Trespasser

Geez, how did it take me so long to start writing about Trespasser? I finished it less than a week after it came out, but Life interrupted and I never got around to writing it up. Until now!

I’ll open with the lede: This is the one truly essential DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’ve played and enjoyed all three story-based expansions, and each has something to offer, but Trespasser is the best of the lot. It tells a compelling story that directly ties in with the main plot of Inquisition, and, more importantly, provides a deeply satisfying conclusion to the Inquisitor’s personal story.

(That said - if you haven't picked up Inquisition already, you should definitely grab the Game of the Year edition, which includes all of the DLC. Worth it!)

BioWare has clearly learned from their success with Mass Effect: Citadel. Trespasser isn’t exactly a Dragon Age Citadel, but it captures the main beats that fans responded to so strongly in that exceptional DLC: spending time and having fun with the characters who you’ve grown to know and love over the dozens of hours you’ve spent playing the game. There’s a lot of humor, a lot of pathos, and, if you play your cards right, more than a little romance along the way.

MEGA SPOILERS

The overarching plot is dramatic, but the actual gameplay feels a little tedious at first. Go into the eluvian, fight some enemies, come back out, advance the story, go back into the eluvian, fight some more enemies, rinse and repeat. It helps a lot that the Crossroads is such a beautiful and fascinating place. I’ve never understood people who complain about the Fade; those bizarre and dreamlike environments have always been my favorites, and it was great to see more non-Euclidean geometry and symbol-laden tableaus on display.

One thing I had to keep reminding myself was that I, the player, had different knowledge than Aztar, the character, did. From seeing the cut-scene at the end of Inquisition and the trailer for Trespasser, I knew that Solas was Fen’Harel and would come back. However, Aztar did not know this. I’ll admit to occasionally muttering, “When are we getting to the fireworks factory?!” while mucking around with Qunari agents, wondering when Solas would finally show up. And I’d think that Aztar was acting pretty dense in not recognizing that Solas was behind stuff, before reminding myself that I personally had had no clue until seeing that post-credits teaser.

Speaking of which: I hadn’t thought about it before, but that’s actually a pretty significant difference in the narrative structure between Origins and Inquisition. Origins is set up a bit more like a movie or something, with periodic cut-aways and cut-scenes. In order to advance the story, you’ll sometimes see Loghain and Anora or someone discussing strategy or plotting their next move. There’s no in-game explanation for why your character would know any of this stuff; it’s just that you, the player, presumably need to know it in order to be able to follow the story.

In contrast, Inquisition (and I think DA2 as well) are much more disciplined. You only have access to the knowledge that your character has. You directly witness most events in the game; when you learn other things, it’s usually because someone else is relaying information to you. In the rare event that you see a cut-scene, it’s because your character is watching that cut-scene (as in Calpernia’s crystal; you’re actually watching your character watching the scene), or it’s something your character is remembering (as in regaining your memories of the Divine’s assassination).

All that to say, the Solas/Flemeth cut-scene is unique and surprising formally as well as lore-wise. After having experienced it, it’s hard to wind back down to the more conventional storytelling of the rest of the game.

Anyhoo… the Qunari stuff felt like it went on for too long, but ultimately ended up being really interesting. The series has been foreshadowing an upcoming with with the Qunari since early in Origins, and Trespasser pushes that conflict to the brink. For me, one of the most shocking moments was when Iron Bull betrayed me and attacked. It was both totally unexpected and made total sense, which is the best kind of twist. And I can’t say I didn’t “deserve” it: after all, I was the one who had pushed Bull to renew his devotion to the Qun. The way it went down was fantastic, though. When he raises arms against you, he says something like “Nothing personal… bas”. It’s a one-syllable line reading that totally blew my mind. All this time, when Bull was saying “boss”, I took it as a mixture of affection and loyalty. But he was hiding in plain sight all along, secretly sneering at me while professing his allegiance.

It got even better in the post-game, at least with my particular world state configuration. The Qunari leadership denied any involvement with the Viddasala’s actions. They got bogged down in an escalating war against Tevinter and, amazingly, reached out to the Divine to help negotiate a truce. All along, I’d viewed the Qunari as a dangerous but powerful ally, and it was really cool to see that continuing past the end of the game: they had tested me, but I had proven my strength, and so they continued to be a valuable asset for a slightly diminished Inquisition.

Speaking of which, I was pretty happy with how the Inquisition proper wound down. All along, Aztar has been 100% focused on building and leading a powerful organization that would reshape Thedas in accordance with her values. I had imagined it being an extra-national entity that would continue to operate under its own banner and was initially peeved that this was not an option. As I thought about it more, though, being nominally under the control of the Divine was actually a pretty great outcome. Aztar has never been in this for fame or personal fortune: she craves the actual power, not being perceived as powerful. Being formally tied to the Chantry actually HELPS her goal, not limits it: back when it was a rogue group, it could be dismissed as illegitimate, but if the Murderpope officially gives you her blessing to operate, then, wow, you shove pretty much all of your enemies into the shadow. I would be less stoked if it was another Divine, but Leliana and I are simpatico on basically all issues. I’m perfectly happy to have her be the public face of the Chantry while I make things happen.

