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Heavy blanket!

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Writing for something that allows swearing (for starters) when one's used to being restricted probably feels similar to someone living on their own for the first time. "I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT! WOO"

A few years later, looking back on it is embarrassing, and everything goes back to being more in moderation.

This is, of course, assuming executives weren't insistent on pushing boundaries as part of their brand, which is entirely possible. I'm choosing to focus on the idea of artistic freedom gone wild, however.

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Viktor

In the first couple Elder Scrolls games, basically every female char is topless or naked, and sex is described, occasionally in graphic detail, in various places. In their modern games, that's been basically excised completely, with in-game books being edited and even marriage is completely sexless, in order to fit with their desired marketing/demo. I saw this described once as the early games being like a college student who eats nothing but candy for a week because he can, vs that same guy at 40 who is gluten-free not because he has specific issues, but because you can never be too careful. That to me fits the approach of so much media these days. They either go 1000% in on shock value, gore, torture porn, actual porn, etc, or they're perfectly polished for a PG/PG13 audience, with any material that could be objected to carefully excised except for a small step outside the lines to drum up publicity. On a fundamental level, neither is healthy.

Kkat

I'm just hoping they're going to watch She-ra and the Princesses of Power. Honestly, they would *love* that show.

Windscion

No, you don't hear about them because the interface is such that no one wants to play them now, or even think about them too hard. Also, the play balance was very kill-the-pc. Also, also? They felt that single-pixel nipples were one thing, but when they went to 3D models, it felt too porno.

Anonymous

You also haven't heard about them because they were even buggier than the new ones.

Some Ed

@Windscion: I feel like you and I had a very different experience with Buggerfall. Ok, sure, they were horrendously pixelated, and they totally didn't do 3D models for their naked pics, so they were always face on, regardless of which way you faced them. But if you turned away, they did, like a cardboard cut-out. But play balance was too much in the PC's favor. At least, *if* you went with an all out attack. Most things took a second to try to do *anything*, so you just had to kill them in that time and you were fine. Or, if you couldn't, move forward, hit them, and then get away before the second passed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Or you could make a custom class whose primary skill was running, and all their skills were non-combative. Then, you just run through the first dungeon, don't use fast travel, but instead run and jump everywhere, and level up to your heart's content before facing anything else. (Note: if you choose background by questions and pick an answer to the nickname question or any skill question that matches up with a primary skill, you decrease your maximum level by 6/15ths. If you pick one associated with secondary or minor skills, it will probably have a similar effect, but the exact formula for level makes it a bit complex to describe exactly how it works.) Play something like a Sorcerer (either that class, or a custom with no mana regen and spell absorption), get area affect at range spells, and learn how OP it is to blast them at your feet. (The stock Fireball spell is ridiculously expensive, but you can make an el-cheapo version with the spell maker as soon as you join the mages' guild. Note that requires at least one magic skill at 22. The el-cheapo version may not pack as much of a punch, but can pack a more reliable punch, and you can spam it.) The game was so subject to abuse by stuff like the above that Daggerfall exploits tended to become the sort of thing that didn't even feel worthwhile boasting about. My level 3 daggerfall character one-shot a daedra lord. Big deal. (Said character's class used Mysticism, Etiquette, Streetwise as primary, Mercantile, Medical, Nymph as secondary, Centaurish, Giantish, Spriggan, Orcish, Harpy,, and Dragonish as minor, so avoiding level gain was pretty easy. With magic absorption, no mana regen, mana being 3x int, and all of my initial stat increases thus far going into int, I had a fair amount of spell absorption I could do, especially since I'd advanced my other spell skills high enough anything the daedra lord might send my way wouldn't have much mana and I had an always on spell to boost my Int score. Also, spell reflection and shield make for decent insurance policies. To be clear, I'd gotten my level gains from talking to people and making my language saves, not from grinding mysticism. I'd chosen that skill as a primary because it seemed like the most useless magic skill, with only Teleport being super-useful and even that not very often.)

Some Ed

@Casey: I played Daggerfall on a computer with a Cyrix processor. I realize that much of the issue there was with the processor, but it also seemed to expose every core dump possibility ever. So many, many core dumps. Though, to be fair, they did happen a lot less frequently at night, in dungeons, and outside of town. I think I was around 11th level when I first encountered the bug that caused attribute spell boosts that were under 100 by less than the number of attribute points you got for your next level to put the attribute over 100 if you put all the points in that one attribute, combined with the one that caused bonus attributes to be made permanent if you levelled while they were still in effect to cause a game deadlock, because the game initially had no way to exit the attribute point assignment screen without applying all of the points, even if all of your attributes were already 100. I think I spent more total time walking on top of dungeons than I did walking inside them. They came up with multiple patches for this, but even in the latest version I played, it was still quite possible to slip out of the intended dungeon into the area outside, but it did basically require something like a ramp or stairwell, where I could Levitate up to the ceiling, crouch, and then float to where I'd be mostly out of the dungeon if I stood, then stand up and jump. Sure, that sounds pretty easy, but in the initial release of Daggerfall, in certain places, you could get there by walking across a dungeon floor so long as you didn't have levitate cast. Or by attempting to climb a wall and failing (accidentally or more likely deliberately) enough times in a row. The Levitate method didn't require going anywhere special, one could just crouch, levitate up to the ceiling, stand, and be outside.)

IvyReed

Can we get a picture of Tedd pinned to a benchpress with an empty barbell and Grace encouraging her/him? (depending on the form of course)

Some Ed

It wouldn't necessarily take *that* much weakness on Tedd's part for him (based on the depicted form) to be anxious to unload it. It looks similar to my weighted blanket, which is 15 pounds. Admittedly, I got the largest weighted blanket they sold (but the lightest they sold in that size), due to being a bit taller than average and their estimation of appropriate blanket size seeming pretty stingy to me. As such, I don't actually consider my 15 pound blanket to be as big as they're saying it is. Admittedly, they're all enough shorter than I am that they'd probably be using it in landscape mode, so maybe.

Windscion

Sorry, I was speaking of play balance if you *didn't* work the system. If you did, well, you could make a class w/ immunity to everything. Also, the way the sprites rotated with you made me nauseus when I tried a nostalgia run a few years ago.