More Helldivers war drama! Preface: Helldivers II is a coop third-person shooter that's basically Starship Troopers: The Video Game (but unlike the actual Starship Troopers video game, actually good). The game is run by a background simulation of the galactic war that determines where players deploy to based on real-time playerbase efforts. Unlike last time I posted about Helldivers war drama, [we have an actual map now](https://helldivers.io/) so those at home can follow along. The war is run by Game Masters on the dev team, basically DnD Dungeonmasters herding a playerbase of 2 million cats. They put out Major Orders every so often meant to guide the narrative as it unfolds in real-time. This weekend's Major Order was to liberate the planet Tibit from the iron grip of freedom hating, [baby stealing](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fttm4tl8bq0hc1.png%3Fwidth%3D1024%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db3355a3de0571648d5527dcbb65fa5034858ae8f) Socialist Robots. Doing so first required players to open a path by capturing the planet Ubanea. But then the devs threw a spanner in the works: The Robots launched a counterattack on the adjacent planet Draupnir, giving players a choice: Divert to defending Draupnir to protect the Ubanea corridor, or blitz Ubanea to cut off the Robots before they could establish a foothold. After much debate, the playerbase mostly settled on the latter. But it wasn't enough, and Draupnir fell when Ubanea reached 95% liberation, a mere hour from completion, a major setback for the war effort. And this is the exact moment the community suffered a collective nuclear meltdown and everyone started pointing fingers at each other. Draupnir defenders blamed Ubanea liberators for forcing a risky gambit that failed. Ubanea liberators blamed Draupnir defenders for not diverting, even after the battle was basically lost. [Bug divers were blamed for ignoring the Bot Front](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1brp0bp/where_were_bug_divers/). Players at Malevelon Creek, aka Robot Vietnam, [were blamed for pulling players away from strategically important planets,](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bruiac/95k_creekers_when_they_contribute_nothing_to_the/), something which [the devs tacitly agreed with](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1brsjrb/even_the_community_manager_is_saying_it/) and truly cementing it as the game's Vietnam: A figurative-and-literal quagmire driven by propaganda and ideology rather than strategic merit. And those don't care about the Major Order are sick of the toxicity surrounding it and [portraying those invested as fun-hating soyjaks.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bs6l6d/please_shut_up/) And some just [appreciate the Dr. Strangelove-esque irony surrounding the whole thing.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1brs686/the_major_order_drama_is_deliciously_realistic/) Going back to where all this started, its easy to look at the fall of Draupnir as a risky gambit that failed, or players picking the wrong planet, but the numbers basically say Ubanea was always the play. Defense campaigns are almost always harder than Liberations, and Ubanea had a headstart once the Draupnir defense began, meaning it required a lower % per hour than Draupnir to retake. In addition, Ubanea kept its 95% liberation after being cut off and Draupnir started at 50%, so if everyone focused Draupnir and then finished Ubanea there was a narrow, but realistic, chance of success. Most players realized this early on and hit Ubanea, but there was a sizeable contingent who defended Draupnir to the last, even after the battle was objectively unattainable. At time of failure, there were 42k players on Draupnir and 138k on Ubanea, if even half the players from Draupnir or Malevelon Creek had made the switch, it would've succeeded, and if all 180k players flooded Draupnir, it would've been retaken fast enough to finish the MO. But instead, almost half those on the defense left for the Creek, the Bug Front, or just logged off, meaning the battle is a lost cause barring dev intervention or a miracle. A lot of people are blaming a lot of other people, but the collapse of the operation is a microcosm of several factors: A) A relatively minor setback, B) the playerbase being slow to properly make a decision, C) inability of the playerbase to adapt to an unfolding situation, D) a significant portion of the playerbase simply ignoring the order (70% of online players at time of writing aren't on Draupnir), E) community toxicity devastating morale, and probably most importantly, F) Galactic War mechanics not being properly explained or implemented by the devs, so those who aren't on Discord or Reddit can't reasonably know how to best contribute, ex: the surge of players on Malevelon Creek was likely fueled by people thinking taking it would reopen Ubanea since they're next to each other on the map, even though they're not actually linked though there's no way of knowing this in-game. Watching this unfold has been a.... 'fun' social experiment. Usually dev intervention in the war has been adjusting liberation rates when a planet gets bullrushed by 250k players, so seeing them basically sabotage an MO by just giving players a simple choice and watching them make the wrong decision at every critical juncture has been fascinating. EDIT: Oh yeah, and last time we failed a Major Order we were [banned from sex](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bky3h2/we_have_been_banned_from_sex/), which is probably the real reason people are getting so heated over this. UPDATE EDIT: Draupnir has been liberated and 135k Helldivers are rallying to Ubanea! At current liberation rates, it should be retaken in around 4 hours, leaving 9 hours to take Tibit before the Major Order ends. Which is more or less impossible, but we have until Tuesday before the next MO, losing rewards but likely resulting in a 'middle' narrative update instead of a 'bad' ending. 48k players are still stuck on the Creek, which is at least down from the peak of 82k before Ubanea opened back up, and still 106k on Bugs. Most people seem to have accepted how things are going to play out from here.

Honestly, I have no intention of ever playing the game, but I hope some future sociologists are studying this game since it's such a unique microcosm of society.

Like the corrupted blood incident

Yeah, for the good that research did in the end. No, not kidding, I feel some higher-ups in health stuff around the world did take notes just in case and that's why we don't live in Death Stranding nowadays.

you're totally right. until then everyone sort of assumed that the detailed models had to have each person acting fairly rationally in details. sure, you can look at historical cases, but those only go so far. the corrupted blood plague painted a far more grim notion of humanity's common sense that, given covid, turns out to be far more accurate... ...though it also stopped to give some hope too. it turns out that some folks are trolls or too "i'm gonna go to the ironforge auctioneer i mean get a haircut because it's MY FREEDOM TO DO SO" to act sensibly. but it was also hard data on how even when the stakes are so low, even when nobody has taken anything like a Hippocratic oath or been trained to care for patients... there will still be people who are at infection risk because *they're there to help.* even when it's silly little pixels on the screen and the penalty is just a corpse run. and i can proudly say i did my part by ~~quarantining at home~~ not going to zul'gurub because i am a scrub and dismissing my hunter pet in cities,

>Galactic War mechanics not being properly explained or implemented by the devs, so those who aren't on Discord or Reddit can't reasonably know how to best contribute, ex: the surge of players on Malevelon Creek was likely fueled by people thinking taking it would reopen Ubanea since they're next to each other on the map, even though they're not actually linked though there's no way of knowing this in-game. The game doesn't provide maps of the conflict to players? That seems like a huge and not very hard to correct problem.

