#oneaday Day 35: Lay Me Down to Sleep

I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. I think mostly mentally, but that in turn is making me feel physically exhausted. The world just seems to be such a frustratingly relentless parade of shit at the moment that just existing is tiring. So although it's not even 10pm at the time of writing, I think I might just go to bed after this.

Unlike times gone by, I can thankfully say that it's not really my life that has gone to shit as such, but I'm not sure that's any great comfort. At least if there is something wrong in my life — and plenty of things are, don't get me wrong — it's possible to take action and do something about it.

But when you feel like the entire world is just collectively going insane, and there's fuck all you can do about it? That's exhausting. Whether it's the constant enshittification of today's services, the ever-increasing cost of living or the utterly stupid obsession with AI — all three of which are related to varying degrees, I'd say — it just feels like the world is moving in an unhealthy direction, and no matter how much you say "hang on a minute" there's nothing that you, as one person, can do.

I won't lie, I'm a little concerned for my pals in America right now, because they seem to be staring down a bit of a no-win situation when it comes to the upcoming presidential elections. On the one side, you have Trump, who is just an outright fucking maniac, and on the other, you have Biden, whose age is starting to make people question his suitability for the role. Given the choice, it seems like picking the old man is the sensible thing to do, but America never seems to make things that simple. After all, they already elected Trump into office once; while most people would probably agree that was a terrible idea, I have a strange feeling that it might happen again.

And while I feel a certain sense of solidarity with others online expressing similar concerns about the immediate and medium-term future, I also feel very alone. Ever since COVID hit, I've felt completely isolated aside from being with my wife, and it's done a real number on my self-confidence and self-esteem. I feel like I could do with some sort of support network when I'm feeling like this, and I just don't have one. Worse, I don't really know how to go about putting one together — or indeed reassembling one that I maybe once had.

I always used to think that as you grew older and became more of an "adult" that things would fall into place and become more straightforward. And perhaps they did for previous generations. But for me, right now, each passing year just feels worse and worse, like a sense of comfort and stability is just slipping further and further away. The world has been a place that I don't feel like I quite fit into for as long as I can remember. And in recent years, that feeling has only been becoming more and more pronounced with everything that's been happening.

If only it was possible to just completely disconnect from the bad things in the world, and spend your time surrounded by people who care about you, and whom you care about too. I guess I should feel lucky that I have my wife and cats, at the very least; some people don't even have that.

I'd apologise for the maudlin post, but I made it clear back when I started all this shenanigans again that it was going to be a form of "therapy" for me. And that means getting this stuff off my chest once in a while. I'm sure you understand. Perhaps you even feel the same way. I unfortunately cannot offer any advice or comfort if so, but know, at least, that you are not the only one feeling that way. Not, I suspect, by a long shot.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 33: The Latest Horrifying News from the World of AI

Yesterday, the tech blog 404 Media reported on a horrifying development in the story of the World Wide Web's gradual decline into AI-encrusted unusability: the apparent resurrection of the once-beloved TUAW (aka The Unofficial Apple Weblog), a site that hasn't been active for 10+ years, into an AI-powered slop machine.

To make matters worse, the new owners of the twitching corpse of TUAW have apparently seen fit to "borrow" the identities of the site's former regular contributors, replacing their original headshots with AI-generated portraits or stock images of completely unrelated people and replacing their original archived work with AI-powered "summaries".

Naturally, the former TUAW writers are not all that happy about this. One of the affected individuals, Christina Warren, pointed out that the reason this has been done in the first place is likely "an SEO scam that won't even work in 2024 because Google changed its [algorithm]". She then concluded that those responsible were "Assholes!", which I thoroughly concur with.

This is just the latest in a long line of absolute bullshit brought about by the infestation of "AI" into everything online. There is absolutely no excuse, no justification for what has gone here. Not only is it defacing the legacy of a publication that was once loved — and trusted — by a significant number of readers, it's also destroying the portfolios of the writers in question, who are now saddled with AI-generated slop that has their name attached to it.

