The Rise of Skywalker

This post contains major spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker. I discuss the ending and everything.

After watching The Rise of Skywalker, my first thought is that the story in Jedi: Fallen Order was a thousand times better than this movie.

I came across a forum post suggesting that The Rise of Skywalker would have been a better movie if Jar-Jar had been in it. After recovering from the shock of such rank heresy, I read the reasoning, and it actually made some sense! The thought was that RoS really needed a single designated comic relief character. That would have had allowed the other characters to be more serious, which would have improved their part in the movie. Instead, everyone other than Rey is trying to be witty and tossing one-liners around, most of which simply do not work. The worst was when C3P0's gallant sacrifice got undercut with a snarky one-liner.

Rise of Skywalker is best summed by this Simpsons clip of Sideshow Bob. RoS is Sideshow Bob, and the rakes are mistakes. The movie just steps from one mistake to the next. Palpatine is a mistake. Palpatine having a thousand Star Destroyers is a mistake. Each of those Star Destroyers being a planet-killer is a mistake. Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter is a mistake. General Hux getting dispatched ignominiously was a huge mistake. (Hux is my favorite character from the trilogy, and it was galling to see him go out like that. Such a waste.) And so on throughout the entire movie.

Truthfully, I just don't like J.J. Abrams movies. I haven't since Star Trek: Into Darkness. It's all "action sequence, one-liner, action sequence, one-liner, etc." Sometimes I really wonder how the same man wrote Alias.

J.J. Abrams also doesn't have a sense of space and time. It feels like this entire movie took place in a small city instead of a galaxy. Instead of people moving across a galaxy, they're merely going up the street to a different neighborhood. That's why it seems like their paths cross all the time. The Force Awakens had a very similar problem.

Heh, I think Finn/Rose must have done extremely badly in China. It's super-conspicuous how Finn gets paired with a black woman this time around.

The one thing I did like was the relationship between Rey and Kylo/Ben. I really liked how their realities bled into each others. It was a superb effect executed beautifully. And they simply did not bother explaining it. They didn't know why it was happening, just that it was, and then they started taking advantage of it. For me, Rey's "crowning moment of awesome" was when she dropped her lightsaber behind her back to Ben.

The ending itself violates Sanderson's First Law of Magics. There's no real reason Rey should be the winner. She just is, because the Jedi are simply more powerful than the Sith for some unknown reason. As such, it is an unfulfilling ending. Rey should have won because Ben was redeemed, because there were two Jedi at the end. Something like Rey holding Palpatine in place with the lightning sabers, and Ben finishing him.

I don't really have an opinion on the kiss, which seems to be controversial for some reason. The connection between the two of them is pretty much the only good part of the trilogy.

I do think having Ben die was a mistake. This was the final movie in a trilogy of trilogies. Let it end well, with hope and redemption and forgiveness. Have the last link to the original movies, Leia and Han's son, survive. This idea that redemption is only allowable if the bad guy immediately sacrifices himself--that needing to forgive the living is not necessary or desirable--is a weakness in modern Western storytelling.

Ultimately, I feel like you could take the three movies in this trilogy, and cut out everything but Rey and Kylo's story. Reduce Finn and Poe to side characters who only occasionally appear. The resulting movie might actually be pretty decent.

No-Castling Chess

Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik has proposed a new chess variant: No-Castling Chess.

To Kramnik, the problem with high-level chess is that it results in draws more often than wins. The logic behind his proposal is pretty straightforward:

• There are too many draws because defense is stronger than offense.
• Castling is a very strong defensive move.
• Banning castling keeps the king in the center, making it more vulnerable and empowering offense.
• It also makes it harder to "link" the rooks.

Most other solutions for high-level chess have focused on introducing randomness and time pressure. This is an interesting proposal because there is no randomness at all. In fact, it's a simpler variant of chess that everyone learns before you learn about about castling. But because castling is so strong, pretty much all established theory assumes that one or both sides castle early in the game.

Kramnik is apparently working with Alpha-Zero, and he says that Alpha-Zero comes up with some very interesting games in this new scenario.