And, while I’m thinking of Leliana, I was also pleased with seeing what seems like the end of the story of the Hero of Ferelden. I had kind of expected that to be something which would be resolved in Dragon Age 4: Kiriyon was last seen searching for a cure to the Calling, and that, combined with Hawke’s journey to Weisshaupt, seemed to be setting up a Gray Warden plotline for the next game. But, given the dizzyingly wide range of possible outcomes for the Hero and the Champion, BioWare wouldn’t be able to design whole games around their statuses. It makes me really happy to think of Kiriyon and Leliana living and loving together in the Grand Cathedral: reunited after so many games apart, they can finally find happiness together, and set an active example for the rest of Thedas to follow as it ponders Leliana’s doctrinal reforms. Plus, it gives me an opening to head-canon Kiriyon undoing the damage caused by Aztar and un-hardening Leliana. Eventually. After all of her enemies are brutally destroyed.

END SPOILERS

I skipped over a bunch of stuff, but fear not! As usual, I have taken a staggering quantity of screenshots, added overly verbose captions, and assembled them into an album for your viewing pleasure.

Trespasser ends Inquisition on a great note. So far, there hasn’t been any confirmation on whether Electronic Arts will approve a fourth Dragon Age game. I have to imagine that it will happen; from what I can tell, Inquisition sold very well, and the investment they put into the new engine work should make sequels a much more palatable financial option. There’s obviously lots of groundwork laid for the next game and it would be disappointing to see if end; but if this is somehow the last Dragon Age game we get, it will be nice to have at least experienced satisfying ends for the characters we’ve played as and with.

Hong Kong!

I was very proud to support Harebrained Schemes’ latest Kickstarter for a new Hong Kong game, and was confident enough in their ability to deliver that I even upped my pledge from last time. I’ve been obsessively playing since it came out last month - not pulling any all-nighters, but getting in a few good runs every day.

I really like it!

Here’s a high-level reaction before I go into spoilers, with an emphasis on the differences from the two earlier entries in the series.

THE AWESOME

Multiple paths to success. The first two games were very combat-heavy; in Hong Kong, there are multiple runs that can be completed without any killing, and even when pure pacifism isn’t possible, you can usually avoid all but the final fight with careful gameplay and skill usage.

THE GOOD

Map design. The new environments are wonderfully evocative, beautiful, large.

New cyberware, which gives a lot more options for a variety of archetypes and also supports new playstyles. Splitting out new categories (Skin vs. Body and Brain vs. Head) lets you play with more of the great options in those areas. Cyberweapons are amazing. I especially appreciate all of the new bioware, which provides low-essence and no-essence choices for awakened builds.

Good expansion of weapons, spells, and skills. They’re building on the core of Dragonfall, so it’s easy to get oriented if you’ve played the previous game, but also added in enough cool new options to make things interesting and tempt you to try fresh builds.

The crew. Team progression choices are even better than the ones in Dragonfall, with really unique options that open up creative new playstyles.

Wider usage for skill checks. Etiquettes, in particular, are much more useful than they were in Dragonfall.

The economy. The Shadowrun series has probably the best money curve of any RPG franchise I’ve run across: there’s always something interesting and worthwhile to spend your hard-earned nuyen on, and never a point where you’re left wondering what to do with all your leftovers.

A lot of missions! It looks like you could cruise through to the endgame fairly quickly by only taking the required missions, but there’s a lot of purely optional runs that you can take if you want to build up your character further or just enjoy playing the game.

TONS of content. I probably spent about an hour during each of my early visits to Heoi, just walking around, talking with citizens, browsing Shadowlands, etc. People who don’t enjoy the story and lore could skip this stuff without missing out on any gameplay benefits - there don’t seem to be karma rewards or anything linked to them - but that was one of the high points of the game for me. Some is tragic, some is fascinating, a lot is laugh-out-loud funny.

 

 THE MIXED

I haven’t done much with the new editor yet. I’m glad to see that they are continuing to support UGC creation, but it’s been extremely disappointing to see that all the old music from Dead Man’s Switch and Dragonfall has been removed. Without those older tracks, and without the ability to add custom music, it’s going to be extremely challenging for custom campaigns in non-Asian locales to find appropriate music for their runs. I’m really hoping that this was an oversight on their part that can get patched in shortly; I’ve reached out to them about it but so far haven’t heard any response. :(

Gameplay in the new matrix. I absolutely love the look, and appreciate the idea behind a stealthy infiltration, but it ended up being pretty frustrating. The entire rest of the game is focused on strategy and tactics, where you succeed by thinking through things and executing on plans. The Matrix is the one part that relies on quick reflexes, hand/eye coordination, and twitch reactions. Not to mention the hacking minigame, ugh. I don’t think there’s ever been a good hacking minigame. Ever. Even great titles like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution were diminished by their lame minigames, and I don’t know why developers keep trying to make more.

THE BAD

It’s rather buggy. I played all games immediately after launch, and HBS has a pretty good track record at fixing most bugs (except those dang freezing IC), so I’m fairly confident they’ll patch most of them up shortly. For comparison, I’d say it’s about as buggy as Returns was at launch, and more buggy than Dragonfall. The vast majority of problems are simple things I could fix myself if I felt motivated to do so: typos, map problems, mis-linked abilities. There are a couple of more serious problems I ran into along the way that required reloading an earlier save or mucking around in the debug console to get past.

