So, when I said “notice” up there, I was using it to mean, “be bothered by.” Does that go back to make me more clear?

but it feels like we just circled around nothing here, but maybe I’m dense

Some of the “liminal spaces” between legacy dungeons or more unique one-off locations is a bit more repetitive than you’d typically see in a soulslike, a bit more copy-paste. ...

I think even Elden Ring is a little too big for its own good.

If Elden Ring has shown us anything its that bigger games can be fine. I’m for bigger games. I’m not for bigger Ubisoft games. The relentless tedium of them is just the worst.

The article seems to say the mock auction was organized by the students, rather than as part of any kind of formal instruction. Every teacher and admin in the school could be completely scandalized by this, but still not be able to stop it if they don’t know it’s happening in the first place.

And for still other players - players as far above you, skill-level wise, as you are above me - Legendary missions are no more challenging than the regular story missions are to you, so that difficulty level can hardly be said to be impacting the narrative for them.

I’ll give you Zavala has been more central to the narratives than Ikora*... but I don’t think that he’s really been much more developed. He’s still the same ‘stoic moral center’ that he’s always been, and - crucially - hasn’t really formed relationships to the same extent the others have. Now, maybe that’s…

I think there’s a way Bungie could do that, but again, they’d need to commit much further than they have currently, especially where Zavala and Ikora are concerned

Well I meant the Vanguard as in Zavala, Ikora, Osiris, Saint, Crow, etc. The whole of the Vanguard. Which narratively is in the middle of a character arc that started (extremely extremely slowly mind you) with the Red War.

I’m still not entirely convinced they’re building toward something that can really be called a ‘narrative’ in the traditional sense, though - things will happen, our Guardian will be indirectly involved, but won’t exhibit any sort of character growth or arc, which makes it feel less like a ‘story’ and more like…

Its also that the core narrative hasn’t really moved forward till very recently. Its gone wide building up all these side things but never really answering or resolving anything.  Its been going from adding one new piece to the board and resolving nothing to adding the next piece.  And all of those pieces idling in…

You’ve gone out of your way to find negative examples, of which there are handful - and you’re ignoring things like the entire reddit.

Like, yeah sure, I understand if you mean just the obnoxious ‘git gud bros’ who don’t even mean it as a joke.

I kind of like it because it encourages community driven testing and discoveries which results in an actual community forming around the game.

But you missing the tutorial because you were afraid to jump in a hole is not one of its flaws.

It absolutely isn’t. It’s an intended part of the games design that it doesn’t hold your hand and players are allowed to find things on their own. Like it or not, this type of design has an audience that enjoys

The game has flaws, this isn’t really one of them.

Ah I see. ‘Elden Ring is perfect and has no flaws’ is your entire personality. Gotcha.  Well that certainly explains a lot.

It’s not fucking hidden in any way.