Month: August 2021

There’s a lot to be said about the sheer amount of isekai being adapted into anime these past few years. Stories about normal neets/office workers getting bumped into by Truck-Kun and then waking up in a fantasy world. Sometimes with a ridiculous superpower, sometimes without. But almost always being overpowered through some kind of advantage, be it natural or not.

The stairs in the northwest tower of Zath Gor Bastion lead up into the tower, but also down beneath to the dungeons of Zath Gor. With the loss of the other properties & territory of the Counts of Gor, these dungeons have become the primary means to lock up malcontents, rivals, and important prisoners. Attached to the dungeons but primarily under the main keep building are further understructures used as (somewhat damp) overflow living areas for the resident sorcerer. This area is accessed via the dungeons or through a secret trap door in the floor of the keep. The sublevel below this and the dungeons includes old scrolls and paperwork from the height of the county, as well as a secret treasure room.

Finally there is an escape tunnel down here that connects to a…

This month, former WildStar lead Stephan Frost posted an epically long Twitter thread about what he saw as a sad and frustrating “flat circle” of MMO development. It certainly was an interesting behind-the-scenes read about the struggle and race to get a functioning MMO out the door while building up (and keeping) a critical mass of players. He doesn’t seem very optimistic it can be done.

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines here that he’s primarily speaking of WildStar as the inspiration for this post. I think what rankles me — and others who read this — is that while many of his points are true, Frost was leaving out a whole lot of personal and studio blame for why MMOs (again, primarily WildStar) fail. He makes it sound like it was out of his hands, just a tragedy of a lack of funds and time.

But that’s…