On to my personal experience:

I played on Hard difficulty as a Dwarf. I initially rolled him as an Adept archetype, but he ended up being more of a heavily-cybered Street Samurai. I only took Chi Casting up to level 4, which gave me Stride and some nice passive defenses. For most of the game, I was pumping Karma into Cyberware Affinity, Strength, Close Combat, and Body. Oh, and Charisma up to level 6 to unlock etiquettes.

For most of the game, I used my Hand Razors to tear apart opponents. My role was essentially the same that Glory played in Dragonfall. I would charge into my enemies, bouncing from one foe to the next, trying to get one hit on each person. This would tear apart their armor and flush them out of cover and inflict a bleeding damage-over-time effect. That would soften them up for the rest of the team. Furthermore, I could damage AP on hits, and if I was lucky with criticals I might even knock out some foes for an entire round.

I was a little squishy in the early fights and relied heavily on teammates' medkits to patch me up between encounters. By roughly midgame, though, I had enough armor and hit points to tank, soaking up the enemies' assaults. (As a side note - I noticed that Dodge reduced the odds that enemies will target you, so I deliberately did not take many ranks in that, instead improving my ability to take damage.)

Later in the game, I supplemented my razors with a few other melee abilities. There's a "shock glove" you can pick up which can completely stun a single enemy once per turn; that was really helpful to even the odds when we were outnumbered. Also, after I had completely stripped away all of our opponents' armor, I would often switch over to Killing Hands to finish them off, since it does more raw damage than the razors.

On the etiquette front, I picked up Academic, Socialite, and Corporate, and was very happy with the results.  There are a lot more uses for etiquettes in Hong Kong than in either of the first two games. They aren't all applied equally, though, There were a ton of options for Academic, and I was really happy to have it, but in practice it seems to just unlock additional lore; it doesn't actually have any impact on gameplay. Socialite wasn't used very widely, but had some great flavor and provided peaceful solutions to a couple of situations. As in the previous games, Corporate isn't very useful at first, but late in the game it can be very helpful when infiltrating centers of business.

Here's my end-game build!

One of my favorite improvements in Hong Kong is the Cyberware Affinity skill, which grants you a few extra Essence points. I was judicious in my use of cyberware, but managed to pick up a good assortment of stuff while still keeping my (few) cooldowns low. If there was more nuyen in the game, I would have been tempted to go full-cyber... it's pretty rare that I'll be able to invoke something like Stride multiple times in a single encounter, even with full Essence.

MINI SPOILERS

I brought Gobbet and Is0bel along on pretty much every mission. Support shamans are always handy, and Gobbet's Haste helped Cirion be more effective in the opening rounds. I needed Is0bel for decking, but was pleasantly surprised at what a good ranged fighter she turned out to be. Her grenade launcher is awesome, and she would often get the best total damage out of anyone on the team.

The third party slot would rotate around based on who seemed most appropriate for the mission. Duncan was usually my first choice for the third slot. I almost always used him as a ranged fighter; after Cirion had prepared the enemies, Duncan could often put one or two down on the first round. My typical sequence would be: Isobel softens everyone up with two AOE blasts of her grenade launcher; Gobbet hastes Cirion; Cirion rushes in and strips armor; Duncan finishes off the most-damaged enemies who are still conscious.

I probably used Rachter the least, although I did think his drone mechanics were really interesting. Gaichu was a solid teammate, but pretty much anything that he could do Cirion could do better, so I only brought him along if I thought there were good story reasons to do so or if I was pretty sure it would be an easy run.

MEGA SPOILERS

I think I got a good ending. I'd worked with Crafty throughout the game to get more knowledge about the Yama Kings and how they work. After rescuing Raymond from Josephine's operation, we confronted the Big Bad. I defeated her first two incarnations, then negotiated with her for Kowloon's salvation. I threatened to have Raymond tear open the portal to the outer world; she attempted to call my bluff, but was sufficiently unnerved by the possibility to negotiate favorable terms for her departure. I shut her down, stating that since she was accepting the possibility, she had already lost. She left in a huff, but Kowloon was saved and Josephine's empire soon crumbled.

I love that you were able to complete the final boss fight through dialogue. It strongly reminded me of the climax of Planescape: Torment, which is a Very Good Thing.

END SPOILERS

Yup! This is A Good Game. I almost never replay video games these days, but Hong Kong is more tempting than most, thanks to the huge array of playstyles supported and the myriad paths through the game. I'm especially looking forward to the release of the promised mini-campaign: it was initially intended for late 2015, but they're currently targeting early 2016, which is fine by me.

You can't overstate how cool it is that Harebrained Schemes managed to deliver a fantastic Kickstarted game on time. Video game kickstarters are notorious for running late, or failing to deliver at all. HBS's experience with this style of production, coupled with their transparency and close relationship to their fans, has been a huge help in distinguishing themselves from the crowd. There's no word yet on future Shadowrun projects from them, but I imagine that as long as they feel like making these games, they'll find a steadily growing group of fans ready to support their efforts.

Oh! Before I forget - following the ancient traditions, I took a large number of screenshots while playing the game and have assembled them into an album. There's a lot of spoilers in there, and more comments on my thoughts about the game and its plot. Enjoy! Or don't!

Forever Weird on the Internet

I got to meet Felicia Day! It was really fun!

