Messages

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 815: A Change of Hardware

« on: March 28, 2023, 08:11:18 AM »

The ChatGPT segment was perhaps the most effective example in practice of that je ne sais quoi James discussed with the Seinfeld stream a few episodes ago. It’s horrifyingly fascinating to listen to, and yet, so hilarious due to the inaccuracies in your respective personalities and overall structure of the show. Altogether too efficient, disturbingly so. But I do think Greg’s persona of having a pretty helpful understanding of games history and esoteric film and tv references does shine through. Jon and James getting along was a step too far.

Delightful episode.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 814: North Korea Is Directly Responsible for the Worst Email I’ve Ever Read

« on: March 20, 2023, 11:19:35 PM »

I’m a bit surprised by the pre-direct individuals, as well, as Nintendo has actually been fairly consistent with “major” Direct scheduling for at least the last few years: there’s a February one, a June one, and a September one, with the smaller, game-specific directs usually being for titles that have already been announced. I just find it curious that people scream “WHEN is the next one coming?!” When it’s pretty obvious.

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General Gaming / Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

« on: March 09, 2023, 08:23:13 AM »

Inscryption is not the last game I beat, but it is the best game I last beat.

It’s difficult to discuss as a full experience, but the roguelike loop is one where you can trick yourself into hyper-fixating on “progression” without actually learning anything. I stumbled into a broken mechanic that made me realize how fully-fleshed out each segment of this game really is, and that’s a welcome surprise. I’d argue Inscryption, much like Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, features the best kind of surprise that a game can implement: gameplay twists. The knowledge that a game won’t just fall into a predictable loop from a gameplay standpoint can be fertile grounds for engagement, but to know that the formula will be given a twist multiple times during an entire playthrough is a triumph for any developer, let alone an independent one. It is a beautiful thing, and while it might not maintain its momentum throughout its s three-act structure, it still manages to triumph.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Xenoblade chronicles 3 music is sick

« on: March 07, 2023, 02:44:29 PM »

The Keves Castle theme is both a banger in its own as well as a great example of leitmotif usage.

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NWR Forums Discord / It’s Time for Evan_B to End

« on: March 07, 2023, 02:43:02 PM »

I guess I’ve officially graduated to “old coot” status, because I remember when message forums were my favorite form of communication regarding the things I love AND also the most popular means of doing so. Back in those days, I felt like I had established rapport, familiarity, and maybe sometimes a likable persona. And I’m gonna be real with you all, Discord is just too… chaotic for my tastes. Don’t get me started on Reddit, where you can make a perfectly rational point and get your karma nuked to oblivion because people don’t like factual statements.

It’s hard out here for a straight, white introverted video game enthusiast. Especially one with an English Teaching Degree, because then he thinks he’s funny. And of course, humor has a great deal to do with initial likability, which is established through familiarity.

I am here to apologize for my behavior. My statements were made in jest, and that the main issue with such intentions comes from the cold, hard fact that I’m not very funny. My best joke was the prediction that Khushrenada had a duplicate account- turns out I was five, maybe six years out in terms of being accurate. But I think I have just never been able to tow a proper line between flippant generalizations about the overall quality of consumer products and soul-crushing, semantics-oriented critical analysis. Maybe I’m not good at either. Please, don’t respond with positive or negative affirmations- the former makes me look pathetic and the latter makes me look dense. Let’s just settle on, “he sure as hell is good at self-deprecating comments!”

I’ve always been looking for my clan on the Internet. Some group that can stomach my insane tendencies and maybe even anticipate them, while similarly offering their own amusing explorations and musings. Articles like Pokepal’s replay of Pokémon titles, to me, is “the stuff.” I love the weird stuff. Like, remember that time I tried making a webcomic? Yeah, that sucked. But, whether or not the community at large appreciates or even acknowledges those efforts calls into question their purpose. Admittedly, I was away for a while, which might have made my prodigal son schtick hard to stomach, or regard the other anything other than indifference. I had been writing for another website because no one here thought anything I had contributed was of merit. Again, there’s no need to argue this point, it’s been explicitly stated to me on multiple occurrences and I’m not out here fishing for compliments. So I should have read the room, or rather, I guess I should have “read the Discord.” I’m a relic of a bygone era, a forum member who wasn’t really contributing to the forum.

