So yeah, that didn’t work out as planned.

Spoilers: I was supposed to have the next episode completed by the time I left on my vacation, May 11th. However, plenty of distractions, I’m lazy, blah blah, best laid schemes of mice and men, whatever, no new ep. My bad. Shooting for this upcoming week, if they’d knock off changing the damned game every 15 minutes. Never played a game so old that got so many updates. I’ve already had to make two major script changes because of this.

Recap time!

Episode 56: Scarlet Blade
I think I need to stop attending convention panels. One year I mention TERA and RIFT are still thriving sub games, and both go free-to-play. This year I said I would never look at Scarlet Blade because there was no need to, and here we are. A full episode on the boob game.
I was expecting a lot of people to get a kick out of this one. It was easy to play a humor angle, and toss in jokes because the game is just oozing with material. Hell, there were “jokes” that people found that were never intended as jokes. They legitimately wrote themselves. It’s probably my most viewed episode in a long time, some thanks in part to support from Nash of RadioDeadAir, who tweeted to his followers, and also aired the episode on his liveshow.
However, and I have NO IDEA why I was surprised by this… a set amount of staunch defenders of this game, not like the previous time where I was slighting the game as a game, admittedly not giving the game a fair shake, which I have since admitted the game is perfectly competent and a bit of fun. No, they had to defend the one thing I didn’t think anyone WAS going to defend.
The perversion. The ridiculous outfits, oddly proportioned women, and the constant immature sex puns. The things almost everyone mocked. Their defense? “There’s nothing wrong with sexuality.” You’re right… there isn’t. Too bad this isn’t sexuality, it’s click bait. The metaphorical “Carrot-on-a-stick” in order to get you to keep playing the game. To defend something so shameless and pointless is baffling. I can’t help but feel it’s the demographic that this game is catering to, too smart to simply play the game at face value, but too ignorant and inexperienced to see the game for what it really is. I could go into detail here, but I had myself one hell of an angry, curse filled rant on my Tumblr page in essence to counter this oddly common detraction. People agreed. Thankfully. Others got offended. GOOD.
For those not willing to click, I’ll just take my favorite line from that rant: “This game isn’t porn. This game isn’t even Softcore porn. This is two circles with dots in the middle scrawled onto a bathroom stall. This is a calculator with the number 5318008 on the screen, turned upside down.”
If you somehow take mockery of this game with deep personal offense… you must be hella fun at parties. Remind me never to hang out with you.
For those who are willing to admit it’s just a big ball of shameless stupid, and aren’t trying to accuse me of some strawman agenda, welcome to my side. We have a dance club.

Sidequest: Dead Island Epidemic
I was putting this off, and putting it off… and putting it off. Mostly because I was waiting to play alongside the guy who gave me the key, and subsequently had his PC shit the bed on him. Well, it comes down to us finally getting a look at it, ready to mock it and all it stands for and… god damn it, I was having fun. This game actually removes a lot of the MOBA style strife that… Strife, thinks it’s able to overcome, but getting rid of a lot of the more annoying aspects.
No “mana pools”. You can choose the same character. The gameplay is easy to understand. There’s a single player mode that’s not just you versus bots. There’s no “towers”, no “jungling”, no match items to purchase, no real “meta” of any kind.
If there was any downside it’s they it does feel a bit pay-to-win. The alternate versions of the characters actually feel stronger than the original versions, the weapons you can purchase give a serious boost, and if the price point and difference of each one is any indication, it might be intentional. It could use some serious balancing… if that isn’t, in fact, the plan. At the very least, there’s still single player. I could probably stand to go a few more rounds in this.

Quick updates, the Patreon is going along nicely, finally once again breaking the 200 mark, and steadily climbing toward the next perk. I do have to give a quick shout out to one of my Patrons, who will identify themselves if they wish to, who is having health issues which, thanks to the wonders of the american health care system, are going to set him back a bit with meds. Everyone send him some well wishes!

There will be another Sidequest before the end of this month in addition to the next full episode. I’ve scheduled both for TGWTG, so I have a nice swift boot to my ass in order to get things finished. Let’s see if that helps.

Finally, despite missing the last two SMITE Nights, there SHOULD be one tomorrow evening, standard 6-9pm time. There will be Siege Mode matches, and Tebble matches will be kept to a minimum since they cause nothing but hate and rage… which I am to understand is the intention. I haven’t played once during the double Favor weekend… I guess I felt it more important to go to Build-A-Bear and get a Toothless plushie. Priorities.

Pics and an article from a certain portion of my vacation are coming soon… mostly because I didn’t get any time to allow filming for my original idea, and had to sneak a bunch of photos because they apparently frown upon that. Will get that tossed out shortly as well. Stay tuned.