I think I first saw Felicia in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but  I didn't really know who she was until I started watching The Guild a couple of years later. I don't personally play World of Warcraft, but a lot of my friends from a previous company did, and introduced me to the series through the amazing music video one-offs she did for it. Once I started watching the web series proper, I was completely hooked: I'm deep into fantasy, and gaming, and awkward relationships, all of which The Guild totally nailed.

I've avidly followed her career since then. In particular, I've greatly enjoyed her Geek & Sundry YouTube channel, which has a really fresh and positive attitude towards video games and other elements of nerd culture. Her personal video journal series The Flog has introduced me to lots of great things I wouldn't have otherwise known about, and Co-Optitude (a series where she and her brother play through the console games they weren't allowed to play as a child) is always fun.

Recently, she has shared some funny promotional videos for her new book, You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost). The book just came out, and I was lucky enough to attend an interview and book-signing with her at the Jewish Community Center here in San Francisco.

The event itself was fantastic. It was moderated by Jane McGonigal, who I hadn’t heard of before but sounds very interesting - she recently finished writing SUPERBETTER, a book about the neuroscience behind gaming. That shared background with Felicia made her a perfect interviewer.

The whole program is available online if you'd like to see it!

The overall event was very funny - Felicia is a quick thinker, with perfect reactions to a bunch of small unplanned things that occurred throughout the evening - but also very inspiring. She talked very frankly about her successes, the steps she took to achieve them, and the unexpected hardships that resulted. She spoke encouragingly to other people who want to become creators, sharing both specific and general advice in completing your projects and bringing them to the world.

Two things from the talk especially stuck out to me. One was Felicia’s optimistic view of fan culture and the way it can bring us together as human beings. As she pointed out, a lot of the topics that are most important to us as individuals are also things that divide us from others. If I start talking about religion, or my political views, I’ll immediately alienate a good number of people. Similarly, people who come from different economic and cultural backgrounds will find it harder to relate to one another, since we don’t share the same experiences and reference points. Nerd culture, though, instantly transcends and cuts through all of those differences. If you’re obsessed with a particular show/game/book/movie, and find another person who shares that same obsession, then it doesn’t matter what race they are, what gender, what school they did or didn’t attend. You feel an instant sense of connection with them, and suddenly have a way to relate and enjoy one another’s company.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an eloquent defense of nerd culture before, and it really resonated with me. Like a lot of people, I’m more or less ashamed of the things I love. I always feel kind of guilty when I talk about entertainment that I enjoy; it feels like I should instead be talking about the DEEP things, the things that REALLY MATTER, and not nattering on about some made-up stories. I think Felicia makes a great point, though. There IS value in the connections this shared culture enables. It’s a means of bridging the gaps between people, and can open the way to increasing empathy and understanding. That’s a very good thing!

The other thing that particularly resonated with me was her inspiring rhetoric about creativity. How important it is to work hard and bring new things into the world. How we shouldn't worry about the people who will scoff or devalue the work we do - there's an infinite supply of criticism available on the Internet! - and should instead pay attention to the people who receive joy from our works. Even if only a handful of people enjoy the thing we do, we're still making the world an incrementally better place by making new things that they can love. And creation is not only a gift from the maker to the consumer, but it's also a privilege, a way to commune and communicate, to share our thoughts and ideas.

That's something I immediately took to heart. As I sat there in the auditorium listening to her, I immediately thought of my own Shadowrun campaigns, which have been a major aspect of my personal creativity over the last two years. By many external barometers, they have been quite successful: well over twenty thousand people have played my games, they've been highly-rated, and I continue to receive many kind compliments from people who have enjoyed them enough to take the time to write me about them. And yet, I feel weirdly ashamed about them. I think that might partly be because very few people I know personally really understand the franchise and the lore; any time they come up in conversation, I try to change the subject as quickly as possible, afraid of... I don't know what, exactly. Boring people, or revealing an unsightly passion, or revealing that I cared too much about something and thus opening myself up to hurt if other people dislike it.

After hearing Felicia talk and reading her book, though, I became determined to take more pride in my work. Plenty of people don't care about Shadowrun, but that's okay! I shouldn't obsess about that. I should pay attention to the thousands of people who have engaged with my storytelling, and even more than that, I should listen to the hundreds of people who have reached out to share their own joy. I don't know exactly what I'll do with this newfound outlook, but I'm hoping to carry it forward with me into future creative endeavors, focusing on the people I'm reaching and not the ones I'm not.

There was a fantastic Q&A as well. I really liked the format - people submitted their questions on index cards, both before and during the event, then organizers screened them and the interviewer picked a few to ask. I would ordinarily transcribe what I remember of the best questions and answers, but since the entire program is available online, I’ll take a runner this time.

I stuck around for the book-signing afterwards. As usual, I spent some time thinking of a single thing to say before meeting her. I vacillated between asking “Are you looking forward to Shadowrun: Hong Kong” (which had come out that morning) or thanking her for introducing me to Fallen London via the Flog. I settled on the latter. She got really excited when I brought it up, asking if I’d played Sunless Sea yet, and telling me that an upcoming Flog would be covering the latest game. As a veteran con-goer, Felicia is a master at dealing with slightly awkward nerds, and it was probably the best interaction I’ve had with any of the authors or celebrities I’ve met.