"I don't want people to come across the contents coming out of that site and think that I actually wrote like that [very poorly]," Warren told 404. And I can't help but agree — because we have a very real problem online in that sites shuttering often means vast swathes of work by talented writers just goes in the dustbin without warning. And while sites such as the incredible, wonderful archive.org do their best to keep a record of everything that once was, the sad reality is that a lot of stuff is just plain lost.

I know, because I've been on the receiving end of it multiple times.

My stuff might be in here… somewhere… maybe?

One of the first sites I ever wrote for professionally, Kombo.com, no longer exists, and its URL now redirects to a site called "GameZone". Surprisingly, GameZone does seem to have some of Kombo's old articles archived, though none of them are under their original byline, instead all attributed to "kombo" (lower-case). There are 28,435 articles attributed to "kombo", all with the wrong dates on them — they claim to date back to 2012, but there are some with the headline "E3 2010", suggesting that they were simply republished on the "newer" site in 2012 — and no means of identifying who wrote what. As such, it's useless for me to use as part of a portfolio.

The two "big" sites I wrote for, GamePro and USgamer, also went belly-up at various points. In both cases, again, some of my work ended up archived on other sites. In the case of GamePro, some of my stuff found its way to the American tech site PC World, but a search for my name now throws up a list of useless garbage that quotes my name but doesn't actually link to anything I wrote without manually scrolling through several pages of junk. And, of course, there's no link to my byline for me to easily find everything by me, despite my byline being right there on the articles in question when I can find them!

This is the one and only GamePro article by me I could find after a few minutes of searching. It appears on page 2,689 of a defunct archives page. None of the images or links in the article remained intact.

USgamer, which folded a little more recently, fares a little better in that I actually have an author page on VG247, where the articles ended up — although said author page has no picture, no bio and a link to a Twitter account that no longer exists. There's 8 pages of material from me, which I suspect isn't all of my work from USgamer, but it's a decent amount, at least. I just wish it wasn't on VG247, which is a site I am… not a fan of.

Better than nothing — or being "AI summarised", at least. Just wish it was under a different masthead.

In this respect, I guess I'm actually kind of lucky that my identity hasn't been co-opted by a content farm and all my past work fed into ChatGPT to regurgitate at considerably lower quality than I originally wrote. But I have to confess that reading stories such as this one about TUAW fills me with genuine dread. I'm not overly concerned about AI "taking my job" because it's rapidly becoming very clear that AI writing is both easy to spot and demonstrably inferior to a human being doing the same thing.

But I am concerned about the potential for AI slop with my name attached to it dragging my reputation through the mud. As a writer, I find it grossly insulting to my profession. And simply as a human being, I find what has been done here to be absolutely, totally unconscionable.

There has to be a breaking point somewhere. Soon. Please. I am rapidly running out of what little faith in humanity I have left. And there wasn't a lot left in the first place.

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#oneaday Day 29: Dream Education

I had one of those dreams that it's difficult to wake up from this morning. It was a variation on a dream I quite commonly have, which involves being back in some form of education, knowing that I'm not doing something I should be doing, and not being able to make myself sort that situation out.

The most common form this dream takes sees me back at secondary school, knowing that the school's music groups (typically the orchestra and concert band) are rehearsing and that I should be there, but I am not going. My old music teacher Mr. Murrall is standing outside the music block looking disapprovingly at me standing some distance away, often with my friends from the time, but I can't bring myself to admit that I've made a mistake, and that I should go along and resolve the situation.

Last night was a little bit different, as it revolved around university. I had just moved into a new flat — not any of the flats I actually lived in during my time at university, but something my mind dreamed up — and was settling in, but I realised I had no idea when term started or if I should have been going to any lectures. Any time I thought "I should look up when term starts", I was distracted from doing so, and I became more and more convinced over time that I was missing significant parts of my course. But, again, I couldn't correct the situation.