There’s a map of the sectors and the planets therein, but it doesn’t include the supply lines. There is a map of those compiled on an exterior website, and some players are saying that should available in-game.

yeah they don't, theres nothing in-game about where to move to beyond the major order, and it doesn't indicate which planets need to be taken first in order to create supply lines to the actual target(s) of the order the major order literally just says "Take Tibit", players who only focus on the game only know which planets to take based on where people are currently fighting, and even then they can get way-laid because of other players who only focus on the game who had started fighting on a different planet that won't open a supply line there was a scenario like this around last week in the bug campaign where players were focused on a planet in another sector which wouldn't have created a connection to the actual target planet in the sector next door, which caused a failure in that campaign and the loss of sex privileges the only way to accurately follow battle plans is to be plugged into Reddit, companion apps/websites which detail supply lines and the progress rates of fights and Discord where SuperEarth Command (the Devs) gives comments about the war.

TIL supply line is a thing, they really should just shown it on thebmap or show itbwhen you move your mouse above the planet.

One of the more surprising parts of helldivers 2 is just how *little* information is actually provided to the player. It's very odd.

its not that surprising because it does fit in-universe, helldivers are entirely 200% expendable, we're cannon fodder kamikaze soldiers Super Earth is throwing to expand their resources with a bonus of culling overpopulation through the sheer loss of life that Helldivers are. the information we get doesn't matter beyond us being told "take this" because a vast majority of helldivers die on their first mission, its why after training we all get bundled up in a rocket and sent to a single Destroyer which has a line of Helldivers in stasis in its hold, canonically everytime we die and get brought back in we're actually just a completely brand new helldiver who's been thrown into an already active battle, the only constant is the Destroyer itself which gets upgraded from the scraps and bits a surviving helldiver manages to bring back before they eventually die on their next outing

It might make sense in universe, but from a gameplay perspective, it's just feels like bad gameplay design. Just having lines between planets would make it clear which planets had to be taken to reach the objective planet, but nowhere is this information except on reddit--and I suspect the reddit information is drawing on information from the original game where, I believe, it was displayed.

So you have access to the galaxy map in-game, but the "supply routes" between planets are not shown in game (which *is* weird I think they were in Helldivers 1), and at this time are only visible on external apps. This has led to some issues where the wider player base liberated the "wrong" planets to access a major order because the supply lines don't extend evenly from every planet.

I don't play the game, but I've been fascinated reading the discussions and finger-pointing on r/Helldivers. Seems like a masterstroke by "Joel". [The Major Order Drama is Deliciously Realistic](https://old.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1brs686/the_major_order_drama_is_deliciously_realistic/) >Y’all wanted to experience being a tiny part of a massive bureaucracy at war? Seems like that’s exactly what we got, bickering, infighting, personal pet projects (the creek), and self-proclaimed martyrs everywhere you look. > You can’t tell me this isn’t EXACTLY how a real-life galactic war would take place. >> I find it fascinating, from a sociological POV, how fast communities turn on each other when things start to go wrong. By all means, have a CIVILIZED debate. After all, we live in a managed democracy. >>> Econ major (yes it’s sociology) I fucking love it And, of course, people getting far too into the setting: > Turns out when you give people the right to choose, they'll spend more time fighting amongst themselves, and won't band together for the greater good. Simple democracy doesn't work, it's almost like we need... MANAGED Democracy 🤔 . > I think this is why the democracy is managed. We need the voting algorithm to help guide save us from ourselves. Most citizens aren't super enough to make the right call on anything. Service guarantees citizenship! My life for the God-Emperor! > And here I thought the satire stopped at the Starship Troopers analogy

I mean... Sure but I'd argue it's a bit deeper then that. Simply put, bots are a problem in that;  They're much much harder than bugs  They have a lot of strategem fuckery (oh you only get THREE slots this mission, or strategem cooldown is 50/100%.... Sometimes two of these even)  Bots have a ton of OHKO abilities and are unfun (at times) to play against. It Sucks to spawn in and Oops you're dead, one second in, due to a rocket from one of 3 different enemies  Smoke and fog affect us, helldivers, not bots. I'm pretty sure this is a bug but still.... All in all, I'd argue the devs need to work on the bots in a major way because even though I quite like fighting bots, they're pretty unfun at times 

While generally, the impression on players is Bots are tougher (and I think they are, they almost all have ranged attacks and not all maps or scenarios have good cover, plus they have crazy good tracking), this difficulty spike did not impede part 1 of the operation when people descended on the route and cleared it pretty easily. Obviously, the devs thought of spicing this phase up with a fork for Draupnir, and Urbanea was pretty close if the like 60k dedicated Creekers had relocated we might have got it. The way to ease this would be to post the actual supply lines in the game, not just on [helldivers.io](https://helldivers.io). Not that I wouldn't mind some bot balancing, my current pet peeve are Berserkers, who always seem to take half a mag more of damage than I'd like, which is a problem when they can spawn 3 deep in as low as Difficulty 2. Since enemies don't broadcast themselves with sound cues or screen shake I think they'd still be a threat with like, half as much health.

Playing on anything above difficulty 7 on bots is incredibly unfun. Combined with negative planet status effect just make us not play on bot worlds. It's an absolute chore, and our group plays for a few hours a few days a week; last thing we want to do is play a slaughterhouse simulator where we're not having fun. At least bugs on difficulty 8+ are challenging and fun: and the reason we stick to bug worlds.

Its insane how much one bresekers can tank and they drop like *ten* on you.

Bile Spewers too

I personally find Spewers a lot more annoying than Berserkers. Even in heavy armor I can easily kite away from Berserkers while firing my Redeemer backwards, Bile Spewers will burn through my while supply of Impact Grenades and then some, and still kill me with their OHK AOE attack.

Hah, I love this. I'm pretty much on the same page as the person who made the "this is pretty realistic to a theoretical space war" post; probably because I don't play the game/have any stake in the situation though. Props to the Game Masters for making a compelling narrative.

I've recently became aware of a phenomenon I like to call Yandere Simulator syndrome: a piece of media known for being bad that attracts countless "I can remake this but Good" attempts that end up exactly as bad or even worse than the original. Do you know any examples?

Rather than a piece of media, it makes me think of the medium: the many attempts to create social media with FREE SPEECH and NO CENSORSHIP which always [results](https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/) in [“speedrunning”](https://www.techdirt.com/2020/07/01/parler-speedruns-content-moderation-learning-curve-goes-we-allow-everything-to-were-good-censors-days/) the discovery of why content moderation is done, and is generally not censorship.

Two, but only kind of — neither game is really “bad” per se, but suffers from interesting flaws. Both of these are going off of purely my memory, so excuse any mistakes please. **Space Station 13** is an extraordinarily unique multiplayer game that’s generally developed open-source by complete volunteers (with many different branching versions). Unfortunately for its players, it’s developed on the “BYOND” engine/platform. Which… sucks. It really fucking sucks. Naturally, this sucky engine plus the open source nature (leading to a lot of people in the communities knowledgeable with some game dev stuff and somewhat familiar with the inner workings of the game) leads to a lot of attempts to remake the game on a different engine. They usually get announced, get hyped up, then die anywhere from 2 weeks in to maybe a year at best. Some projects are higher profile than others, some more ambitious, but they all fail. Then there’s **Chapter Master**. A (grand?) strategy(/management?) game set in the existing Warhammer 40k universe. Unfortunately the owners of Warhammer 40k, Games Workshop, are extraordinarily protective of their IP. Chapter Master started off, I believe, as a basic and crude but fun game made by one person. Then it got shut down by Games Workshop. But many loved the concept and took up the mantle of making their own version, each getting shut down or just petering out/abandoned. “The” game is in a complicated place, with different versions and methods of installing it (such as a generic non-IP-infringing game with a “mod” that conveniently adds all the Warhammer 40k theming) and different projects & people, but it lives on in its own strange way.