But old habits die hard, and I find the NWR forums a particularly hard habit to quit. I might pop in every now and then to provide a succinct comment on other people’s posts- I definitely won’t post lengthy forum topics, because that causes more trouble than it’s worth. But I don’t want to be looked at like a Miyamoto-like figure whose head was so far up his own ass he couldn’t see the truth for what it was: I tried making a joke, it wasn’t appreciated, I should have thought more deeply about why no one would care.

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NWR Forums Discord / It’s Time for Fire Emblem to End

« on: January 18, 2023, 09:51:05 AM »

So I feel that I have to post this subject here, for fear that it will be moderated/deleted/considered spam on other parts of the forum.

Lately, I have seen an overwhelming sentiment (see: my two mentions of the subject on the NWR Discord) regarding the retirement of the Fire Emblem series. Let’s face it, these games should have ended with Awakening, as that title put us all to sleep with its irreverent characters and broken strategic mechanics. At the time, Intelligent Systems was looking for new ways to breathe life into the series, and they rather foolishly chose “doubling down on relationships and getting that guy who designed Travis Touchdown” instead of “Fire Emblem, but on Mars.” Yes, this was actually something they considered. Just think, rather than having to resort to a post on this thriving message board about ending this series, we could have been playing Fire EmbleMars for the last decade, ushering in a new and fresh Martian intellectual property, instead of this broken down, creaky medieval cosplay. I think some guy who is friends with Donald Theriault said it best when he declared: “[We, the people who want more games like the currently-underperforming Mario + Rabbids are] starting to feel a bit disillusioned with the current split between Classic and Casual modes.” Yes, my guy. Fire Emblem has become nothing more than a game for, as the elite gamers say, “Filthy Casuals.” And if you’re going to prioritize that crop for four games straight (excluding, of course, the brilliant Shadows of Valentia, a remake of the classic Fire Emblem title that never left Japan but I pirated anyway), why not just quit while you’re ahead?

The sad thing is, we have allowed Intelligent Systems to get away with these war crimes for so long, we have neglected the times where they have actually made good games. No, we’re definitely not talking about Paper Mario. Remember Code Name S.T.E.A.M.? No? Of course you don’t, you puerile, franchise-obsessed doofus. Let me put it in terms you might understand: Remember the game that New Nintendo 3DS owners could scan their Lucina Amiibo into so that they could view her proportions in a Silver Age comics art style? Ah, now THAT rings a bell. Yup, that game underperformed, which not only proves my point that good games are being ignored due to not being a part of a franchise, but it also proves another completely unrelated point, which is that the inclusion of Fire Emblem characters provides no sales impetus for quality products. Case in point? Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Yeah, that game wasn’t made by Intelligent Systems, but it DID feature Fire Emblem characters. Guess what happened to it? That’s right. Nothing. Because not even my stellar opinion on the game could save it from being widely recognized as a display of how Fire Emblem ruins everything.

We have to all agree that this needs to stop. Google “should Fire Emblem end?” And you know what you’ll see? A bunch of people talking about Three Houses on Reddit. Why is this the case? Shouldn’t we be discussing the end of Breath of the Wild instead? Maybe we would, if Fire Emblem had come to a conclusion ten years ago. Some guy at Nintendo recently said “you know what? [Maybe] [Fire Emblem] needs [to end].” And I agree. Hell, I know we all agree. So let’s just end it. Let’s not buy Fire Emblem: The Five Year Engagement. Let’s take a stand against games appealing to a wide audience of people and get back to enjoying niche releases like 1-2 Switch, or else Fire Emblem will ruin everything.

This post was brought to you by Squarespace. When I’m complaining about things on the internet, I often ask myself, “why don’t you just make your own website, and moderate it ruthlessly, so that people who disagree with you can be silenced?” But we all don’t have forty-four billion dollars laying around, so maybe make a website with Squarespace instead? Yeah. **** YEAH! Now you can read about how Paper Mario sucks on my website: https://Papermarredbyintsys.com/buybugfables/ whenever you want! And the best part? It’s free. Not building a website, no. They didn’t have to pay me anything to write this ad. But maybe you’ll pay them the ninety-something dollars you were going to spend on the Fire Emblem: Engage Collector’s Edition to partially cover the costs of building a website with Squarespace? Maybe? Squarespace: Because I said so.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: 13091919 1305?

