On September 29, 2009, Souldat published the very first post here at Parallel Context.
Fifteen years ago.
In blog years that's pretty old for a continuously updated blog, but not nearly as old as some other blogs I follow. You probably know one of them --The Ancient Gaming Noob-- and there are others that PC is almost but not quite as old, such as Priest With a Cause, but that's the breaks. We're survivors in a field where participants' timeline is typically measured in months, not years, much less decades.
And for the love of God, don't read my early posts. I still cringe at them when I occasionally wander back that far, hunting for something I might have written back then.
*Well, in six months or so, according to Ohio law. You can get a learner's permit for driving at age 15 years 6 months, but you can't pass a full driver's test until age 16.
Well, it took CurseForge about a month, but they finally updated the World of Warcraft graphics.
It certainly makes the current WoW expansion look like a catfight right out of a night time soap opera (such as Dynasty, to pull an 80s show out of a hat), or the "Good Sister" versus the "Bad Sister", but it's Blizz's artwork.
Well, that's the major shift in focus for the newest entry in Pathea Games' 'My Time At...' series, My Time at Evershine.
The Kickstarter is now live, has already passed it's initial goal, and is well on its way through the stretch goals.
I guessed correctly that the events in My Time at Sandrock led directly to the North Development Plan and recruitment of you as the new Governor of the Evershine Settlement.
In case you didn't know, you're the Govenor now. From the My Time at Evershine Kickstarter page.
The North Development Plan is an ambitious plan by the Free Cities' Alliance to repopulate the area near the border with the Duvos Empire. That northern border has been empty since the last invasion by Duvos, and you can bet dollars to doughnuts that that area is still coveted by the Empire. The Duvos Empire has not exactly been quiet, given the events in My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock, so you can bet you're going to see them again in this newest project by Pathea.
Judging by the YouTube video, the character design is looking more mature than that from the first two My Time games, but given the switch in perspective from that of a Builder to a Governor, it seems a good time for such a change to be made.
Apparently Pathea has learned a thing or two about tightening things, such as reducing the number of romanceable characters* from a metric ton (my opinion) to a more reasonable number of 8. They are also tightening the story a bit further, which is also fine with me.
Oh, and I won't spoil it for you, but apparently Pathea has learned a thing or two from the last two Legend of Zelda entries. (You can watch the video for those cues.) Given that it seems they've been building the game in-house over these years, that they were able to integrate more capabilities to their series is a welcome addition.
(Now, can you PLEASE take these learnings and fix the pathing in My Time at Portia?)
***
Will I support the Kickstarter?
Well, they don't exactly need me right now since already they've shot past their initial goals, so I'm content to ride out the development cycle and purchase the game when it goes live. To be honest, I'm rather shocked by the number of people who backed the game at the $500 and higher levels, because that's not exactly small potatoes.** I am impressed, however, and I will eagerly await this release when it gets closer.
The little crew at Chongqing, China continues to impress me with their vision and work ethic, so best of luck to them in getting this project to completion.
*If you so choose, that is.
**That's not my money, though, so I kind of just shrug and move along.
I kind of keep an eye on Retail WoW, but I don't follow much in the way of details. For example, I couldn't tell you the names of any of the zones from areas after Mists of Pandaria (and probably only half of Mists itself), or any of the bosses in raids since Wrath.*
However, Kurn of Kurn's Corner had a post this morning about what she's calling The Great Blizzard Bank Heist. She also posted a video on YouTube describing the situation and what she'd lost out of her own personal guild bank. A lot of items you simply can't get anymore, such as the various dragonscales that would drop from drakes throughout the pre-Cataclysm world and in Blackrock Mountain instances/raids.
Being a bit of a packrat myself, I can feel for her and for all of the others who'd been squirreling away rare and no longer obtainable materials/gear/patterns only to find them all wiped out by the data changes made by Blizzard in prep for The War Within.
Yeah, it's all just pixels. I get that. And yes, I'm sure that Blizz has hidden away in their Terms of Service some language meant to protect themselves from problems such as this, describing it as "Best Effort".
That doesn't mean you are immune to the emotional impact of the loss of items you'd been collecting for years --or well over a decade, in Kurn's case-- and being without any recourse other than maybe getting a few items back really sucks. That's the real tragedy here: the accidental reveal by Blizzard that you really own nothing, and despite what we may believe and what attachments we have to in-game items and achievements, they're all just a misclick away from it all vanishing into nothingness. Blizzard pulled that curtain back, and we can't unsee what they showed us. Even if people were to get everything back like they ought, nobody will ever forget that Blizzard could take it all away again in the blink of an eye.