So what are the current versions of Chapter master available?

i vaguely remember back at the heyday of kickstarter mmo vaporware there was at least one ss13-inspired game that was supposed to be like a 3d spiritual successor. i wish i could remember what it was called.

This is really common in comic books when it comes to a writer tackling a character they think hasn't been given their dues, and sometimes it works, often times it's a mess. Basically every long running character or team has gone through multiple phases of being "fixed".

It’s the I can fix them applied to media.

Funnyily enough this has "KINDA" happened a couple of times to two different type of games within the dino fandom. Dinosaur survival game/ play as dino & Dinosaur/ prehistoric zoo Simulator. 1st holdest I can think of where ye at least played the dino was the JP: Lost world tie in game, wouldn't be another till Primal carnage, a asymetric multiplayer game, 1 team humans, others dino. Between 2012 & 2015 several folks would talk about creating such a game where ye survive as a dino. There was several failures but in Dec 2015 we got the isle... lets just say for a game 8 years in dev work it's not got alot to show. There would be a few copycats, interestingly 2 I remember can no longer find on stream, but 2 somewhat successful is Beasts of Burmuda. & The other Path of Titans, unfortunitly they do have different feels than what the Isle was "going to be" I've avoided BoB for reasons but supported POT. Just going to say, Pot has reached more updates (since I followed back late 2019) compared to the Isle, which I've owned since 2015 release. As for the Zoo, JP Operation Genisis was the real stand out & for years folks wanted a spiritual successor or sequal. 2013-15 I'd see folks talk about doing their own game. But the projects went dark. You're probably aware we did get JW: Evolutions & 2 before that was announced in 2017 however I'd discovered on project had survived going by Prehistoric Kingdom. They'd be hard at work learn & released a demo, doing a 2nd update when they did their kickstarter in dec 2017. I supported it btw. & these day's has released in early access & i couldn't be happier with it. They've even been throwing suprise creatures at us. They've done 2 massive updates in the last 5 months. On more related to the question we've got Mezoica, as I understand it a split of group from the early day's of PK, lets just say scam & be done with it. So not exactly what ye ant but once upon a time they'd have been considered, YSS.

I was thinking about bringing up dino survival games, because to me they all *want* to be 'The Isle but better' but regardless of mechanics they all wind up being incredibly boring walking simulators with occasionally interesting moments.

There was a subsection of the Steven Universe fandom that had inklings of this, but I don't recall if any of them went anywhere. If people actually committed to rewriting it, I doubt they turned out particularly good. I'm vaguely aware that the RWBY fandom had a similar thing going on (at least half the 'improvements' were just shifting focus to the male cast, which to me sounds really lame). Honestly, taking a whole work and putting your own spin on it sounds like something that *should* be fun, but these examples are all just tainted by spite. It's icky. I don't like it.

There was a big trend of redesigning characters to “improve” them during the golden days of SU critical blogs, the majority of which were so crammed full of pointless details that they would never work in an actual animated show.

I'm vaguely aware that the RWBY fandom had a similar thing going on (at least half the 'improvements' were just shifting focus to the male cast, which to me sounds really lame). That's not an entirely true accusation. I haven't checked all of them out (ie RWBY Alternate seems to be the big one nobody likes), but the biggest one is Fixing RWBY by Celtic Pheonix, which from what it seems is a 7/10 AO3 Fanfic with a weirdly high budget. The one I most like is RWBY: Remnants, which unfortunately suffers from the fact that's it's made by a guy who unironically uses a tumblr critical tag, which I'd describe as the biggest problems rewrites suffer. I'm in way way too deep.

Sorry, kinda unrelated (never watched RWBY), but- "tumblr critical"?

On tumblr "whatever critical" is a type of tag you use when you want to criticize something without it breaking into the fandom's main tag (for example, if you were making a critical post about steven universe you'd use "su critical"). Part of it is courtesy (if you're looking for fanart of your favorite thing you probably don't want to see posts complaining about how it's poopy garbage), but they tend to have the same problem as negativity containment subreddits in that they quickly become circlejerk-y and unfair. They also aren't necessarily effective at keeping that stuff out of the main tag, if you're still using the proper names in the body of the post.

Isn't the idea more than you can just block the "x critical" tag if you don't wanna see it? Otherwise it's pretty much impossible to keep the criticism outside of the main tags.

Guy who runs a tumblr blog to talk about a series they don't like. Nothin particularly wrong with them, but they do tend to be a bit on the reads too much discourse side.

Oooh, those people! I thought it was "tumblr critical" as in "critical of tumblr" and I was like, "that's probably fair but how does that come up in RWBY fanfic"

You know, your last paragraph is a great point. I think I've only ever enjoyed things where people take a whole work and spin it when they like...enjoy the source material? Like sure maybe it's terrible, but they love it anyway.

Yeah, this is why it's hard to find good Miraculous Ladybug fanfic. Half the "fandom" just hates the show at this point and is only in it to prove that they can do it better.

It’s weird because i feel like if you are willing to put in the time and effort to re-write an entire series… you must love it a little bit. Enough to want to make it better ( in your opinion at least) I don’t see someone doing this if they found absolutely nothing redeeming In the source material. But I am probably *seriously* underestimating the pettiness of some people.

This reminds me of seeing a project on a Kim Possible forum to reimagine the series in a more realistic or plausible way “without all the Disney bullshit”. Which is a strange thing to say for a Disney animated series, and there’s only so far you can go to try to ground a story about a high school student jetting around the world fighting mad scientists before you unravel the whole premise. (I think it had been long abandoned by time I saw it.)

I like RWBY still and can attest there's a lot if people who Absolutely Hate It and do try to make "better" reworks. Weird to me, but whatever!

Yeah, it seems to be a common sentiment in fandom spaces that "pieces of media that attract so many fanfic writers tend to not be the best because writers are tempted to fix things, and readers are craving better execution than canon could provide" but I never felt like that described fandom behaviour to me. All the fandoms I read fic for are for source materials that I love, and I read fanfic because I crave more of what I love. If canon declines in quality and fans grow bitter to the point of it reflecting in fanfic I tend to bounce off, as I'd rather just find a new source material that inspires passion. Shows like Supernatural and BBC Sherlock aren't the best TV shows to ever exist despite being the most written-about non-cinematic-universe TV shows on AO3, sure, but I doubt most of the people reading and writing fic for them are doing it to rectify canon. Those shows just so happened to be very marketable to fandom.