Of course, this isn't a proposal which makes it likely that humans will start beating computers once again. It may turn out that White's moving first is an insurmountable advantage with a stronger offense. And after a few years, new opening theory will be established. But for those few years, high-level chess will be very interesting as the game is figured out once again.

First Impressions of Control

On a whim, I picked up Control, by Remedy Games, from the Epic Games Store because it was on sale for the holidays. I'm really glad I did, because it's a lot of fun. However, it's also a game where I would strongly recommend that you go in blind, because discovering everything about the setting and story is so enjoyable.

I've put anything even slightly spoiler-ish behind the cut. Here are the non-spoiler important points:

• Control is a third-person shooter.
• The setting is modern-day paranormal. Shades of the X-Files and Half-Life.
• There doesn't appear to be a difficulty setting. However, the game does not seem to be overly difficult. It's possible it will get harder later, or maybe there's some dynamic difficulty going on.

Heh, it's pretty hard to try and convince people to play this game while withholding all information. But the setting and story of the game are just so interesting and well done.

Supergiant's Hades?

Supergiant Games--developer of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre--has a new game out, Hades.

Or at least, I think they do.

I was browsing Steam when it popped up. I really enjoyed those three previous games, so I went to buy it, but then paused when I saw the 'Early Access' label. The three previous games were story-based games, so does that mean this one is not? Or perhaps they are releasing the story in pieces?

The game is described as a "rogue-like". The early reviews all seem uniformly positive, with many saying that this is one of the most polished Early Access games they've seen.

Supergiant themselves describe Early Access this way:

We designed Hades as an Early Access game from the ground up. Our foremost goal was to see if we could create something great in partnership with our community -- a game that was true to our values about design, worldbuilding, and storytelling, and could naturally evolve based on the feedback we'd get along the way. Every aspect of the game, from its modular structure to its approach to narrative, flow from this idea.

What the hell does this mean?

If I buy Hades now, is it a beta where it changes significantly, and I would have to start over when it reaches 1.0? Or maybe because it's a rogue-like where you are constantly dying and restarting runs, changes to the core game don't really matter story-wise. And the story is set in stone, even if new chapters are released slowly?

Should I buy this game now? Should I wait for Hades to actually release? Normally, buying a Supergiant game would be a no-brainer. Buy it, play it through to the end, thoroughly enjoy it, and then wait for their next game.

Why do game companies insist on making things complicated?

Jedi: Fallen Order Complete!

I finished Jedi: Fallen Order today! It was a great deal of fun.

The story was really good. A fairly standard story about a padawan becoming a knight, but executed very well. The characters and voice acting were good. The ending sequence was great!

The main villain, the Second Sister, was particularly excellent. Every time she showed up, she made the game better. One of these days, I really need to write something about how video games are so much better at making female villains than other media.

I can't really speak for the combat. This is not really my main genre, and I played it on Story mode. But even button-mashing felt a little strategic, and it was nice to pull off moves.

I really liked how the game slowly unlocked force powers through the story. It was interesting how you would return to areas where you had been, only now you can access new sections because of your new powers. They did a good job with the map, too, making it clear what you can and cannot access.

To be clear, Fallen Order isn't an RPG. It's a straightforward, linear, adventure game or platformer. It has lots of jumping puzzles and sequences, and no choices in the story. If you go in expecting something like Knights of the Old Republic, you will be disappointed. Fallen Order is what it is, but does a great job of being that.

Unique Character Archetypes

Unrelated to gaming, but I came across a character archetype I've never encountered before in Edith Layton's The Amiable Miser:

Alfred Minch was an amiable miser. He didn't kick beggars out of his way when they pleaded for alms in the street. He actually smiled at them. He just never gave them anything. ... Smiles and compliments cost nothing, and he was free with them, and good at them, too.

It was completely novel to me, and yet it makes logical sense, and hangs together well. Misers are usually miserable, cantankerous people, exemplified by Ebenezer Scrooge from Dicken's A Christmas Carol. Yet that isn't a truly necessary quality for being a miser.