Education-related dreams are, unsurprisingly, usually interpreted as being something to do with learning, and variations on the theme such as those which I describe above are usually tied to various forms of anxiety — often imposter syndrome.

If I'm being honest, I can tell where some of those thoughts are probably coming from. The recurring dream about not showing up to orchestra rehearsals is likely due to how I'm aware I don't make nearly enough time to practice music these days, and should probably do something about that. I think I want a new piano, though; our current one is fine apart from a few seriously dodgy notes in the octave below middle C, and unfortunately those notes appear to be some of the most frequently occurring in almost everything I want to play! New pianos are expensive, though, so you can probably see where some of that anxiety comes from.

As for the imposter syndrome side of things, I've definitely felt that before. I'm not sure I'm feeling it a lot right now, because in my current position I feel like I'm valued and that I contribute something meaningful — although thinking about it, there are still aspects of the daily work life that do cause me anxiety, such as having to deal with the social media side of things. But I've definitely felt it in the past; feelings that I "don't deserve" to be where I am, or that I'm worried someone will "find out" something about me that I don't want to be found out — exactly what, I'm never sure, because I don't have anything particularly shameful to hide.

I suspect, as someone with a natural undercurrent of anxiety flowing through me at most times, I will never be completely free of these dreams. I actually don't mind them all that much, as they sometimes have an interesting, nostalgic element to them. I do wish my dream self could break free of whatever is holding him down and resolve the problems at the core of those situations, though… that way I could just enjoy being back at school or university!

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#oneaday Day 28: A Developer Has Responded

In theory, the opportunity for developers to respond to user reviews on storefronts such as Steam, Google Play and the like should be a good thing. It should provide the opportunity for the developer in question to open a dialogue with a customer — be they satisfied or dissatisfied — and help move things in a positive direction in one way or another.

How it actually works, meanwhile, is quite different. Because most developers, it seems, can't be bothered to do anything other than a stock response to everyone, even when it's woefully inappropriate to do so.

I'd like to share with you a review I wrote recently, in which I found a "teleprompter" app for Android (this one, if you're curious, which was recommended by one of the bajillion SEO-baiting "best teleprompter apps for mobile" articles festering on the modern Web) but was dismayed to discover it was asking for an extortionate subscription fee rather than a flat price. I am pretty vehemently against subscription fees for simple, single-purpose apps, particularly when they don't have an online component, and I made this clear in my review.

A screenshot of a review on Google Play. The review is by Pete Davison and was posted on June 27, 2024. It gives the application one star. The text reads "This seems ideal for my needs, but it's a subscription-based app. I want to just purchase the software, not pay £4.99 every month. I would have paid £4.99 to buy a premium version of this app without hesitation, but asking for that every month is ridiculous."

Not unreasonable, I don't think. Now let's look at the developer's response:

A screenshot of a developer's response on a Google Play app store review. It is attributed to "Norton Five Ltd" and dated June 28, 2024. The text reads "Thanks for your feedback Pete. The subscription model allows us to invest in continuing to improve the app and introduce new features. There is an annual subscription option, which does offer better value for money than the monthly one if budget is tight. You can also cancel at any time. Hope you'll reconsider and give the subscription a go." The text concludes with a smiley face emoticon and is signed "Phil".

Now this is an excellent developer response. "You think the monthly subscription is too expensive, so why not use the more expensive annual one" is a ballsy move, to be sure. "You don't like monthly subscriptions, but it's okay because you can cancel any time and lose access to the app you paid for" is also high up my list of "stupid things to say".

More than that, it's just plain bollocks. This comment is symptomatic of a widespread issue with all manner of software today, whether they be single-purpose mobile apps or more elaborate services. And that issue is that everyone seems to see a perpetual need to "introduce new features".

I'll remind you that when I came across this app I was looking for something that did one thing and one thing only: provide a "teleprompter" facility that I can use on my phone. To elaborate, that means provide the ability to display some text on the phone's screen while the camera is recording, allowing me to make "eye contact" with the camera while reading from a script.