(Since then, I've found out that she actually has her own NPC in Shadowrun: Hong Kong, which makes me wish I'd brought up that instead... but hey, that will give us something else to talk about if we ever meet again!)

I was planning to make a separate post when I finished reading You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), but I finished it by the time I finished this post, so… here it is!

First, a tiny little "wow" moment I had was reading Felicia's obsession with the Ultima series. I think we're about the same age, and Ultima was also an incredibly formative game for me. Felicia wrote poetry about it; I drew maps and wrote short fiction. In the book, Felicia talks about how she met other Ultima fans online and the funny/weird interactions they ended up having in the real world; I was lucky enough to have some real-world friends with a similar love of the series, and I strongly related to her reminiscing of shared enthusiasm for the wonderful gameplay and lore of those games.

The book as a whole is a really fantastic memoir. Felicia has a wonderful voice, which you know if you’ve watched The Flog or her various public appearances. She’s very frank and self-deprecating, but also has a wonderful spirit and keen sense of humor. She eschews false modesty, but also places things in their proper context.

For example, during college she was very proud of her 4.0 GPA (while pursuing a double major in mathematics and music performance). She still seems a little proud of it today, but is also very clear that it made absolutely zero difference in the rest of her life after graduation. One of her professors suggested that getting a B might be the best thing to happen to her, which she reacted VERY strongly against, while acknowledging from the present that he may have been right.

Her personal upbringing was fascinating, and she draws a pretty clear line from it to her adult success. She was homeschooled, and grew up with NO friends at all. That was a deprivation in many ways, but the advantage was that, without any peers, she never had anyone to tell her “No” about any of her obsessions. There weren’t any boys around to tell her that girls couldn’t play video games; there weren’t any girls around to tell her that math was hard and dumb; there weren’t any teachers around to keep her from watching Lost in Space every morning. So, by the time she went to college and did start encountering peer pressure to conform, she was secure enough in her likes and dislikes to hold on to the things she loved. If she’d faced those pressures earlier in life, she might have lost those passions, and ended up with a much more mundane career.

Of course, there are also downsides to that lack of socialization. Throughout the book, Felicia is extremely honest (although also funny) about her struggles with anxiety, panic attacks, and imposter syndrome. Ever since childhood she’s had a deeply-ingrained need to succeed, which pushes her to always try harder and never feel like she’s accomplished her goals. Even in situations when the people around her are praising her accomplishments, she obsessively focuses on the imperfections of her creations. That drive has contributed to her career, but has also made her miserable.

One of the major points Felicia makes, and observes that almost nobody else does, is that success does not make things better. As she points out, that sounds like a dishonest thing to say - “If you achieved your dreams, you would hate yourself!” - but she’s hoping to help warn future people who may follow in her path. It’s easy to think to yourself, “Oh, if only I could accomplish this goal, I would be happy!” Then you accomplish that thing, and you don’t magically become happy, and the fact you don’t become happy after working so hard and making so many sacrifices makes things even worse.

The book is extremely frank about her struggles. When she seemed to be at the peak of her career - The Guild extremely popular, she had launched a multimillion-dollar company, and was featuring in a popular television series - she was suffering from depression, had massive health problems, and obsessively thought of suicide.  She’s also very candid about what she did to pull herself out of that hole, including the things she tried along the way that didn’t work.

The last couple of chapters are about her interactions with the misogynistic GamerGate mob, a topic that’s horrified me ever since it began. Much of this is in the public record already, but she shares some additional information in the book that underlies how terrifying the situation was. That whole story is so sad on so many levels. You feel bad for what’s happened to Felicia, and how terror tactics are being used to silence women in the field, but in the context of this book what’s especially tragic is how it seems to strike at the very heart of her optimism about the Internet and nerd culture. Virtually all of her experiences up to that point, from her Prodigy dial-up days onward, saw the Internet as a way of connecting with other people, of discovering like-minded individuals unfettered by the constraints of geography or lifestyle. It’s an engine of creation, of germination, capable of cultivating and birthing wonderful new things that could never be born in the traditional physical world.

The sad take-away from these last chapters, though, is that the Internet can be turned to evil purposes as well as good. It can destroy things, destroy people, crush ideas before they have a chance to grow. Felicia’s solitary nerd childhood allowed her passions to flourish away from the harsh judgment of peer pressure. If she grew up today, though, and shared her early works online, an army of millions of trolls would stand at the ready to crush her dreams into the ground. The Internet is a wonderful tool for bringing together communities of people who share a love about something, but it’s also a deadly tool for organizing hate mobs who feed on each other’s self-righteous anger.

Felicia herself remains mostly optimistic about the Internet. During the Q&A, when an aspiring YouTube vlogger asked her for advice on growing her channel, one thing Felicia emphasized was building a core community who enjoys you and supports your work, rather than chasing a larger number of people who will be fickle admirers. These days, Felicia feels most connected to smaller communities, like her GoodReads book club and her Twitch subscribers. There are many trolls out there, but also lots of wonderful people, and she tries to stay focused on the good.

So, yeah! This was a fantastic book, in all honesty much better than I was expecting. I had hoped for a funny read and maybe a bit of gossip. It delivers, but it’s also a very engaging personal story and has some very valuable insights on navigating the digital world we live in, how to accomplish our goals, and how to stay happy and sane while doing so.