Are there any other unique archetypes you've encountered in games, literature or other media? Archetypes that make sense, and yet you almost never see?

First Impressions of Jedi: Fallen Order

Looking to get the most out of my EA Access subscription, I'm trying Jedi: Fallen Order next.

Fallen Order is pretty much a pure adventure game, with lots of movement and jumping puzzles. The controls are pretty good, and so far the jumping puzzles aren't too hard.

I did turn the combat difficulty down to Story mode. I figured I was already dying a lot from failing to jump correctly, so I may as well skip dying in combat as well.

The story is pretty straightforward so far. The main character, Cal, is a padawan who escaped the purge and has been hiding ever since. But then he's forced out of hiding by Imperial Inquisitors, and joins a mission to reform the Jedi Order. So far the story is pretty straightforward. Cal is a likeable protagonist, with minimal angst, which is nice to see.

The game has pretty clever use of force powers, and interesting lightsaber combat. A little too heavy on the slow-mo kill animations, but that's a pretty minor quibble. To be honest, I'm pretty much just mashing buttons in combat, rather than parrying and using combos properly.

The main character animations, and the interactions with your droid, are superb. You can tell Respawn put a ton of effort into this, and they did a beautiful job.

All in all, it's a pretty fun game. Though if you hate jumping puzzles, you may want to give this one a miss.

Vampyr Complete!

I finally finished Vampyr today!

I was having a fair bit of trouble with the last boss. My build was based entirely around stunning and biting, and the last boss couldn't be stunned! Instead there were adds which you could bite for blood, but I was having trouble with them.

Finally after a lot of dodging, buying another rank of the health passive, and going though all my available health potions, I defeated the boss with a sliver of health left!

The ending was solid and tied up a lot of the loose ends. One thing that was interesting is that you could piece together the ending from all the various lore items that you picked up over the course of the game. The game also offered some lore items during the final chapter that filled out details, even though the final conversation sequence covered the same ground.

Now that I'm typing that out, it sounds redundant, but really it reinforced the ending. A little repetition in different formats allowing you to understand exactly what happened. A lot of games miss how hard it is to convey complicated information to the player without dumbing everything down.

I did beat the game without embracing any civilians, so I got the "best" ending. It was a satisfying and appropriate ending.

In particular, Vampyr has me reconsidering my penchant for playing games on Story difficulty. I very often do so, justifying it because I'm primarily interested in the story and not really a twitch gamer. But I rather think that without failing again and again on the bosses (especially the boss of Act III), I would not have experienced the point of Vampyr. The way Dontnod used the difficulty to simulate the temptation of drinking blood for the vampire. It was an excellent mechanic.

All in all, I really enjoyed Vampyr. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting RPG that's different from the normal fantasy world. Vampyr was an excellent blend of story, setting, and mechanics. I will be keeping an eye out for other games by Dontnod Entertainment.

December Updates

World of Warcraft

Still boycotting.

Vampyr

I'm working on the boss of Act V (I think). This one puts circles of light on the ground that you have to avoid, but if you get too far away from him, he pulls out a gun and starts shooting. I'm still trying to find a good strategy of dealing with it.

I do have one side-quest outstanding. I may go and do that quickly before coming back to this boss.

The Old Republic

I think Bioware messed up the scaling on the vehicles. I'm taking my Inquisitor through Iokath, and there's this one part where you have to fight 3 giant Sentinel robots in a Walker, and I'm just getting wrecked. I can't even kill one before I die. I seriously do not remember this fight being this hard.

Final Fantasy XIV

I'm slowly leveling Red Mage. I'm up to 78 now. While waiting for the queue to pop, I'm leveling Botanist and Armorer. I rather like the changes that SE made to the gathering and crafting classes. They also level extremely fast now. I can get 2 to 3 levels of Botanist just from the class quests that come every 5 levels.

