school coach before being given a selection of colleges.

I went with a Post-Scoring Center, with Illinois as my college of choice. Once in college, you’re given four scenario games with accompanying cutscenes. You’re accompanied by a senior player who is friends with your player through the college storyline. While he feels somewhat bland, he’s a likable character. One thing I noticed with the cutscenes - some of them don’t appear. Supposedly, your player gets a girlfriend through the college storyline, but I never saw that. Did I skip it by accident? I probably did, because I didn’t expect anything in this game to be actually skippable. The first college game has a grueling flashy sequence with 3D effects and whatnot on the court, but what’s the point? Just let me play! Nope, had to watch the whole thing along with the team addressing the crowd afterwards. At least the games afterwards had introductions that were skippable - after a short delay, of course.

I’m disappointed in the gameplay of MyCareer a little bit. I thought I did pretty well with my Center. I never got anything lower than a B teammate grade throughout, and in the end I won a title, with my draft stock shooting up to a lottery pick. On the court, though, your teammates seem a bit… braindead, for lack of a better word. They don’t play defense well, and they rarely shoot when you pass them the ball while they’re open. Since the game consistently critiques your performance after every match, I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough, so I had to call for the ball more often. I feel like it shouldn’t be necessary to spam the A button for the ball on every possession in order to improve my draft stock. I feel like the teammate grade should play a bit more into it.

Regardless, once you get through these four games, with an optional fifth depending on how well you do, you have a game where you get selected to compete with Team USA in the Olympics. This was really fun. It almost made me think that it must be the actual teammates that were faulty in the previous college games, and not just the A.I. in general. If you have competent teammates, they’ll play competently. In that sense, I applaud 2K for making the game the way it is then. It feels a bit more real that way, and it feels like you have to carry the load more as the star of the team.

Overall, though, this little beta wasn’t very impressive at all. It has a lot of flaws, and it just affirms my beliefs that yet again - MyCareer doesn’t perk my interest whatsoever, and MyLeague reigns supreme as NBA2K’s superior game mode. For those who do like MyCareer though, I think they’ll appreciate the way it is this year. It seems like they’re going for something that will really resonate with those players, and I think that’s the right move going forward.

So The Prelude gets a 4/10. That’s me being harsh. I don’t like it, but the glimpses I’ve seen of other aspects of NBA2K17 as a whole in this beta (graphics, gameplay, presentation, and etc) show a lot of promise, and I think 2K17 will be a very good game at launch, barring some kind of crazy meltdown release. You can never be sure these days.

4/10

Mediocre