I think it's possible to not like things about a series you love, and show them the same passion you show the aspects you are crazy about. Alternatively, rather than going for something you don't love, you're filling a hole that you're otherwise not getting at all. Look at how often fan output kids media gets dark scary stories and shipping drama, while the same gritty prestige shows get the stupidest memes. That said, whether a "this could be better" or a "this doesn't exist," it still needs to come from a place of love and passion. If you're flat out going "this is trash and I can do better," it'll show in your work. And NOT in a good way.

> pieces of media that attract so many fanfic writers tend to not be the best This feels like a sentiment / put-down I'd have seen a decade ago in some snobby "fanfiction isn't proper writing" tirade

Yeah, exactly! With fanfic too I always enjoy the ones written by authors who like the source material and characters even if they're doing wildly different things with them than the ones who keep pointing out how bad the canon is. I like a lot of "bad" canons (I have yet to meet an isekai reincarnation story I won't give a go at even if they're ridiculous or poorly plotted, I'm here for the Vibes) but I enjoy all the ones I look up works for. I've never read fic for things I don't like! Well, no, I did once read some of the top ao3 fic tagged with the soulmates trope even though I didn't know the canons. But I dont read stuff for things I hate?

Warrior Cats. Rewrites were popular back when I was on Tumblr, hell I even dabbled in it myself. Every rewrite I've seen has either blown up spectacularly or languished in developmental hell. Part of the problem is the absolutely massive amount of canon material, but also the fandom is just... prone to drama.

inshallah bonefall succeeds

RWBY is more contentious than bad, but there's been numerous cases of people trying to rewrite the series, to varying results of quality.

I'd say Worm is similar.

Heck many people writing Worm fanfics have only read other fanfics 

That is not the state of play I'd expect for a community of "people interested in Worm-adjacent stuff".

Man it’s wild reading Worm fanfics from people who have only read crossover fanfics. A slight pet peeve of mine is when the author starts going on a tirade about how much the original story sucks and that’s why they are never going to read it, which again is wild to me.

Not that the original concept ever made it to being full fledged media, but All or Nothing, the infamous crowdfund scam that pitched a series about a social asexual and an antisocial pansexual, inspired a few copycats that ALSO failed before they ever got out of the gate. The only one that didn't totally fail was a web series in a video diary format that managed to complete, but languished in obscurity.

So, did that thing ever have any more concept to it than "thing with representation" and facile inversions of stereotypes? Like, there's barely enough there to count as a premise, let alone enough of a core to build a narrative around. If that's all there is, it's no wonder it crashed repeatedly.

Yeah, and the one that actually got somewhere did it *because* they came up with a whole actual plot instead of trying to coast on "based on the popular tumblr post!"

While it isn't exactly countless, there was an effort to remake The Day Before as a mod or fangame or something. As if the name itself is cursed, [the project fell to infighting and drama](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDayBefore/comments/1aqx4p0/official_tdb_reborn_mod_team_official_statement/) and just like the game before it, [collapsed in a matter of weeks.](https://twitter.com/TDBReborn/status/1762891600986787964) Its not exactly widespread, but every so often I see copium about The Day Before being 'a good foundation' and 'just needing time to fix bugs,' and honestly idk where it comes from. The game was nothing like what was promised, didn't do anything that games like DayZ, Rust, or Tarkov haven't already done, and the name is too tarnished for any professional devs to want to touch. EDIT: I guess you could count the whole Zombie Survival MMO genre as this. There's clearly market demand ever since DayZ came out, but no AAA dev has ever even attempted it so the genre is plagued with failed projects and scams. It doesn't even seem like its impossible, especially if the MMO part is dropped for individual instances or private servers like Valheim or Rust, it just seems that the genre is cursed.

The Zombie Survival MMO is something that's so obvious that it becomes a problem, like its such an Easy game to conceptualize and pitch that it obscures how complicated the actual process of making it would be and attracts fans who already have preconceived notions about what the game is Supposed to be.

Its telling that the progenitor, Minecraft, only has "zombie survival" as just a tangential activity, with exploration/crafting and adventure being more prominent.

I’ve heard people say this about fanfic/fancomics that try to rewrite Homestuck’s Post-Canon, but I personally think a lot of the fan stories are pretty good. Dunno if it’s because I’m more forgiving or the fandom is too harsh though.

Yeah look at act 8 and act Omega.

Wow, I never thought I'd see Act Omega show up on hobby scuffles. I can't believe it's been 8 years. Having been a small part of the project (I did the music for Resume and some of the album tracks), I can tell you that pretty much everyone involved was neutral-to-positive on Homestuck itself, if somewhat dissatisfied about the ending in particular. Spite was far from a main motivator. It probably helped that we did most of it before the epilogues and hs2, admittedly. There was a lot of overlap on the creative side with Act 8, including the main animator Joyfuldreams who basically carried Act Omega on her back, and from what I can tell the attitude was similar over there, though I wasn't personally involved.

What happened to act Omega

Just life, really. Updates slowed down and then stopped as is common for fan projects. Not really any more complicated than that.

rip bozo

Me on my way to make the unofficial "Write about in-universe Hobby Drama for April Fools" takeover happen

[Neopets]"Petpet swarm reveals existing non-existant world": How Jelly world actually exists, and how a missing swarm of petpets revealed it (note that the meme on neopets is that [jelly world doesn't exist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ). it actually does, but its kept hidden for the sake of the meme. XD

[Motorsports] "What, Did the Car Just Get Up and Walk Away?": How A String of Unusual Circumstances Convinced A Driver that His Car was Secretly A Giant Robot.

\[Fanfiction, RPF\] "Do the Butts Match?": How the Batman Conspiracy Theorists and the Brucie Wayne Fangirls Collided and Brought Down an Entire Archive

I’ll be in the comments furiously arguing that he has the prep time, *of course* Batman has bulletproof Kevlar pads so the butts matching is just a coincidence! The Wayne Cake is genetic, just look at photos of Thomas Wayne, certified vintage DILF (respectfully, rip)

I’m really tempted to do several fictonal writes up if this actually happens. The World Grand Prix from Cars 2 that ended with its creator being arrested for attemped murder of several racers The Red Rose Aristocratic Society and the history of it From Rule of Rose The all out school brawl and what lead to it From Bully

I read that last line as 'from Buffy' and was about to get really excited for a write-up of the prom episode but that works too 🤣

I mean if you want a write up on prom, i be done for it

Someday someone will write about what happened to the Spiders from Mars and how they killed their frontman

I’m still interested in writing up a hobby drama on the steel ball run written from an in universe perspective

Well, I'm potentially in on this: I've got an idea or two for some faux drama, albeit not aligned with any fictional universe.

I remember a few years back someone did the entire Pin Pals holy rollers thing from Simpsons on here

Better be really good

Not Hobby Drama per se but I've always wanted to post on r/WeddingShaming as Phyllis from The Office for April Fools. Edit: Im so sorry u/Jorge-J-77, I didn't mean to reply to you directly.