Down Down to Goblin-Town

Shadowrun Hong Kong comes out on Thursday, which gives me a little spare time to explore other gaming options. I decided this would be the perfect chance to check out The Descent: it's an expansion DLC for Inquisition, so I figured I could enjoy a relatively short experience that built on a franchise I already enjoyed.

It ended up being a lot of fun. Maybe even shorter than I expected, but nicely focused: there's a central compelling threat to resolve, gorgeous new areas to travel through, and some good meaty combat.

MINI SPOILERS

The environment may have been the highlight for me. I'm one of the few people who enjoyed the Deep Roads back in Origins, and this version is even better: huge vistas, towering use of vertical space, terrific dwarven artifacts. Ever since the Vinmark Chasm, BioWare has achieved mastery of crafting underground caverns that feel airy: you can accept the light and the occasional trees while still feeling like you're buried deep below the earth.

The expansion also adds a new miniature version of the War Table specifically for the Deep Roads, and there are quite a few operations to undertake. Which was great, if for no other reason than finally giving me some way to spend the vast quantity of useless Power I had accumulated. What's especially cool, though, is seeing the handiwork of the Inquisition alongside that of the ancient dwarves. You'll walk down a crumbling stone tunnel, standing in the shadow of an enormous paragon statue that could never be built today; and also see a walkway made of freshly-hewn boards bridging the chasm, forming a latticed scaffolding up the statue. The old and the new are completely different with their own visual styles, and each makes sense, carrying out its unique purpose.

I thought a lot about the Jaws of Hakkon while playing the Descent and the various ways in which one is better than the other. A lot of people complained about the shard quests in Hakkon, which were a part of the base game that many people didn't enjoy. The Descent doesn't have nearly as much exploration as Hakkon, and much less area as a whole to explore. There aren't any shards as such, but there are ancient gears to collect, which serve a similar purpose. But for the most part there's just a single path to follow, with an occasional branch or loop, and you can easily get everything you need by following along without spending a lot of time exploring. This could be good or bad depending on your perspective, but personally I'm a fan of tighter, more curated experiences.

Well, I am when it comes to exploration, at least. Unfortunately, the plot runs on rails in much the same way that the map does. I wasn't expecting any big branching choices like In Hushed Whispers or Champions of the Just, but I was hoping for at least a few smaller meaningful choices to make like there were in Hakkon: how to handle certain situations, whether to show mercy or sternness, etc. Instead, you're basically just along for the ride. Your reactions are essentially limited to "Tell me more!" and "Please tell me more!" I'm pretty sure I won't replay this DLC on any of my other Inquisitors, since it would basically just be a repeat of this game.

That even extends to the choice of companions. One of my favorite aspects of Hakkon - heck, possibly my favorite overall - was all of the new companion banter they added. In The Descent, I brought along Team YOLO - Sera, Bull, and Dorian - hoping to hear some more of that lovely sassy banter. Nope. Dorian had a few brief quippy asides, but nothing significant. Bull and Sera each got one line at the very beginning, and didn't give a single peep throughout the rest of the game. I dunno... maybe I should have brought other folks along, it would make sense for Varric to be a bit more impressed at what we found. But given the total lack of participation from Sera and Bull, I'm not optimistic that anyone gets much to do, certainly nothing like the companion quests we got in Mark of the Assassin.

One nice thing about the dialogue, though, was that it acknowledged my inquisitor's dwarf heritage. Aztar grew up on the surface and isn't super-familiar with dwarf culture, but she was able to recognize some of the dwarf runes encountered, which was a small but very appreciated touch. I know that some players were bummed when their Elf inquisitors at the Temple of Mythal were like "Dur what's a Mythal?", and it seems like the studio is being a bit more studious in how it presents ancient lore to different backgrounds.

MEGA SPOILERS

Speaking of lore - we get some really nice lore bombs in here. We learn about the Titans, and the nature of lyrium, and witness a dwarf casting magic. That could have huge implications for future games, even for gameplay - who knows, maybe in DA4 it will be canonically legal to roll a dwarf mage.

Before starting the Descent, I'd assumed that it would cover some of the plots foreshadowed by Inquisition: Kal-Sharok, the Warden's attempts to cure the Calling, the corruption of lyrium by the blight. None of these are directly addressed, but the more I think about it, that does make sense. It would be a bummer to lock crucial plot developments behind $15 DLCs, so DA4 would be a much better place to resolve those. I increasingly feel like the ideal purpose of DLC is not to tie up old plot lines, but to lay the groundwork for new ones. In retrospect, Legacy was a kind of perfect DLC: it was a fun and interesting story in its own right, while also laying the groundwork for Inquisition. I think that's probably what's at play in The Descent, more so than in Hakkon.

And finally, a random note: I almost burst out laughing when I was attacked by machine-gun-wielding dwarves for the first time. It was a total flashback to playing Might & Magic VI and seeing sci-fi weaponry buried deep within my fantasy RPG. "What! Is! Happening! Here!"

END SPOILERS

The combat in Descent is really nice. The very final boss fight was a little underwhelming for me, but a lot of the boss fights leading up to it were very fun, with some unique mechanics that kept me from just sticking to a standard boring tank-and-spank approach.

