Detroit: Become Human and Some LOTRO Thoughts
NaNoWriMo is off to a bit of a rocky start this year. I got the time off for it, but I immediately caught a cold--a sadly common occurrence whenever I have vacation--and the focus has not been there. ): Instead, I have been gaming up a storm, mostly because they're games I've already played and therefore easy to zone out to. (^^)" Namely, LOTRO and Detroit: Become Human.
In LOTRO I've been focusing specifically on the Harvestmath festival, which I have memorized and therefore can go through the entire festival on a few characters, get a bunch of cosmetics, and repeat. I have... so many fall cosmetics at this point, you guys. XD I want to get the "All Tricked Out" title for a few of my characters, which basically means running about one of the neighborhoods and gathering a ton of treats for "Treats and Trickery," a festive event Begonia Grubb has got going in the Shire. It has become a bit more of a grind than I thought it would, but it is entertaining and the doormats with the treats are just great. I particularly like the apple goblins. :D
In fairness, part of the reason the title is taking so long is because I'm working on multiple characters on two different servers. I only really want three of my 13 or so characters to have it this year, but that's still a lot of trick-or-treating. D8
But! Since I've been doing the festival grind, I got what can only be described as an epic fish pond to add to my house. This is not, strictly speaking, a festival item, but by doing a lot of the festival you get "figments of enchantment," which you can then trade for other goods, such as the fish pond. This is a newer mechanic and one that still bewilders me as I have yet to find a consistently good way of getting these figments of enchantment, but, eh. I'll figure it out eventually. XD Anyway, pictures under the cut! I have Viburnum posing next to it, so you can get an idea of its size relative to a hobbit.
The fish are swimming under the lily pads here, but I'm pretty sure they're koi or something similar?
As for DBH, I finished my "all achievement" playthrough yesterday and, as that implies, I now have every single achievement in the game. I wasn't particularly efficient about it, though. The Internet tells me this can be done in 25 hours (although I'm unclear on whether that's on top of the 10 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough or in total), but I took a grand total of 61. XD Yes, the game was replayed a lot. There are still paths I haven't seen, but I've seen a lot more of them now, so I figure I'll write up some of my current thoughts in comparison to my last playthroughs.
My main thought after playing and replaying this much is that this thing needs a sequel. Not just because I want to see more of the characters, but because there are a few world issues that just... are not resolved in this game, understandably so as it would have extended the length of the game profoundly. But a few things I can't help but wonder about:
1) Winning the (peaceful) revolution doesn't mean androids have equal rights. If anything, it's just the beginning of the battle. There's going to be court cases, a need for new laws, etc. and all of that is going to take time. Furthermore, there are still going to be a ton of people that don't like androids because~
2) There's still a 37% unemployment rate in this game. That is an astronomically high figure for that kind of thing. The public may accept androids are alive, but there's going to be a whole new kind of competition. If androids are people, they must be compensated for their work, but there are also a ton of humans without work. How do you balance giving androids fair wages while also getting more humans hired as well? And how do you prevent inevitable bias going both ways where some employers prefer androids because they're "better" at their job while others prefer "humans" because androids freak them out?
3) Do android children age physically and/or mentally? Alice saw a grown up version of herself die. Does that mean she can grow up or does it mean there's an adult model of her? Can her consciousness be put into that model as she "ages?"
4) Is the president going to lose her job considering how badly she handled... literally everything? Regardless of which ending you get, she didn't handle androids well, she wasn't/isn't handling the unemployment numbers well, and that's probably just scratching the surface of things she didn't do well.
5) In that ending where I used the dirty bomb and basically annihilated every human in Detroit (*ahem*), what kind of society is going to grow from that? Connor was still alive and in Detroit; will he leave or is he going to be executed by the other androids should they find him? Furthermore, humans can't enter Detroit for at least 50 years. What happens once those 50 years are up? And what's going to happen to the androids outside Detroit? Presumably they'll all be killed, which means there is exactly one place on earth that still has androids and it's a toxic wasteland. But they have access to CyberLife Warehouse... Could they make more androids?