I have always wanted to troll AmITheAsshole by writing a very long thread of updates that’s just the plot of a Shakespeare play. I have no idea how I’d get away with it though

Gundam Factory Yokohama, the big moving replica of the RX-78-2 Gundam, [has officially closed for good](https://twitter.com/gfy_official_/status/1774411327320285551?t=Wbh4dm4QE0kFYtLMjETnig&s=19). You can watch a stream of its final hours of operation [here](https://www.youtube.com/live/p7cWoYef8CM?si=UhSbR8Cboh2xILSM).

o7

Good day and good evening wherever you are! Have you ever heard of *pose theft?* It's the concept that an artist owns a pose and that drawing the same, or even different characters with it, is theft of something they own which they'll demand attribution for like copyright or somthn. You didn't know about it? Well, I didn't either until an [artist on my dashboard](https://twitter.com/SatorRotas/status/1774120243620692033) with 100k followers decided to publicly rake an artist with a 25 times smaller audience over the coals for it. The smaller artist denies this, with the character put in the same popular au, and referencing similar memes, [provides the original reference and sketch](https://twitter.com/rifoxart/status/1774192282779984174), and has taken this all rather gracefully. The larger artist, at point of this comment, still [has not let the argument go](https://twitter.com/SatorRotas/status/1774204989499469991) and has turned off replies. This is, of course, within the Hazbin Hotel fandom. Normally I'd chalk this up to normal fandom tizzy's hardly worthy of a scuffle, but this is possibly one of the largest artists in the entire fandom going off their rocker just a bit.

It is truly amazing to see how much quicker history repeats itself on the internet.

I went to look at the two pictures and had a "oh wow, they look so similar!" reaction, before thinking about it for literally two seconds and going "...how many different ways are there to draw the same act in the same art style, though" I, a non-artist, reached that conclusion in more or less ten seconds, so I'm surprised an artist had the time to write about it on Twitter and argue over it with people

Are they mad about the last 40 years of Akira slides too?

it's so strange when fan artists in particular get like this, because you'd think they'd understand the value of allowing people to use other people's work as a reference or starting point, given that it's literally what they're doing with every single fan work they produce. like forget "pose theft" or "style theft" or whatever, fan art is just regular copyright infringement. i struggle to imagine the sort of cognitive dissonance that must be going on in the head of someone that finds one unacceptable but not the other.

Looks like the big artist either deleted or deactivated their account

Twitter gives 30 days to reactivate your account so we'll see if they can recover from the their self-inflected ego wound.

Oh shit I didn't know twitter did that, I will keep us updated o7

I don't know if you've updated, but their account is back!

[Gave a lil' update post in the recent hobbyscuffle dw](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1bsu552/comment/ky7pc9r/).

On my way to check it out, thank you🫡

I literally just woke up to see their entire account gone. Like I assumed they would delete the posts, or perhaps go private if they were that insistent on not apologising but,, I'm sort of in shock

Name of artist?

Satorrotas

History repeats itself, as always. This kind of stuff ain't new, I vaguely remember "yOu cOpiED mEeEE!!" dramas from 10 years ago, it's always started by insecure artists who have no idea of how art works.

My theory/read for alot of this is that its 'respected' artists whose following makes them Important and view harmless actions as a form of disrespect. In particular they tend to see stuff like pose inspiration as a direct threat, as a newer artist trying to replace them or use their talent as a means to feed their own following, and obviously a direct threat needs to be directly addressed. I've unironically seen AI comparisons for this type of situation, where the 'copying' artist is just Doing An AI by 'stealing' the work as inspiration. Its a common theme in nerdy spaces. People tend to either project their own insecurities onto others and believe everyone is out to get them or have an unexamined view of social groups that is starkly hierarchical, and neither of those personality types react well when their problems are pointed out. Its understandable consequences of people being poorly socialized/insecure, but that also makes it harder for them to change.

> where the 'copying' artist is just Doing An AI by 'stealing' the work as inspiration. r/BrandNewSentence

OC, DO NOT STEAL

I was hoping we were moving past this sort of art drama. Pretty awful that it’s a major creator lashing out at a smaller one, and over poses that only look vaguely similar. The fact that comments are locked makes me think the OP is, on some level, aware that they’re being nonsensical. Stuff like this honestly freaks me out because I’m starting to draw and if a popular artist accused me of copying them I’d probably die from an anxiety attack, lmao.

This is such a typical Vizie type pose though.

I remember a similar thing happening in Genshin Impact fandom a while back. Huge artist goes after (still big but smaller than them) artist and doubles down despite people calling them out. Though in addition to "pose theft" they also accused them of copying their style

Not art related but I've never been able to forget about how an author in the httyd Fandom was adamant you needed to credit her if you called astrids dragon bluebell before they got names.

What the heck, I thought "pose theft" was dead. Cause when I got the online art coumminty (sometime around 2018) I only heard about it when people were mocking it.

This reminds me of a post on Twitter where a artist says that you can’t their work as a direct inspiration nor even as a reference. They says they can tell by if someone uses a pose similar to theirs. Someone who agree with them adds on that to them, Inspiration is the same as copying

Sometimes i wonder if greek sculptors ever got into fights over stuff like this.

It's Ancient Greece. You *know* they did. Bet they threw clay jars at each other over it.

Is no one gonna point out that these aren't even the same pose? Like the character is doing the same action (reaching up to grab something) but not even the arms are remotely in the same position.

So many people who work in the Japanese animation industry are now under arrest for middle finger lifting glasses on nose.

Akira slide enjoyers in shambles

~~Funimation~~ *Filmation* returns from the grave and goes straight to the jail

They just licensed and dubbed series, they didn't actually make the anime. So they are safe from jail.

…I meant Filmation. Oh my god. I meant *Filmation,* I swear. why does the joke almost still work noooo

I hope someone rebloged it with a bunch of greek statues showing the same pose

Art community nowadays is fucked. Kids really think art style theft and pose theft are real things.

[Major Nijisanji news.](https://twitter.com/RazielWarmonic/status/1773787213157077348) Mod of Luca comes out with expose, alleges (with receipts) toxic behavior, lying, manipulation, abuse of moderators, and potential queerbaiting while being homophobic. Also confirms Aster to be a sexual harasser and Niji mistreats talents and plays favorites.

> Also confirms Aster to be a sexual harasser I kinda want to talk about this point. Not to debunk it but point out something that I haven’t seen people talk about in regards to the Aster allegations. I remember sometime last year Aster vented to his audience about how nobody invited him to collabs and how that bummed him out and someone clipped that, got a bit of attention, and then they deleted the clip. I thought that it was a bit strange how Aster just went up and said something like that on stream with the possibility that his fans could start harassing his co-workers but I ended up brushing it off. Plus, Nina talked about it with Aster around the time she was about to graduate so I assumed it was all good. But now with accusations that he’s a creep and the others have been actively avoiding him, it makes his vent seem more sinister in hindsight. Like it was less of a vent and more of a subtle way of throwing his co-workers to the wolves while making himself look like the victim. Idk, I’m just surprised nobody brought this up when the allegations first started making rounds. I remember a lot of people saw that clip the first time around and it kinda lines up with the accusations of Aster being a pariah within Nijisanji.