Vampyr Combat Mechanics

I'm still making my way through Vampyr. I estimate I'm at the 80% mark or so. I think there's two major reasons it's taking me so long. First, I'm very under-leveled due to the whole not eating people thing, and I'm not particularly skilled with twitch mechanics, so boss fights take me a long time to beat. In hindsight, I probably should have played the game on Story. Though I rather think I would have missed much of the "point" of the game that way.

Second, there's a lot of conversations and puzzles with the citizens that I'm really enjoying, and that eats up a lot of time.

I thought I'd discuss the mechanics of the game. They're nothing greatly out of the ordinary, but they work well together.

There are three resources in combat: health, stamina, and blood. Swinging your weapon costs stamina, as does dodging. If you aren't attacking, stamina recovers fairly quickly. Blood powers your vampire abilities, which includes a healing ability, an attack, a defensive, mobility and a special on a long cooldown.

Enemies have two resources: health and a "stun" meter. Certain weapons (like clubs or stakes) can inflict stun damage, as can timing a parry correctly. If you reduce the stun meter to zero, the enemy is stunned and you can bite them and drink some blood, increasing your blood meter. Once they come out of the stun, the stun meter goes back to full.

So combat basically follows a pattern of dodging and parrying enemy attacks, getting some damage in, stunning and biting, then using the blood to heal up and use vampire abilities, and repeat.

One other mechanic is that while you are biting someone, any other opponents won't attack you. That makes it a nice break to allow your stamina to regenerate. I'm not entirely sure if this makes sense from a logical perspective (after all, wouldn't you attack the vampire to save your friend?) but it does allow the whole cycle to actually work. Otherwise biting someone in combat would be an automatic loss.

There are other options. For example, you can alter certain weapons to drain blood, so you don't need to stun and bite. Not every weapon can parry. Some weapons are fast and some are slow. There are firearms, which do a lot of damage, but because of the time period they don't hold a lot of ammunition, so you get very few shots off.

Bosses have a lot of health, and if you get caught by them, they tend to deal a lot of damage in quick succession. A boss fight can be going reasonably well, and then you make one mistake and you lose 60% of your health in short succession, especially if you get knocked down. At least for me, most of the blood drained goes toward constantly healing myself.

All in all, the combat mechanics work well together, there's a nice flow, and they reinforce the whole vampire aspect of the game.

Reconsidering the Blizzard Boycott

I miss my guild. I miss raiding. I'm beginning to wonder if I should just bow to the inevitable, and give up this boycott of Blizzard.

There was a kerfuffle last week in the Magic: the Gathering community. Their Creative department had always been reliably progressive in past. Two of the five "main" characters, Chandra and Nissa, were both women and attracted to each other.

That relationship was unceremoniously dispatched in the latest novel, with Chandra emphasizing she was attracted to men. Wizards of the Coast followed the Blizzard playbook exactly and "apologized", but confirmed the new direction. The apology was not accessible from China.

Maybe China dictating the practices of Western companies is just the new normal, and the only thing one can reasonably do is enjoy the decline. 

Nassim Taleb puts forth an interesting theory in a chapter from his book, Skin in the Game: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority. He suggests that in a tolerant society, the rules will be dictated by the most intransigent minority with skin in the game. In our new globalist era, that's basically China. 

It's a pretty interesting theory, actually, though Taleb doesn't really address what happens when there are multiple intransigent minorities holding opposite views. In this case, does the largest minority win? Does the market attempt to offer options, to placate each minority separately?

So that's what I'm contemplating. Should I reinstall WoW or not? I really would like to raid again. On the other hand, one cannot become an intransigent minority without actually being intransigent.

Vampyr Citizens Survive for another Night!

I beat the boss I was working on, without needing to embrace a civilian!

In the setting of the fight, there is an unconscious priest. When the boss reaches 66% for the first time, she will drain the priest, healing back up and boosting her power. In theory, you can drain the priest first, and prevent the boss from healing and powering up.

I decided that--since the priest was going to die anyways--I would try draining him first, and see if that made the fight easier.

I started the fight, but could not figure out how to actually drain the priest. I'm not sure If I was standing in the wrong spot, or pressing the wrong button, or if you need to wait for a specific moment. But since the boss was constantly pressing the attack, I didn't have a lot of time to experiment.