You also feel like you're rewarded pretty well for your work. In this case, that mostly takes the form of items and money. I think I got enough XP to level up everyone once; I earned a small amount of Power, but not enough for another perk. But pretty much everyone got some new gear. There are several great pieces: a shield with a chance to cast Walking Fortress, heal-on-kill rings and staves, cooldown amulets, high-level unique helmets, etc. There are also a lot of Tier 4 schematics; I haven't crafted any yet, but was happy to see that they also added a shop that sells Tier 4 materials (dragon bone, webbing, etc.)

Soooooo, should you buy The Descent? If you love Dragon Age and have the money, sure. If you're at all cost-conscious, you might want to hold off. There's great stuff in there, but no answers to immediately pressing questions. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, but there's much less content than in Jaws of Hakkon, and the content that is there has much less replay value.

While playing the game and writing this post, I found myself frequently thinking of an awesome recent talk by Anthony Burch titled Plot is Dumb, Character is Cool: Writing for DLC. He mostly uses the Borderlands franchise as an example, but I found myself constantly thinking of Dragon Age while watching it, and thought of that video a lot while playing The Descent. I had a great time with this expansion, but would have enjoyed it even more if it had let me spend more meaningful time with the people from Inquisition who I already loved.

Oh! Almost forgot - here's the requisite album of screenshots, filled with spoilers for your pleasure.

Nifty Fifty

Well, how's this for a milestone: I've reached Level 50 in Lord of the Rings Online! That's a nice, round number. Significantly, it was also the level cap of the game when it first launched. I'm now at what used to be the end-game grind; that was eight years ago, though, and now it's merely an exclamation mark on my journey to Mordor.

Turbine (the game's developer) has done a lot of work over the years to streamline the gameplay and make it less daunting for newbies like me. Back at launch, everyone was hitting the same content at the same time, so they could make certain quests and sequences challenging enough to require players to group up and complete them. Now, it's much harder to find a large group at low levels, so those big quests have been updated so they can be soloed by someone on-level. Most often, this is done by providing the "Inspiration" buff at the start of an instance, which massively boosts your character's Morale and other stats. The actual content still plays out the same as before, but you can do the work of six people.

This isn't to say that group content has been removed from the game entirely. There are still plenty of Fellowship and Small Fellowship quests along the way that provide more challenging goals for people traveling in a party. But content in the epic quest line and other significant gates doesn't require grouping, and there's plenty of experience and loot to be found elsewhere. The end result is that I've been able to play the MMO like I would a single-player RPG, which is exactly what I wanted to do. It's been really fun to solo, now that the grind has been streamlined away.

From a gameplay perspective, it finally started to get difficult near the end. I'm playing as a damage-focused Minstrel, and easily rolled through the first part of the game... I think I only died, like, once or twice before level 35, and only felt under pressure when tackling a large group of powerful enemies at once. As I got closer to 50, though, the strength of standard monsters increased more sharply, and I started actually paying attention to my build and skills and rotation and such. Here are some technical notes that nobody will care about:

• As noted before, I'm purely a Warrior-Skald ("red-line") minstrel.
• I unlock useful skills like Call of Orome.
• Since Ballads are low-damage, I don't bother with the traits that boost them. My goal is to focus on Calls and Cries as much as possible, not to improve the lackluster Ballads.
• I typically open from max range a fight with Call of Orome, which does a lot of damage and also lowers their Light resistance to my follow-up attacks. This does have an AOE, which can be good if I want to pull multiple weak targets; in the very rare case that strong enemies are tightly clustered, I'll open the pull with a Minor Ballad.
• Piercing Cry! Probably my favorite skill. It deals a lot of damage, and (once traited) has a high chance of stunning the target. If it lands, I have a great chance of finishing the encounter before taking any damage. If I'm 5+ levels above the enemy, they're probably dead by now.
• Call to Fate! This is the highest-damaging skill in my normal rotation. It hits like a truck. Any standard on-level enemy is probably dead by now. Signature enemies on-level are probably down to about half Morale. Lower-level Signatures have a sliver of health left.
• Note that these 3 abilities each have a 10-second cooldown, so they sync up nicely. As I'm running through an area, I'll burn down an enemy using these three; by the time I reach the next enemy, 6 seconds have probably passed and I'm ready to start over again.
• For tougher enemies, I'll need to keep fighting until my cooldowns finish. My standard MO here has been Minor Ballad -> Perfect Ballad -> Minor Ballad -> Coda of Fury. This takes 6 seconds to complete, preparing me for Call of Orome again. But that usually isn't necessary. The ballads do small damage, but the Coda hits about as hard as Call to Fate, so even on-level Signature enemies are usually dead by then.

For gearing, I prioritize Will, Fate, and Vitality, preferably in that order. I've just been using quest reward stuff so far, not bothering with the auction house or crafted gear. One tough call to make is when to trade in a matched set with lower Armor but extra set abilities for higher-level pieces with higher armor. Right now I'm still wearing the Fem gear at level 38, but will probably start swapping that out for level 50 Unique pieces.

Let's talk story, shall we?

First, a meta observation. MMOs like this are really broad. One of their greatest strengths is how non-linear they are. You're encouraged to explore, to figure out what part of the game is most enjoyable for you, and then focus on that. You might race ahead to a particular area or follow a specific plot line closely, and return to earlier ideas later or not at all. In some ways, they come closest of all RPGs to recreating the feel of a classic pen-and-paper RPG: there are very few restrictions on what your character can do. (Sadly, you are still usually very constrained on how to do something - any given quest will only have a single solution - but you have nearly boundless freedom in choosing what to do.)