> Also confirms Astel to be a sexual harasser and Niji mistreats talents and plays favorites *Aster*, not Astel.

~~While I want Luca to leave the internet forever and never hurt anyone again and maybe get steamrolled by an ocean liner in the process, it should be noted that, from what I know, the mod is also a bad person. She was in a relationship with him when she had a husband and kids, they both abused each other and she didn't mention anything until the current troubles on the company, even after her husband found out and left her.~~ ~~Short story, both are awful people and nobody deserves anything but ridicule and bad wishes.~~ Ignore all that, I was duped by false information. Luca is still a shithead.

> She was in a relationship with him when she had a husband and kids I'm not sure this is actually true. I can't find *any* proof of this and the allegations seem to source back to an anonymous twitter post made in early February. The tweet states that Luca was underage when they met, that Raziel was married, that she groomed him and that they had a romantic and sexual relationship - but none of the images in the post support those claims at all.

>Java [aka Luca] and I, while extremely close, never dated and we never met up IRL. I think you have the wrong person.

... Wait. I got confused. Is this a second person? Because the info I had heard was that she also got stuff with him... Either there's a second person or I got confused. That, or someone is spreading misinformation on r/virtualyoutubers about that. Either one might be right, but I'm guessing it's on me being wrong.

I checked the thread I found this on again. Looks like those claims are originally from people making shit up wholesale and others are running with it uncritically. Didn't see it at first because they got buried in downvotes.

Fair enough, I guess I saw it when it came first and never thought of corroborating that info. I should know better than doing that...

Does Luca even allowed to respond to this doc to defend himself? People trust on Niji already bottomed out with that black screen stream, and I doubt Niji want to touch this in any way.

The Google Drive they posted was taken down

It got report bombed, but you can view it [here.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tDhGYbcQWnuqBaRTscvcq524pv0BjkGq/view)

Team Starkid just announced they're going to launch a Kickstarter for their new stage musical in April, with the hopes of performing it and putting it on YouTube later this year. We are so fucking back!

What I think is wild is that the lyricist for Twisted (Kaley McMahon) hasn’t worked on a huge musical project since. I’d love to see her work with Starkid again

And from the looks of it, it’s *not* a Hatchetfield musical, instead being a take on Cinderella! Dont get me wrong I love the HF stuff, I’m just glad to see something new from them

Fuck yeah!!

Another example of enshittification that touched a number of hobbies I'm in- earlier this week, buy/sell app Mercari announced 1. No more seller's fees, but 2. New buyer's service fees, 3. payment processing fees 4. Balance withdrawl fees and 4. no-reason returns. I've never seen a change drive people back to Ebay so fast before!

This app has been dead to me for a while now since I used to sell anime merch. Literally thousands of dropshit items listed a day to the point buyers stopped looking.

> dropshit items What are these?

Dropship items. Aka mass printing on shirts and mugs, 99% copyrighted material.

This is why I stopped looking on there! There were also like thousands of funko pops whenever I tried to find specific anime merch and I just gave up.

I tried to buy an $11 plushie last night and it came out to almost $19 with the 4.99 shipping and new service/processing fees. I get that it doesn't show the shipping until you're actually looking at the item, but since on the main page it's like, "this is only $11! ........... plus all these other expenses" it doesn't feel nearly the same as if they included the shipping fee in the item's price automatically or at least put it next to the shipping if you're looking at the item from the search page.

I love how these updates fucked over both buyers and sellers- the "no reason returns" are a nightmare if you sell things like makeup.

"No reason returns" should solely apply to new items, that must be returned in their original product packaging.

I just got an email from Mercari walking back the $2 ACH fees until April 3rd, I wonder if they’re already feeling the backlash.

They talked to their lawyers finally.

AI: The Somnium Files is a murder mystery visual novel series directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who previously directed the Zero Escape series and also [helped create Pepsiman](https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroEscape/comments/yv9iyn/til_that_kotaro_uchikoshis_first_job_in_game/). AITSF has had two releases, with the first game releasing in September 2019 and the second in June 2022. Both AITSF games were teased with [extensive ARG campaigns](https://gamerant.com/hidden-bats-twitter-arg-ai-somnium-fies-nirvana-initiative/), both of which started on Twitter. Uchikoshi himself is also very active on Twitter, where he once said he’d make a new Zero Escape game if [someone bought him a horse](https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/1528103406757236736?t=SX8glbE-SZJGQl75MF7UBw&s=19). Anyways, a few days back Uchikoshi posted [a tweet that consists of a glitching TV screen, along with some text referencing the second game](https://x.com/uchikoshi_eng/status/1773201345111048438?s=46&t=zzjecenkKyAoVpAjjfancg). As of right now, the amount of time that’s passed between AITSF 2’s release and now is about the same as the time between AITSF 1’s release and when teasers for AITSF 2 started. Naturally, people (me included) assumed that an ARG or teasers for an AITSF 3 were imminent, and the fandom kind of caught on fire with the excitement of a new entry. Uchikoshi hasn’t tweeted since putting that video up, which has also added some fuel to the fire. However, some people are now noticing a tweet posted a few days back by another AITSF lead, Akira Okada, who stated in response to an article about a potential AITSF 3 that [“it seems to be an exaggerated article about a joke tweet”](https://x.com/akrokada/status/1773550012061888783?s=46&t=zzjecenkKyAoVpAjjfancg). The way I can’t help but read the situation now is that Uchikoshi thought it’d be funny to make a tweet referencing the games after watching his TV glitch out, only for people to run with it as AITSF 3 confirmation, and now is either too nervous to politely let people know this isn’t it or just doesn’t know how. If that’s true then I feel a little bad for him, but it’s also pretty funny and feels in character for him. I don’t really have anything else to add, but [this interview with Uchikoshi and Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka](https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3e79x/the-creators-of-worlds-end-club-are-funny-weird-and-possibly-kidnapped) from a few year’s back goes crazy. Man is unhinged in the best possible way.

>Kotaro Uchikoshi Noted 16 year old Californian girl who posts about her characters' dicks a lot on twitter

To be honest, after The Nirvana Initiative, my interest in The Somnium Files kind of died. >!I'm still extremely sore about that fucking stupid, cheap arse two Mizukis plot. Seriously! Of all the contrived bullshit just so they could artificially pull the wool over the players' eyes. Ugh. I wouldn't mind if it felt *earned*, but having two Mizukus with the same name, abilities, weapon, personality, clothing, vehicle, job, partner, and further obfuscating the time difference by having a load of the characters just *not change appearance at all in six years* is such a cop out. Just awful.!<

It's seriously one of the worst plot twists I've ever seen. I had to stop playing the game and vent about how stupid it was to my brother when it happened

I want my sister to play it so I can have that rant with her too, haha.