« on: January 18, 2023, 09:10:21 AM »

Why didn’t you just use your Lucario account? We’ve known that was a dupe for the greater part of a decade.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: January 15, 2023, 10:06:27 AM »

Ehhh. I think it would be a bit strange to tease those combined legendaries and then say “you won’t actually get these.” But also, if there was any Pokémon capable time travel, it would have been Dialga or Arceus, and we already got that story in Arceus. I think it would be much more exciting if the entirety of Scarlet and Violet was getting to the bottom of the Time Machine narrative, and uncovering the truth. It doesn’t really make sense that a Pokémon should both enable time travel and the Terastelize phenomenon… unless that’s related to some real-world mythological reference I’m not aware of.

But… that’s just me.

I think Paldea’s strongest feature are its caves, honestly, so getting a substantial expansion into the depths of Area Zero could offer more of that great design. But again, that might be my personal preference, and while I understand why a new area/island is appealing, I’m not sure if we should always anticipate that sort of “departure” from the main game’s content. Call it a hunch.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

« on: January 13, 2023, 01:22:18 PM »

I think you can probably create a decent gameplay loop based on the pre-established foundations. For example:
1) Find a launch point or a subterranean entrance within a region that helps Link get to a sky island. Create some sort of mini challenge there, similar to shrines, that once completed, releases a lock for the main dungeon.
2) Once all locks have been released, Link can access the launch point that takes him to the region’s dungeon.
3) Region dungeon is long-form puzzle and combat content that limits usual skill set, grants some element crucial to the main quest.

As there are eight regions to Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule (one being Central Hyrule, which could have Hyrule Castle as its dungeon) and seven years shown in the etchings from the promotional material, one might assume that finding a region’s corresponding dungeon would require scouring its topography for locks/keys/what-have-you. Now, the developers could scale the number of these locks back in comparison with Breath of the Wild’s 120 shrines, and in doing so, make each lock or the corresponding dungeon more substantial as a result. However, I’m just theorycrafting here and people who complained about the Divine Beasts and the lack of traditional 3D Zelda content in BotW are stupid, so I’d be fine if we still had to find a large amount of mini puzzles.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

« on: January 12, 2023, 09:30:26 PM »

4 - Sky - If the Loftwing is limited to the "heavenly" part of the sky maybe there are certain natural or unnatural barriers that keep you from just flying to any portion right off the bat.

Part of me thinks the floating landmasses is how Nintendo plans on changing the surface as in they lift up from Hyrule which not only alters huge areas of the surface but opens up underground caves.

While that seems like a great idea, it proves problematic when closely examining any of the previous promotional material, as the topography of Hyrule seems mostly unchanged, save for the absence of Sheikah shrines. Still, exploring the surface is going to be an essential part of finding routes into the sky, which I think is going to be the major objective for combing over Hyrule again.

I do think that people are vastly overestimating the existence and depth of caves, as we have seen brief references and hints at subterranean areas but nowhere near the extent or importance of the sky-focused content. Now, admittedly, we haven’t seen much of the actual masses in the sky and that could be used as an excuse for the lack of information about caves, but if there were going to be grandiose underground caverns or even intricate networks, I feel as if the developers would prioritize telegraphing that element to us in the promotional material.

The fact remains that we’re going into the close months leading up to launch and it still feels like we know very little, which I honestly prefer. A major part of Breath of the Wild was discovery and not knowing what to expect from this game adds to its overall mystique.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Upcoming Switch games! What's on your wishlist

« on: January 12, 2023, 01:24:58 PM »

Metroid Prime. In any way, shape, or form.

Just let me play these games on modern hardware, Nintendo. Please.

(Also Tears of the Kingdom so I can write an insane amount of words about it. Maybe some other stuff. No Trinity Trigger? Loop8? Ys X? Those are big on my list. Labyrinth of Zangetsu, as well.)

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: January 12, 2023, 10:04:23 AM »

The thing is, the third legendary and the rumored Scarlet and Violet DLC legendaries pretty much confirm that the Time Machine isn’t actually a Time Machine. I don’t want to get into narrative specifics, but the supplemental lore pretty much states that there are more dangerous parts of Area Zero that we have yet to explore, and that there is a reason we don’t actually get a glimpse into the past or future that these machines access.

We haven’t gained access to a part of another region since Gen 2, so I highly doubt that we’ll see a return to Kalos, or even a part of it- if you look at that part of the map, it’s tall and featureless, and would probably be pretty lame exploratory content. Even if we returned to Kalos in some format, it seems to conflict with the nature of Scarlet and Violet’s narrative and thematic concepts, unless we’re just considering “stones” (mega and tera) to be the connective tissue. I think the best we can hope for is maybe a small, island-sized open world similar in structure to Paldea, but I do think that Game Freak is going to experiment with the DLC model to see what works well for them. Sword and Shield was expanding on the idea of the Wild Zone, which was ultimately a failure, so I would assume Scarlet and Violet would expand on the open world concept.

