2024 Week IV.

 Hello Internet,

I am always updating my schedules; it is just who I am.  Recently, I've had something of a crisis of faith--or better yet, a crisis of identity--which propelled me to modify and remodify my gaming schedule and my backlog list.

In shortest form (which is still quite long since it's me), I keep a number of lists which exist within the larger, supra-list of my gaming guide.  Each list provides a game which I want to play on a different day of the week, and in doing this, I take steps to keep from hyperfocusing on a game, because hyperfocus tends to suck the joy from the games I am playing.

Right now, I currently keeping five games concurrently: a backlog game (ordered by release date of the original version of the game), a multiples game (a game which has multiple endings which I intend to beat multiple times), a PS+ game (I have to justify having it; also it is a good palette cleanser for me), a replay game (some games just need to be replayed), and a series game (a game that is part of a series; beaten in order of fewest games to most games within the series).  It was my multiples list which caused me so much consternation.

One of my more recent depressive periods was brought on by, of all the things, a video game.  You see, one of my favorite video game franchises is Dragon Age.  Dragon Age is, for me, a spiritual successor of sorts to the Suikoden franchise, which is a beloved franchise from my childhood that never quite got to finish what it started.  I loved Suikoden because each game saw you growing and developing a home base, recruiting a wide swath of often unique characters, all with their own distinct histories and abilities, and it told personal, smaller stories about nations and political intrigue in a genre that was defined by world-ending conflicts.

Dragon Age did a lot of those things.  It has a deep mythology, and across the three games released so far, there are still mutliple nations unexplored, and that is not even counting the rest of the world map which hasn't been revealed.  It also does the same thing that I love so much from the Mass Effect franchise (also created by Bioware): all of its history asks why questions and draws logical conclusions.  The games are great, and the world building is phenomenal.

So far, Dragon Age has released three main titles: Origins, II, and Inquisition.  The fourth game is currently in production.  Codenamed Morris during the earliest parts of its production life, it was eventually revealed to be named Dreadwolf and will, hopefully, continue the story from where the third game, Inquisition, left off.  Spoilers: an ally from Inqusition is set to be the main bad guy in of this coming game, and his plan is to completely remake the world in a way that could have disasterous results.  It is exciting, and it is building something that has three full games of history and inrigue around it.

...Except...it's not?  Bioware has had many failures over the years.  They put a lot of money, and many people, behind the production of a game called Anthem.  Anthem was a pay as you play loot-shooter from what I understand, and it bombed horribly upon release.  Their next major release after that was Mass Effect: Andromeda, which also failed.  All of this after mixed-to-lukewarm reception for Dragon Age: Inqusition (which is my favorite from the franchise) and the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3 before that, and Bioware is limping.

Like Andromeda before it, Dreadwolf has had a number of major shakeups and dramatc behind the scenes.  It has had multiple production leads and has been restarted to scratch at least once.  Most recently, the company has let go of 50 employees who were working on the game (some of whom were there with the company since the first game in the franchise or longer: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/bioware-lays-off-around-50-employees-as-work-on-mass-effect-and-dragon-age-dreadwolf-continues#:~:text=Dragon%20Age%20and%20Mass%20Effect's,on%20efficiency%20that%20sadly%20echoes) and have also fired all of their unionized QA workers who were working on the project (https://www.polygon.com/23903782/dragon-age-dreadwolf-qa-workers-laid-off-keywords-studios).  Which gets me to my point...

Lately, it has felt like everything is unethical and everything is a grift, and that's in large part because that's true.  It is hard to take joy in things when you know that those things are bad or were created through abusive behaviors.  While there appears to be some explaination for the layoff of the QA workers, the layoff of the 50 devs is not so clear cut.  Beyond that, it also raises another question that is not equally important but which lingers in my mind.

Even were no one laid off, none of the quesitons which intrigue me about Dragon Age and its world will ever properly be answered.  In the same way that Suikoden was never going to give me answers to its most exciting questions, Dragon Age wouldn't, either.  That's because the writers want to keep people coming back, and like so many franchises or products before them, they will either die before they can fully deliver on the promises that they made, or they will live so long that I wish they had died instead.

There is no happy ending for a franchise, which is upsetting to me.  I've been going back and forth on whether or not I can ethically buy Dreadwolf, but I also know that even if it was ethically made, the game wouldn't deliver quite on what I want it to be.  All of the hands that crafted the Dragon Age world are gone, and now there are new hands which, while they might be good hands, they work differently.  I am never going to get the answers to questions I was asking, and if I do get them, they won't be answered by the people who created the answers to begin with.

This is a larger, looming frustration I have had with video games and media altogether lately, and it has disappointed me time and again.  I turn thirty-five on Tuesday, and for me, I am beginning to ask the question of how long should I invest into things I love if that time spent will only see me hating them by the end?

Thanks for reading.

RWS

P.S.

-Schedule-

1. Game/Final Fantasy III

2. Game/Radical Dreamers

3. DnD5e

4. Game/Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix HD Remix

5. Fortnite

6. Game/Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

7. Game/Final Fantasy XVI

-Books-

0. Tower: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

1. SJ/One Piece 1098

-One-Punch Man Punch 196

-DC Comics: New 52 Green Arrow: The Midas Touch

-My Hero Academia 157

-Boom! Studios: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers 4—4

-Boruto: The Next Generation 47

-Marvel Comics: Ultimates Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra 4

-JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders 26 100%

-One Piece 1101+

-One-Punch Man 196+

-DC Comics: New 52 Flash: Move Forward 1—8

-My Hero Academia Vol. 18, 158—167 

-Boom! Studios: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Vol. 2, 5—8

-Boruto: Next Generation Vol.13, 48—51

-Marvel Comics: Ultimate Elektra 1—5

-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Vol. 3, 27—40 

2. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

3. Discworld: The Color of Magic

-Games-

i. Backlog/Final Fantasy III 19hrs/Guide Pg. 77

ii. Multiples/Radical Dreamers 5hrs

iii. PS+/Final Fantasy VII REMAKE: Intergrade 49hrs/INTERmission DLC

iv. Replay/Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix HD Remix 41hrs

v. Series/Final Fantasy X-2: Last Mission International HD (01/15/2024)

vi. Free/Final Fantasy XVI 58hrs

vii. Series/Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII 48hrs

-Shows-

0. Towers: Ms. Marvel 100%

1. Critical Role Campaign 3 Part I, Ep. 7: "Behind the Curtain"—11 (Level Up to 5) 55% (7—11)

2. Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy, Ep. 15: "The Two Balls"—19 74% (15—19)

3. Dragonball Ep. 59—153 38%

4. Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 701—713 0%

5. Batman: The Animated Series Ep. 132–165 48%

6. Gargoyles 112—113 85%

7. Young Justice 112—126 42%

8. Marvel's She-Hulk 1—9 0%