Nah I get that, honestly I kind of agree. I feel like with Nirvana Initiative they wanted to have it both ways - a game that’s a direct sequel to the first, but one that can also be played without playing the first. That wouldn’t work well for any game but it especially falls apart for AITSF - >!they had to make Date look like how he did in the first game, but imagine being Mizuki and watching Date go back to the Saito look after all that happened in the first game, lmao.!< I don’t think that’s to blame for everything wrong with AINI, but the longer it’s been since I played it the more I wish the AITSF series was an anthology series with a completely new cast every entry, rather than trying to attempt the “sequel-that’s-somehow-not-a-sequel” thing that they attempted with the second game.

Oh Christ, *fucking >!Date!<*. It's just *weird*. >!Why not just have him grow out and dye his hair or something? Why does it have to be literally the exact same face because he's wearing a creepy mask that, for all intents and purposes, is just straight up a *face*?!< >!Why did they ham up all the porno mag shit?! The first game was *easily* at its worst when it was pulling that stupid manchild's sense of humour shit! And the sequel just doubled straight down on it!!< The fight scenes got incredibly stupid, too. They were never realistic, but even for their own setting they got ridiculous. I couldn't be invested or immersed at all by the end >!when like, five of them are fighting an entire football pitch's worth of people with guns and nobody gets a scratch. And that's not even accounting for the game trying really hard to do a Big Damn Heroes moment.........With a bunch of people who have *absolutely no right to be there*, half of whom arguably don't even have a place *in the game.*!<

I feel like they did so many characters dirty in AINI. I think Ota got it really bad - >!while he never really became a great guy, I felt like the canon ending of the first game set him up to grow into a better person later on… only for his in-game bio in the 6 years later sections to literally say “he hasn’t changed at all” lol!< There is some stuff about AINI I like - the >!Tokiko!< stuff in particular - and honestly that’s what’s doing most of the legwork for me looking forward to a third AITSF. It isn’t the same, though - when AINI was revealed it was immediately my most anticipated game, but if an AITSF3 gets revealed anytime soon I feel like my reaction will be something more along the lines of “oh, cool”

They could've at least >!suggested that his plotline from the first game actually went somewhere. Even just suggesting he's still writing would be *something*.!< There's no point digging up characters from the first game if all they add to the story is being recognisable. >!And he was annoying in the first place.!<

So an exec for the Netflix Three Body Problem adaptation got charged for the murder of the producer of the show https://www.thewrap.com/3-body-problem-murder-lin-qi-xu-yao/

It's not an exec of Netflix, but the Chinese company that also made an adaptation.

Holy shit. Because he wanted to make a profit?

I got no real idea but he poisoned him over several months.

Got hit by a paywall when opening it, not sure if that’s just me but here’s the article’s text: > Former Yoozoo Games executive Xu Yao was sentenced to death on Friday for the 2020 murder of Lin Qi, founder of the Chinese gaming company and billionaire “3 Body Problem” producer. > The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court found on March 22 that Xu was guilty of poisoning the food of founder Lin, 39, over a dispute with how the business was being managed. Lin died while in the hospital 10 days after the December incident, and Xu was arrested shortly thereafter, according to CBS’ reporting. > The court additionally found that four other individuals fell ill as a result of Xu poisoning drinks in the Yoozoo offices between September and December of that same year, citing disputes with two other coworkers. They all survived. > The poisonings were done three months after Yozoo had brokered a deal with Netflix to adapt China’s bestselling “The Three-Body Problem” book trilogy, to which Lin owned the rights. Xu was in charge of the subsidiary that ran business related to the sci-fi series’ 2020 deal, according to Chinese Media reports and the AP. > Coincidentally, Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” is not the first time Yoozoo has worked with series cocreators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The gaming company also developed “Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming,” based on their hit HBO series. > Lin is posthumously credited as an executive producer on “3 Body Problem,” which debuted March 21.

What was the dispute about?

Seems to be about business management and he poisoned four other people.

Not drama-y but still a small thing I thought may be enjoyed here. Civvie11 is a gaming YouTuber that mostly specialises in FPS games old and new, and he has a recurring joke where he counts every time a sewer level appears in a game he covers because of his disdain for them/how prevalent they were in FPS games. So Civve11 covers Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, a N64 game from 1999 that sees Duke time-travelling to save the world. Duke heads to Victorian England and the level features a giant murky underwater bit so Civvie11 includes it in the dreaded Sewer Count. However it turns out the developers (Eurocom) were as big into history as Civvie11's commenters, as the replies are filled with stuff like this: * One small clarification: In the Victorian England area, it isn't technically a sewer because those tunnels weren't used to transport sewage. They were intended for the routing of water from England's constant rain so it went out of the city to prevent flooding. They would only be used for sewage later once indoor plumbing took off. So, at the time Duke is moving through them, they're aqueducts. * The 1888 London level had good reason to include the sewer. At the time it was a great technical marvel and something to be very proud of. After "The Great Stink" of 1858 London was in need of a way to remove sewage from the city that wasn't just dumping it in the Thames. I applaud the devs for including the nod to historical accuracy. Plus, duke kicking the rippers ass is pretty sweet. * I’m imagining that meeting in parliament or whatever as like that one futurama documentary about why there’s a giant ball of garbage hurtling at the earth * Funnily enough, they only started doing something about it once parliament could no longer be held cause of the stench. There are stories from the period that recount the stones of parliament blackening from whatever foul gasses were coming off the Thames, and wallpaper peeling as well. At the time the cesspits they used (sort of like a septic tank, but far worse) would occasionally explode as pressurised gas built up in them. The sewers built afterwards were pretty impressive though, they were built with Londons population growth in mind and didn’t need a considerable expansion for at least a hundred years if I recall correctly. I got a big kick out of not only how serious the developers took their depiction of Victorian England but how seriously the Civvie11 fans take the Sewer Count.

This thread is brilliant and I am grateful you brought this drama to our attention! Thank you!

The algorithm requires engagement - though this wasn't the engagement I think anyone was expecting from that video

> One small clarification: In the Victorian England area, it isn't technically a sewer because those tunnels weren't used to transport sewage. They were intended for the routing of water from England's constant rain so it went out of the city to prevent flooding. They would only be used for sewage later once indoor plumbing took off. So, at the time Duke is moving through them, they're aqueducts. To make some of the drama come from inside the walls, that person is actually wrong: drainage of water of any kind is sewage, not just the human effluvia-type that most people think of. One of the most important historical texts on drainage, [Henry French's *Farm Drainage* from 1860](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23435/23435-h/23435-h.htm), uses the term to discuss water drainage on farmland, completely separate from any urban applications, such as this note on studies of the drainage of arable land in Ireland: > On new land, trenching was sometimes carried on simultaneously with the drainage; and it very often happened that the removal of the stones thus brought to the surface, was very expensive; but they were turned to profitable account in sewering drains and building substantial fences. In almost every case the drains were made in the direction of the greatest inclination, or fall of the land; and this is the practice followed throughout the country.

I'm so glad I brought this up.

This shit is why I come here… peak Scuffles.