6) In that other ending, where Kara and co. are taken to the internment camps and dumped with the rest of the androids... How does that continue? I actually did get all three of them to survive in that ending, but... Are they just going to live in a mass graveyard? Or will they escape and try to blend in with human society? Also, that was an incredibly depressing ending and literally makes all the other bad endings seem kind of tame. 8D The whole internment camp section was by far the most disconcerting part of the whole game and we're talking about a game where all kinds of horrible fates lie in store for Kara, such as being killed by Todd, a slow death via gunshot and freezing cold river water, mass execution on the American-Canadian border, mind control by a literal madman which will probably lead to death if you don't break free, etc. etc.
...You know, looking at this, I kind of feel like Kara's getting the roughest endings. Maybe this is why I had the hardest time getting the happy ending for her. With Markus and Connor, sure they have some bad endings, but it wasn't too hard to figure out how to get the good one. With Kara, a good ending relies on so many other factors. D:
Anyhow, if DBH got a sequel I seriously doubt it could address all that, hence fanfiction. But a sequel could at least address some of it. My guess is they would treat the good ending as the canon ending as it leaves you with the most plot to explore what with all the characters being alive and I would absolutely like to see this.
A few other thoughts mostly related to fandom: People try to write Connor too much like they're writing Data, and when you get down to it these two characters aren't actually that similar outside of a predisposition to speaking formally. Connor is infinitely shadier even when he's being a good guy. XD And why didn't he ever get in trouble for wielding that many weapons? Also, I think there's a trend for writing Hank as too bothered about androids. Yes, he curses and he has issues with them, but let's no forget that he changed his tune pretty easily over the course of the game. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a delicate balance you want to maintain when writing Hank between making him too much of a "good" guy and way too much of a jerk.
I don't get people's problem with North. She was a great character and her desire to take action makes perfect sense when you consider her background and the way humans are treating her people. And yet, I see a lot of writers treat her like she doesn't have any depth and a lot of people that just don't like her relationship with Markus, which... I don't get. It wasn't any more or less developed than any of his other relationships and the two were a good balancing act or just a solid team depending on how you played it.
I would like more stories about Kara and her found family in general. ): They're such a good trio and they went through so much... There are stories there and plenty that could be explored.
In LOTRO I've been focusing specifically on the Harvestmath festival, which I have memorized and therefore can go through the entire festival on a few characters, get a bunch of cosmetics, and repeat. I have... so many fall cosmetics at this point, you guys. XD I want to get the "All Tricked Out" title for a few of my characters, which basically means running about one of the neighborhoods and gathering a ton of treats for "Treats and Trickery," a festive event Begonia Grubb has got going in the Shire. It has become a bit more of a grind than I thought it would, but it is entertaining and the doormats with the treats are just great. I particularly like the apple goblins. :D
In fairness, part of the reason the title is taking so long is because I'm working on multiple characters on two different servers. I only really want three of my 13 or so characters to have it this year, but that's still a lot of trick-or-treating. D8
But! Since I've been doing the festival grind, I got what can only be described as an epic fish pond to add to my house. This is not, strictly speaking, a festival item, but by doing a lot of the festival you get "figments of enchantment," which you can then trade for other goods, such as the fish pond. This is a newer mechanic and one that still bewilders me as I have yet to find a consistently good way of getting these figments of enchantment, but, eh. I'll figure it out eventually. XD Anyway, pictures under the cut! I have Viburnum posing next to it, so you can get an idea of its size relative to a hobbit.
The fish are swimming under the lily pads here, but I'm pretty sure they're koi or something similar?
As for DBH, I finished my "all achievement" playthrough yesterday and, as that implies, I now have every single achievement in the game. I wasn't particularly efficient about it, though. The Internet tells me this can be done in 25 hours (although I'm unclear on whether that's on top of the 10 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough or in total), but I took a grand total of 61. XD Yes, the game was replayed a lot. There are still paths I haven't seen, but I've seen a lot more of them now, so I figure I'll write up some of my current thoughts in comparison to my last playthroughs.
