I've never had an experience so bad in a game that it made me want to quit playing. I have now. "In From the Cold" was so awful as to make me stop MSQ progress entirely. I'm leaving the solo duty itself aside - it's flawed to high heaven, but passable. It's what's around it that's so terrible.
The Wrong Kind of Questions
Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing
Nothing, At What Cost?
I've just had my player avatar, the one I've played with for hundreds of hours, taken from me. Without warning, without explanation, without consequence, without character or plot development, without anything except a middling solo duty. I look at my WoL now, the one I used to feel happiness and joy and connection with, and I feel...nothing. It's just a bunch of pixels now. It always has been, of course, but isn't the point for us to empathize with our avatar? That's gone now. And for what?
For those of you who say it's just a game and I should quit, don't worry - I've taken your advice. There's a million games out there I can play, now that I no longer feel the thing that kept me playing this one: a connection to my WoL.
Continue reading...
The Wrong Kind of Questions
- Apparently sharded Ascians can teleport the WoL with ease? Why didn't the much more powerful complete Ascians use this constantly on us? We've seen them do it before, but never with such ease. For how effective it is, why haven't they?
- Somehow, we can be forced out of our bodies for extended periods of time. How? It's hand-waived with a reference from two expansions ago. Why don't we remember anything before waking up? What happens if we die, or if our "home" body dies? How did we get back to our old body? How did Zenos get back to his?
- How long exactly did it take for Zenos to leisurely stroll his way to Camp Broken Glass? Apparently almost as much time than it took us, on the brink of death, to crawl halfway there. Did Zenos not know there was a clock, or was he purposely so ineffective?
Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing
- One of Zenos's stated goals was to get us emotionally invested enough in fighting him by killing our friends. At the end, no one's even injured. Zenos barely even attacked the Scions after standing around.
- What new information did we learn? A monologue about Anima, maybe, but we were going to storm the castle anyway. We don't even treat bodyjacking as a threat that might be used against us in our next assault.
- What of character impacts? Thancred frames it as "glad I'm now not the only one." Y'stola basically says "that sucks, but we need to keep moving." And everyone else? It's a mild amusement. Only Alphinaud seems to care about whether or not we're okay in any capacity.
Nothing, At What Cost?
I've just had my player avatar, the one I've played with for hundreds of hours, taken from me. Without warning, without explanation, without consequence, without character or plot development, without anything except a middling solo duty. I look at my WoL now, the one I used to feel happiness and joy and connection with, and I feel...nothing. It's just a bunch of pixels now. It always has been, of course, but isn't the point for us to empathize with our avatar? That's gone now. And for what?
For those of you who say it's just a game and I should quit, don't worry - I've taken your advice. There's a million games out there I can play, now that I no longer feel the thing that kept me playing this one: a connection to my WoL.
Continue reading...