This app does that already. It does not need any new features. It is already fit for purpose, aside from the subscription fee. Therefore it does not need additional development or new features to be introduced. (Especially not a "Rewrite your script with AI!" feature, which it proudly boasts.) Perhaps a compatibility update every now and then to ensure it works with whatever current version of Android has been loaded onto my phone without telling me this week. But that does not warrant a fee of five quid a month or even twenty quid a year.

As I said, I would have quite happily paid a fiver up front for the app, and that's being extraordinarily generous in the mobile space, given that most people don't like paying more than 79p for anything.

The stock response from "Phil" about "introducing new features" and "continuing to improve the app" didn't convince me in any way that the subscription fee was worth paying, and I suspect he knew that as he copy-pasted the words into the response box. So why did he bother posting it at all? Just so the fact he "responds to feedback", even if it is with utterly stupid suggestions, is visible to anyone browsing the page and not looking too closely?

A few minutes later, I found another teleprompter app that does just charge once and then doesn't bother you again. So I bought it without a moment's hesitation. Don't stand for exploitative, predatory subscription models, particularly on mobile where it's extremely easy to forget about them. And support those folks who are actually providing a good, useful piece of software without trying to fleece you.

And Phil? Eat a thousand cocks.

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#oneaday Day 27: Time for Change?

As I type this, the results for the General Election in this country are being announced. It looks likely that Labour are going to win a landslide victory, giving the Conservatives a seriously bloody nose in the process, but it also looks like the Reform party are going to make a few gains along the way, too.

I'm not going to pretend to know enough about politics to provide any more in-depth commentary than that, but I am relieved that we are at least looking likely to have a change of government. The last 14 years have been pretty rough for the UK, and some change is what we need. The question is, of course, whether the incoming new government are willing to do anything noteworthy or, as is probably more likely, they will continue to let things just tick along and gradually slide further and further into enshittification.

The rise of Reform is a little worrying, though I suspect their gains will be less noteworthy than the somewhat exaggerated hyperbole suggests. We've already heard some Reform representatives on the BBC's coverage of the election complaining about "woke nonsense" without actually saying what they believe "woke nonsense" to be, and very carefully taking care to not say that they hate immigrants and transgender people.

The BBC has been pulling its punches a bit, though. It looked like the Reform candidate was going to be questioned on the "woke nonsense" line, but the presenters pulled back after she pretty much ignored the question. There was also some confrontation of "vile" comments made by some Reform candidates, but those weren't pursued either. It's a little frustrating to see coverage that is just on the cusp of doing some interesting journalism, but then pulling back in the name of… what? Impartiality? Perhaps.

Looking into it, it appears that the BBC did actually do some journalism into this back when it happened. And yeah, there is some pretty bad stuff in there. Naturally, Reform leader Nigel Farage claimed that the comments were being "taken out of context", but there's really only so many contexts in which you can take someone complaining about "the cultural feminisation of the west", as Bexhill and Battle candidate Ian Gribbin did, and none of them are particularly complimentary. Same for Ynys Mon candidate Emmett Jenner's obviously transphobic comments from 2018, though he claims his now-deleted Twitter account was a "parody". (Of what, he didn't say.)

There was an interesting point made on the BBC's coverage, though, which is that there are quite possibly some voters out there who genuinely have no idea that Reform candidates have said some truly horrible things in the past, and simply voted for Reform as a "protest vote". These days, I'm inclined to say that there's not a lot of excuse for not knowing the true colours of various public figures, even if you're not on social media, but I guess it is possible, particularly among the older generation.

But anyway. I'm not going to stay up and watch too much more of the coverage, but I do find it quite interesting for a little while. It's going to be going on for about 10 hours, though, so we won't have an absolutely final answer on what's happening to the country until tomorrow morning. The exit polls would seem pretty damning for the Conservative government, though, and I am 100% fine with that. We'll just have to wait and see what that really means.