My main thought after playing and replaying this much is that this thing needs a sequel. Not just because I want to see more of the characters, but because there are a few world issues that just... are not resolved in this game, understandably so as it would have extended the length of the game profoundly. But a few things I can't help but wonder about:
1) Winning the (peaceful) revolution doesn't mean androids have equal rights. If anything, it's just the beginning of the battle. There's going to be court cases, a need for new laws, etc. and all of that is going to take time. Furthermore, there are still going to be a ton of people that don't like androids because~
2) There's still a 37% unemployment rate in this game. That is an astronomically high figure for that kind of thing. The public may accept androids are alive, but there's going to be a whole new kind of competition. If androids are people, they must be compensated for their work, but there are also a ton of humans without work. How do you balance giving androids fair wages while also getting more humans hired as well? And how do you prevent inevitable bias going both ways where some employers prefer androids because they're "better" at their job while others prefer "humans" because androids freak them out?
3) Do android children age physically and/or mentally? Alice saw a grown up version of herself die. Does that mean she can grow up or does it mean there's an adult model of her? Can her consciousness be put into that model as she "ages?"
4) Is the president going to lose her job considering how badly she handled... literally everything? Regardless of which ending you get, she didn't handle androids well, she wasn't/isn't handling the unemployment numbers well, and that's probably just scratching the surface of things she didn't do well.
5) In that ending where I used the dirty bomb and basically annihilated every human in Detroit (*ahem*), what kind of society is going to grow from that? Connor was still alive and in Detroit; will he leave or is he going to be executed by the other androids should they find him? Furthermore, humans can't enter Detroit for at least 50 years. What happens once those 50 years are up? And what's going to happen to the androids outside Detroit? Presumably they'll all be killed, which means there is exactly one place on earth that still has androids and it's a toxic wasteland. But they have access to CyberLife Warehouse... Could they make more androids?
6) In that other ending, where Kara and co. are taken to the internment camps and dumped with the rest of the androids... How does that continue? I actually did get all three of them to survive in that ending, but... Are they just going to live in a mass graveyard? Or will they escape and try to blend in with human society? Also, that was an incredibly depressing ending and literally makes all the other bad endings seem kind of tame. 8D The whole internment camp section was by far the most disconcerting part of the whole game and we're talking about a game where all kinds of horrible fates lie in store for Kara, such as being killed by Todd, a slow death via gunshot and freezing cold river water, mass execution on the American-Canadian border, mind control by a literal madman which will probably lead to death if you don't break free, etc. etc.
...You know, looking at this, I kind of feel like Kara's getting the roughest endings. Maybe this is why I had the hardest time getting the happy ending for her. With Markus and Connor, sure they have some bad endings, but it wasn't too hard to figure out how to get the good one. With Kara, a good ending relies on so many other factors. D:
Anyhow, if DBH got a sequel I seriously doubt it could address all that, hence fanfiction. But a sequel could at least address some of it. My guess is they would treat the good ending as the canon ending as it leaves you with the most plot to explore what with all the characters being alive and I would absolutely like to see this.
A few other thoughts mostly related to fandom: People try to write Connor too much like they're writing Data, and when you get down to it these two characters aren't actually that similar outside of a predisposition to speaking formally. Connor is infinitely shadier even when he's being a good guy. XD And why didn't he ever get in trouble for wielding that many weapons? Also, I think there's a trend for writing Hank as too bothered about androids. Yes, he curses and he has issues with them, but let's no forget that he changed his tune pretty easily over the course of the game. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a delicate balance you want to maintain when writing Hank between making him too much of a "good" guy and way too much of a jerk.
I don't get people's problem with North. She was a great character and her desire to take action makes perfect sense when you consider her background and the way humans are treating her people. And yet, I see a lot of writers treat her like she doesn't have any depth and a lot of people that just don't like her relationship with Markus, which... I don't get. It wasn't any more or less developed than any of his other relationships and the two were a good balancing act or just a solid team depending on how you played it.
I would like more stories about Kara and her found family in general. ): They're such a good trio and they went through so much... There are stories there and plenty that could be explored.