Eventually the boss hit the 66% mark, and drained the priest. So I figured I may as well play out the fight and try again. Only I actually defeated the boss in that attempt!

There was one dicey moment in the last phase when I got really low on health, but I was able to dodge away and heal up.

Now I'm on to Act II, and the citizens remain alive. We'll see if that state of affairs continues. All the enemies in the new area are around level 28 compared to my level 21, so I have to be pretty careful.

A Time for Hard Decisions in Vampyr

It looks like I'm going to have to kill and drain a civilian in Vampyr.

I'm about halfway through the game, and I'm stuck on a boss. The boss is level 21, and I'm level 18. On my own, I can get the boss to about 30%, but she speeds up then, and I cannot keep up. I've tried respeccing and different strategies, but I've come to the conclusion that I need to be higher level. And the only XP left are those tasty civilians.

So far, I have avoided "embracing" any civilians. I did cause one civilian to die due to a bad choice, so I can't get a perfect game in any case. And I think just one or two would be enough.

But which one should I take? I've been flipping through the stat pages, almost like looking through a menu at a restaurant. The vicious gang boss, who's wife is cheating on him and planning on ousting from the gang leadership? The serial killer who's the sole child and support of a genuinely good woman? An unrepentant slum lord? The hospital patient who thinks she's a vampire?

I really like the civilians in this game. They're written very well. Most of them have shades of grey, even the outright "bad" ones.

I have to give Dontnod credit for these mechanics. They fit the game beautifully, and elegantly get across that you're playing a good guy who cannot escape the fact that he is a monster.

As an aside, one other interesting thing about Vampyr is that it is an "auto-save" game. The game auto-saves often, so you can always pick up where you left off. But you cannot access old saves. If you make a decision in the game, it's pretty much final for that playthrough. SWTOR is like this, but it feels unusual for a single-player game. However, it does works well in Vampyr.

Blizzcon Apology, China, Hong Kong

Blizzcon Apology

At the start of Blizzcon, J. Allen Brack delivered an "apology". It was a very oblique apology, not one that was clear and straightforward.

One of the problems with the modern world is that we pay too much attention to what people say, and very little attention to what they actually do. Here Blizzard mouths some nice-sounding words, but never actually state what they did wrong. They did not reinstate Bliztchung, or apologize to him specifically.

The lack of actual concrete actions means that Blizzard's apology was meaningless. A speech to pacify the audience, and keep Blizzcon on track.

China

I've seen some commentary that many people upset with Blizzard are hypocrites for buying goods made in China. And maybe that's true. But here's my take on it.

25 years ago, our political leadership and business elite made the decision that it was acceptable to do business with China. That we could invest in China, and China could invest in us. The thinking at the time was that China would absorb our values and peacefully convert.

In hindsight, it is clear that was a bad decision. Instead of absorbing our values, China is exporting theirs. Our supply chains are too entangled with China to make disengagement easy. Our corporations will gladly enforce Chinese repression in order to avoid losing access to the Chinese market. Opening trade with China only served to empower the Chinese government.

But I don't think it's fair to fault those who followed decisions of the leadership, especially as it wasn't obvious they were wrong. For better or worse, trade with China is "normal", now. The struggle is to keep "repression" or "suppression of criticism" from becoming normal as well.

Personally, though, I will try to avoid buying items made in China from now on. I doubt it will be possible, but if I can buy a similar item from a different source, I will choose that option.

Hong Kong

I believe Hong Kong is going to end in blood. In fact, I rather think that the pressure brought by China on companies like the NBA and Blizzard is battle space preparation, showing the people of Hong Kong that they can pressure the West into staying silent.

When the tanks roll into Hong Kong, will the people who work for Blizzard or the NBA regret the stance they've taken? Or will they shrug, ban anyone who says anything about it, and keep counting their profits?

The Mandalorian

Disney released the first episode of their new television series, The Mandalorian, today. It was excellent!