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#omeaday Day 26: Hotel Life

I'm writing from a hotel tonight, on my phone, so forgive any typos and the fact I can't see a word count.

Sadly I am not on holiday. I am staying overnight in glamorous Letchworth as I'm going in to the office tomorrow. I try and do this once a month or so in order to have a connection with my colleagues that is more than just bugging them on Teams, and it usually coincides with us all going out to lunch or something.

Tomorrow we're hosting a small-scale press day of sorts, where a few writers and YouTubers are going to have the opportunity to see how and where we work, plus get a preview of some of our upcoming stuff. These include new Evercade cartridges that haven't been released yet, and the Evercade Alpha bartop arcade units that are being released in November. Should be a fun day for all.

I'm particularly looking forward to having a fiddle with the Alphas myself, as up until this point I've only seen unfinished prototypes and photographs. There's still work to be done before the November launch, but the samples we have in now should be fairly close to the final product. I'll be doing my best to get a photo of Treasure Island Dizzy running on one, just to make Neil from The Cave and This Week in Retro happy.

I did not have a fun drive here, though. Insane traffic on the motorway brought things to a standstill for quite some time, though thankfully I'd had the foresight to queue up some episodes of the This Week in Retro podcast to keep me entertained, so I wasn't flung into a complete apoplectic fury by the sight of endless brake lights ahead of me. I do, however, remain glad that most of the time, I can work from home and do not have to commute.

I'm a bit hungry, but at 11pm in a town as thoroughly unremarkable as Letchworth I feel my options are probably limited. May have to pop out and see if I can score some supper from somewhere, though…

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#oneaday Day 24: I Love My Cats

As probably already very apparent from numerous previous posts, I love my cats. Having cats is one of the greatest pleasures of my adult life. Yes, even when they do this. Of course, it is always heartbreaking when you have to say goodbye, particularly when that parting comes far too soon, but that heartbreak is a sign of all the wonderful times you shared together.

So today I am going to share my cats, because why the hell not.

This is Patti:

And this is Oliver:

Both of them have very strong personalities. We've not known Oliver for that long in the grand scheme of things, since we got him a little while after Meg left us, but he's already settled in very well and is extremely comfortable here.

Patti, meanwhile, has always been a very nervous cat and I suspect she always will be, but she's very happy when she can spend time with just us. She doesn't like strangers and she doesn't like changes to the routine; she likes life to be normal, straightforward and free of surprises. I can relate.

Patti, we suspect, didn't have the best start to life. All we knew when we got her from a local rescue was that she had been "abandoned" by her previous owner, but we didn't know the circumstances surrounding that. Surprisingly, she took very well to us almost immediately, but it was also very apparent that she hadn't really had anyone to teach her how to "cat" properly. There were certain things she'd do that were just a little bit "off" from how most cats do things — she didn't struggle with anything, as such, but she just behaved like she'd never really been able to quite finish her initial socialisation process.

And given her background, that was understandable. When we got her, she was a tiny little thing. We suspect she was younger than the shelter thought she was, because she's grown a lot since those days. And while she occasionally plays up a bit due to lingering stress (or possibly even trauma) she is the most lovely thing, and a delight to have around.

Oliver, meanwhile, came to us in a somewhat different way. After Meg passed, we gave it a little while to see how Patti coped, but it felt like she wanted some company, and we both missed the company of having two cats around the house. Unfortunately, post-COVID it had become very difficult to add an additional cat to an existing household in our circumstances; whereas pre-2020 you could go in to the shelter, meet the various cats who were there and talk with the people who ran the place, post-COVID you had to submit a written application and you couldn't just show up and negotiate or explain your personal circumstances.

As such, my wife Andie decided to look for private sales. We saw a few possibilities, but got slightly bad vibes from one, so we politely excused ourselves from that situation. Then a suitable-looking candidate came up, but by the time Andie enquired, he had already been sold to someone. We were becoming a little frustrated by the situation, but we kept looking.