But hey, I’m a person who likes to make connections and attempt to tie things together logically, and Game Freak has proven to very-much not-be that. So who knows?

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: January 11, 2023, 08:52:46 PM »

I guess the anniversary of Sword/Shield DLC just passed. Anyone have any DLC expectations for SV?

Also, happy that Caterkiller isn't banned, lol.

I honestly think that we aren’t going to get new “regions” like in the Sword and Shield DLC, which iterated on the Wild Area design. Paldea’s open world is the game’s main draw and I doubt Game Freak was simultaneously cooking up some alternate island or something. If anything, we’re going to gain deeper access into Area Zero, and hopefully get some stuff that further enriches the open world exploration. But I would love to be proven wrong. I just think Paldea felt like a Herculean effort to create and it still isn’t perfect, so expecting some massive new expansion would be wishful thinking. But I think something like making meaningful changes to the overworld would be neat- seasons that rotate wild encounter types, or make certain surfaces harder to climb/navigate. I also think it would actually be nice to have some legitimate dungeon content, as Area Zero really felt like the only place where mobility was limited.

I’m out of steam.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

« on: January 09, 2023, 07:50:35 PM »

Don’t really think anyone is anticipating this game at all, honestly.

…okay, so jokes aside, I’m pretty stunned at how little we actually know of the gameplay and narrative for this game. We didn’t really know much about the original BotW prior to launch but we had some idea of what gameplay would be like. I think the excuse for this is very similar to Super Mario Galaxy 2: this game is a sequel. Because it is not a “new” title, it will rely heavily on the gameplay functions of its predecessor and maybe add some new, minor elements. I imagine this game will be about vertical exploration in comparison with BotW’s horizontal traversal. Which is fine.

We do know about some of the new gameplay from Nintendo's patents they filed for the game over a year ago.  One patent allows Link to phase through platforms from below the surface which they showed in one of the trailers.  Another patent showed the ability to rewind time on objects, which was also shown in a trailer when Link has a bolder move back up a hill.  The last one was for Link to be able to move into different positions when aiming the bow while free-falling.

Yes, but none of this has been explicitly stated by Nintendo. We’ve learned about it through weird gameplay patents.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

« on: January 09, 2023, 06:00:04 PM »

Don’t really think anyone is anticipating this game at all, honestly.

…okay, so jokes aside, I’m pretty stunned at how little we actually know of the gameplay and narrative for this game. We didn’t really know much about the original BotW prior to launch but we had some idea of what gameplay would be like. I think the excuse for this is very similar to Super Mario Galaxy 2: this game is a sequel. Because it is not a “new” title, it will rely heavily on the gameplay functions of its predecessor and maybe add some new, minor elements. I imagine this game will be about vertical exploration in comparison with BotW’s horizontal traversal. Which is fine.

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Reader Reviews / Hell is Playing a Sonic game in 2023

« on: January 03, 2023, 12:46:01 PM »

Maybe hell is a prison of our own design.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: December 31, 2022, 08:23:47 AM »

Anybody do the Cinderace raids yet? I did one with my support Grimmsnarl, who I've been using since the Charizard raids (I actually have two now: one for physical, one for special).

I'll have to get a Slowbro together since that's the new hotness.

Also, what did everyone think of the post-game??

The post game was fine. More than most recent Pokémon titles, save Arceus. I did appreciate hunting the four treasures, even if the stake locations were a bit insane. The gym challenge felt like a pushover, even so, but going back to Area Zero to catch more Paradox Pokemon was rewarding. I still felt like the game could use a bit more.

The Cinderace raid is a marked enhancement in difficulty and demands proper team composition, which I have mixed feelings about. I was still able to use the current Slowbro build to solo it without online interaction. Online raid partners rarely account for how the Slowbro strategy is meant to work.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 802: Rejecting Your Family Portrait - Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Spoilercast

« on: December 31, 2022, 08:19:11 AM »

Circling back to this, I’m not surprised that the majority of this podcast was dedicated to outrageous things that happened in Xenoblade 2 that unfortunately found their way into Xenoblade 3. The repercussions of that game are unfortunately still being felt.

Very light discussion of mechanics, but I can’t agree that Xenoblade 3’s combat is an evolution of 2. It takes no positive steps forward from Torna- but I’ve already stated that, so I won’t beat a dead horse. It is evolved in that it is markedly more coherent, but that’s just about it.