It's pretty much a pure space western, with a well-done protagonist, and an interesting set up. There are so many small touches that just work. I loved the bit where the Mandalorian refuses to be paid in Imperial credits since the Empire is gone, and settles for a lesser amount in Calamari currency. The makers are content to let their world-building speak for itself, without feeling the need to state everything.

I strongly recommend The Mandalorian. It's possibly the best Star Wars since the original trilogy.

Nov 2019 Updates

I have been having some trouble with nerve pain in my arm lately, making it very hard to sleep through the night. Hopefully it's nothing serious, but as a result I haven't gamed very much in the last two weeks.

I've played a little bit more of Vampyr, and I think I'm somewhere around the halfway mark. I still haven't Embraced any citizens, and combat seems to be going okay for now. However, the average enemy level seems to be pulling away from my current level.

FFXIV 5.1 was released a couple weeks ago. A good patch. The Nier story and raid are particularly enjoyable, especially for Nier fans. The forums seem to be complaining about how hard it is to win the 2B costume from the end of the raid (3 costumes drop for the 24-man raid), but I got it on my run this week with an 86 roll.

Otherwise, I did the SWTOR: Onslaught Republic story with my Jedi Knight. It was well done, though maybe less interesting than the Empire story. (Possibly that's just my preference for the Empire, though.) I liked the story of Tau and her new padawan, Arn. I also did a couple of the Onderon weeklies. A couple of them are a bit buggy, and some quest markers are hard to see in the dense jungle, but otherwise they're solid.

The new gearing system is pretty nice. It actually reminds me more of gearing in Diablo 3, rather than traditional MMO gearing. Lots of gear drops, and it's all around your current gear level, so you swap in new pieces fairly often with your item level slowly increasing instead of jumping.

I do want to write a post on Blizzcon. Hopefully I will get around to it soon.

First Impressions of Vampyr

I was going through Origin: Access looking for a game to play when I came across Vampyr. I like vampire stories, especially ones which focus on the downsides of being a vampire, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I have heard nothing about this game, it seems to have been completely ignored in my circles. This is a shame, as it's actually a really good RPG.

Vampyr is set in London in 1919, just after the World War I and in the middle of the Spanish Flu Epidemic. You play as Dr. Jonathon Reid, a former army surgeon, who is suddenly transformed into a vampire, and is trying to figure out just what happened to him. The first five minutes of the game makes it clear that being a vampire is not a good thing.

Vampyr is a classic RPG. You talk to NPCs (called citizens in the game), earn XP, and spend XP on various vampiric powers. You use weapons (knives, clubs, stakes, and revolvers so far) and can upgrade them, etc. You get "quests" from the citizens. Citizens have secrets which you uncover through conversations and documents. Some of them are ill, and as a doctor, you can create medicines to cure them.

The "special" element in the game is that by far the largest source of XP are the citizens themselves! You can mesmerize them, lead them off out of sight, and feed on them if you choose, killing them. You get the most XP if they are healthy and if you have uncovered all their secrets.

The citizens themselves are excellently written. They all have unique personalities. Some are good people, some are bad, some are mixed. The game is fully voiced, and all the actors do a great job. As normal for me, I'm trying to play without embracing any citizen. However, as I'm playing, I catch myself wondering if anyone would really miss this this unrepentant criminal citizen.

Like all good vampire stories, Vampyr thrives on contradictions. Dr. Reid is a Man of Science transformed into a Creature of Myth. The game encourages you to care for the citizens, to heal them and learn all about them. Then it encourages you to feed on them, as they now give the most XP.

Combat is probably the weakest part of the game. It's serviceable, but it isn't anything to write home about.

So far I'm really enjoying Vampyr. If you're looking for a solid RPG in a unique setting, I strongly recommend it. Hopefully the rest of the game is just as good as these first few hours have been.

The Old Republic: Onslaught

This post contains some minor spoilers for The Old Republic: Onslaught.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched its latest expansion last week, Onslaught. This expansion adds a new story, a level cap increase to 75, and some changes to gearing and some cleanup for the UI.