Two weeks later, Andie saw a familiar-looking cat listed. He had a different name, but he definitely looked familiar. We enquired about him, and indeed it seemed like the present owner had only bought him two weeks previously; unfortunately, she had discovered in that time that she was allergic to cats, so regretfully had to let him go. This time around, we were able to secure him and bring him home.

For the first couple of weeks, he was a pain. Constantly yowling from the other room, being a little aggressively dominant towards Patti, and worst of all, pissing on everything. We knew he hadn't been neutered before picking him up, but we didn't realise quite what a problem that could be, particularly with another cat in the house. As a priority, we made arrangements for him to have the snip and just stuck things out until then. We also made sure Patti got plenty of love and attention during this time.

Thankfully, after he was "done", Oliver became a thoroughly lovely cat. He's very friendly — though he hasn't quite graduated to Patti's level of "bed cuddles" yet — and extremely curious. He's also a cheeky little bugger; on more than one occasion we've caught him fishing food packets out of the bin, and he stole and ripped open a bag of treats on one occasion, too. He likes to eat.

Patti very much wasn't sure about him at first. She'd keep her distance, hiss and growl at him. But over time, her reaction to him softened somewhat. She'd allow him to approach a little more before hissing, and the growling stopped. Eventually, the hissing stopped, too (unless he does something to really piss her off) and now the two seem to be actual friends, which is wonderfully heartwarming to see.

Patti and Meg got along, but Meg was always a grumpy cat — she even had a note on her vet's file that she was uncooperative and angry — and as such, despite clearly liking Patti (she'd come looking for her if she didn't know where she was) she'd keep her a bit at arm's length. Patti and Oliver are, I think, becoming quite close; there's still a bit of mistrust on Patti's part for entirely understandable reasons, but Oliver has always wanted to be her friend, and that hasn't changed even with his horny bits being removed.

I love them both very much, just as I still love Meg, Ruby and my childhood cats Kitty and Penny. The cats I have known will forever be a precious part of my family, and those who are no longer with us will always have a place in my heart.

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#oneaday Day 22: Trends Have Made the Internet Boring

See? I told you I'd be back. And I thought I'd talk about something other than Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Specifically, as the title says, I want to talk about how trends have made the Internet boring. Or perhaps more accurately, why everyone all wanting to do the same thing all at once makes things deathly boring.

There are a few practical examples I'd like to give. First is a YouTube channel I was introduced to recently called Obscurest Vinyl. This channel is run by a designer and musician who found some joy in creating fake record sleeves for songs with names you definitely wouldn't have gotten away with in the eras they're parodying. Songs like the wonderful Pullin' Out My Pubes (She Loves Me Not) by The Sticky Sweethearts:

You'll notice from that video that the record label now has some music attached to it. I was initially a little perturbed to discover that the person behind the Obscurest Vinyl YouTube channel had been using AI music generation to create the tracks, though my mind was set somewhat at rest by how he had written the lyrics (which are generally far too offensive to be the product of the typically rather po-faced Large Language Model AI bots) and tinkered with the initial output to make it flow properly, incorporate all the filthy language and sound consistent with the other works from the same fictional "artists" on the channel.

Of course, what the YouTube algorithm then did was go "oh, you watched a video about a fake record with lyrics about someone gluing their balls to their butthole, HERE, HAVE A MILLION MORE OF THEM". And it became very apparent that Obscurest Vinyl has a lot of copycats out there, none of which have anywhere near the same magic; these other channels are just trying to ride a trend.

This, of course, is symptomatic of one of the main things that is killing the Web right now: excessive Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Have you ever searched for some information on something, only to find a billion unrelated websites all magically having articles headlined "What Time Is The Superbowl On?" or "Where Do You Unlock Pictomancer in Final Fantasy XIV?" That's SEO at work, and that's a problem that is only getting worse with the amount of AI sludge that is being fed into the Internet at large. Sites want quick and easy clicks, so they look at what people are searching for — the trends of the hour — then provide a hyper-specific article about the thing.

