Jan 2020 Life Update + Lost Ark Discussion

Updated my blog's theme today. I'm trying to be a bit more environmentally friendly, and this small change saves a lot of power when you open it up (white is MUCH more energy-intensive than black). I hope it's just as easy to read as before, if not more so.

So I have about 4 job applications outstanding, and have 4.5k words to my background and story so far. So the latter is going swimmingly, despite my wrestling with writer's block; for the former, I wish I had more apps done.

I also beat the core game of Monster Hunter World, and bought its newly released expansion, Iceborne, so I have more to play. I love many of MHW's systems: weapon combos, stamina, gear. I will be adopting (and improving) many of them in my game. At the same time, I've come to the realization I don't actually like playing MHW all that much. I find the game a stressful experience in general, mainly because I am not good at these games and find them quite difficult. And who likes to feel stress in their game?

Video on Lost Ark

Typical Korean studio. Koreans draw AMAZING art - when I was in high school all the top artists were Korean. This translates into beautiful video games and Lost Ark is no exception.

The problem with Korean games is they suck ass: they're super fun for like maybe the first 30 hours and after that the enjoyment falls off a cliff. (That video says the same.) And Korean game studios will always make statements like "Oh we'll update the game with new stuff so you'll have more fun, no worries!" But their updates are typically terrible, and this is just a way for them to sucker customers into paying more for nothing. In the meantime, their existing budget goes to their secret new project chugging along in the background so they can sucker you out of even more money in a few years. 

Clearly, I have limited trust in Korean businesspeople. My father was always mildly racist to Koreans, mostly because in the 90's South Korea was largely a highly corrupt place and he remembers their 'business practices' clearly. I respect Koreans but I do agree in one area: even today, they can be an unscrupulous bunch where business is concerned.

Rant aside, I still want to play Lost Ark, which is why the video interests me. This is mainly because Lost Ark has dragons (4:05, 4:23) and big machine things (3:30). Sounds kind of childish, I know. But you see, all the major Western ARPGs have you fighting demons, which is fine, but after 15 years it gets kind of stale, you know? A simple artistic departure like that actually means a lot in entertainment. 

Ultimately, I want to see how they implement said enemies in their games: animations, attacks, systemic bugs & glitches. Learn by example, good or poor. For example, there's the issue of model blocking - if you see the dragon fight (4:23) some of the players' character models get entirely covered by the dragon's wing or head. So you can lose where your character is and what your character is doing. Lost Ark seems to merely keep the players' overhead names, but I was thinking of also adding a colored silhouette of the character so players could also see their characters' animations.

Model blocking - characters getting completely dwarfed by a dragons' head in Lost Ark.