Q&A: January 1st, 2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL

Speaking for myself, 2024 felt like a bit of a repeat for me of 2023.

Tons of personal progress in-regards to...
Mental Health: I've not sought a new Councillor after mine moved Provinces, feeling comfortable enough to prioritize...
Physical Health: Started writing this Q&A after just signing up consultation forms for specialized clinics.
Who I Am: I can tell ya, three years ago, I would've been counting the minutes to leave a Wedding rather than staying till the plastic cups were being collected in the trash, disappointed I didn't get to speak to as many people as I probably could've... but the main disappointment was not managing this while increasing my output of work.

It was the goal, and I failed... so, the goal continues.

There's some big ideas, ones involving ads, interviews, reviews, mortgages, etc, but those deserve to be discussed in-detail in the coming weeks. For January 1st, I just want to say, especially during this time, thank you.

Thank you for your support in all its forms; donations, messages, follows, watching, or in the case of bi-weekly Wednesdays...

QUESTIONS!

Duncan Gohl Asks
I know you’ve stated that we are more than likely to get Halo Wars years later than any mainline Ubisoft title before in your Ubisoft video. Were that to change, which Ubisoft game would you be most interested in covering for a video?

...Driver San Francisco is great, but it's also already been covered by many great Youtubers like Minimme, although, there is a Multiplayer angle I think the game very much deserves.

I do actually have a video regarding a Ubisoft franchise planned, thought about it even during the making of my last one, and my excuse for making it is that it's not about games but DLCs for games, and how one franchise in particular has a rather... unique approach.

Jake Malone Asks
Whats a common mechanic in one genre that you think can thrive in another that lacks it? For me personally I think shooters benefit a lot from optional dialogue, Titanfall 2 gives me a great connection to Cooper because of being able to have a choice in what to say.

Dude... Titanfall 2's dialogue options in the middle of gameplay have lived rent-free in my head since I reviewed it. I've envisioned putting that mechanic into so many game ideas it's stupid. So I won't cheat, and say "TF2 Dialogue in Everything."

I'm also going to hold off on all the things I want in Racing Games from other genres... I'm not writing a novel today.

This one's a bit of a wildcard, because it's my experience it doesn't so much pertain to genre, but indie compared to Triple AAA.

I've noticed it's quite common for Indie or Niche games to say fuck it in regards to author's intent, and just let the player fuck with their Camera, FOV, Bindings, and display method into oblivion. It makes sense, being in a niche space, or making your game entirely for one-platform like the PC, that these games typically have more options regarding these things than locked-down console ports from Microsoft and Sony...

But man, when you get used to being able to set camera placement exactly the way you want, or controls exactly how you want, it's really annoying to boot up a game and be greeted to "Low, Medium, High."

Thing about options though is that I mostly feel sympathy for the AAA games. Their studios are so massive, with so many cooks in the kitchen, multi-tasking so many different mechanics on demand from higher up under 90 hour workweeks; I'm not going to yell at a sleep deprived contractor with pizza for skin and red-bull for blood-cells that their game needs to let me break the camera with a 280 FOV for fun or I'm not buying their game.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Submit your questions in the comments below, for future Patreon Q&A's.