Helpful? Arguable. I hate it, because I'd rather have the information directly from the original source — in the latter case above, for example, it took me a fair bit of scrolling before I got past all the websites jockeying for SEO juice to the actual website for Final Fantasy XIV, the thing I was looking for.

More than being frustrating if you want the information straight from the horse's mouth, it just makes the Web boring as fuck, because every site (including a lot that should really know better) are doing the exact same thing. Daily Wordle solutions. Individual articles for things that would have been much better incorporated into an FAQ. Outright copying and plagiarism of other sites. It really is a shame to see what online media has become — and frustrating to see that certain portions of the creative types on sites such as YouTube are more obsessed in chasing trends with transparently copycat material rather than, you know, being creative.

I don't know what the endgame of all this is. I hope we're in a "things will get worse before they get better" kind of situation, but honestly right now, it feels unlikely that the "get better" part will happen. The Web gets demonstrably worse, less useful and less fun day by day. And we've all let it happen. I don't know if we can undo that.

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#oneaday Day 21: Catching Up

Yes, I missed yesterday. I could have predicted that was going to happen, what with it being a Friday, and with Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion Dawntrail launching into its "early access" period for those who preordered. So I'm catching up now, and another post for "today" later and we'll be all square.

I could just not bother, because no-one but me cares how well I stick to the whole #oneaday thing, but it's the principle of the thing. Last time around when I did this, I handled "missed" days like this and I don't feel like it compromised the integrity of my run of daily blogging, so my own self-imposed rules still stand. So there.

Anyway. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail seems good so far. I haven't gotten into the new storyline as yet, because I thought for a change I'd dive into one of the two new jobs included: Pictomancer. For those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV, new jobs introduced with an expansion tend to start ten levels lower than you need to be to start the new storyline, giving you ten levels to get to know your new job by playing dungeons and boss fights you've (presumably) already done on other jobs.

I'm actually quite grateful for having to go through this bit of levelling, because it gave me the opportunity to catch up on some sidequests I'd somehow missed on my run through Endwalker. I've played all the previous Final Fantasy XIV storylines by thoroughly progressing through all the available sidequests as they came up, but several groups of them apparently unlocked after I'd already passed by their respective areas. I'd held off completing them because it felt wasteful to do them and not get any experience points for them, and none of my other jobs were high enough level to take them on. So they've been used to get Pictomancer up to scratch.

Pictomancer seems like quite an interesting job. It's a ranged magical DPS, which means you stand back from enemies and pelt them with "stuff". The unique selling point of Pictomancer over something like Black Mage is that there are several sets of abilities you can use to pelt enemies with stuff. Firstly, there's a sequence of chromatic/elemental spells that function as basic single-target or area-effect attacks, and these also show off the interface's new ability to automatically switch icons in your hotbar rather than you having to map everything individually.

Secondly, Pictomancer unlocks access to three "Canvases" as it levels. One is for painting creatures, one is for painting weapons and the third is for painting landscapes. "Painting" is a fairly lengthy spell if cast in combat, but it's instant outside of combat, so you can sort of "pre-load" yourself ahead of time if you're thinking ahead.

The creature paintings can be unleashed as attack spells, and also contribute to a larger combined spell which can be cast once you've set off the previous creature paintings. For example, first you'll paint a moogle's pom, then set that off as a spell, then paint a pair of wings, and set that off as a spell. This then allows you to immediately set off a spell in which you fling a completed moogle at your enemies. As Pictomancer levels, it looks as if it gains the ability to paint more different creature parts, which trigger in sequence, so weaving that into your attacks is clearly going to be a key part of its strategy.

The weapon painting, meanwhile, can be set off in combat to trigger a status effect known as "Hammer Time". While under the effect of Hammer Time, you can trigger a three-hit combo using a big hammer. This always hits a critical and direct hit, which means it does significantly more damage than most other abilities; the trade-off is that there's quite a long cooldown before you can use it again, though higher level Pictomancers can store a couple of "charges" before having to wait.