That's great so far as it goes, but it does mean that in the eternal struggle between Elder Scrolls-style breadth and Dragon Age-style depth, LotRO tends more towards the former. The specific problem that I kept running into is that there are just so many characters. Easily hundreds of NPCs with speaking parts, probably thousands. The vast majority of them serve purely mechanical purposes: they'll stand in an area, give you quests while you're at a particular level, and then you'll never speak with them again. A few of them tie into longer-running and more important plot arcs. Unfortunately, though, it may be weeks between the time you first see a character and when they pop back up again, because you were too busy trying to catch rare fish off the docks in Celondim to follow the epic quest. And even if you just saw them the day before, the graphical character limitations make it really difficult to distinguish particular NPCs.

For example, later in the game, the Rangers of the North become rather important. There are multiple Rangers. However, they're all men who wear long green hooded cloaks, so their in-game models look the same. And we don't get strong, personality-conveying 2D portraits like you would see in Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights or Shadowrun Returns: there's a procedural portrait based on their 3D character model, and while these can have many technical variations, they don't differentiate as clearly from one another. Plus, for better and for worse there's very limited voice acting, so you can't necessarily tell them apart via audio, either.

All that to say: the story feels really cool, and individual parts of it seem exciting and lore-friendly and everything, but I often felt a bit lost. I'd be standing in the middle of some huge, climactic, epic confrontation, wondering ".... who are you again, exactly?" Of course, a quick trip to the Wiki will clear things up, but that makes me even more impressed at the people who played this game at launch: they didn't just need to play under a more difficult curve with slower progression and more grinding, but that also meant that they had to go for even longer between major story beats.

MEGA SPOILERS

There's one particular part of the plot that sticks out in my mind, for slightly negative reasons but also because it's interesting and recent. That has to do with Lorniel, the daughter of Golodir, one of the many Rangers who I can't tell apart.

As I understand it (from my scattered memories and a few quick wiki searches), Golodir was a lieutenant of Aragorn who defied his leader's order to withdraw from the northern lands. Instead, he gathered a few other like-minded followers and vowed to bring the battle to Angmar. They went north, and then disappeared. Most of the other Rangers believe that he must have been killed, but Lorniel is convinced that he still lives and enlists you to find him.

Eventually, you and Lorniel track him down in Carn Dum. He was captured and is being held prisoner by Mordirith, the Steward of Angmar during the Witch-King's absence. Mordirith himself was once a King of Gondor who fought against Angmar, but was corrupted by Sauron and turned to evil. Mordirith could easily have killed Golodir, but he had more sinister plans. He has allowed you and Lorniel to "rescue" Golodir, only to brutally murder Lorniel before her father's eyes. Mordirith then allows Golodir to leave, content that he has sowed the seeds of despair and hate that will bring him over to the Enemy's side.

I winced at that part of the story - it's a pretty textbook case of the Women in Refrigerators trope which is widespread in popular culture, particularly in video games. I'd enjoyed adventuring with Lorniel and thought that she could be a cool character in her own right, but instead she is killed off to give the male character angst and motivation to take action.

That said, while that particular incident was unfortunate, it did help highlight how, in general, LotRO is actually refreshing in its portrayal of women. Throughout the game you're just as likely to find women in charge of military outposts, leading villages or fighting orcs as you are to find men doing the same thing. And unlike a lot of video games, they're not stuffed into chainmail bikinis or skintight bodysuits or other highly sexualized clothing. They're equal partners in the struggle against Sauron, visually distinct and appealing but not objectified or marginalized.

And, even the specific Lorniel case is far from the worst offender that I've seen. The story focuses on her relationship with Golodir, not with you; it's not so much a hacky way to motivate the player as a somewhat lazy source of dramatic tension. And I'm holding out hope that the game will ultimately subvert the trope. Usually, these sorts of plots are rolled out to give an antihero protagonist carte blanche to perform all sorts of atrocities in the name of revenge. Given the values of the rest of the game, though, I wouldn't be surprised if Golodir ultimately finds redemption not through acts of vengeance but through acts of compassion.

END SPOILERS

So, while the plot's particulars may seem fuzzy and indistinct at times, I still unreservedly love it, because of how well it maintains Tolkien's flavor and a wonderful sense of moral centeredness. There's a beautiful line at one point in the game, when your character is standing on the ramparts of the ruins of Annuminas and gazes out at Lake Evendim: "Though all before you looks grim, hope shines in the distance." That's one of the most perfect distillations of Tolkien's literary style and philosophy that I've read.

Much of the Middle-earth writings, from the Silmarillion through Lord of the Rings, deals with the importance of hope. When the world turns dark and dangerous and ugly and scary, it's more important than ever for individuals to maintain true to their best selves, to act faithfully towards one another, to show mercy upon their enemies, to act humbly and accept grace. We must set our standards even higher when faced with adversity, not descend into the muck.

That's a rare outlook, and one that's almost completely missing from the world of video games. It's delightful to see it captured and expressed so well in Lord of the Rings Online.

n.b. I have of course - of course! - continued to take a ridiculous number of screenshots. This covers levels 44 to 49, mostly in Angmar but with a lot of time spent having fun with Summer Festival activities.