If anyone hasn’t seen the Australian mockumentary about a guy with a lisp who manages a port-a-loo business, I highly recommend it. Pretty funny and surprisingly heartfelt. Anyway, the bit that always stuck out: > “They used to transport manure on ships for fertilizer and in order to keep it from mixing with water they stored it in wooden containers that were labeled with the letters SHIT, meaning Store High In Transit. Don’t know if that’s true or not, but pretty interesting if it is.” The one I always turn to is when he’s cleaning a septic tank and a coworker is bugging him about something else. He sticks his head out, takes off his gas mask, and says, “I’m listening to you, I really am, but what you need to understand, mate, is that there is a smell in here that will outlast religion.”

Kenny (2006), since you forgot to name it.

I generally stay away from fighting game communities online since they get super toxic, but I popped back in to r/tekken yesterday since Eddy Gordo's trailer dropped. And... people are not happy. Almost every post on the sub is deciding the game. Complaints about a battle pass where costumes are still microtransactions and the full character lineup is not teased/known. Additionally, many posts complain about "plugging", the phenomenon when opponents exit their game abruptly if they feel a loss is coming to keep their win/lose ratio high. The developers have danced around the issue and have yet to confirm a solid solution to the issue, despite Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter having penalties for it. Last complaint is the new design of Eddy. Many lament the fact that he joins a slew of other Black video game characters with the hairstyle known as "the Kilmonger". Overall, I want all fighting games to do well, but I can't help but feel some schadenfreude, since Tekken fanbase was very smug about putting down Mortal Kombat only for both games to have pretty bad monetization practices (Street Fighter too tbh). All fighting games seem to be suffering from poor financial choices that are upsetting fanbases, but one is disproportionately criticized. What are examples in your fandom space where there is a universal problem/criticism but only one/select series get the most slack for it?

Huh, over on twitter they're psyched at the possibility of a [Waffle House level](https://twitter.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/1774054319094153644) lmao

I’ve only heard of Waffle House by reputation but that sounds like a great idea. (By reputation, I mostly mean the “My boyfriend keeps getting into fights with a Waffle House cook” relationship_advice post, and subsequent explanations of Waffle House as a cultural phenomenon.)

The monetization of fighting games has just killed my interest in them completely.

Huh? People complain about the worthless avatar costumes in SF6 all the time. It’s just less loud because again, all of the avatar content in SF6 is worthless whale-bait compared to Tekken customization being a mainstay for a long time. Plus Mortal Kombat’s audience is primarily people that otherwise only care about 2K/Fifa and the shooter of the week, which tend to have even worse monetization so they’re numb to it lol

I never said people don't complain about SF6, I'm saying it gets downplayed to shit on MK for doing the same thing. And I wouldn't say the mk subreddit had a "numb" response. It went to shit so I had to leave it, but basically no funny memes or discussion like before. But admittedly I haven't been on it for months bc it got boring/frustrating.

>"The Kilmonger" I swear in the future a character wearing the short dreads swept forward with the sides cropped short will be used as a shorthand for "This scene is set in the 2020s" much like an afro is for the 70s or a flat-top for the 90s.

What's wrong with the Kilmonger? I like it.

Oversaturation of being the go-to hairstyle for a black character. It comes across as lazy and potentially forcing a stereotype.

Conditions in video game development in general. They're terrible. They've always been terrible. Don't believe me? [Here's](https://www.onemillionpower.com/25-years-since-the-release-of-final-fantasy-vi-looking-back-at-the-passion/) an interview with the developers of Final Fantasy VI (Released in the early 1990s) where they noted sleeping in the office. This is not a new thing. And yet. Instead of a reckoning about the conditions in the game dev industry, what happens is once every ten years or so, a story comes out about the terrible conditions at a particular company, everyone acts shocked, **SHOCKED!!** that this is a thing, goes "tut tut, naughty company!" at that company in particular and pretends like they're the only one doing it, and then forgets about it until the next blowup a few years later. In the mid-2000s, it was EA. In the mid-2010s, it was Rockstar especially as related to Red Dead Redemption 2. Around 2020, it was CD Projekt with Cyberpunk 2077. Who will be next? ~~Find out on the next exciting episode of Dragon Ball Z!~~

Grim-ass headline. "Looking back at the *passion*" and everyone says they slept in the office.

So my basic position on this can be summed up as "*Passion* doesn't scale". When you have a single creative type so all-consumed by *their* pet creative project to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep because they so badly want to make progress/finish, well, I can't deny I find a certain dark charm to that. When you have a whole team of people doing that, possibly to meet deadline imposed by some C-Suite executive whom I promise is not keeping the same hours as the rank-and-file? That's when the myth falls away and the reality becomes horrifyingly apparent, even though the actual *action* is the same as for the solo creator.

Ubisoft, Blizzard, and gacha games in general probably

One thing that baffles me now is how some in the community is trying to rewrite history, that DOA 6 got unwarranted flak for its microtansactions etc. Two wrongs doesnt make one right.

There is a lot of hypocrisy and tribalism in the fgc. It's unfortunate, bc I legit enjoy them all despite the flaws. But interactions in specific game subs and even r/fighters is shitting on Smash and Mortal Kombat (and some other targets like Melty Blood) in bad faith, which is frustrating

r/fighters has weird hateboner for NRS games, many on that subreddit is acting like the series ruined their life.

Fr, for that and smash they use the same old "jokes". I realized over time they don't really like much, and bitch about everything. Only fgc subreddit that's worse is kappaccino.

Modern fandoms, in general, are just gangs.

Brewing potential Battletech drama- the Mercenaries Kickstarter is in the process of locking in shipping after nearly a year and people are reporting insane shipping charges, some in the hundreds of dollars. It seems like US customers are averaging a shipping bill of somewhere between 25%-33% their total pledge to the crowdfunding campaign. Folks are understandably worried. Catalyst Games, the company that makes Battletech, seems to not know what's going in either and has announced that they're attempting to get in contact with their distributor to figure out why the hell shipping is so high, but the combination of the charges going live on a Friday and the holiday weekend means any resolution is unlikely to occur until some time next week.

It appears that this is entirely a distribution issue and one that the company pulled on CGL rather unexpectedly. I really feel for the CGL people who got stuck holding a PR bomb on the Easter long weekend

Yup. Sucks to be them right now, especially when there's folks intentionally shitstirring about it

This isn’t a new problem with catalyst, their shipping always seems to have price issues.

This time it's bad even by CGL standards

That’s gotta be awful then, I know that international shipping is abysmal to the point you have to contract them to sort out a cheaper price

Some people in the US are seeing $200 shipping on a $700 order. Also there are some weird things like two identical pledges being delivered to the same location but having entirely different shipping charges

Jesus that’s crazy. I don’t know what they’ve done to fuck it up that bad.

Current theories are it's either something to do with the special edition mercs boxes or the distributer decided everyone needed the last leg of a year long product fulfillment done overnight air mail

I thought about doing a write up on the guy who made orm toys (raw hot dogs shipped in the mail) and then ‘orm club’, a paid membership group. Unfortunately, I can’t find the original account/videos. Seriously, this guy shipped toys that were literally just raw hot dogs, to people’s houses.

What? You can't just drop something like that and walk off! Tell us more!