The landscape painting, finally, initially acts as a simple damage buff, but at higher levels also makes an area on the floor which, while you stand in it, causes your spells to cast more quickly. This is very helpful for the chromatic/elemental spells, particularly if you use the Subtractive Palette ability to change them into more powerful but slower versions.

If this all sounds a bit complicated, I thought it would be overwhelming at first, but upon starting the new job you have a nice little instanced mini-quest to get to grips with things, and just experimenting with the job in various dungeons and boss fights means things soon become second nature. I'm sure someone is theorycrafting all the fun out of it as we speak, but for now, I'm enjoying just playing it how it "feels" right.

Right, that's enough for yesterday. Time for dinner. Back later!

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#oneaday Day 20: Old Habits Die Hard

Ah, old habits do indeed die hard. First time around that I was doing this #oneaday thing, I had the habit of leaving the daily post until the last minute, meaning I'd often have to think of something to write when my brain was just shutting down ready to go to bed. And indeed that has happened this evening — though I do at least have an explanation for it, even if it's not necessarily a "good" one.

I was finishing off a game I was playing. I wanted to beat it before Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion Dawntrail opened to Early Access tomorrow, and indeed I did. I'll probably write something a bit more coherent about it over on MoeGamer soon, but since it's fresh in my mind right now, I'll say a few words about it here.

The game is called Interrogation: You Will Be Deceived, and it's something I picked up in a previous GOG.com sale (it's also on Steam) because I thought it looked interesting. After finishing Shantae and the Seven Sirens a few days ago, I wanted something else short that I could plough through before Dawntrail so, browsing through my shelves and digital libraries, I eventually settled on Interrogation, as I shall refer to it hereafter.

Interrogation, as the name suggests, is about questioning suspects. Specifically, you play the role of a detective leading a task force given the job of unmasking and destroying an organisation known as the Liberation Front. The Liberation Front are an anarchistic organisation with a seemingly incoherent ideology; in the early stages of the game they seem like relatively small fry, but as the game's plot escalates it becomes clear that they're well up for a bit of terrorism, so it's your job to both deal with the consequences of when they succeed at that, and hopefully prevent too many further atrocities from taking place.

The game isn't specific about the time frame in which it's set, but it's presented in a noir style, complete with the vast majority of the visuals being in black and white. It's clear that we're either in the modern day or the very near future, though, by virtue of some of the technology that is referenced throughout the game. And one of the most effective things about the game is how plausible it feels; its main talking points are things that people really talk about (which, naturally, led to some particularly fragile Steam reviewers crying about it having "too much politics") and concerns that people actually have.

It's a surprisingly nuanced take on the subject, full of shades of grey. The Liberation Front, while ideologically incoherent, have some good points, which is, of course, what makes them so dangerous when they're willing to resort to violence. Likewise, placing the player in the role of "the authorities" presents you with some interesting moral quandaries as to how you might handle the situation most effectively. Indeed, from the outset of the game you're given the opportunity to handle your interrogations in a variety of ways, including through building empathy or inciting fear in your suspects — and even resorting to "enhanced interrogation" (read: violence) if the situation would seem to demand it.

Interestingly, the game provides the opportunity to play in a number of different ways; indeed, in my playthrough I took a "Pacifist" trait early on, which meant that I was unable to use any of the violent options in exchange for some other benefits that have slipped my mind. So you don't have to play the game as an absolute monster in the service of The Man. Indeed, you have the opportunity to position yourself as sympathetic to the Liberation Front as you progress, though partway through the game you will find yourself on the other side of the table facing down a particularly violent representative from Internal Affairs, so you'd better be ready to back up your actions with some good explanations.

The whole thing was very atmospheric and I enjoyed it a lot. Like I say, I'll write more about it on MoeGamer very soon, but wanted to just pen some initial impressions before I hit the sack this evening. Now it's nearly half past one in the morning (guess I'm not getting up early tomorrow!) so I'd better wrap this up. So this is me, doing that.

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