Again, I can respect this game’s narrative decisions, even if I was rather dissatisfied to realize it’s Matrix similarities. But I do agree that Chapter 5’s prison sequence is a bold decision, and one that pays off in the first run through. I also appreciated the music discussion- this soundtrack is the best of the three Xenoblade games, no question.

A minor correction, though: in what world was Xenoblade 2’s expansion pass more than 29.99? I was honestly baffled by this claim and had to double check myself. The reason Torna was marketed at a similar price point as a separate title was because you could transfer its DLC content to a copy of base Xenoblade 2. We can and should expect a similarly-sized story installment in Xenoblade 3’s pass.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 802: Rejecting Your Family Portrait - Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Spoilercast

« on: December 25, 2022, 08:19:16 AM »

This game sucks so bad.

Will respond with my thoughts on the episode after I’ve listened.

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TalkBack / Re: Smash World Tour Tournaments Cancelled One Week Before Championships; Nintendo's Involvement Dis

« on: December 05, 2022, 08:18:18 PM »

There might be a bit more to it. Considering “health and safety” definitely has a broad connotation, there have been some recent “safety” violations and a pretty dedicated Twitter campaign organized by banned community members that might have also contributed to Nintendo wanting to distance themselves from both sides of this narrative.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: December 05, 2022, 11:22:42 AM »

So, the raid this weekend was… something.

I went from scraping by in the first night to absolutely steamrolling Charizards in the second- a pretty insane power creep. Flutter Mane is pretty nasty against Charizard, as it activates Protosynthesis when Charizard uses Sunny Day, and nulls his Dragon attacks. I had tried using a Dachbun and and Azumarill earlier, but the former lacks decent support options in spite of strong abilities and typing, while the latter’s ability causes the Raids to completely glitch and read incorrectly. It’s a shame, because Huge Power and Belly Drum make for an insane combo.

I like raiding very much, but the system Game Freak has created is pretty flawed. You can reset your system clock multiple times in order to get more raids during the scheduled period, so I have about 10-12 Charizards’ worth EXP candies, Large and Extra Large. This means I can level up a good 10-12 Raid-captured Pokémon with ease. Ah, well. I’m not much for competitive battling, so I can just start setting up new Pokémon for future raids.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: 2022 NWR Forum Awards - Best Nintendo Game

« on: December 04, 2022, 12:36:26 PM »

Regrettably, I have to say Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

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TalkBack / Re: Pokemon Scarlet And Violet (Switch) Review

« on: November 30, 2022, 07:10:31 PM »

I’m not going to throw around death threats or anything about the score, but a 6.5 seems pretty unreasonably low, based on my experience with the game. And this is coming from a Pokémon h8r.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

« on: November 26, 2022, 12:11:16 PM »

I think asking a massive entertainment company to develop a stable product isn’t too much, but we have all been fine with the embarrassing state of Skyrim for over a decade and across different editions. The people demanding refunds for this game are a bit… detached from reality. Admittedly, I’m not going out of my way to try to break the game, but I’ve encountered two, maybe three weird bugs in my 50+ hours of playtime.

As the world’s biggest Pokémon skeptic, 2022 has surprised me in many ways. I enjoyed Arceus a great deal and am enjoying Scarlet as well. It’s still a bit bare bones and definitely not the prettiest/most stable Switch game, but the freedom to explore and avoid much of the flat writing is a big plus. I’m heading to take on the final bosses of each respective Path at the moment, and I’ve been pleased with the difficulty scaling. It’s not a huge difficult game but it often requires dedicated team building for some of its later-game challenges. Highlights have been the Normal Type Gym, the Fighting and Fairy Starfall Street challenges, and just, well, four and five star raids.

I can’t say enough how having Pokémon roam without random encounters has drastically increased my desire to catch them. No more running back and forth in tall grass, hoping for the right encounter. It’s so refreshing.

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Reader Reviews / Re: Monolith Makes Worlds: An Analysis of the Xenoblade Series

« on: November 14, 2022, 09:59:31 PM »

63000 words.
82 pages of text.
4 years of writing.

...And we still have a DLC expansion pass to cover, BAYBEE.

But for now...

We rest.

EDIT: Well, as of me looking at the thread, we're now at 111121 views. I was hoping to screenshot 111111, darn it. I don't know how many of those are mine- I can't imagine it's a very high number. But if you have visited and read this insane rant, I thank you for your time.