The story in Onslaught is a bit short, probably clocking in at about three hours each for each faction. TOR has gone back to the Empire versus Republic stories, with the Sith Empire launching an attack on a new Correllian shipyard, and various machinations around that. It's very good though, and in many ways is a welcome return to form after the Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne style.

I will say that the loyalist Imperial story is perfect for an Imperial Agent, and I greatly enjoyed it. There are lots of good callbacks to the older story, along with newer NPCs.

There is one weird or interesting thing about Onslaught, which feels different from previous versions. Before, you had:

• Original - 8 class stories in a shared timeline.
• Makeb - 2 faction stories in a shared timeline.
• Revan, Fallen Empire, Eternal Throne - 1 story in a shared timeline.

Now, in Onslaught we have 2 faction stories, but the timeline is not really shared. It's like many similar timelines, but things are unfolding differently in each timeline.

For example, let's take Darth Vowrawn. At the end of Onslaught, he can be:

1. Dead
2. A member of the Dark Council
3. The Sith Emperor

This is a huge variation in outcomes and story going forward!

And Bioware is doing this for a lot of different elements. I wrote a post once about Story Choices That Constrain the Future. In Onslaught, that doesn't seem to hold anymore, and Bioware is actively committing to making many similar versions of the story, with differences to account for your choices.

It will be really interesting to see how Bioware attempts to deal with this design, and whether they can maintain it going forward. Or if they work towards collapsing some of these timelines back into a single one. For example, they could have another Sith kill Vowrawn and Acina (whichever are still alive), and become the new Emperor, cleaning up those timelines. Which would be kind of sad, as I really like Empress Acina. But she's already dead in some timelines.

In any case, Onslaught is a worthy addition to The Old Republic, and very enjoyable. Hopefully Bioware will be able to produce content faster than they have in the past, and the story continues.

Blizzard's Response is Disgraceful

Blizzard responded to the outcry late Friday evening, reducing the suspension to six months. This is a cynical attempt to defuse the community outcry, while desperately trying to stay in the good graces of the Chinese government.

There is one single truth at the heart of this matter: Bliztchung did nothing wrong.

He played fairly. He won the tournament fairly. In an interview after the tournament, where he was only one being interviewed, he expressed support for a political position that was important to him.

There is nothing wrong with this conduct. Indeed, it is even admirable.

There is a long and storied tradition of athletes in our culture espousing political positions, criticizing the government or the state. Blitzchung's actions fit squarely within that tradition.

The issue is not that the punishment was too severe. It's that Bliztchung was punished at all. Punishing admirable conduct is unjust, no matter how you dress it up or point to overly-broad rules.

Blizzard's response is an attempt to mollify the community, while at the same time persuading them that what Blitzchung did was wrong. That criticizing the Chinese state is wrong. Once you agree with that, the degree of punishment is only a detail, one month, six months, a year, a lifetime. The important part is that China and Blizzard have convinced you that criticizing the Chinese state is wrong.

J. Allen Brack and Blizzard are a disgrace to the gaming community and to our society. The Chinese government has ordered them to squelch dissent. Blinded by greed, they have chosen to act as agents of repression. Blizzard has gone past mere trade, and into active collaboration.

Time To Boycott Blizzard

From /r/wow's summary of events:

Earlier today Blizzard announced that Hearthstone player Blitzchung will be stripped of his price money for "Grandmasters Season 2" and be banned from participating in official Hearthstone tournaments for a year. This is following him proclaiming support for the protests in Hong Kong in a live post-match interview on stream. The two casters conducting the interview were reportedly also fired.

I am deeply disappointed in Blizzard. I don't expect them to support Hong Kong explicitly, or anything like that. Indeed, maybe they don't. But Freedom of Speech--especially in political matters--is the core Enlightenment value, the one from which all the others flow.

Blizzard has decided that preserving access to the Chinese market by appeasing the repressive Chinese government is worth betraying those values. I am disgusted by their spinelessness.

I have cancelled my subscription, and will boycott Blizzard, until such time as they come to their senses and remember who they should be.

For Blitzchung, I repeat his words, the ones which got him banned:

Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age.