Same ol' Same ol'

Hmm ... . There's something that I'm doing currently ... that I've basically wanted to do eventually, for a long time now. Sitting there and doing it however ... made me feel like I'm just wasting my time. It's like when playing Dwarf Fortress and the novelty starts to wear off. Like, the Dwarves are doing just fine and ... it's like ... time to start over again. It's a bit of an issue with me. That, at least on the surface, it seems like I'm good at starting things, but not at actually finishing them.

And then there's all the troubles in the world. I mean, that really starts to take all this feeling of wasting my time home. But then it's not like ... much I could do. It both seems like a waste of time eventually - though one actually gets me to feel like it has meaning; Even if it doesn't really pass a somewhat skeptical reality check.
And all that kind of begs the question: What is Life?


What's it all about? I mean, watching Fanatic Christians and other Neo-Fascist movements spew their rhetoric ... I have to wonder what it is they're actually thinking. Because ... if it really just is what they say ... that only throws up more questions.

Like ... if feminism is this existential threat due to women having no interest in being "the wife" and all that procreation business ... how in the hell is doubling down on being as repugnant to women going to help any of that? I mean ... there's this game that some people are making a big fuzz about ... and calling it "a whole bunch of incel shit" is like ... the kindest way of putting it.

I mean ... a long time ago I said as much as that I think it's OK if people have "Waifu"s - a.k.a. a fictional girlfriend of sorts. Or boyfriend if it's that way around. But I also agree that ... the whole situation between men and women has grown somewhat concerning. And looking at how people are amped about this game as though it were the second coming of Christ ... and how it's a victory against all the woke people ... I cannot tell you just how PATHETIC that looks! Mostly because the language doesn't have the words. (Stellar Blade it is called, in case you want to do some research)

And the logic is like ... brainrotten to the core. I mean: On the one side people will call out how the protagonist is just an uninspired sex doll ... and on the other side all of a sudden anti-asian racism is brought into it, and the big "gotcha" is are pictures of the female model - like: "An actual woman", because someone wrote that she's like designed by someone who never saw a real woman. If that doesn't like ... cause like ... second hand shame I don't know what will.


But addressing this stuff ... what's the point? I mean, in South Korea this shit is apparently the worse of any place in the world - right now - so much so that the fronts may have become so hardened - that South Korea might just die. Some would blame the wokes ... because of course ... and others the misogynists ... because of course.

Now, if we want to treat this as a desease - looking for the causes would be the first step. Apart from treating the symptoms. Properly. I mean, the thing with symptoms is that the particularly nasty one's are part of how the desease perpetuates itself. If you've played that game where you evolve a virus to kill all humans you know that. So, you can't just assume that your gut reaction to a symptom is the right way. Probably it's not!


Anyhow. Something that's been growing inside of me as of late is a bit of an understanding about how intelligence factors into all this. And by that I don't think of IQ per se - but ... prudence or level-headedness. And then I saw J.S. Sterlings take on Dragon's Dogma 2 ... and it's basically the same situation. There's no point in trying to argue against what they're saying because ... they think they're right and that's the end of it. But so I had to think of what that means to me. For, obviously our individual experiences with the game don't ... align; And so something about "individual experiences" just in general comes to mind. The fact that when in a particular mood - like, once the stars align - things that could otherwise be boring might end up being real fun. Or the other way around. Like, I have to wonder what makes you run back and forth the different locations in Dragon's Dogma ... TWENTY times! The only thing I could think of at first is that they're just doing it wrong! Where, "telling them how to do it right" is probably not going to change much. And then it clicked. James Stephanie Sterling, with all Love and Respect, is a filthy casual.

And there are some things I would call 'bad' about that. Them going off on a rant about how Souls-games need an easy mode whenever another title drops - even when the game gives the player all sorts of tools to make an "ought to be difficult" game easy - is like a symptom of that.


There is here, I don't think, a way of "fixing" that. There's no way around it - to say: Casuals are real and they have a right to exist too!

Which takes me back to the thing I was doing. Ever since Dark Souls 3 - after beating it the first time and starting new Runs - I wanted to like ... play like I knew what I was doing. Like in a Speedrun where the player knows exactly where to go and what to pick up to have a particular build for this and that occasion. Except ... not as a Speedrun. But a ... "my Build Run" ... kind of thing. And the thing with this run I'm working on is ... it's like ... super noob friendly I think. It's not 100% cheap - like, there are challenges along the way, and eventually the player has to actually play the game - so, there is 'actual gameplay' - but a lot of it can be captured as some kind of practice leading up to the real boss fights. And so I'm thinking that a walkthrough like that could make the game more accessible for 'casuals' while also teaching them a thing or too about ... stuff. Not only related to the game.


I mean, I would put it like this: Once you get through the mandatory opening of the game and you open the door to enter the game proper - I would say one should step up and look what's on the screen. Identifying the points of interest, looking for the church in the distant. And going there. It's a task so simple one might think that nobody should have problems with it - and yet people run towards that one dude with a giant hallberd three times their size - at least - get their ass handed to them, packaged nicely in little boxes - and then they yell about how the game is unfair. That because ... I'd call it "casual game blindness" or "near sightedness". In "casual friendly games", there's usually a minimap - and whether the map is linear or open matters not because the challenges between where the player is and that point on the map are just as much designed for the player's level nonetheless. But a lot of parts of the game are deceptively noob/low-level friendly ... which is a thing my run is capitalizing on.

So, my hope there would be - that standing still and identifying what's on the screen for a bit - may activate some parts of people's brains that ... might even be positively stimulating. And this might be the easiest way to understand the difference between watching and doing something yourself.


So, in the near future you should expect me to publish this walkthrough - which effectively covers the first half of the game. So, beating Morgott or what's his name - because, other than going for that Boss Kill I don't know what else to go for. The build is effectively done at that point ... and the goal of having a causal introduction to the game would be reached. So ... a 'proper' introduction. A ... sweaty one. Not just ... "oh I died I guess the game sucks let's play [casual game]".


I call it: My Arcana Run. Eventually I'm looking forward to doing the same with Dwarf Fortress, but right now ... this is what I'm wasting my time on.