*To be fair, I didn't know the names of many raid bosses at all until I started raiding in Classic WoW.
I've had so many of these fake book memes in my file, waiting for the proper time and place, that I figured I ought to bring them out sooner or later.
And that time is now.
I'm pretty sure we had the original book this is based on as kids, but I can't remember what it was titled for the life of me. From Pinterest.
Hey, that's my job! From Pinterest. (Yes, you detect a trend here.)
Somebody got into the keg of Hudy 14K in the school's gymnasium again! (Yes, there were kegs of beer there where if you were clever you could turn the kegerator on and have a drink. Must be a West Side of Cincinnati thing.) From (you guessed it) Pinterest.
Sometimes my inner Middle Schooler comes out. The first time I saw this one I giggled so hard I began coughing. From Pinterest.
And one extra Fake Book Meme....
I'm pretty sure I'm going to Hell for putting this out out here. From Facebook.
I figured that for this Friday, I'd like to highlight some art from The Elder Scrolls Online. ESO builds upon the lore from The Elder Scrolls video game series into an MMO in its own right, and over the past decade Zenimax has figured out how to keep the game alive after its own disastrous rollout back in the day.*
Almost all of this art comes from loading screens for the game, which works well in highlighting the style the game intents to evoke.
Can't have an ESO game without a dragon making an appearance somewhere.
The character models look so much better than even the Skyrim days.
This is all of the major NPCs --minus the faction leads-- in the original game.
If you've ever seen the Morrowind expansion trailer, you recognize these two. Of course, the Dunmer is everybody's favorite Morag Tong agent, Naryu.
These login screens always inspire me.
The loading screen between zones when you fast travel have a quick overview, but I'm here for the scenery.
Unlike World of Warcraft --and I'm including Warlords of Draenor here-- ESO has gone all in on housing. It's actually quite nice, as similar to SWTOR there's a variety of houses to select all across Tamriel.
In my wandering around today, I stumbled across this quest area that I'd never seen before. Boy, was I out of practice on playing.
These three NPCs are found in the original trailers for The Elder Scrolls Online. The Aldmeri makes an appearance in the Summerset trailer, and I think the Daggerfall Covenant rogue shows up in another of the trailers. (Can't remember which; maybe it was Elsweyr?)
*This seems to be a trend about MMOs that came out after WoW. Even WoW didn't have the greatest original launch, people who played back then are fond of reminding me, but still a disastrous launch is very difficult to overcome if you don't have any buildup of goodwill from potential players.
I don't think I'll ever pine for the days of Bobby Kotick, but Microsoft is basically claiming "poor" and cutting people at the same time as they're pumping in tons of cash to prop up the stock price. Given the (lack of) tremendous cost savings you get from laying off 2550 people --hint, it's not $60 billion-- it certainly seems like Microsoft is trying to starve Activision Blizzard into.... Something.
Submission, maybe?
I'm not sure what Microsoft is thinking about XBox long term, because they're struggling to compete with Sony's Playstation. I do know they're going all in on Copilot, as I can't open up my work email without seeing another missive from Microsoft about how awesome Copilot is. Maybe they're hoping that customer service for XBox games will get so bad that Copilot will seem to be an improvement. But I doubt Microsoft is even thinking that far ahead, given that publicly traded corporations have an obligation to "maximize shareholder value" to the exclusion of all else.
***
On the flip side of publicly traded corporations, there's private equity.
Basically, it's all of the greed and short-sightedness of publicly traded corporations but in a private format where their activity is hidden from public view.
You know, everybody's favorite business: the Embracer Group.
Well, Juraj Krupa of AJ Investments is going after Ubisoft and wants to take the company private.
I have no pity for Ubisoft itself, but I also have little time for corporate raiders. They call themselves "activist investors" now, which makes them sound like a do-gooder, but the reality is they want to take control of a company, maximize their profit, and then get out while profits are at their highest.
What does AJ Investments want to do? Oh, not much. Just run Ubisoft like how Bobby Kotick ran Activision Blizzard, complete with a focus on only a few properties that pump out products every year and maximize cash shops and in-game purchases.
